Your New Year's Eve 2004 Roundup

i had planned on djing and then heading home but i decided to make the rounds and wish people new years before doing so. its kind of awesome being the sober person.

I spent eight hours with almost all the people I love most in the world, i.e. my best and oldest friends, talking and eating and drinking and all that.

went to parents' for dinner. listened to the Ninth on the (too loud) radio and pored over European guidebook collection. had champagne and oysters (from fishmonger parent of sister's high school classmate; I don't like oysters), salmon, asparagus, baby squash, grilled scallions, pasta, raspberries and lemon meringue cake. walked home in extremely-pleasant-for-New-Year's weather, checking out the sidewalk scenes in front of various bars. read Time Out London for a while; excellent mood broken only by the odd helicopter. stared at very loud fireworks over the park for half a second and went back to reading and later to bed.

Hey Martin, our email exchange yesterday was really bloody cool, HNY dude for real!

Okay it started at like 3pm - tried to get in touch with Dbitch but that's cool cuz I'll see him tomorrow - had chinese food with Dad, really intense but inspiring to endure it - went to Schmoo's big banquet which was FORMAL but I didnt' know that so I showed up in a Trailer Park Boys "LETS GO TWO SMOKES" t-shirt and Avril Lavigney necktie style - banquet was incredible but I couldn't eat much bcz of overbig lunch and the antidepressants - the hired DJs were basically indie sequencer dudes but I forgave em for dropping one DMX Krew track but one kid was just askign for it - umm went apeshit for a while in there, hit midnight, wanted to go to Balmoral or Nostalgia but we had two underage girls with us sans ID so we just went to the private Envy Collective/Team Sheenan one, which was full of ghoulishly dispositioned models and mumbly aggressive cokeheads hitting on our womens, but my dj niggz Seagull and Mingdoll was laying it down HARD, went apeshit there, snogged it up greazy with my boy Eug's disgustingly hot little cousin Kat, disgustingly hot, then the girls we came with (that I originally was digging on but probably sabotaged completely with the vulgar PDA w Kat) started coming down something jagged so we bounced and drove home while the first real snowflakes of of the winter started falling, something I'd been praying for, and thought, yeah I'm really a blessed fucker that pretty much lives a dream and creates problems that don't really exist and half the fucken city has my back and that everything is gravy, and gravy. Love you all, criminals.

I unintentionally got horrendously drunk and passed out at a party. WTF? I'm not a "go crazy on NYE" person and yet this sort of thing happens to me more than it should. At least I didn't pass out and miss the countdown to midnight like I did in 1993 and 1996. I engaged in projectile vomiting like in 2001. There is a chance I will throw up again before finishing this post.

One other thing of note -- the entire neighbourhood lost power at about ten to midnight. My first NYE power outage experience!

there were power outages in Vegas as well

we spent way too much money on dinner then went to this girl's house, played extremeley drunk Celebrity Taboo and Scattergories, and then came home.

went to a rooftop party organized by some friends, there were about 150 ppl i reckon. i was pacing myself with the drinking (i had a four beer limit, wasn't gonna have a repeat of 2004)(which was me passed out in the sidewalk in nyc after being thrown out of the club, 'please lord strike me down where i lay' drunk), and then the alcohol ran out at 1am anyway. was talking to this girl that i knew from university, very cute, until this guy who i saw her with earlier but didn't think was her boyfriend cos he was too weird-looking (had a ponytail, really pointy face, looked kinda like an unpretty girl) turned out to be her boyfriend. so, no snogging. as i mentioned in the other thread, there was this thing in the unisex bathroom with this girl on e (who actually happened to be a good friend of the other cute girl) who wanted to lick me, but then her boyfriend dragged her off me. oh, before that her cute friend showed up, and was trying to convince her not to lick me, it was very awkward. i remember looking helplessly at cute girl, with e-girl clutching on to me, saying "i'm very conflicted!".

afterwards a friend-of-a-friend girl that i know was giving me pulling lessons (not, er, physically, though there was this one uncomfortable moment). it was very funny though, she kept bringing her friend over, so i could test my new pickup lines, and i kept pretending to be unable to say anything other than "i'd hit it!" (i blamed it on my rap records). she told me that girls like it when you say nice things about their eyes. me: "you have... eyes." okay, you gotta believe that the timing was really good. i did learn that there's this girl i don't know the year below me at (ex-)university that had a thing for me, which was exciting news for me, it doesn't happen often. don't know if i'll ever meet her though.

so... yeah. not too bad i guess, but nothing great. i feel strangely optimistic, though. i give it about a week.

i still feel like a loser for not pulling any moves on anyone. i think i was having a rare good face day too, i don't know when that's going to happen again. regrets, i have a few.

I had a good face day too Mitch, but my problem is that I locked up a sure thing with Kat real soon, and am going skiing with the other girls on Monday, but this was like day 11 of a bender and I just know it'll catch up like tomorrow and I'll break out right when I got these girls that saw me when I was looking good, expecting me to be looking good next time, which is gonna take some emergency spa shit/system cleanse action to prevent. This modern life - it does not like making room.

it was great! we went out for a fantastic seven course dinner, which took so long that we were running late and ended up getting off the tube at london bridge and seeing the new year in from the bridge, where we could see a few of the fireworks over tate modern. then i broke my resolution about never going to clapham to go to a house party.

i was pretty impressed with the tube, as we only had to wait 4 minutes to get on a near-empty train at about 2am. the journey back was fine until old street when the doors kept failing to close properly due to drunk people getting in the way, with the driver eventually saying that if they didn't close the next time he'd have to come down the train and check every door himself. at this point colette walked to the door, leant out and shouted something along the lines of "for fuck's sake, stop messing around and let's get on with it". the doors shut the next time, we got underway, and the driver came over the intercom and said "thanks for the assistance".

it was a great evening from start to finish, basically.

Amazing, frankly. Best NYE of my life, surpassing even the great Brighton mentalism of 2001-2002. Went to what I thought was going to be a relatively mellow dinner party in Whitechapel which ended up being a full-scale proper party with much dancing and blokes giving out free dwugs. I was happy. My friends live in a proper old-skool Eastendersesque square and just before midnight we all piled out into the square gardens where they let off a load of fireworks. I left an incredibly embarassing voicemail for Marianna at about 2.30am, which apparently caused much mirth. I am such a fuckwit.

The new bloke from work, randomly, was there, and I ended up dancing with him and turning down inappropriate advances from his insane girlfriend, who earlier had greeted me with the immortal line "I know you! You're one of the dweebs!" My ego has still to recover from the bruising.

Plus a good friend of mine who's been having a hard time of it recently came along, seemed to have the time of his life and hopefully made some new friends in the process. If there's a better way to see the new year in, I haven't seen it yet.

One of the best NYE's for me too. Most of us didn't leave the party or crash on the floor until 7am this morning. I co-DJed (1983 style, literally) with two other DJs.. one from Montreal named Tobias, who's here for holidays, and the other Chris, a good friend of mine who has a doctorate in physics and will be moving to Richmond, VA for his first job. It was amazing. There were about 4 or 5 New Year's countdowns within 10 minutes, done purposefully to fuck with everybody, so I had no idea which one was the real one but it didn't matter really. Got to see Vancouver, Seattle, Eugene, and San Francisco friends I haven't seen in a while. It was TEH BLAST. About 10 of us just finished our first meal of the day at WaZuBee's on Commercial Drive. I'm not across the street from the hotel I'm about to check into.

DBitch AND LE COQ DESTROY VANCOUVER WITH FUN NYE STYLE NON-SHOCKA!

I picked my mom up at the hospital, post knee reconstruction surgery, in the afternoon. Got her home and took care of her cats, got us some take-out for dinner, and we watched BBC News coverage of the tsunami (I haven't seen much tv for the past week). We're in the U.S., and the BBC coverage was much more comprehensive. Then we watched Jeopardy!. She knew most of the answers, but not "band whose lead singer, Steven Tyler, made this song famous, (Train Kept a Rollin') - Who is Aerosmith!!
She was in and out of pain - the drugs are pretty major, so sometimes she was fairly illucid...
Also, I stole a vicodin and took it around 8pm - sorta my champagne - so I felt pretty mellow helping her and watching tv and such.
And that's how I spent NYE!
I've had many, many exciting ones, so i don't feel dissapointed.

While reflecting on previous NYE parties I recalled the 1999-2000 party - at my house, with all of my favorite people. Yea! And the next day, one of those lovely friends sailed around the Vineyard sound- and hosted my friend and me. That's how we celebrated the new year/millenium.
I felt nauseous at one point, so I went down into the cabin and had a lovely time next to the wood stove, feeling better in my belly within the belly of the boat. I felt safe and warm and like I could sleep forever.
It was more fun to be awake, and be on deck as we sailed and saw other sailors who were out that day.
It was, really, classic.
It was a perfect day - warm, not too windy, blue skies and lovely water.
I feel lucky even now - four years later.

New years was kinda fun this year. Had dinner at Tia Pol, a new tapas place in West Chelsea, NYC. Fried chickpeas, some limabean/cheese/garlic spread on bread, a cheese plate, lamb skewers, artichoke puree with oysters, salted cod w/ potatoes. Yum. It ended up pretty well because a friend and I were trying to find a nice restaurant where they weren't doing some expensive prix fixe thing and had seats available, and it worked out nicely.

After dinner, walked down to APT (it was so nice and mild out), and I was surprised to see a huge line. DFA guys were playing with Negroclash DJs and J-Rocc from the Beat Junkies. It was $100 for open bar from 10-2 and some food - which meant that the only people who were there for the music were guestlisted people, and everyone else were bankers and their hos. geeta was there too! i almost threw up on t1m g0ldsworthy, but made it to the bathroom in time.

then went to tribeca grand for the misshapes/peaches/wit thing, but there was no free booze. we got there late and the crowd was thinning out, but then met up with tracer hand and we went to the afterparty in one of the hotel rooms, where there was nothing left to drink except for vitamin water. people started either having sex or passing out, so we left for Motherfucker at about 6am or so. Caught a bit of Dan Selzer's set, and stuck around until maybe 7:30, then took a taxi home. Somehow stayed up until 6pm, then slept for 18 hours. ugh. just woke up. but through the whole night, i only spent $10!!! nice.

packing tape and beer sounds like a blast, based on that last picture.

like i said, i dj'ed and then made the rounds of a couple parties. i only had 2 glasses of wine, plus the usual new years champagne, otherwise i was sober. that turned out to be the best thing, mainly because everyone around me was incredibly messed up.

as i was leaving this club called transit [where !!! were playing] i saw a former co-worker of mine sprawled out on the sidewalk. the cops were ready to throw him in the drunk tank [or whatever they call it] but i offered to help him out and get him in a cab. unfortunately, this did not happen. the guy was messed up, tried to get me to come home with him and make out. [ew, gross and sadly this is the closest ive been to getting any in about 2 years] eventually, he dropped his pants to the ground and started peeing, which is when i decided to exit the scene. ive got a murky picture of him passed out on the sidewalk with the cops on flickr.

after that i went home, feeling pretty good about new years. it wasnt great but i expected it to be incredibly lackluster. i got up early and then went down to two street and watched the mummers day parade [http://mummers.com/] with my friends until late in the night.

the mummers were much more fun than a gaggle of coked-up and e'ed out hipsters, i tell you.

Went to a dinner party that we'd been invited to via a friend of the hosts (it turned out we'd gone to a dinner party about six months ago with the same hosts, through a different friend). Really excellent food, & conversation so entertaining that we 86ed out plans to go to a different party after 10, and just hung out there until 1 in the morning. A couple of people we befriended there (& had previously met briefly at another friend's wedding this summer) invited us to a New Year's Day punk rock singalong at their house, so yesterday afternoon about 20 people brought potluck (I made veggie hoppin' john for luck) and we stood around a piano and sang "Search and Destroy" and "God Save the Queen" and "What Do I Get?" chorally. It was great.

I want to go to next years punk rock singalong! That sounds great - or maybe it didn't sound great?

here is some video footage of the mummers parade on two street that i shot with my cellphone:

http://herjazz.org/movies/mummers_2005.mov

new years day is definately better than new years eve, i think.

Dinner with 8 friends. That was fun. Then more ppl joined and we had a blast until 7am the next morning. Then I slept until 7 in the evening and then until 2 pm today so I have not seen daylight yet in 2005.

1st song listened to in 2005: "Rip it up" by Orange Juice.
1st food eaten in 2005: Sourcream & onion potato chips.

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