What's Andy Cooking?

2004

Once again, my preconcieved notions fail to come around. Last night Andrew, Michelle, and I took part in First Night, the 'non-alcaholic,' city-wide celebration that actually originated here in Boston before spreading to the rest of the U.S.

After seeing a few things over the course of the evening, we decided to head over to the public library, where an event called 'At the Movies' was taking place. In their first year here, Andrew and Michelle had gone to something similar there for First Night that was a really cool look at silent film and Buster Keaton. Based on this, we headed for the Library.

By the time we got there, a huge line had formed that was waiting to get in. We took our chances and ended up a few of the last people before they closed the doors. We sat down in an auditorium sort of thing, and then took notice of the man in shirt and tie in front of an electric keyboard at the front. Turned out it wasn't a film thing at all.

Instead, we were treated to nearly a full hour of the 'At the Movies' Quartet, singing such 50s and 60s hits as "Yellow Submarine," "Imagine," and "The Look of Love." Picture that SNL skit where the schoolteaching couple jokes about their personal problems between medleys of popular songs. It was that cheesy.

The scariest thing was how many people there were seriously enjoying themselves. I mean, it was all I could do to hold back from laughing out loud, and here's the guy in front of me bobbing his head and signing along to at least half the songs. It was like so much of that sweet Velveeta, oozing into my New Years celebration.

On a related note, there were a few people last night who celebrated with a good amount alcahol. Just before the subway pulled up to take us back to Andrew's, two groups of kids showed up cussing and threatning each other. One group looked like a bunch of Abercrombie college boys trying to be hard and the other looked like South Boston High School freshmen trying to be hard.

After yelling and shoving in the station for a while, they all decided to get into the same packed subway car in order to continue the near brawl. There was a whole lot of pushing and shoving, and somehow I ended up sandwiched between the Abercrombies and the Southies. The good portion of my ride home was spent trying to figure out how to slyly get my 'Merry Tubachristmas' hat off without drawing attention to myself.

For you high school guys who might remember, it was like the N.E.B. or Browns Point Cru all over again. All hardcore talking about shooting people in the head and pulling knifes while they readjust their Nautica jackets and check themselves in the subway windows.

Between that and the four person harmonies on the Flinstones Theme, I don't know which was the more painful part of the night.