New Years Eve in New York

And shame on you too.





With all due respect to New York City, that is the last place on earth that I would spend New Years Eve. Maybe it's my California blood, but the thought of standing in Times Square with a million people freezing my butt off and waiting for some ball to be dragged down to the street just doesn't do it for me. Nor do I get any enjoyment from watching it all "unfold" on TV.

I recall a couple of years back seeing Dick Clark (probably in a Hollywood studio) "MC"-ing the festivities and switching to the unlucky reporters on the freezing street below.

"Hi, where are YOU from?"

"Bullsnuts, Oklahoma, and I wanna say hi...."

Then Dick would introduce a "live" performance by Aero-Smith or some other rock group, which was actually an old video-tape of one of their concerts. Great. The least he could have done was show an old tape of Little Richard. Now that I would have enjoyed.

This New Years Eve, we were on our way to a party, and while I was waiting for the missus to get ready, it was 5 minutes to midnight in New York. So there I was watching the ever-inane Anderson Vanderbilt Cooper with some foul-mouthed comedienne named Kathy Griffin (I had never heard of her). Cooper, who is lost without a tele-prompter in front of him, was trying to fill in the last few minutes while Griffin was going off on some profane tirade.

And there, waiting to pull the switch or whatever it is that makes that stupid ball come down were none other than Mr and Mrs Corruption themselves-Bill and Hillary Clinton. Bill was standing there with that famous ---- eating grin on his face while the Duchess was doing what she always does in public. She was standing there clapping her hands with that Spade Cooley* look on her face.

(* Spade Cooley was a country and western music show MC back in the 50s in LA, who played the fiddle, stomped his feet and had a wild Hillary Clinton look on his face. He would always sign off his shows by telling viewers that if they didn't tune in next week, "Shame, shame on you". He eventually did life in prison for murdering his wife. Shame on him.)

Then, as the Magic Moment arrived, loudspeakers starting playing the old traditional tunes by Guy Lombardo and his Dead Canadians and Frank Sinatra doing, "New York, New York". The only thing missing was Lawrence Welk proclaiming, "Ah horrible-ah horrible ah".

I later heard that sometime after midnight, Ms Griffin started exchanging words with a heckler and put out some X-rated comments about something the guy had in his mouth. Shame on you, CNN ("The Most Trusted Name in News").

Next year, I think I'll watch MSNBC and see how Keith Olbermann handles it. With no more Bush to bash, MSNBC needs to give this guy something to do. His partner will probably be Rachel Maddow, and they will probably spend the entire evening talking about how great it is that George Bush isn't around any more.

Happy New Year, everybody. And all you folks in Times Square-please get in out of the cold.