After fighting the hordes flocking to Seattle Center for New Year’s
Eve, I finally make my way to Queen Anne and find the Zadra Apartments.
The residents are holding a joint apartment party in which they
have all dressed up like the titular gang from the 1970s movie The
Warriors, with other groups of friends dressed as rival gangs “The
Baseball Furies” and “The Top Hats.” It’s a great idea, and there’s
plenty of booze and hospitality, but the party is simply not
cracking. I decide to make my way up north to a kegger in
Roosevelt.
The mood is much wilder at “Club Sandwich,” with a living room full
of people dancing to a carefully guarded iPod rap playlist. Everyone is
socializing and laughing and doing keg stands, except one guy
who has secluded himself downstairs with a guitar and a loop pedal,
having a ball playing with himself. The party crowds into the living
room for the midnight countdown and screams at the top of its lungs;
random pairs grab each other and make out. Everyone is dancing. The one
enormously abrasive guy at the party throws beer all over the dance
floor, and no one thinks it’s cool. As soon as he steps outside he is
followed by a girl who dumps an entire beer on his head, waits
for the last drop to splash down, spikes the cup, and lets him know
definitively, “You’re an asshole.” Someone outside asks him why
she did that and he replies with a sigh, “It’s all relative.” Same
shit, another year. JEFF KIRBY
Want to get sloppy drunk and explain to The Stranger, for
way, way, too long, that The Wire is the best show on TV, and
that seriously, dude, you have to check it out, promise me you’ll watch
it? E-mail the date, place, time, and party details to partycrasher@thestranger.com,
and I promise I’ll have a look.