LISA DENTON: Happy New Year’s Eve, Barry. I hope you have your hat and tooter ready.
BARRY COURTER: My tooter is always at the ready.
LISA: We touched on a few of the big events last week, and Thursday’s ChattanoogaNow had complete information on events like the Blackberry Smoke show at Memorial Auditorium and the seventh annual New Year’s Eve Gospel Music Jubilee at the Colonnade, plus a roundup of events at several hotels, restaurants and the Hunter Museum.
Lisa Denton and Barry Courter
I’m always more interested in the family friendly NYE events since I have to set an alarm to be up at midnight and many of them take place during the day. The Creative Discovery Museum’s New Year’s at Noon is a personal favorite because they do a kazoo rendition of “Auld Lang Syne,” and I think my talents on kazoo have been pretty well established here.
BARRY: Your kazoo skills are well-documented indeed.
While there are more New Year’s Eve option on the calendar than I ever remember, there are not a lot of other events happening this week. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some cool things to do. Stoned Cold Fox is playing at Songbirds on Friday, and the Bobby Stone Movie Series continues at the Tivoli with two great movies this weekend.
They will show “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial” on Saturday and “Bohemian Rhapsody” on Sunday. We went to the “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” series opening, and it was really cool to see a movie there. It truly is an experience with the huge screen, amazing sound system and, of course, the Tivoli itself.
LISA: There’s room for more, but they limit it to about 1,200 seats so everyone feels comfortable. Good news for anybody who had their whole family in the living room at Christmas.
BARRY: That’s right. So, instead of everybody fighting for armrest space, they simply add a second showing. You can see “ET” at 3 or 7 p.m. and “Bohemian Rhapsody” at 2 or 6 p.m.
LISA: I saw “Memoirs of a Geisha” at the Tivoli in 2005. I know that was sort of a one-off done for the local connections to Chattanooga native Arthur Golden and his best-selling book of the same name. But that was such a huge success – 2,000 fans at each of the two showings, according to some reports – I’m surprised the Tivoli powers-that-be haven’t scheduled more movies there.
I guess you could make the case that the movies should be Oscar-worthy for such an elegant venue, but now that Cousin Eddie has made his Christmas visit, I’d say all bets are off.
BARRY: Speaking of Cousin Eddie, did you see the sign that showed up over the interstate last week? You know, the ones that tell you how many deaths there have been and the “Buckle up” reminders? This one read: “Cousin Eddie says Twitter’s full. Put down the phone.” That’s funny.
LISA: Cousin Eddie’s always good for a grin or a grimace.
And don’t forget we can start the year off right with a First Day Hike at any one of Tennessee’s 55 state parks. Booker T. Washington in Harrison will start at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and Red Clay in Cleveland at 1 p.m. Harrison Bay State Park does it a little differently. They’ll start at 11:30 tonight and hike until midnight. Last year, they said they had more participants than degrees on the thermometer.
Get event details every Thursday in ChattanoogaNow or online anytime at www.ChattanoogaNow.com.
Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281. Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.