- First Night Tacoma
- MUSIC: “A New Beginning” by Bensound.com
FEATURED FIRST NIGHT PERFORMERS:
[spoiler title=”Click to see video transcript”]
ADAM: Happy New Year, Earthlings! You’re watching Adam the Alien, and I am at First Night in Tacoma for the tenth New Year’s Eve in a row!
VAMOLA: VamoLá! So get up on your feet! Get up and dance and shake your booty to the beat!
♪[DRUMMING]♪
ADAM: It’s just an amazing way to spend the new year. I almost missed it this year.
♪
ADAM: I almost gave up on spending New Year’s in Tacoma this year. After a string of failed travel plans, New Year’s Eve arrived and I still wasn’t sure I could make the trip work. But before the sun went down, I found myself on a northbound train back to my beloved City of Destiny.
♫
ADAM: I am so glad that I managed to get up here. It’s great! It’s just [forking] amazing.
DRUMMER: One! Two! Three! HA!
BRYAN FOSTER BAND: ♪ We bought a house at the top of the hill, and in fifteen years it had tripled it’s value… ♪
♫
VAMOLA: ♪ HEEEEY! ♪
BRYAN FOSTER BAND: ♪ Oh, he ain’t able to let it down! ♪
♪ [INAUDIBLE] ♪
♪ Ow! Ow! OW! ♪
♫ [AULD LANG SYNE PLAYS] ♫
♪ Walking down the street with my headphones on… ♪
♪
♫ For auld lang syne! ♫
BRYAN FOSTER: How does a city like Tacoma “revitalize”…gentrify well? Can you-can you DO that? Can a city revitalize slash gentrify well? Can we? Because it’s going that way! But what can we do? What can we do? Especially as people of privilege, what can we do?
ADAM: Look, I found people!
JOEY: Well, you found US, I mean…
ADAM: Eh, close enough to people to count.
JOEY: Eh. I *think* I’m people.
ADAM: So this is my tenth year. But Joey here, he’s a virgin. This is his first year.
JOEY: Uno.
ADAM: He is being First Night devirginized as we speak! How does it feel?
JOEY: So far, it’s been gentle. It’s a bit cold. But, y’know, you take what you get the first time around. The main key, I think, is endurance! I mean, if you can really put on the gas near the end, I’d say the whole night will be worth it.
ADAM: And if you can display the necessary endurance your first time? You’re sittin’ pretty.
JOEY: How pretty?
ADAM: Very pretty.
JOEY: Apparently I’m standing average. But I’m sitting pretty!
♪
ADAM: Oh my god, pizza!
SHAUN: Oh, it looks amazing!
SHAUN: Oh my god.
ADAM: Pizzaaaa!
SHAUN, IN A SILLY VOICE: Oh my god, pizza!
♪
ANNOUNCER: Five minutes left! Five minutes leeeeeft! Five minutes ’til midniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!
CROWD: Ten!
Nine!
Eight!
Seven!
Six!
Five!
Four!
Three!
Two!
One!
[CROWD CHEERING]
SHAUN AND ADAM: Happy New Year!
ADAM: I’m tired. I am hoping that 2018 will be a lot better than 2017. I think it’s very telling that a lot of people stayed home for a calm New Year’s Eve, this year, to relax and de-stress.
♪
ANNOUNCER: See you later, 2017!
♪
ADAM: It’s been years since I bid a sad farewell to my adopted city and moved back to Oregon. But Tacoma still feels like a home to me. So I make the trek back as often as I’m able.
It occurs to me that since I still spend every New Year’s Eve at First Night in Tacoma, even though I no longer live there, I begin and end every year by traveling. And I’m okay with that. In fact, I kind of like the poetry of it.
♪
ADAM: Life itself is a journey, and all of us are constantly on the move, whether that’s literal movement through space, metaphoric movement through the trials of life, or the inexorable, unforgiving progression forward through time.
So it’s fitting that each year, I mark the passage of time with a literal journey. Whether by rail or by road, the trip gives me both cause and time to think, to reflect on the past and dream of the future.
RICH MARRIOTT: City of Destiny! That’s right!
ADAM: All right! Happy New Year! Until next time, I’m Adam the Alien. This is Shaun.
SHAUN: I sure am!
[ADAM LAUGHS]
ADAM: Happy New Year! It’s 2018!
SHAUN: It sure [forking] is 2018!
ADAM: Fare thee well! Fare thee well! Fare thee well.
SHAUN: ♪ Farewell, farewell! Farwell! ♪
ADAM: Fare thee well. Filming–filming with the camera on a pizza box is weird.
ADAM: All right–
SHAUN: Also ♪ farewell, farewell! ♪
ADAM, WHISPERING: Bye!
♪ [AULD LANG SYNE PLAYS] ♪
SHAUN: ♪ …auld lang syne! ♪
ADAM: ♪ We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, ♪
♪ for the sake of auld lang syne! ♪ [/spoiler]
Writer. Actor. Director. Chalk artist. YouTuber. Nerdfighter. Traveler. Pansexual. Genderfluid. Millennial. Socialist. Living a complex life beyond those words.
Leave a Reply