Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot
by Michele Christopher

It's Friday, which means you get to learn a little more about some of the writers of FTTW. It's the Group Late Night Typing and this week we're jumping the gun a bit on the whole New Year's thing. Just because we are sick of writing about Christmas.

We asked the writers: Tell us about your best/worst New Year's Eve.

As usual, only about half responded. But, also as usual, a new batch of them showed up. So this goes back to my theory that one day, through process of elimination, you will meet all the writers.

Just not all at once.

The editors wrote about theirs last week:
Michele
Turtle
Finn
Baby Huey


Branden (Uber's Corner/Audience of Shadows)

Best New Year's--Billy Joel

My best New Year's celebration didn't even occur on New Year's Eve. It was a New Year's Concert that took place a couple of weeks before the New Year in Dallas in 1998. Specifically, it was Billy Joel's New Year's Concert.

That's right motherfuckers. Billy motherfucking Joel. When he's not drunk and ramming his car into houses on Long Beach, he's rocking shit out on the piano. You want to talk shit on this man, you better do it behind my back, because I will go into a lengthy diatribe on why he's one of the most talented pop musicians in the world.

So I take this chick that I've been wanting to bone to the concert. She doesn't even know who the guy is, but I've got a little bit of green so dank she'd enjoy watching paint dry. While she's sitting there, watching the laser lights and pointing out how pretty they were (thereby decreasing my desire to bone by the second) I'm listening to this man play every great song he's ever written. It was amazing. For someone who is probably one of the biggest Billy Joel fans in the world, it was like a fucking tent revival.

After what seems like only a few seconds, he takes a break. I look down at my watch and realize the guy had been playing for about an hour and a half straight. One of the stage hands comes on stage and performs AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long. YAWN. Man I hate AC/DC. Anyway, after no more than five minutes, Billy comes back on stage, and plays for another two fucking hours. I swear to God I almost creamed in my pants when he brought about one hundred Vietnam vets on stage when he did Goodnight Saigon. This chump in front of me started laughing at me because I was mouthing all the words to the songs. But that didn't matter. Because there I was, watching my favorite musician of all time with a beautiful girl, and it was a brilliant fucking night.

Did I get laid? Nope. I'm still kind of pissed about that. But after seeing that concert, I can't even remember what I did for New Year's that year. I was probably drunk and worthless though. So that's my favorite non-New-Year's-New-Year's story.

My worst New Year's Eve: I woke up in a strange place sandwiched in between one of my best friends and a rather large woman. Like I said: drunk and worthless.


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Ernie (The End Zone)

I can't really pick out my best New Years Eve. Before we had kids, when my Wife and I used to be able to go out on New Years, every year we would always go to this neat Japanese restaurant where they would cook your dinner in right front of you and the chef would do tricks and light stuff on fire while he cooked. I would usually get a big
scorpion bowl drink and we would share it. That was always a fun way to spend New Years.


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Andrea (Military Brats)

New Orleans: 2002

I was dating this awesome guy that year, Carl. I was a sophmore in college and Carl and I rented a Durango and got this awesome suite at a Hampton Inn. We got there and promptly started partying...as some of you may know previous to Katrina, New Orleans was a "anything" goes town. Bourbon street is made up of bar after bar, strip club after strip club, and these strip clubs aren't always of just women but tranny's too, which is awesome because some of these men look better in ladies underwear than I do. So we venture into this strip club, order our drinks and the first dancer comes out. We watched in awe as this dancer made her moves all over the room. At one point Carl says to the dancer, "Hey man, how did you do that?" This question was referring to the lack of bulge in the dancers panties, which we still don't have an answer for. The dancer, flipped his/her hair and said, "bend over honey, and I'll show you."

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Jo (Amie)

Best New Year's Eve: I had been invited by a friend, Jen (a ballet-dancing, Kick-boxer, punk Amazon with skin as pale as alabaster and hair as black as a raven's wing), to go down to a local bar called Cass' Pub to play pool and bring in the new year with her. I got dressed up in my tux and made my way down to the bar. Rutland was covered in a thick layer of snow. I made my way there to find the bar mostly empty except for a few drunks, Jen and her boyfriend at the time, Mike. Jen and I drank our Amstel Lights and played Pool most of the night. When midnight struck the bartender passed around an open bottle of Champaign and everyone took a swig of it and passed it to the the next person. To my surprise at midnight Jen walked over to me, grabbed my face by both sides and planted a good, long kiss on me. When she let go I was in shock. I looked over to Mike, but he was passed out sitting up on a barstool. Jen asked me what was wrong. "I've never gotten a New Year's kiss before and I've never been kissed by a girl like that!" She grinned and kissed me again. I was mush.

Worst NYE Ever:
That would have to be last year. I have a male friend I'm rather fond of and last year we had a NYE date. We had plans to watch movies together, and bring in the new year with each other. To my surprise he brought a bottle of Korbel for us to share. As the night wore on we shared dinner together, watched movies together and had one small glass of Korbel together. Unfortunately he got tired around 11:30pm and by midnight was asleep on my couch snoring. At midnight I had accepted that I was not going to be getting a NYE kiss at midnight and so went to bed myself.

The next morning I thought I'd be romantic and kiss him on the forehead to wake him up. As I was 2 feet away from him, my cat, Simon, walked right up to my friend and nudged his limp arm that was dangling over the floor. Simon had woken him immediately and I was left watching him as he opened his eyes. All I could say was "Awww, I was gunna do that." At least he woke up with a grin. ;)

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Pat (Vermont Witch)

My best New Year's Eve:

Way back in pre-history, I think I was 20, a couple of friends of mine were booked for a gig in Newport Rhode Island for New Year's. I started the weekend by hitch-hiking to Manchester to hook up with my ride to RI. Tiny little car, my friend and her four-year-old son and me. We sang most of the way - what can I say? We were all Vermont hippies.

Had my first encounter with New England Clam Chowder at a little waterfront restaurant called "The Black Pearl" - best damned soup and home-baked bread I'd ever had - of course, being stoned may have had something to do with that.

Half the folks at the gig were from Vermont, we all knew each other from Peter & Anita's gigs, so it was one big massive party. My ride had to cut out early, so I got added to the crew who were traveling with P&A in their converted bread van. Don't remember where the hell we slept that night.

New Year's Day was another Newport tradition: brunch at one of the beachfront mansions, which included champagne cocktails. I was day three in the same clothes, felt seriously grungy, and got hit on by this incredibly beautiful African American man in a white linen suit and carrying an ebony headed cane. He was so convinced that I was the answer to his prayers that he followed us back to Vermont.... and that's another whole story!

My worst New Year's Eve:

I think that would have to be the one where a friend (?) introduced me to Long Island Iced Teas without telling me that they may have tasted light-weight but were anything but. I vaguely remember about five of them before I stood up - and then fell down... flat on my face, on the edge of the dance floor. I have no recollection of the rest of the night.

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Dan (Don't Go In There)

Not the best or the worst but the most memorable, although I haven't thought about it in a year or so......

New Year's Eve 1992. Going out with my girlfriend (update: I married her) for about a year and a half, and had met most of her extended family. Not all of them though. I hadn't met Uncle Derek. I'd only seen pictures.

Our plan was to go with Carol's folks to her aunt's house, then go hang out with a couple of our friends who happened to live down the street from Carol's aunt. Family and friends in one night, aces baby.

We went to Carol's aunt's house and almost all her family was there. A pretty good time, but in the family sense. Not raucus, rowdy or anything else too fun, just a couple of drinks and so on. The main topic of conversation for a while was Uncle Derek, husband of the aunt we were visiting. He was fresh out of jail for the thousandth time, was a nasty alcoholic, abusive, all the good stuff. It made for great conversation, how he'd just been released from jail and had had a restraining order put on him to protect the three kids.

What a fuckin' downer. We bailed as soon as we could, went to my buddy's house, drank a little and smoked a lot of hash, watched a few shitty movies. Good times in that laid back kind of way. A fine night on its own merits.

Around 1:30 or so, Carol figured she call her aunt's house and find out when her parents were leaving. No answer. Waited half an hour, called again. No answer. As fucked up as we were, logic won and we started to wonder what was going on, but we really just assumed that the music was up too loud for them to hear the phone. No worries.

So we left Sheldon's house and walked back to Aunt Donna's. We noticed that no lights were on as we got close to the house, but it wasn't until we got on the walkway that we saw the broken glass all over the place. The storm door had been smashed out, top and bottom. What the fuck?

I was screwed up so, and even though I knew the door was busted, I tried knocking on it and tore open my forearm. I bled, but that's okay because there was blood everywhere. It was only when I bled that I noticed all the other blood. That was kind of weird.

I walked in, in front of Carol. And there's Uncle Derek, shirtless, hammered, bleeding from the face, arms and chest. Holding a 26er. Mumbling some bullshit to himself, "Not my son, not my fucking son".

Dan: "Derek, happy new year buddy, how you doing man? Everything alright?"
Derek: "HE'S NOT MY FUCKING SON, NOT BEHAVING LIKE THAT!"
Dan: "Whatever, dude, where is everyone?"
Derek: "HE'S NOT MY SON!!!"

Outta here. I'll call the ambulance and the police in a minute, but fuck this guy. He's here alone and is the architect of his own fucking scars. Wherever everybody else went, I hope it didn't have to be the hospital. You fuckin psycho.

I turned around and Carol was gone. She'd turned around and started running up the street as soon as she'd laid eyes on him. It took me almost five minutes to catch up with her. Not only was she scared for her family, but she was humiliated that I'd seen that side of them.

Poor girl. She didn't know that my favourite uncle would die from alcohol related problems within a year or two.

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Thanks to our writers who particpated. And now it's your turn. Tell us about the bad drinks, the hangovers, the midnight kisses, the felony charges....your best or worst New Year's Eve story.

The writers of Late Night Typing hope you never have to hear that Dan Folgelberg Auld Lang Syne song again.

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Comments

New Years Eve is one of those holidays. I either don't remember it or I spent the night at my or some bud's house just hangin' because after a point you realize that New Year's Eve, just like Saint Paddy's Day, are when the amateurs drink. It's too dangerous when they're around.

These are the people who did stupid shit like drop too much acid AND drink too much beer and then call you from the middle of down fucking town because they can't find their way home and they're scared that "The General" is going to get them. Yeah, and thanks to the animation festivals of the late 70s for adding Watership Down to their lists. Christ, it wasn't hard enough talking someone down from Allegro Non Tropo, now there are demon fucking rabbits.

But I drift... Best New Years? Probably the first sober one with my wife at an A.A. dance. All dressed up. Dancing nice and slow. No one puking in the corner.

Second favorite? Working on New Year's Eve 1999-2000. The Y2K Response Team was wrapping up. We had LOTS of food at work. At midnight we all went to the top of the HQ Building and watched the South Side of Oahu turn into Beirut. I've never seen so many fireworks in my entire life.

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