The New Year

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

I certainly hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year.

A local bowling alley had a New Years Eve celebration that Kathleen, Ariel and I attended (Caroline wouldn’t have liked the loud noise and disco lights.) That ran until 8 PM, and then all of us (Caroline included) went to a party some neighbors were having down the street. Caroline ran out of gas ten minutes shy of midnight and fell asleep in my lap. Ðìçk Clark was looking a bit better than last year, but the damage from the stroke was still evident. It’s clear they’re grooming Ryan Seacrest to take over for him, which is kind of…I dunno…eh.

Some great marathons on TV, I have to say. James Bond on Encore, South Park on Comedy Central, Twilight Zone on Sci-Fi. If you’re an up-all-nighter as I used to be, plenty to watch while everyone else has gone to bed.

Hope everyone got home safely and didn’t get too drunk.

PAD

35 comments on “The New Year”

  2. Agree that Ðìçk Clark was better than last year but I still think it would be better all around if he were no longer hosting. I just find it embarrassing to watch.

  3. I,

    Do you find it embarrassing to watch or does it simply make you uncomfortable to see his disability? I’m not sure how you would be embarrassed unless you have some personal investment or connection to the man.

  4. I’d rather watch Ðìçk Clark host the show if he had 2 more strokes than watch Ryan Seacrest. Seacrest is just so full of himself its sickening.

    Ðìçk Clark is such a well liked and respected individual; he is a staple of New Year’s Eve, and my gut feeling is most people would rather see him on air, even if he is struggling, than know he is too sick to NOT be on TV.

    Mike

  7. We had a nice evening, thank you for asking – spent the evening at a annual Pyjama Party some friends throw and got to show off the groovy new Monty Python Killer Rabbit slippers my beloved wife got me for Christmas 🙂

    and no – not too drunk.

  8. We had a nice evening, thank you for asking – spent the evening at a annual Pyjama Party some friends throw and got to show off the groovy new Monty Python Killer Rabbit slippers my beloved wife got me for Christmas 🙂

    and no – not too drunk.

  9. We had a nice evening, thank you for asking – spent the evening at a annual Pyjama Party some friends throw and got to show off the groovy new Monty Python Killer Rabbit slippers my beloved wife got me for Christmas 🙂

    and no – not too drunk.

  11. Yeah, Ðìçk Clark just doesn’t scream “Rockin’ New Year’s” to me anymore, and it’s just kind of painful to watch.

    Ryan Seacrest annoys me, though, partly because he seems so fake and shallow, and partly because I happened to be listening to the radio when he made his first broadcast as a DJ on L.A.’s Star 98.7, and he said he’d never had a job before (although I now know he must have been joking, as he hosted children’s game shows on Nickelodeon before that), and I remember thinking, “Ðámņ it, this guy’s the same age as me, this is his first job, and his life’s already set for him!,” while I was still just a college intern. Little did I know how right I was.

  13. I never cared much for the televised New Year’s Eve shows. I’m just happy for Ðìçk Clark that he’s recovered from his stroke as much as he has.

    I spent New Year’s Eve as I spend it every year: Helping my wife out with her annual music gig.

  14. I’m with those who would rather see Ðìçk Clark with all the impairments than Ryan Seacrest with all of his, um, abilities.

    Also really like the Christine Aguillera (sp?) bit. Nice retro vibe and she looked great. I used to think of her as the skanky Brittney Spears but now I think Brittney Spears is the skanky Brittney Spears.

    I spent my New Years Day driving home from Upstate New York. 12 hours. Thanks to all those who satyed home and sobered up, the life you saved may have been my own.

    Today it’s time to enjoy some Christmas presenty goodness–will it be the deluxe OLDBOY or LADY VENGENCE? Or SEVEN SAMURAI again (really, I can’t emphasize enough how totally worth it the $50 new deluxe version is).

  15. I think it is great Ðìçk Clark has recovered some and was there if he wanted to be, but I also did feel embarrassed and pained to watch. Still, let him do what he wants

  16. Happy New Year Peter!

    When is the next New Frontier hardcover coming?

    I’ve been saving ‘Missing In Action’ since my last birthday. My plan is to wait for the final book in the current trilogy to be released, then…

    RE-read ‘After the Fall’, READ ‘Missing in Action’ (for the first time), and READ the new ‘New Frontier’ novel… back to back to back.

    I can’t wait!
    Keith

    P.S. Thank John Ordover for turning me onto New Frontier. Back when I went to his (then) Manhattan S&S office to get a copy of ‘Imzadi II’ from him, he asked me if I’d read any of the New Frontier books. When I told him I hadn’t, he gave me the hardcover omnibus of books 1-4, plus books 5 & 6.

    They’ve been my favorite, and most anticipated Star Trek books ever since!

  18. “I’ve been saving ‘Missing In Action’ since my last birthday. My plan is to wait for the final book in the current trilogy to be released, then…”

    Nice plan. One slight hitch: MIA isn’t the middle part of a trilogy. It’s the second half of a two-parter. So you’ve been holding off for no real reason.

    Happy New Year. Go read the book.

    PAD

  19. I had a fantabulous New Year’s Eve. Did poetry and dinner and Java Monkey and then three loud bands at the EARL. The only thing I had to drink was a glass of wine with dinner–the rest of the night I stuck to Coca-Cola. It rocked.

  20. I agree when people say that it was difficult to watch Ðìçk Clark. And everyone calm down… saying it was hard to watch him is not an insult at people recovering from a disability. Making a comment that Whitney Houston doesn’t look good anymore is not a slap in the face against people in recovery.

  21. “too drunk”? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

    Edinburgh Hogmanay street party concert cancelled due to gale force winds, it’s *astonishingly* cold here and wolves and bears are allegedly coming down from the glens to pick off stray tourists…

    Stayed home with family and completed Gilmore Girls Season 6 DVD marathon session.

    Happy New Year to one and all!!

    Cheers!

  22. Also really like the Christine Aguillera (sp?) bit. Nice retro vibe and she looked great.

    My opinion on her went up after I heard her do a cut for Herbie Hancock on his last album. Woman’s got great chops–and anybody who gets to work with Herbie Hancock gets an automatic 10 coolness points in my book…

  24. Happy New Year, everybody. I’m sure those that know me around here will be happy to know I didn’t get at all drunk. That would be dangerous.

    Peter J Poole–were you not on the other side of the pond, you and my wife would likely get on like a house on fire. We’ve got every season of Gilmore Girls here, as well.

    Bill Myers–step on the cat? (Note I didn’t ask about the squirrel.)

    (Ðámņ.)

    As far as Ðìçk Clark goes, I’m glad he’s doing, well, better than he was. I just can’t get into watching that ball drop. Besides, space nut that I am, I’ve always thought that launching the New Year should involve launching the ball, but then I found out how much that bloody thing cost.

    Just thinking about that, am I being too Freudian when I think of the ball dropping and New Yorkers’ voices suddenly getting deeper?

  25. I worked that night. Which meant I had to watch Seacrest. Since I have managed to avoid his career after seeing a few episodes of “Double Dare,” I realized how right I was. He’s still the same oily DJ type he was back then, but he doesn’t have the excuse of talking to kids for his lubricated behavior.

    And did Ðìçk Clark write his own lines? Or were they written for him? Yes, it’s awful to see how the stroke disabled him, but he is still a thinking person, isn’t he? His words reminded me of the person who writes the script for the people who narrate the Thanksgiving and Christmas parades.

    And can’t Ðìçk Clark Productions be honest? Stand before the camera and say, “Well, that’s it for the live portions. We’re getting the hëll out of Times Square and going to bed. You folks who are stupid enough to keep watching, here’s some songs by B-list performers that were taped a few weeks ago, pretending they’re doing a live party for you. Hosted by two girls with no last name, pretending they’re big classy one-stars like Madonna, Liberace or Osama. Seacrest…out!”

    You guys watching the marathons were way better off.

  28. Jay-
    That is actually what we watched.

    I just wish they had shown Animal Crackers.

    It was Ariel’s first exposure to the Brothers Marx

  29. Cool. I don’t get TCM, and The Twiglight Zone is already a big tradition, so I couldn’t see the marathon. Would have been fun to see a movie or two though.

  30. Glad to hear everybody had a good New Year.

    Without going into the whole sordid saga, which I’m sure nobody wants or needs to hear anyway, suffice it to say that New Year’s eve could have gone better in my little corner of the world. New Year’s day, though, my family came over to hang out and we had a good time, and my wife’s folks came into town a couple days later, so things are looking up, at least.

    Well, here’s hoping everybody has a happy and healthy year!

    -Rex Hondo-

  31. I was hoping and praying that Ðìçk Clark would walk over to Ryan Seacrest, grab him by the back of the neck and drain his strength and youth and lifeforce.

    I sincerely hope to see Ryan Seacrest making a living wage at a GM assembly line somewhere… because I despise the notion of that talentless hack making millions for reading shite off a card.

  32. Kath, when I referred to everyone as “philistines”, I didn’t mean our incomparable host & hostess. 😉 Now let’s just take the elephant to Alabama, where the Tuskaloosa. And remember: Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.

  33. Fantastick Four just keeps getting better. Why does it have to be a mini?

    and I know this belongs in another thread but–

    I put my nickel (with the betting odds at currently 38 to 1) that the Bridget’s solution is to set up shop in Bette Noir.

  34. Happy slightly belated New Year everyone!

    I spent New Year’s at a nice quiet house party at my sister’s apartment with about a dozen of our closest friends. There was drinking and I spent the night, but not because I got drunk; by the time the party wound down all the bus/subway routes I needed to get home had already stopped running for the night. It was kind of nice to have a quiet party actually because we were all kind of partied out from Christmas/Chanukah, my birthday and other assorted December celebrations.

    Oh, and I woke up the next morning with her cat on my head. Which was quite funny because when I woke up I was still a bit buzzed from the drink so it took my awhile to figure out why my head had suddenly grown a tail.

    Sabrina

  35. I spent New Years Eve working because football, hockey, and basketball were still going on all day that day and some genius decided to schedule a game in seattle and 10 PM Eastern. I think when 12:00 AM hit, I was watching an episode of “24” from season 4, waiting for the NBA game to end.

    After I got off at 12:30-45ish, I found some divey bar in town and had a few drinks and watched a cover band play. They played “Whiskey In A Jar” by Mettalica, so I guess that means the night wasn’t a TOTAL loss.

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