NYE!

I must say that I've come to expect New Years Eve to be somewhat of a let down. This year was the exception, it was fabulous! Unfourtunatly much of what made the night so great can not be spoken of here, such is the ways of debauchery and antics, never the less I must share. As most of you know I worked, rigging for Nicole and Alicia's cloth piece in City Hall that was commissioned for First Night.



They had shows at 5pm and 8:45pm, and both were amazing! (despite working with a difficult choir director; Connie Kirk!) I arrived at City Hall (on bike of course) around 2pm, wearing black shirts and a black three button pin-stripe suit and my bike shoes (white w/ red, gray,and black accents), Nicole later gave me a red miniature rose for my lapel. We were supposed to have rehearsal at 2pm that was pushed to 3pm, no problem. Around 2:30 we met Ivry, who was helping me with rigging, actually just lowering and raising the cloth. Once he arrived the four of us went to Austin Java for lunch. After lunch we had a short rehearsal and then Nicole, Ivry, and I walked over to see Graham Reynolds play a set from his show "DUKE!". We then booked it back for our 5pm show, it went alright, the cloth got cought up in Ali's swivel and prevented it from rotating, not a huge deal but not at all good. The show started about 10 min. late as we were waiting on the choir, their set then ran over an extra 10 min. so the girls didn't go on until ~5:35, unfourtinate as we lost some viewers who came to see the 5-5:30 set.



Shortly after the first set the grand procession came by City Hall so we all went out and watched that which was really fun. I then learned of (and more importantly how to sneak into!) a private party on the top level of the City Hall balcony (sponsored by Savvy Vodka and Live Oak Brewing!). As I was leaving the party to go get the others I passed Art Acevedo, APD Police Chief, who was on his way in, I said hi and let him know I thought he was doing a good job and wished him a happy new year! I then rallied the others to come up to watch the clock tower burn and snuck them in, after that we all ran back for our second show. The second show was great, started on time, fixed Ali's swivel, and we asked Connie to cut the set list back. We had a great audience, lobby was at capacity and people were gathered on all balcony levels looking in:


Larry Kolvord took the above two photos at the 5pm show, I just ripped them from the Statesman page.

After the show Ivry and I tore down all the rigging and stored it and then he went home :( I then grabed Jon-Michael and Evan, respective boyfriends of our stars Ali and Nicole, and we headed up to the party in search of the open bar! The girls changed and met us up there, and along the way ran into our friend Beatrice who gave us 'front door' access to the party. We brought up Ali's parents (who are awesome!) and family friends as well and we all danced the night away! Well... until midnight, then we watched an amazing fireworks show right from our front row balcony. Around 1am they closed the bar down and ran the last of us out... really just us by that point.

As we were walking to down to the garage (Nicole and Evan were leaving and I was picking up my bike helmet) I ran in to this bitch:



Now God bless his soul, I love him... but Stephen Moser total dissed my style! You see I'm a big fan of Mr. Moser and imideatly recognized him and approached to tell him how fabulous he looked, where upon he looked me up and down and sarcasticly said "nice shoes" drunkenly missing the sarcasm I replied "yes, there functional and fashionable", he then said "... functional" Haha! The best part is that I was on such a high from meeting him that I walked away not even realizing what had just happened until Nicole was like "he totally just dissed you!" Oh well, he was right, my outfit was pretty rediculous, I had been making fun of it all day myself.

Ali, her folks, Jon-Michael and I then went on to Cru, where the General Manager graciously served us free bottles of champaign, which he opened with a chrome saber! I later found this picture on my phone:



I also met a really cool girl named Hope there, she was visiting from Perth (AUS), I should have got her contact to have new years day brunch with her but I'm just terrible at that sort of thing. Come 2am we were once again on the move, after having shut down our second party. Jon-Michael and I ran for a bottle of champagne that he had in his car and we met the family at their hotel. We got some snacks, drank more champagne, and chatted until 5am. I then took a leisurely bike ride home, the perfect ending to a wonderful night.