5.Was the New Year’s Eve Party a success?
Big Time!
It was Huck’s turn to be center-stage, a hero. Up until now, he’d mostly kept it under wraps – as to what’s up with the party.
Back in Minnesota, Huck was part-founder of the Red House Records Label, along with Bob Feldman – another of the Sunday morning softball playing friends, now deceased. Folk musician Greg Brown was part of that crowd. Greg was a recurring minstrel on The Prairie Home Companion Show with Garrison Keillor. When Greg heard about the trip, he told Huck to put the Sunnyside Folk Club on the list if the RV ended up in New York City. Huck didn’t put it on the list, but his #5 (to get on the bus) was an old musician friend, Brendan. They knew each other from playing together as part of the reggae band Pressure Drop, doing regular gigs at the Longhorn Bar in Minneapolis back in the late 70s. Brendan later moved to Westport, Connecticut, a few miles outside New York City along the Long Island Sound, and set-up a recording studio.
“Wow, would be great to see you if you guys make it this way,” Brendan said when Huck called to see if he’d mind an RV in his driveway a couple nights, “This place is big enough to hold all of you.”
Later, when it was clear we might be in NYC around New Year’s Eve, Huck called Brendan back, “What are you doing New Year’s Eve?”
“Well, boy, if you guys are in town I’m throwing a big party – got my musician friends from the City all coming up. We’re going to jam – sort of a Hootenanny.”
“Say, you remember our buddy, Greg Brown? He said to look up the Sunnyside Folk Club if I got to NYC.”
“I’m part of that Club,” Brendan said. “Some of those guys are coming-up. Even got Steff Reed and the Mountain Maidens coming. You know them?”
“Heard of ‘em, yah. Well great, we’ll be there! Remind me to tell you about the Hoot I organized in San Francisco.”
Four p.m. New Year’s Eve, 2022, with a chill in the air, folks started arriving at Brendan’s. We’d been there all week, a not-so-quiet week being world famous. We’d asked FBI guy Stover not to disclose where we were staying and had the Land Yacht parked behind the studio, so as not to be seen from the street – what, now the 5th, 6th, maybe 7th time? we’d become too popular. Patty spent most the week quietly editing her tapes into the start of a movie. “ What’s the theme? What’s the theme?” she kept saying to herself. “Is it a murder mystery? A travel adventure? (Not a fishing trip.) Is it all about politics? Is it about what is fun? Is it a romance? A find yourself?” All of the above, she decided, but into one movie!???
Not too long after the music started, Sally was talking with Rocky about what a great trip it’s been and how nice it’s been to get to know him – “despite your nasty sense of humor.”
“Well Sally B,” Rocky replied, “I’m glad you never took offense, but I’ve been meaning to tell you – you were a lousy Patty Hearst, and you’ve still got a lot to learn about what is fun. Smoke a joint with me?”
“Oh, you’re such a jerk,” Sally rejoined, “but I’m learning.” Then she shouted across the room to Huck: “Hey, Huck . . . Rocky says this music is second-rate – can’t you do better?”
“Good one,’ Rocky said laughing.
Then the surprise of the night! Huck had been back in touch with his Valley-of-the-Vapors friends back in Hot Springs and half the members of the “Hulahoops” showed-up and jammed right in. (His L.A. band couldn’t make it.)
Just about 8 p.m., the Land Yacht left for Manhattan with some of the Mountain Maidens and one of the Hulahoops crammed on board. We’d cleared it with the police chief we were going to keep the party tamped-down, just park the RV on a corner by City Hall, then head out to the bars and Times Square for midnight. Maybe start a group sing-along if enough people came just to see us.
“Good,” the Chief told us, “but your frickin’ announcement has resulted in blocking off Broadway all the way to Fulton Street. Every cop in the city who wants overtime is getting it.”
Over the course of the evening, parked at Broadway and Murray, we were Facebooking and Skyping with all sorts of friends we’d made all across the country. Most significantly, according to Skip, Susie had the cowboys in Boulder singing with the Indians in Santa Fe off the same song sheet – not just about politics, but “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land,” plus some song Huck was trying to teach everybody called “Cowboys and Indians” – by some obscure band, but with Huck’s new lyrics it was pretty funny.
“Must have put some good stuff in that peace pipe,” Rocky said to Tsoodzif (on camera) – and off camera to Skip: “You know, I keep winning these bets. Fun keeps trumping politics every time.”
Another highlight was when Tex and Austin got on – doing New Year’s Eve in Laredo – and Rocky zinged them with, “. . . and you know what #1 is right, assholes? We’ll let as many as you fuckin’ Texans as we can into the new government, just to keep things as dumbed down as humanly possible.”
We never heard from Sunshine and Peaches.
Then, along about midnight, Patty doing reel-to-reel highlights of our adventures on a big-screen TV . . . who strolls up? It’s Andy Yang! “You owe me five sawbucks,” Skip said to Rocky, “remember that bet?”