Hokay.
I for one will be going to bed at my usual time of nine o'clock this evening. Bollocks to all this crappy New Year's Eve toss.
I'll kick off my last post of 2007 by checking my resolutions from last year to see how I did:
On New Year's Eve last year, I resolved to:
- Be less of a miserable old bugger;
- Well. That one never stood a fucking chance, did it?
- Stop kicking children in supermarkets;
- Neither did that. Take away all my fun why don't ya?
- Get a girlfriend (Hah!);
- Astonishingly, that actually happened in February and is still happening!
- Keep blogging;
- I flagged a bit during the summer, but I'm still here, so that's two resolutions kept.
- Keep getting 100 percent in my Japanese exams;
- Easy Peasy! Still an unbroken 100% record.
- Take up a new hobby; maybe macramé, caravanning or puffin-frottage.
- Nope. Didn't do that.
- Eat a dolphin;
- Nor that. I couldn't even get hold of any whale sashimi this year. Arse!
Those were the "official" resolutions and I actually made three out of seven, which surprised me greatly.
My "unofficial" resolutions were to:
- Offend people;
- Swing wildly between black misery and overexcited childish euphoria, with nothing in between;
- Spend more time stuck on trains;
And all three of those I kept assiduously.
Here's a quote(ish) from last year's "New Year's Eve" post to remind you why I shall not be partaking of drunken revelry tonight (nor any other New Year's Eve as long as I live):
"The one thing I shall NOT be doing is going out tonight.
Between the ages of nine and forty-five, I spent every single Old Year's Night (musicians always call it Old Year's Night, rather than New Year's Eve because New Year's Eve suggests hope and Old Year's Nights are festering pits of hopeless black despair and miserable fucking despondency) on stage and believe me, there's no better aversion therapy than that.
Here's a typical Old Year's Night for Old Dive:
Stay sober all day!
Pack up all the gear and drive to the studio (or wherever, depending on the year). Unpack all the gear and load it into the truck/van/bus.
Drive for hours to some posh fucking hotel.
Carry all the gear up endless flights of stairs and down miles of dingy corridors, then set it all up and soundcheck everything (including such immeasurable joys as listening to the drummer hit the snare drum once a second for five minutes while Rod gets the fucking levels right).
Sit in some miserable fucking hotel room, stone cold sober, munching crap snacks and drinking crap hotel coffee and watching suicidally dire crap TV from five (when we have to be out of the ballroom so they can set the tables) until eleven pm, by which time we are all ready to kill someone and wired from all the caffeine.
Get changed into fucking dickie bows.
Go on stage and play (SOBER) until three in the fucking morning, sometimes backing some fucking washed-up chart has-been who thinks they're God (The Bachelors are exempt from that … supposedly old and embarrassingly naff, they turned out to be virtuoso musicians, great fun and fucking good company … the only Old Year's Night gig I've ever enjoyed), all the while having to stare at disgusting fucking drunks in party hats who are ripped to the tits, pawing and slobbering over equally pissed pretty girls you'll never, ever get to paw and slobber over, who are trying pathetically to dance and falling all over the monitor speakers (I hate you all forever).
Pull fucking party poppers off hot amps before they catch fire.
Smile (the worst bit of all).
Make our miserable fucking way back upstairs and change again, then wait hours for the drunks to piss off before spending a soul-destroying hour breaking down all the gear and packing it away.
Drive back to the studio, soberly waving at all the traffic police who are just as fucking miserable at having to work all night on the set of "Night Of The Living Drunks".
Repack all the stuff in our cars.
Drive home, sober and homicidal at breakfast time vowing NEVER to do it again.
(er … I'm not sounding just a teensy bit bitter here, am I? … Yes? … Good!) …
Much to the falling-over amazement of all my session musician buddies (I'll think of your suffering as I snuggle into my pillow, you poor sods), I made a break for it at forty-six and have been on the run ever since, refusing all offers, no matter how desperate and cash-laden they have been (and they have been).
The upshot of which is that for the past two years (Three years now!), my Old Year's Nights have been blissfully relaxing and I've been asleep well before midnight.
Tonight I will be doing the same again. I'll watch a DVD after dinner, then take a book and a scotch to bed around nine. Ahhh … bliss …
So enjoy your drunken revelries one and all. You're more than welcome to them."
So now you know.
Decades of aversion therapy have left me with a deeply ingrained and truly seething hatred of New Year's Eve and all who sail in her.
I have stood, year after year, decade after decade, soberly watching with mounting disgust and abhorrence the binge-drunk antics of New Year's Eve revellers and feeling the deep hatred and bile-bitter loathing settle heavily on my cold black heart.
I make no resolutions for 2008.
It's just another fucking year.
Enjoy tonight if you must, but spare a thought for those poor fuckers up on stage.
God, I hate it all!
12 comments:
We're staying up all night - as you do in this part of the world - and light up the fireworks and watch tv BECAUSE the news will be all about how many people lost their finger, or an eye, or blew up their hand or some other part of their body due to stupidly using firecrackers!
Then of course there's all that food! Yummy yum yum! I can't wait. It's 825pm now in Manila and I'm having to keep Thaea, my baby girl, company coz she's afraid of all firecrackers. Myko, my little prince, is busy barking downstairs at every firecracker lit. Great times!
The sun was shining and the weather was mild today it was glorious!
Dive, can you help stop 2008 rolling in for a few more days? I can't leave here just yet. :(
Happy New Year, too ya! Don't forget - you're joining me at the ice rink this Saturday.
Happy New Year, Joy.
Feel free to bring some warm and sunny weather back here; we certainly need it!
I'll be around on Saturday as usual.
Oh dear Dive - you wouldn't want to see M.B on a night like tonight. Devilish party-goer that he is, he fits into the category of "drunken reveller" although he would most adamantly deny that he was ever drunk as he only ever has "2 beers". Anyway, he's asleep now so things are quiet on the home front. Can't spoil his fun now, can we?
Happy 2008 anyhoo8. I just hope that it's not going to be 41 degrees again tomorrow. Sheesh, I'm all wrung out.
xxx Mme B
You are SUCH a grouch! Tut. Nine o'clock good grief i couldn't do that when i don't have to get up in the morning. My resolution IS to go to bed earlier though so you must teach me. Well done on the girlfriend front though hey. Now, if she's with you at 9 o'clock then going to bed early has a whole new meaning, of which i approve.
Have a good evening then Dive, I wish you erm...er... a Happy Day tomorrow. lots of love x
Mme and Lynn: Thank you so much, and Happy New Year.
Mme: I would be grateful if you'd ask Monsieur to please keep the noise down tonight.
And Lynn: after all these years of going to bed at nine and getting up in the middle of the night my body clock can not do anything else.
See you in 2008.
XOX
I suppose we will be drinking (as we have done over the whole Christmas period), going to bed late and falling asleep while Jools Bloody Holland is on the telly, but in a hardcore grumpy mood, so can we be excused?
By the way, The Bachelors once got onto the front page of a local paper because THEY STAYED OVERNIGHT AT ONE OF THE PUBS IN MY HOME TOWN WHEN THEIR TOURBUS BROKE DOWN. I think it's the only exciting celebrity-related incident that's happened there.
Happy New Year. Ho ho.
Happy New Year, Betty.
That Old Year's Night night The Bachelors had come out without any de-icer so we spent ages chipping ice off all the windows on their bus. It's a wonderful life … I might post on the more bizarre acts I've played with one day.
As for Jools, I'll watch that on my Mac tomorrow when I can skip all the boring talky bits.
See you next year.
Hey don't knock being sober - I spend every day of the year like that. No wonder I'm a miserable old fart.
Happy New year, Rich!
I just used to hate having to stand there stone cold sober and smile and entertain drunken imbeciles for hours on end.
That's why I'm now off to bed.
G'night!
:) Given the alternative I think I would rather give blood (no, that's not something I've ever done or intend to unless I'm unconscious)
But see, you've survived another old year's night and rested.
Thank you, Isadora; I have indeed survived. I was asleep long before midnight and awoke this morning refreshed.
Pity it's such a crap year so far.
I showed this post to Bing and she sat there nodding and laughing. She's been there and done that SO many times. This was the first year that she had no gig and she and I were in bed by 11 and snoring like the old farts that we are.
Happy New Year, you sweet musician man.
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