New Year's Eve

So, New Year’s eve took a radical turn for the mature this year. Or rather, I should say a radical recoil from the immature. A friend of mine, R, who I’ve known since we were eight, told me he was going to be playing drums with a terrible band in a terrible bar, so M and I figured what better way to ring in the New Year. Dig out a muscle-shirt, drink formaldehyde-infused beer and soak in some second-hand smoke and shitty Thin Lizzy covers while screaming, “play Motley Crue, you fags! Blaaaaaaaaarrrrgh! (vomits on friends).”

They were calling their band Tres Largos (‘three fat guys’) – he’s a bit of a big ‘un. Not “guy with the blurred face on a TV news ‘America and Obesity’ special report”-fat, just a bit big. They changed the name, though, to Pete Jesus (Logo: “What would Pete Jesus do? Rock.”). Then they got cancelled. God’s wrath apparently. M and I called the bar a few times posing as exciting Pete Jesus groupies (“pejoopies”) so as to fabricate public interest and maybe get the gig reinstated, but no luck. I had to bite my tongue when the bar manager told me that the band had cancelled on them, not to say, “that’s a damn lie! A damn, damn lie!”

So rather than just give up and ride out the eve blankly we tried to concoct a plan B. This meant driving to R’s – which is over the mountains from us – for a lot less of an event, but I’m a stubborn, stubborn person. The mountains also got a freak storm so we were driving in road-conditions somewhere between “chains required” and “repent for your sins”.

But plan B was in effect, which swiftly and suddenly became a lot more dignified (translation: potentially dull) than plan A. A snifter of port, classical music and Trivial Pursuit: Diversified Financial Planning edition. Okay, not really that dignified, but close. R’s girlfriend has a kid who wound up staying with her and having a couple friends over, so that rooted the evening’s activities there, and scared off dos of the tres largos. There was good food, incredibly good wine, even, yes, a game. So, it lacked the “fuck it all” abandon of plan A, was perilously mature and grounded, but it wound up being a really good time. If it had been plan A, I would have thought it a fine plan. Lots of laughing, sarcasm and political ranting. Lots of trying to find drink recipes on the internet. And a non-stop, relentless onslaught of Green Day music, courtesy of the girls’ current Green Day obsession (and God knows that there is no rock band obsession like a middle-school rock band obsession). Also, R collects rock show bills and he just happened to pull one out from one of the best shows I’d ever been to – it was a concert when I was doing a hard-core show on college radio, and one of the opening bands was Nirvana, and it was the first time I met Kurt Cobain. Another one of the openers was Tad, who if you've ever seen you know why I mention it. So I got to blah blah about past glories, which is always a plus. An excellent time over all, even without the muscle shirt. I’ll save that for Easter, I guess.