Vic Socotra

01 January 2009

First Day

There it is. I have written those numbers for the first time as fact, not fiction, and it is new and falls off the fingers with a slight hesitation. It has been in the box under the tree for so long that we feel a little guilty to put it on, stretching it over our shoulders to make it part of us. Plus, the First Day always resumes after sleep a little bleary.

But here it is. It is time. I cringed last night waiting for the ball to come down over Time’s Square, marveling as always at the crisp precision of the division of time. One moment we are all were we know things, and the next we are not. In the midst of the bubbly, I caught Dick Clark, whose name is still associated with the only prime-time show live from New York.

Mr. Clark, once the ageless forever teenager, made me cringe. Since the stroke, his speech has been impaired to a degree that requires careful attention to keep track of what he is saying. I felt guilty for feeling that way, since Dick has been such an institution for so many years, and his gallant effort to pretend as though nothing was amiss made it seem a bit like an awkward holiday dinner.

A relentlessly perky fellow named Ryan Seacrest did most of the heavy lifting on the broadcast, assisted by a mad blonde woman from North Carolina who worked the crowd. In the moments before the exile of the old, and the welcome to the new, I lost track of the process- the Clintons were there, pressing a gigantic crystal button that apparently launches the crystal ball on its way down the shaft high above Times Square.

In the languid frenzy of the Holidays, I had momentarily forgotten that they are back as a power couple. She will soon have responsibility for dealing with the Iraqis, whose First Day included re-establishing sovereignty over the Green Zone. I have a dog in that fight, since some of our company people will soon be subject to the whims of the Iraqi police, and I am not at all certain that is a good thing. But that is a matter for Monday, not now.

After the moment had passed, we called some people in the time zones to the West, and invited them to join us in the New Year when the time came. I remembered this ritual well from Hawaii, and wishing the Mainland well for the New Year after they had been in their beds for only a few hours.

As I resumed participation in the First Day, hours behind the usual schedule, I scalded my mouth with hot black Russian coffee. I was surprised to get a note from a pal out on the West Coast, since the party he attended was half-way to Honolulu, and he must have been typing with eloquence before retiring as I was waking.

He was over Redondo Beach, where First Day arrived with “The relentless fog silently filling-in the streets, block by block. It blanketed the area and muffled the sounds from below....through the heavy fog we could hear the rising cacophony marking the beginning of 2009. This year, there were no gunshots. At least we didn't hear any. My Marine Lieutenant son brought his trombone out on the balcony and "serenaded" the dark and foggy neighborhood with a few minutes of blasting-loud glissandos. His brassy barrage ricocheted and echoed sharply off the walls and roofs nearby (his trombone is the 155mm howitzer of the orchestra). Someone very close by began to very vigorously and very loudly shake a cowbell. Counter-battery fire? For a minute or so, we had the trombone accompanied by the cowbell, or vice-versa. My son finally lowered his horn and the bell fell silent immediately. All quiet on this front. It was time to have a little bit more champagne….”

Commenting on the vacuous noise that emanated from Times Square, and the tired re-treads of old stars and dewy-eyed boy bands in the chill, he mourned the loss of Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.

Lombardo's orchestra broadcast their first trademark Auld Lang from the Grill in the Roosevelt Hotel from 1929 to 1959, and their New Year's Eve broadcasts continued over at the sleek Waldolf-Astoria until the end of the Ford Administration.

That gave Guy a total of 48 years as the arbiter of Change in America, the bulk of them with the Columbia Broadcasting System. His last shows from the Waldorf showed images of couples in evening dress dancing cheek to cheek. Those of us out in the heartland thought it was hopelessly square in the context of the alternative culture, the Nixon resignation and the fuel crisis.

We were going to change everything.

That is when Dick Clark assumed the mantle, the hip rebel crossing he staid old Canadians. Lombardo’s last show was in 1976, and he died the year after. CBS kept the orchestra on for another two years, but by 1979, decided that the Dick Clark Rock n’ Roll juggernaut was too much. They pulled the plug on Auld Lang Syne, and we have been treated to the celebrity band de jour ever since.

Guy did Auld Lang Syne for almost fifty years. Dick has been rocking for only thirty-six, and despite modern technology, I doubt that he is a real contender to beat his record.

When the ball was well and truly down, and there was no option but to accept the new year, I turned off the television, and found a replay of New Year’s Eve on Public Radio, with Guy, from 1933.

Funny how that year seems to fit the mood much better than the one of rock and roll. Or maybe it is just us. Now we seem to need the drugs to have sex, rather than the other way around.

Pulling the plug on the holiday lights for the last time out on the balcony, the echo of trombones and cowbells echoed Auld Lang Syne across the land.

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