Happy New Year...Where's The Party?

Uh, like, where IS everybody?

Where did you spend your last moments of 2012? At a house party? At a bar? Freezing your ass off on Colorado Boulevard?

The Militant was all set to have a festive New Year's Eve in Downtown Los Angeles last night. After all, there were a plethora of NYE activities in DTLA. He set out at 9 p.m. to take advantage of the free Metro fares until 2 a.m.. Then, he went out to Angels Flight for a couple of one-cent rides for its 111th Birthday, and ended up as the last rider of the year (for two out of the last three years!).

He then walked due north along Hill Street to Grand Park. As you may or may not know, it opened last Summer to much fanfare and soon became a popular gathering spot for CicLAvias, concerts and even election night observing.

So surely they'd have a big New Year's Eve celebration where Angelenos can finally count down the last seconds of the year. Right? RIGHT?

Welp, The Militant got there at about 10:30 p.m. and found the place...empty.

He first thought it was just a classic case of Angelenos showing up late. But as it turned into 11 p.m., he started to get worried. Shouldn't there be like a program or something? Maybe it was a poorly-publicized event. But even then there would be a few people hanging around....there was nada.

Maybe it was a smaller event at another part of the park! He walked due west and went to the court of flags plaza thingy. Maybe they were all there!

Is this some sort of bizarro 'Twilight Zone' episode or what?

Nope.

Okay, maybe it was by the Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain. Like the fountain would turn all sorts of funky colors at the stroke of midnight and it would shoot out silly string or marshmallows or free tamales or something...

(Notice how the Comic Sans font actually looks good when used in the proper context)

Damn. Whatup with that?!

It was like 11:30 already and The Militant walked over to the bar by The Alexandria Hotel, where he got frisked and was treated to some really awful douchey rap songs from 2005-2008. At the stroke of midnight we were forced to watch a 3-hour old broadcast of an illuminated ball drop some 3,000 miles away. Whoop, whoop.

Okay, folks. Every New Year's Eve we get the same old thing. Time Square Tape Delay, or if we're online, we get shown a slideshow of various cities around the world ushering in the new year, which usually involves an assload of pyrotechnics shooting out from some of its most famous landmarks (Hmmm...imagine if the Hollywood Sign did that. Hey, why the big frown Mr. LAFD Fire Chief?).

So here's the deal. Grand Park Peoples, County Supes and Erryone In Between: In 364 days, please give us Angelenos a public New Year's Eve celebration we so long deserve. And make some fireworks shoot out of City Hall (That...would...be...Bad...Ass). Okay, okay, scratch the City Hall fireworks, we all know the City won't have the budget for that. But give us something on 12/31/13.

Pwetty Pweeze?

If not, The Militant will have his OWN New Year's Eve celebration at Grand Park, AND YOU'RE ALL INVITED!

Happy New Year, and Stay Militant in da Twenny-One-Tray!