Well-Poked and Snoring
William looks up, head still full of sludge, so that he can only stare dumbly at the sudden apparition of his two best friends, his inseparable Cambridge cronies, Bodley and Ashwell.'Won't be long now, Bill,' cries Bodley, 'before it's time to celebrate!'
'Celebrate what?' says William.
'Everything Bill! The whole blessed Bacchanalia of Christmas! Miraculous offspring popping out of virgins into mangers! Steaming mounds of pudding! Gallons of port! And before you know it, another year put to bed!''1874 well-poked and snoring,' grins Ashwell, 'with a juicy young 1875 trembling in the doorway, waiting to be treated likewise.'
- The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber
Well, there goes another year - glug, glug - and here's to hoping that 2007 brings all sorts of new exciting life lessons to this lackluster deadbeat - clink, clink! As per usual, this New Year's Eve was a mixture of all things good and bad.NYE highlights: Suzanne using her savoir faire to slip to the front of a 200+ drinks line; Scott slyly spiking our drinks underneath security guard's
watchful noses; my sister tipsy (always a pleasure); Lani's impressive sass to the snooty doorman and her stunning lace dress; Suzanne's bossy drunken side that forced a group of girls to do schnapps shots; Suzanne tipsy (hours of entertainment); checking out the hottest trends among today's youth; watching the bottom feeders looping around their tank over and over again with their droppy mustaches; people watching from a variety of vantage points; learning about Champ and ships that sunk in Lake Champlain; hiding in a sunken shipwreck; watching the fireworks from a killer vantage point.
NYE lowlights: shitty music; shitty white rapper-wannabes; shitty people; shitty DJs; shitty doorman; shitty flashbacks to awkward middle school dances; not enough booze; no desire to dance due to shitty music; only baloney to eat; too cold and snowy for high heels; freezing rain at 3am.
What can I say, I've never much enjoyed NYE. This one promised to be especially wretched but with the help of some good friends, fireworks, booze, Prime Suspect and late night popcorn, it was not all that bad after all.
Here is my first vlog of 2007, DBCV13: Happy New Year, featuring the fireworks on the Burlington Waterfront:
Check out my pal Molly's shot by shot detailing of her pre-New Year's Eve Day with her drop dead gorgeous baby Ivo - seriously, what a dreamboat! Molly's blog post, lots of hot tea, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and knitting have managed to get me through this long New Year's Day.
16 comments:
my predictions were correct! oh, and i adore your furs, darling!
marti webb xx
oh Marti! only a swell, glamerous gal like you could appreciate my furs (which smelled of basement where they have been living of late, shhhhh)! hope your New Year's was smashing!! xoxo
i loved your furs too! and i loved that you came out last night and that you thought i was so fabulous. at least someone does. sigh. how come it's either my girlfriends who see it or it's someone who sees it too late. we will not let melancholy get us down in 2007. can we have a chant or a mantra or something!?!
i love you eva dear. thank you for the beautiful fireworks display. yours is even better than last's nights!
thanks hon! you really ARE fabulous and really QUITE entertaining, tipsy or sober!
melancholy, smellancholy. fuck that shit. it is 2007. whole new fucking year! it will KICK ASS! and hell, we already have a party Thursday PM to celebrate! hells yeah!
i love you too and thanks!
KABLOOOEY!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
All three of us look drunken and crazy-eyed in that one pic. Anyone want to help me pen a snotty letter to WRUV?
i love it that you wrote them a letter, wish i coulda signed my name to it. bastards.
we do look sort of strange, maybe it was the NYE madness bug that was floating around...?? i tend to look crazy-eyed on a regular basis though...
You want a copy? You can delete my name and personal deets and add yours.
hells yeah! send it to me! i got some things to say as well! ooh, i loves a good complaint letter...
ok, maybe i was too drunk, but i missed it -- what are we pissed off about?
oh, this doorman was just being a power hungry pisshead. Lani wrote a sassy letter detailing why the party sucked. that drink line was pretty laughable though! not that the VIP Suzanne had to wait in it or anything! ;)
Suz - Maybe I just needed a few stiff drinks in me, but I thought the ECHO party was a mismanaged disaster from start to finish. Here's my bitchy letter:
__________________________
To whom it may concern at WRUV -
On New Year's Eve, several of my colleagues from the Flynn Center and I -- along with about 15 other guests -- attended WRUV's "Me, You, and Everyone We Know" -- which promised to be a fun evening at the ECHO Center. Unfortunately, due to massive event mismanagement and unacceptable rudeness by event staff, the night was a disaster from beginning to end.
I personally purchased six (6) tickets in advance for myself and friends (a not-unsubstantial $150 expense), and can honestly say I've never regretted any single purchase more. From the moment we walked in the door, the night was one unmitigated frustration. To detail:
One of my party lagged behind at the door to take a cell phone call while the rest of us went inside. He approached the door within several minutes of the rest of us, but was refused admission at the designated ticket-holder's door, despite a ticket in hand. Instead, he was twice brusquely told to wait at the back of the line, behind people who had not purchased tickets in advance. In confusion, he called me, and I approached a gentleman at the desk at the door to inquire why a ticketed patron was not being admitted. This gentleman (whose name I didn't get, but he is a large, dark haired -- possibly Latino? -- man with facial hair and a nasty attitude), was inexcusably sarcastic and outrageously disrespectful in responding to me. Only after I represented myself as a member of the Flynn staff -- the organization which sold the tickets -- did he reluctantly assist me, although not without giving me an earful of attitude and a good measure of hostility. Ironically, this same gentleman asked my friend who had told him to wait at the back of the line -- it turned out that he, himself, has issued the demand.
With my group finally intact, we proceeded to the coat check -- only to wait more than 30 minutes in line while two very pleasant, but extremely overburdened, young women checked our winter-wear. While we waited, two of my party prudently decided to brave the lone bar -- and spent close to an hour trying to purchase a bottle of wine (see attached photo for evidence of the mob and overwhelmed bartenders). [Note: I don't know how to attach photos in blog responses, but I lifted the mobbed bar scene directly from Eva's post. That's Alexa at the front -- finally!] We would have preferred champagne, but were told that the bubbly had sold out by the time we arrived (a prudent 9.45 pm). The bartender then told my friends he didn't have any change for their $30 (despite the wad of cash that can be seen in front of him at the very moment my friends purchased the wine, as evidenced in the photo), and they ended up paying an additional $5 over the jacked-up price of $25 for a bottle of otherwise very cheap wine. Also frustrating, we never saw the food apparently provided by Plan B.
Checking out the advertised array of music, we were dismayed to observe that several (apparently novice) freestyle rappers were staged on the middle landing. While I confess that I'm not much into freestyle rap, I admire their attempts -- but the noise far overwhelmed the rest of the venue. My party joined the guests accompanying my Flynn colleagues, and we together tried to find the advertised "Flashback Funhouse - ('80s - Electro + Classics )." We finally approached one DJ (playing electronica) to inquire, and were told that very room would eventually "transition into" the '80s room. Although we checked in occasionally, we never did hear the promised '80s "classics."
In the uncontrollable inevitabilities that will happen on New Year's Eve, a drink was spilled on me in the crush to navigate the stairs. Freezing and drenched in red wine, I asked at the door if I could go to the car and retrieve a sweater. The doorman (thankfully a different one than noted above) told me I couldn't re-enter the party if I left -- even if only for a few moments. So sporting a large stain on the front of my dress, I waited with my group to see the fireworks -- which were lovely -- then fled the ECHO Center in the quest to salvage the evening elsewhere.
Two days later, I am still seething with unpleasant memories of the night. I had hoped for a fun evening with friends and was instead embarrassed and frustrated by what WRUV delivered. At the very least, I expect the hostile doorman to be appropriately chastised. An acceptable apology would be a refund for the expenses I laid out ($150).
I can be contacted via the contact info at the very bottom of this e-mail with questions / concerns / apologies / compensation.
[...omitted contact info]
__________________________
Haven't heard back from them, and it's unlikely that I will. But I'm still angry. Maybe I'll forward this to the ECHO Center and/or Seven Days.
MAN! Remind me NEVER EVER EVER to cross you! ZA ZING!
I think my night would have been a lot better had there just been ONE, just ONE, good DJ. Ah well, chalk it up to experience! And the fireworks were magnifique, no!?
I hope you get your $ back. I managed to get a bundle of parking and speeding tickets revoked after some well-written complaint letters. It often pays to complain! That should be a slogan...
It's not so much that it pays to complain, but having been in marketing/event management my entire career, I'm well-aware that not complaining will only lead to future fiascos. I did send my letter to the event manager at ECHO -- who immediately responded with a kind apology that they have little control over renter's event coordination (as I expected -- it's similar for the Flynn). She promised to forward my letter on to her WRUV event and bar contacts, which is satisfying. ...It's not that I expected a flawless evening, but I did expect some professionalism -- and definitely expected some courtesy.
Anyhow, as I told Suz, my New Year's resolution is to be a "do-badder -- more sass, more crass."
i LOVE it that you have such SASS and CRASS in 2007! I bow at your feet!!! You know who it reminds me of - Angelina Jolie! that lady has some sass and crass to spare! I WANT SOME!
Darling, you have sass in spades. We just need to work on the crass.
oooh baby, i got me some crass - lemme tell you - maybe i jus' need to bring it to the surface more...
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