Celebrate Good Times, C'Mon

Saturday is the tipping point in the Irish Fest calendar year. It's the day on which the next Kansas City Irish Fest is closer to us than the past one. Trivial? Maybe. But the news still leads with wind chill factors, there's still snow in the forecast and we need something to get excited about. So there it is. The scales begin their slow steady tip in our favor. Which calls for...ta dah! A celebration. The question is, Kansas City Irishman or Irishwoman; what kind of celebration are you looking for? A couple choices:

A. Irish Fest favorites Gaelic Storm are in town Saturday, fresh from their southseas cruise schedule. Patrick Murphy told me a few weeks ago that he'd be showing off his tan lines at the Beaumont Club on Saturday. Is there a better cure for the late winter blues than an over-cooked Corkman and a Gaelic Storm show? No. So if you've had enough of these stay inside, bundle-up days and are ready to jump and dance and sweat and be transported back to the warm nights of Irish Fest, there's no place better for you Saturday night than Gaelic Storm. The Beaumont Club is at 4050 Pennsylvania in my hometown, Westport. Tickets are $20 and the show is open to all ages, which includes "old", so I'm going.

B. The Irish Museum and Cultural Center in Union Station presents what they're calling the Irish Trivia Challenge, which in my day we called a pub quiz. And not to brag, but I was the worthless fifth wheel on a pretty successful pub quiz team in my day. We were called B'Dang O'Malley and we went 19-0 over two seasons at O'Dowd's a few years ago. But those glory days are behind me now. Yours however are waiting for you at the IMCC. $100 per team of six to enter, refreshments included, and cash prizes awarded. The trivia starts flying at 7:00 PM. All you smarty pants types can enter your teams and get all the info right here. You may want to go early at 2:00 and catch former Irish Fest director Pat O'Neill's talk on Kansas City's Irish Heritage Through The Eyes of Children. Pat, being a former Irish child himself, knows all about that stuff. You can learn more about that and all the great events at the IMCC on their website.