New Years Eve...yes, still with Journey Damnit!

I promised myself last year that I wouldn't allow Journey to bum their way into my New Years Eve party. But some asshole in San Francisco at ALL TIMES feels the need to put a Journey song on every. jukebox. ever. And tonight was no exception.

That means YOU Steve Perry!!

On that note, it was a more subdued holiday this year. So much so, that it's taken me three weeks to write this. I wanted a party like last year, a bar hopping extravaganza with special guests B-Money and Colby, with appearances by the WHOLE GANG and introducing Leanna - the love of Tony's life. Sadly, it was not meant to be. Let's just say the Holiday season put a sour taste in everyone's mouths and no one was feeling up to bar hopping on a Monday night. Hell, not even I was feeling it this year and I had the Crow...why couldn't he be in my fabulous introduction? Because there was no crowd this year - the gang were sick, or working, or broke, or headed to another shindig. At the end of the day only Tom, Charlie, the Crow and I survived. Not a bad group to have if I say so myself and because even we were on the fence, in the words of Eddie Izzard, "you're British, so scale it down a bit".

 Possibly one of the funniest comedy specials ever!! And Action Transvestites!! And filmed in SF!! Ok, I'll stop.

So in an effort to listen to one of the greatest comics ever, we decided to stay at one bar and celebrate there. I chose the Blackthorn Tavern (a frequent guest in my stories for the past year) because: 1) they take credit cards; 2) there's a pool table; 3) easy access for drunk homies to get home. We showed up around 8 pm and it was dead...absolutely dead. I questioned whether or not I was even in San Francisco at that point. Even the Crow was looking for homeless guys outside just to make sure there wasn't a tsunami warning we may have missed. Luckily, Tom and Charlie suggested pool and after Tom paid a dollar for the table that was actually free (tee hee), we played...and played...and played.

                              Tom/Charlie - 1: Crow/Commander - 0      Commander/Tom -1: Charlie/Crow - 0

Tom/Crow - 1: Charlie/Commander - 0

So I'm an average pool player at best. Luckily, around 11 people started showing up and we were officially drunk. New Years party hats were passed around, crass jokes were told and we could still do better math than the bimbo bartender who kept trying to give us the wrong change (and who said brunettes can't be bimbos)? We wished more of our friends could be there but at the same time, it was nice to spend time in smaller group - focus on everyone. So, in pictorial order is how the evening progressed:

 I could have added captions but I almost think it's funnier to wonder. We ended up having a good time and no one made any New Years Resolutions! Hell, I was so drunk that I even sang along to "Don't Stop Believing" when the manditory person put it on the jukebox (Im....so ashamed)!

So after a drunken bus/train ride home involving the following: a guy wandering down the train tracks in the tunnel which paused all trains; one of us repeatedly telling the cops in said tunnel that they were drunk...you know, just so they were aware of our drunkenness; same person standing on a wrapped tampon (not as gross as you think) and a narrow avoidance of a possible race riot. There was no Star Trek: The New Generation watching that night as we all immediately hit the sack.

Low key, funny and (most importantly for the Crow and I) our first New Years together. As we were drifting off to sleep he said, "that was fun. We should do that next year! You can just threaten everyone, they'll come". Maybe, but all good things have to come to an end and besides - there's more to explore than drunken hijinks in the Inner Sunset....we still have Polk Street!

In closing, here's a picture of a Bacon Bloody Mary....because I can