I handed the reins of New Years Eve proper over to Nina, who responds to a challenge to celebrate with actual ambition instead of with annoyance, like I do. I spent part of the day up at the Practice Hole 2.0 participating in the awarding of The 2011 Argosies and working on a new song with the band. Then I rode the train downtown with Chris and Beau. Chris followed me to Park Slope, and we copped a drink at The Gate while we waited for Nina to put the finishing touches on her appearance. Despite their having shelled out for signage announcing all-night activities (noisemakers, complimentary champagne at midnight!), the place was pretty much deserted at 9 PM with the exception of a few guys playing cards in a corner and a single couple in a booth squirming around on top of each other -- really doing everything short of intercourse. We had a couple of drinks, which got me pretty drunk, and then hit the road. After that I steered us towards Canal Bar, which turned out to be every bit as wonderful as I'd hoped it would be. We drank beers. The guy gave us popcorn.
Nina was ready to start her night at this point and met us outside. Chris departed to North Brooklyn and Nina and I hopped a cab to Prospect Heights, where we slipped in the door of a huge building where a friend-of-a-friend of ours was DJing a party in one of the penthouse apartments. The place was thronged with revelers, each of whom seemed to be at least five years younger than us and have their own personal fifth of whiskey. We met Winnie and Evan outside on the little roof patio, and watched the fireworks going off above Prospect Park to mark the actual rolling over of the year. Still trying to get a handle on my level of drunkenness, I wolfed an empty hot dog bun. Some wags found a way to get onto the roof proper, one level above us, and launched a bunch of Roman candles directly over our heads. I got a hot spark in my eye -- lot of people probably did -- but it was dazzling and worth it to be that close to an actual exploding firework.
Soon after that we hit the road again, clown-carring our way to Williamsburg where we sat in Evan's apartment drinking gas station beer. Drunk girls collapsed on chairs and sofas and were variously led away to cars or other apartments. The crowd winnowed itself down to a handful of people and "Mickey," a vaguely mouse-shaped accumulation of colored cotton balls purchased from a homeless guy and mounted as a bust on top of some motion-sensitive electric motors that would make it pop-and-lock in a truly creepy way. Ray (aka Dramus from our tabletop adventures earlier this year) showed up, an unexpected delight! We partied up and took to the basement, our goal to spelunk our way into the abandoned G train station Evan's assured us lurks behind a boarded-up door down there. Ray was wielding a broom handle for wrangling spider webs, and there were a fuck ton of those -- I would have balked, babies, if I hadn't been so lifted. There was also a creepy storage room with a crucifix, some doll parts, and, no kidding, a wedding dress wrapped around a pipe joint. Maybe on account of it being 3 AM, no one had the stones to venture through the magic door, so we returned to the surface and took to the streets in search of food.
Every venue on Metropolitan was packed, and the waits were horrendous, so Nina and I split and shared a cab with a stranger, a very drunk girl who berated the poor cabbie into turning up Hot 97 to deafening levels and then ranted about how environmental studies should be "integrated into... into ev'ry... fuckin' class in school." She bailed at 8th Ave. and Carroll, wordlessly pressing five bucks into Nina's hand before bolting out of the car and running down the night street.
Hello, 2012!
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