It’s Hollywood Baby: 2009 is 2000 and Fine

So here we are. 2009. Already the clever play on words have begun. Two thousand and wine. Two thousand and benign. Hilarious. So that’s already the feeling – it shall be a year of nothing much happening and so we shall all drink.

For me personally it’s a year of promise. A new city, a new way of life – so many LA freaks to meet, so little time. The festive season in Los Angeles is a strange one. Maybe because it comes so soon after Thanksgiving, which, just quietly, has to be the ultimate in holidays – a day when the entire purpose is to eat to excess with family. In Australia that day is Christmas day. The day when food is eaten, beers are consumed on a 30 degree day, Uncles fall asleep in the lounge-room recliner by 3pm, presents are unwrapped and faces are adorned with fake smiles over unwanted gifts. In Los Angeles it’s similar…well the fake smile bit anyway. Although that’s more to do with overzealous cosmetic surgery. But because Thanksgiving is the family day, Christmas is seen more as a day when the ‘Transplants’ get together. An no that’s not another cosmetic surgery reference – mind you, the event of Tori Spelling’s breasts finally coming together at some point is long overdue. No, transplant refers to almost everyone who lives in Hollywood – as we have all been transplanted from another place (and in some instances a whole other time and fashion). Therefore Christmas day becomes a day when people are brought together to share a common feeling – being on the other side of the world, away from family, and all chasing a dream.

The other abnormality in the US is that Christmas is not the main school and work break of the year. There is no 6 week long break like the Australian summer school holidays – here it’s like just an extended long weekend. School goes back the week after New Years and everyone is back at work. Which in my mind doesn’t give you anywhere near enough time to recover from NYE. I know I don’t sober up til at least the 6th January. And anyway, it just seems wrong to be back at work when the third cricket test is still in progress.

Speaking of NYE, I’ve decided unless you are an A-list Hollywood star or a serious college football fan, Los Angeles is not really the place to be. Being on the West Coast of the USA means you are one of the last cities in the world to celebrate. It makes you feel like you are the fat kid at school waiting to be picked last on the footy team. Footage comes in from all over the world from country after country ringing in the New Year while we here in LA feel so last year. By the time we here celebrate, NYE has already gone out of fashion. There’s no public fireworks off-the-Sydney-Harbour-Bridge type events. Your options are limited to high priced ticketed parties or waiting for the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. Let me explain this last tradition. Every New Years Day is the Rose Bowl – a college football game that has more hype than an AFL Grand Final. And this is just a game between colleges. The parade of floats begins at 9am and to show how much of an institution this event is, let me tell you people camp out on the sidewalks for 24 hours to get the best vantage point. Might I remind you that it’s winter in LA when temperatures can drop to under 10 degrees at night. Yet families camp out with deck chairs and rope tied around them to cordon off their area. Now you might think this sounds very similar to the antics of those scoping out the best views of the fireworks on NYE around Sydney Harbour. And you’d be right. Except this is to see a parade of Floats. Floats. Just let that sink in a bit. Floats and a College Football game. Could you imagine spending your New Year’s Eve camped on a footpath in winter in downtown Parramatta (for those who live in Sydney) just to see a morning parade of floats with themes like “Bollywood Dreams”, “Hats off to New Mexico” and “Camelot – A Knight’s Tale” and then watch a game of football between Macquarie Uni and Wollongong Technical College? The only time you should spend any part of NYE sitting on a footpath is when you failed to pick up that random you spent $100 buying drinks for and you are drowning your sorrows with a kebab you will forever regret, at 3am. Or you are Andrew O’Keefe.

However only in Los Angeles could NYE be preceded with a plea (and an awesome poster) from the LA County Sherriff’s Dept which requested that people keep celebrations safe by not engaging in celebratory gunfire. Really? Apparently there were reports of around 150 incidents last year of people firing guns into the air to welcome in the New Year. But that was no where near the impressive 1992 total of somewhere near 750. The steady decline apparently started 15 years ago when the law was changed to make it a felony for anyone to “recklessly shoot in the air”. Because of course what goes up must come down…and it does at a rate of 200 feet per second. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that law also coincided with the steady decline of decent Westerns being made in Hollywood. That’s all they ever did in those movies. Yet I don’t remember one good guy ever riding off into the sunset only to be dismounted by a stray falling bullet.

So here’s to 2009! Or as far as I’m concerned …two thousand and fine. And dandy. Let’s start the New Year with a bang and with all guns blazing. But people please, don’t be reckless – make sure you have an aim, and you too could be riding off into the sunset.