Year-End Buffoonery

As I write this, I find myself sitting smack-dab in the middle of that drug-and-drink-induced period of buffoonery that begins with the day after Christmas and lasts through the night before New Year's Eve, and I'm feeling a little prickly. Everyone's hammered, rolling in and out of bars at any old hour and hee-hawing all over the place because they don't have to go to work the next day.

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I was chagrined to note that something especially odious has been set in motion this holiday, though. Just as the Cha Cha has been a haven from which I flee as soon as all the folks given mocking nicknames by staff and regulars begin to clod in at 9:00 p.m. and take over the place, my new haven--the late-night after-hours parties--has become increasingly hideous.

Like most of my friends, I've taken a refuge of sorts in the 2:00 a.m.-till-sunrise parties regularly taking place--parties that keep an exclusive guest list and an entrance fee for the unwashed who might wish to attend. These parties have been respectably run, and aside from a few bumps, scrapes, broken bones, and torn ligaments, pretty much everyone in attendance seems happy as a clam to be there, holding up the wall or shaking their asses. BUT: Word has gotten out, and now the very same folks who cluelessly guzzle vodka and tonics garnished with the butt ends of limes are more than happy to pay the jacked-up price of attendance just so they can act like baboons after-hours style while getting a skosh more mileage out of their brown leather coats.

Trouble is, ya jackasses, by staying up past our bedtimes, most of us were hoping to avoid the smashed toes and sloshed drinks rained down upon us by y'all. (Of course it has NOTHING to do with all the blow-packed beaks desperately seeking more stimulation....) Once again, it's all going to shit, and what hurts me most is that any reportable misdeeds have had all the fun blown out of them, because there's no joy in gossiping about people who are not only neither famous nor notorious, but just plain old PLAIN OLDS, too.

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Mercifully, I was tossed this bit of gossip as I made my way out the door last Saturday night, and I like to think of it as a parting gift for having stuck around a whole 30 minutes. Remember how I was telling you about a certain dick in a local band who might be taken to court by a nice guy in a band who got his head beat in by the Dick and nearly got his throat slashed before another nice guy in a band came to his rescue? Well, by the time you read this, court papers will have been served--and I, for one, cannot wait to see this twerp get his due punishment. He's a menace, and if he's not beating the tar out of someone, he's standing front and center at his favorite bands' shows, all red-faced and sweaty and singing EVERY SINGLE WORD to every song the groups ever may have played. As a matter of fact, I'm almost certain one long-lived band broke up largely because the singer just couldn't stand to see the Dick's tonsils throughout another set.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if you hear of any benefits for legal fees and hospital bills, be sure to go, because you'll be helping us all get one step closer to ridding ourselves of an irritant.

kathleen@thestranger.com