Now that I have a bit more time (Chowning is on the airplane back to Nashville), I will tell the story of New Year's Eve in more detail:
We woke up and did something . . . it isn't important. At this point 'we' are four people: Chowning, Myself, Roxanne and Rich. We had all met up at the hotel (millenium broadway, right on the square). We head to SoHo to shop for a majority of the day. SoHo was fun, and Chowning and Roxanne did some clothes shopping while Rich and I talked mostly (about games and other things). We went in many stores, however a majority of our time was spent in Anthropoligie (where Rich has decided he is not cool enough to be in), some random store that was going out of business and thus had cheap and nice clothing, and Trauchen (sp?) a publishing store that had lots of design books. While I was looking at pictures of celebrities Roxy, Chowning and Rich were looking at some book that quickly turned into porn. That was most of our morning. We knew lock down would happen around the square sometime in the early afternoon, so we tried to head back early.
Hungry, and looking for liquor we stopped to buy some stuff, and also to grab some expensive ass pizza. At this point the checklist for the day looked like the following:
Get hotel key (check)
Find Rich and Roxy (check)
Buy champagne, stuff for mixed drinks (pending)
Pick up cousin and friend at pier
Get back to hotel room
Find Dan, Cara, Josh, LPS, and whoever
Find Mary Nell so we know what room to go to
Rock New Year's Eve
Many things on the list were still, um . . . , unverified at this time. All I knew what that my cousing and a friend were coming, I had lots of people coming to the hotel, and I didn't know what we already had to drink, where the party room was going to be, and what the fuck was going to be happening that night. But no matter, after eating pizza the group splits into boys v girls. The males went to the pier while the ladies went to pick up the last of the stuff for drinks.
Rich and I start the 15 block trek to the pier. It had started to rain, so Rich, like the fucking pansy that he is, buys an umbrella. We're walking, and eventually the rain starts turning into snow . . . cool, I like snow. Then the snow starts coming down hard . . .and harder . . . and harder. While I won't pretend that it was a blizzard or some shit, there was a lot of snow hitting the ground/rich/me. It was fucking awesome. We get to the pier and loaf around for a bit until we realize that Rich took us to the wrong pier. We fix that problem, and in the meantime I get two phone calls. One is Chowning who tells me to pick up the last of the supplies for the drinks (limes, cups and a knife); the other was Dan who told me he was getting on the subway and headed to times square.
I think it is around that time that I start to get antsy about things. It was 4ish, I still don't have any idea what room the party will be in, if we have enough to drink, or really what is going on. All I know is I have a lot of friends coming over to what they think will be a great party. So I do what I normally do in this situation, call Mary Nell, who
always knows what is going on. Mary Nell was able to tell me . . .
nothing? For the first time that I can remember, MN, who is quite the planner, doesn't know what the fuck is going on, and doesn't seem to care. She, Clint and Annika were headed to SoHo do to some shopping. Now I'm getting a little panicked. I have a hotel key to a room that is smaller than my living room, and has a shitty view. I have dragged friends from all over, including a relative that I don't know all that well into a situation that could go horribly awry. The downside is normally I wouldn't give a fuck, but this time I felt like I was trading on my own name and needed a solution fast. Thank god there was Rich to help out.
We pick up the girls, my Cousin's daughter (24) Jessi and her friend Pualani. We hop on the bus and head towards time square again. It is around 4:40, and we knew we could pick up the supplies we needed (lime and
a coconut cups) in any of the literally hundreds of small shops we were going to pass on our trip back.
Wait, did I say hundreds, I meant four or five. Honestly, there weren't many places to grab stuff.
Let me paint this picture a little more clearly. Rich, Pualani, Jessi and I get out of the bus and into chaos. To relate it to Mardi Gras isn't appropriate, it was more like going to a world series game ('cause we've all done that . . . right?). The streets still had cars, but the sidewalks were packed. We started on 42nd, but needed to get to 44th, and inside the perimeter that was slowly being set up around us. Walking on the sidewalk in a sea of people moving forward, we tried to go north to 44th street, but it was shut down. Shit, they close off streets in times square when they get full, and they go from south to north. So if 44th is closed, that means 45th isn't far behind. Now it's a race and a Mardi Gras reference is appropriate. Imagnie going to Mardi Gras, starting near Canal street, and deciding you have to get to the end of Burbon street as fast as possible. Now add three people (one of which is your relative who you told should come to times square "I'll be great"), and rain and we're approximating the situation.
The point is that it was hard to push through the crowds to make the ground needed to beat the closings. We made it to 46th just in time for acop to tell us it's closed. Fuck! Now I've got some supplies (after ducking in and out of stores we finally found some), one person (Pualani) who is getting upset since her heels are good at this and it looks like we've got no game plan, closing streets everywhere, Dan coming with a posse to a point of unknow location . . . and Rich. Thank god for Rich. Even if everything was to "end up well" (whateverthatmeans) I still don't know if we actually have a location for this party. Fuck!
Rich is the person that tells me that from here on out it is clubland. I need to go talk to a cop, and use my golden ticket (hotel key) to get in. See, as much as we may think that the NYPD has times square figured out, they really just put a lot of people on the perimeter and say, "don't let people in . . . unless they are supposed to come in." Each cop that I talked to told me a different line, as if they were just tryingv to pass the buck to get me out of their face. We get shot down once or twice, as Pualani's frustration becomes palpable. Eventually we get a cop to let us in. At this point (~5:30) we are in the first perimeter. Dan calls me and lets me know his posse is here and they need a place to go. Well, since I'm in the perimeter, I tell him 44th and 8th so I can get him in the perimeter. So we walk along the street and realize that there is a second perimeter, the one around all the people actually in times square . . . and there was no way I was getting through that. See, we made the mistake of being on the wrong side of the square from our hotel room. While our hotel room was within the out perimeter, it was across the giant river of people that is timesquare. This river happens to run from the northern perimeter to the southern perimeter, which means the only was to get around it . . . is to get back outside.
At this point Dan calls me and tells me he's "at 44th and 8th, where should I go?" Fuck, I don't know, I barely know where I have to go in order to get things working. Last I heard from the cops (a cop who I told "I'm tired of hitting cops.") the answer is 49th street. So I tell Dan to make it to 49th, and find a way across to 6th. Meanwhile we are doing the same thing. Do I actually have a party room yet? No. We make it up to 49th, where they hadn't blocked the street off yet, but we turn down the wrong road (Broadway) and then run smack dab into the middle of the times square seating section. This wasn't where we wanted to be, and the frustration of Jessi's friend was become more palpable as we walked. The bottom of here jeans were soaked. The solution comes, again from Rich, that we need to walk down to 6th, maybe even 5th, then trek down to 44th, where we can try to use the Golden Ticket again to get throug the security, again, and make it to the hotel. Thank god for Rich.
This plan works, after walking all the way around the perimeter we make it make to the hotel, however we still don't have the big hotel room or all of the people expected. Dan and crew (6 people in all) make it to 44th and 6th in an even more contortious route than we had to take. By this point, since we had been walking by thousands of people, we had all picked up travelocity gnome hats. O.k. recap: everyone is in the small room, because that is all we have access to. There is liquor, so that will fix things eventually, but at the time it really didn't seem worth it. Were we really going to have a hotel room party on new years eve when we are next to the square but can't even see anything? Yes.
Roxy calls next door (the big room) and catches Nick and Katie before they go to bed (??) so we can crash the bog room, with a view of the sqaure and enough room to spread out and enjoy ourselves. Whew! Let the festivities begin . . . but not before Pualani convinces Jessi that they need to leave to go the party they were originally going to go to before I convinced them to come to this one. . . their loss in the end.
The contents of the entire party will be hard to encapsulate. Perhaps the best thing about it was our hotel was between the inner and outer perimeter. The inner perimeter is where everybody is slammed together like at Mardi Gras. The out perimeter keeps everyone out. In between you could wander around as much as you want. You could get right next to the inner perimeter and party with everyone (see the stage, etc.), or you could wander through the shops and maybe get something to eat. That is what we did, at around 7:30 we all went to go get Thai food, which was good. On the way back we got the skinny that Mariah was coming out soon, so many waited in the lobby and got pictures/video of the vent. Eventually Mary Nell and crew came back and the party grew even more. People were floating in between the two rooms having a grand old time. We wandered downstairs whenever people wanted to get in the mix, and come back upstairs when they wanted to mix a few more drinks. It really had a great feel of both the crowded new years eve celebration, and a relaxing environment in the room. Personal highlight, Dan and I finishing off the lat 7-10 shots worth of gin in a single swig.
Right after the party we all went downstairs and wandered around the chaos a bit. We needed to get home, however so we hopped the subway and jetted back to queens. This is where the story takes an odd route. On the drive after the subway, Dan gets hit from behind. We decide that it isn't a good idea for us to have 6 people in a car that is deisgned for at most five, especially when the cops are coming. So Chowning and I get out, and are going to walk the rest of the way through Queens at around 2:30 am until we get to Dan's place. Chowning spends a good bit of the trip chewing me out about the situtation before we get home and fall alseep. There are lots of other things that happened through the night, like my constant worrying because Jessi, therelativethatIdraggedfromJerseytopartyintimessquare, didn't call me ever to let me know if they needed a place to crash. Then there was even more drama back at the car accident as Dan and Cara were forced to wait until 5 am before they left. However, you have read a lot to make it this far, and I should reward you by stopping. Out.
