Here we go, blow by blow. How do the new meet the older old?
As I left the Buena Vista apartments, at the corner of Vine and Second streets, before I even noticed the lingering white snow interspersed with grass of Christmas green, I saw the omnipresent pulling-over cop with flashing red and white and blue lights in a parking lot far, far away — OK actually just a bit more than a block. This is NYE, so there likely was a reason, although maybe not a real good one.
After taking only a few more steps, I couldn’t help but see a half-block ahead a good dozen partiers leaving, after living it up, the Smilin’ Moose. I had to stop for a few moments to let several more people pass, and immediately saw the first bare midriff of the night, (am I obssessed with abs?) That main crew soon broke up and went to separate parking lots to then return home, to the Cities I’m guessing — even though it was only 15 minutes into 2024.
But before, there was a bit of bitching from the babes, but it was bitchin’ indeed. The guy(s) they were with, or who were standing next to them, at year-turning-time only gave them a kiss on the cheek and/or forehead, and it was unclear whether they’d indeed wanted it to be more or less, as in not at all. But no tongue, the champagne from the toast had not sunk in yet.
Over at Hudson Tap, there was again bartenders mimicking bartenders, both having silvery sparkling disco-like pants and matching each others short on-the-bottom and strappy on-the-top tops. One also had the newer in-vogue tied up balls, ping-pong-like, of hair on top, but not at the upper corners of the head, but balled nearly together in a marriage in the middle.
Dick’s too was (newly?) packed. A guy followed me toward the entrance and asked, noting the bar’s name, if it was a gay club. I assured him, decided, that it is not. (Ask the blonde woman I talked to, wearing some of the glitz that was oddly rare this evening, who talked to me at length while spilling her popcorn. I’d shot back that on this very festive night she should feel free to take a second big bowl — actually I said this well before those corns hit the floor.) And where was The Little Black Dress and heels, too. Saw some of that the previous night, moreso.
Outside, there were patches of gritty stuff poured out in places on the sidewalk — to cover either ice or, on this night, you know …
But the Dick’s experience put a cap, like a Santa hat but not really, on the night as far as who I saw. Used to be dozens, but not quite a dozen, on this night. It had been a time when you’d see scores of people, as many as the different kinds of music scores, who made sure they got out and about, if only on this eve. The new guard replacing the old guard, which has largely gone. They still show once in a while even after the pandemic, but are still virus and occasionally vile-patron-as-villian guarded. There are a few people who I was sure would score on the scene, likely early rather than late as all being of that age, despite this new scenario, but there were not here.
But then there was the next day. New Year’s Day. Sitting on the sidewalk outside The Smilin’ Moose was a whole bunch of ice chunks, a b arrel full, apparently poured out there at the end of the night’s revelry. There also were some things that looked like lemon slices, but they were actually gold pieces of shiny confetti! All around the ‘walk.
A block up, again chronological order, a party hat from The Eve was sitting even in the spot farthest between night spots. And it was set upsidedown.
Would some of the previous night’s revelry haunts be open for business, this being New Year’s Day? There were, in the parking lot of Ziggy’s, a trio of cars, but were they just parked there from patrons still hogging the space from the night before? Three more people approached the door and were able to enter. Question answered. (This venue is known for having the sign on their interior-even door, saying that they are open, but that door is closed because hey, it’s cold outside, and we’re conserving heat. Some of the chefs might tell you it would be great to bottle some of that, strike that, use it now in the dead of winter rather then have it bake even further in their often torrid kitchen in summer.)
Hudson Tap used The Day to open at their earliest time of any of the seven days of the week, 11 a.m., and stay open until 1 a.m., the latest closing time of any they have except weekends. And this dear reader, if it need be noted, is a Monday, when even Sunday’s time can be fickle.
A last tale from the crypt, and this could be a bit cryptic. On The Eve, the Dick’s bartenders were wearing shirt and prominent tie, and apron over the top, which I’d not seen before there, maybe because of a few directives from Those On High. In over a decade of noticing, I’d never seen Chad on a shimmery sheened button-down shirt! Like something Charlie Sheen might sport just for NYE, to best his other one-and-a-half-men?