This is the New Year (Bandido Americano)

New Year's Eve has never meant much to me, I only really have a clear memory of one of mine. My parents took me and my brother to a hibachi restaurant where I was convinced every woman at our crescent-shaped table was a prostitute, before dumping us off on a slightly older cousin with odd ideas about child-rearing and age appropriateness, who took us to screening of short animation films, most of which were pornographic, terribly violent, or both. Back at the hotel, Oliver and I fought as we always did, it could have been over anything, but most likely about who got control of the tv remote. I stormed out, headed downstairs to the lobby, which was across from a ballroom where people were doing the electric slide. Women who should have known better justified offering me drinks because it was New Year's. I couldn't have been more than twelve.

I remember my friend Bob's New Year's (the year 2000?) better than my own. He got up early and went to airport to watch the sunrise.

Bob's a lot cooler than I am. He did a remix of a Sound of Arrows song that ended up being used on Gossip Girl, and he didn't even know what the show was (although he has been living in Japan the entire time it's been on - listen to his own music at Bobcat).

I resoluted last night to watch the sunrise over Cleveland from Lakewood park this morning. Some of the pictures turned out a little like Mark Rothko paintings, and probably better than seeing the sunrise in person.



Only one other person came down to the park. I'm not sure if they didn't want to jump the chainlink fence (which I learned today isn't that easy to do with snow boots on), or if I scared them, I kind of gave off the air of a crazy Vietnam veteran with my militaryesque coat and scarf across my face. I know I looked nothing like him, but for a second I thought about Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in Bolivia.

I saw the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean, from a plane, once. With the curve of the earth, the night sky was still starry and dark behind us, with a perfect sun rise in front. It wasn't that far off of pictures from space, I'm not sure any other sun rise will ever compare.