Return to the Eve

I've never been the type to go overboard on New Year's Eve. Too much hassle. It's been called "Amateur Night" by more than a few people and that's the truth. Us proper drinking professionals avoid evenings where the cops are out in force looking for any reason to crack a skull or a perfect driving record. Generally, my friends and I had two goals for the holiday: chicks and not having to drive. the first isn't hard in LA; the second is nigh impossible. As such, most years we were scrambling at the end to find something--anything--to do. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes not.

One year, we ended up at a chaperoned (by parents!) party. We stayed 15 minutes. One year, we witnessed a fight brought on because, in the words of the Brit instigator, some guy "touched (my) girlfriend's asshole!" Another, the fight broke out in my very living room when a "Leatherface" comment directed at a young woman started a brawl with a well-intentioned, yet crazy, potential suitor. And who could forget the year Kool Breeze peed on me.

I was asleep on the couch when I was awakened by the sound of rain. Urine rain. On my sleeping bag. I lept up screaming, "What are you doing?" Still asleep, Kool Breeze responded matter of factly, "Taking a piss." When I incredulously inquired as to why he was taking it on me, in the living room, he had no response. He simply finished up and lay back down on the floor.

My favorite New Year's Eve party was when '92 passed into '93. The site was a nice Venice apartment abutting the boardwalk. The women who lived there had already moved out and everyone brought their sleeping bags to spend the night on the vacant floor. The pictures from this evening are hilarious. I am, for some unknown reason, wearing green jeans. Every pic of Donny has him sporting cherry lips. Bro and Gork and Kool Breeze and Enza and Bea ("oh, Beatrice") are all there. There are pictures of us holding whiskey bottles sitting in the bathtub. Of my girlfriend at the time and I gazing goofily at each other in front of the faux fireplace. Of Crazy Tom and his ridiculous Prince Valiant haircut. Each of them shows the carefree (and drunk) faces of people who know they don't have to drive anywhere, people who can walk out onto the beach to light a spliff or make out with someone in a lifeguard tower or throw finger foods off the balcony to the homeless guy walking by.

Nobody looked good the next morning, but I think Crazy Tom was in the worst shape. About 8 a.m. he was puking into a garbage can on the boardwalk. A used-up woman meandered by and asked for a cigarette. He wretched out a negative response, head still mostly in the can. Undeterred, the woman said, "I'll suck your dick for ten bucks."

Happy New Year.