After the banner year I just had, it only made sense to end it with a big, loud, booty-shakin' BANG. And I think this qualifies: I spent NYE at a Raindance/13Moontribe party at Cellspace. I went with Amy & Jay, and it was grand: a no-frills warehouse dance party, which was just what I wanted. It was also alcohol-free, only $15, and full of good energy. I got there at 10pm, and proceeded to dance & hoop the night away. At 3 or 4am, SarahFelicity & Shane called to say that their party (AnonSalon) was boring; I told them to c'mon over, and they did! Jay & Amy went home at the relatively reasonable hour of 6, while Sarah, Shane & I grooved on. When things wound down soon after that...we walked around the block, to the after-party!
The after-party, which begins on New Year's Day at 6am, is called Breakfast of Champions. It's put on by the Space Cowboys, the San Francisco DJ collective, and it's not at all about breakfast. Rather, I think it's about maintaining the illusion that it's still New Year's Eve for as long as possible. Or maybe it's about helping some of us find an answer to question How much is too much? Or perhaps they just thought it'd be an audacious thing to do. In any event, they do it every year.
But is there really a market for such a thing? Well, picture this: It's 6:45am on New Year's Day, and a long line of people, dressed in New Year's Eve finery, and coming from all-night NYE parties, are waiting in the early morning light...to get IN to the after-party. The person in front of me in line says 'Only in San Francisco!' -- and while I don't know if that's true, what I found when I did get inside sure made me feel good about the dance scene here.
I walk in and find that the place is PACKED. Already at least a thousand people, and more pouring in. And nearly everybody's dancing. Many of my friends, who were scattered among a dozen or more NYE parties, were now here. On the lower level, outside light is coming in, which I don't like, so I go upstairs. Upstairs is positively RAGING, and I stay up there dancing for the next five hours or so. The DJs were spinning nothing but breaks, non-stop, and I have an endless apetite for it. As long as they kept serving it up, it was impossible to stop dancing. Again and again they built it up & built it up, sending the increasingly cracked-out dancers into a frenzy. The crowd energy and the thumpin' bass were more than enough to keep everyone moving. In those occasional moments when I came into my head, I looked around me and truly marveled at the scene. It was a thing of beauty.
At some point I became aware of my knees: they hurt. I found my backpack (pushed to the back of the little stage, now occupied by impromptu go-go dancers), flipped open my phone, and saw that it was after NOON already. I went downstairs, but the music down there was equally infectious, and I was sucked in for another two hours of delirious breakbeats.
At 2pm, the party was still raging. But at this point, Hannah wanted to get something to eat, and as soon as my knees made me stop dancing, the adrenaline stopped pumping. Time to go. I went around and said goodbye to friends and dance comrades, and we walked out into a brilliant 2005.
I made it home just in time for sunset, and slept for fifteen hours. Happy New Year!