Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Drunk

Today is James Joyce's birthday.

I dropped by his eponymously-named pub in Avondale Estates to raise a pint in his honor. Nobody knew.


Neither the bartender nor the manager nor the sprightly young waitress/actress who inexplicably played my mother in a show last Dec.--despite being 12 years my junior--were aware.

The Joyce does do something on Bloomsday, but chose to ignore my fellow Celtic Aquarian's birth. No luck for the Irish I guess.




I'm now back at home drinking a beer from Kenya--another part of the commonwealth experiencing some Troubles. Here's to abandoning the worst of petty provincialism and making exuberant, universal art.