Year of the War Horse

The night started out sensibly enough. After a couple we, that's Hunky Z, Kitty, Sonja and I, went for Japanese. An early meal before catching a movie then going home to say hello to 2012. Our New Year's Eves are not the farmyard clusterfuck they once were. Or so I thought.

Our food was good, the Chinese beer delicious. Hunky Z insisted he order us all green tea to go with our meal. When it came he poured it into one of two thermoses he produced from the bag he had brought in with him. From the second thermos he poured us mushroom tea.

"New Years is a good time for hallucinations," he insisted like he had just thought of the idea.

We ate and we drank then we went to see the movie Hunky had also insisted we see. War Horse. "Nothing better than hallucinating and watching shit get blown up," Hunky further insisted like he had just thought of that idea too.

Lots of shit got blown up but War Horse turned out to be something of a boo-hoo movie. A big over-sized over-budget Lassie of a film. The four of us sat there hallucinating and crying our eyes out. I liked it, but then again, I am a sucker for horse shit.

It was the first time in years I have sat in a movie house that was almost full. It felt cool, like we had travelled back in time or something. Cost $5 to get in. Lots of First Nations families were there. They all looked real happy to be out on New Year's Eve with their kids having fun.

Back home we drank up and listened to records before we turned on the television shortly before midnight. I had recently lucked into a dandy pile of used '60s and early '70s records that were most suitable for the occasion. Tonto's Expanding Headband, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Spirit, Love, Zappa, and Quintessence's first album. Quintessence came out of the same lysergic scene as Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies. Some real groovy shit, motherfuckers.

It was a nice night. A night that leaves me feeling inexplicably energized for our New Year. A night which made up for the Hammer rolling in and eating the shit of the homeless just before Hunky and Kitty came by. She had not done so for quite some time but she remembered the routine that follows her shit eating behaviour very well. First the back yard hose down, then the long luxurious bath, which I gave her because Sonja told me, "I'm not fucking doing it!" It was not the stinkiest shit of the homeless. The Hammer smelled pretty good, for a change, once I was done.

Today it is a day at the races. Good luck today nearly always means good luck all year. See you motherfuckers by the finish line.