Happy New Year

Here it is, New Year’s Eve, a night that will define the lives of so many people. Not so much the ones staying up late at home with a room full of comfort food and booze, or just the favorite soft drinks, but the ones that venture out into the night to find some good cheer among the drunken establishments charging expensive door fees just to mingle with a bunch of other folks just like themselves.

They make TV shows and movies about those generations, age 21-35, many of whom have no children, or if they do a parent is watching them for the evening, playing board games and eating all that comfort food, waiting for the ball to drop in New York City!

There is a special feeling of renewal that comes with the  new year and so, doing something the night before, a tradition, ritual even, we have been doing ever since we can remember was (is) a great way to celebrate that renewal.

Do we even know what we are doing? Or renewing?

Did you make a list of New Year’s resolutions? It’s not important, other than to add some long standing, unheeded tradition to the night and following day.

Gyms and health clubs have their busiest weeks in January, every January. “Let’s start working out!” How about this: stop drinking so much alcohol and eating so much of the bad food? We can do that and work out.

Man, with all the diet schemes out there, which also do pretty good this time of year, you’d think the United States of America would be the fittest, most perfect looking nation of people on Earth. But that’s not so.  There is more than one reason a bunch of us are fat fucks, but let’s start with this sobering number: about 42.2 % of Americans are obese, according to the NIH.

Portions, the insistent use of fructose in foods and just the downright laziness to stay active, live healthy, active lifestyles — those are the top reasons. We see the fast food commercials. You mean to tell me that double cheeseburger with all that gooey, drippy stuff is bad for me?

• Just an aside: The commercial for Jack in the Box’s two beef tacos was just on the groove tube. Man, I could go for a couple of those … by a couple I mean two orders of those, two in each order. I like two of the crunchy taco supremes!

A lot of fast food joints with their well lit drive thrus will be open throughout the evening and early morning hours so partiers can get slobbering drunk and then drool and dribble hot sauce and that special mayonnaise type creamy stuff as we lament the fact we are not getting laid tonight.

On our way home we could have just got a large thin crust — no, extra-large — special, with all the usual stuff — including pepperoni and sausage —  but no anchovies.

All that is contingent of course, on making it through the many sobriety check points between our places of all night drinking, the food establishment and home.

Sadly, Tarantino’s in Milwaukee, WI only delivers within five miles. Thankfully, we have a Leucadia’s Pizzeria right around the corner and they deliver. Usually I get the large deluxe.

Look at all the “specialty” pizzas they offer. Maybe I’m out of touch with my own fatness, but what’s the point of getting vegetarian pizza? When it comes to gastronomical excess, nothing says too much like a large pizza with double doses of meat, including ground beef, if I want to be honest.

Back to the phalanx of sobriety check points. If you’re staying at home eating popcorn and pizza watching New Year’s Day roll in from all over the world you are sitting pretty, probably sleeping no less. If you made the decision to drive yourself around after partying all night … good luck.

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Getting some sleep, missing midnight and transitioning to New Year’s Day.

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What’s very weird, different from my youth: The way the college bowl games are presented. There used to be an order in which we saw the games, going from the east to the west. They went well with the New Year’s Day festivities that always started with Catholic mass at St. Gregory the Great church on the southside of Milwaukee. And it was always cold AF in the Cream City. Currently in MKE it is … dear gawd! 15°f but, due to wind chill, it feels like 10°f.

Here in Sothern California it is in the low 60s, cloudy and very rainy. I’m cool with that.

New Year’s Day, the holiday, isn’t a Holy Day of Obligation. It is the — or was — the Feast of the Epiphany when the three Kings of the Orient visited the Holy Family in their barn stall, the Little Baby Jesus in the manger and all the animals milling about eating grass and grain.

Let’s not forget the big star in the sky that led the Three Kings across the Middle East to that scene, plus the vision that the Maji received telling them that the evil King Herod was going to kill all the new born baby boys to keep the King of the Jews (Jesus) from taking the throne in Jerusalem.

All the shit we learn growing up that never leaves us.

So, now they, the ubiquitous “they,” have implemented this bowl playoff series to name the best college football team in America. Who needs it? I always preferred flipping from one channel to another watching the various bowl games around the U.S. of A, eating all the wonderful snacks, as we see the Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Gator Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl and the Grandaddy of bowl games, the Rose Bowl. It was always the top Big 10 team vs. the top Pacific 10 team. Plus, everyone would argue about which team was the best. That was always entertaining.

Change …

College football wasn’t the main focus on Three Kings Day (Día de los Reyes), it was mainly about family and having a great meal in the afternoon. I miss it … but not very much. Truthfully, the football doesn’t matter all that much to me, unless the Wisconsin Badgers are playing. I enjoyed the family, talking, laughing, hugging and otherwise loving one another. That’s what I miss, every day.

In today’s Rose Bowl it’s the Alabama Crimson Tide vs. the Indiana Hoosiers. My favorite in this game — because their starting Q.B. is Californian Fernando Mendoza and his family celebrates this holiday in the Cuban tradition, I assume.  The Crimson Tide must be feeling like Deacon Blue right about now …

It’s getting late in the day, so Happy New Year, especially those of you that didn’t get through the sobriety checkpoints and found yourself in that wonderful drunk tank. Maybe you’re still there, but it’s likely your family is not impressed.

If the judge gives you the choice of going to jail for six months to a year, or attend 12-Step meetings twice per week for six months, pick the meetings. Don’t be one of those that weighs the options, trying to figure out if you can survive jail for six months to a year. The bologna sandwiches get tired very fast — from what I’ve heard …. Plus, who knows, you might change your life for the better … or maybe get yourself another DUI.

So to end on a happy, positive note: We are one year closer to being rid of that orange convicted felon in the White House, Zohran Mamdani is officially the mayor of New York City and Chica and Jackson are in good health!

Happy New Year!