New Millennium Euphoria Fades Fast

STUDIO CITY —  It was minutes before closing and the last traces of new millennium euphoria were fading fast at the Queen Mary female impersonator bar on Ventura Boulevard.

Most of the crowd had already gone home, save a lone couple clutching each other to the final verses of “Purple Rain” and a woman who tumbled off a bar stool onto the floor sticky with spilled champagne.

For a 6-foot-2 cross-dresser who called herself Weekend Marie, the party--and the whole new millennium craze--was over.

“My dogs,” she said. “I’m so worried about my two boxers, Francesca and Chauncy. I gave them tranquilizers to calm them down, but with all the gunshots and firecrackers out there, it’s time for me to check on them.”

Weekend Marie, who declined to give her legal name, was among the many revelers in the Valley eager to get home and call it a night not long after midnight. By 1:30 a.m. many bars were quiet, and by 3 and 4 a.m., the diners were nearly deserted and the streets hushed.

In spite of the buildup, this New Year’s Eve, didn’t seem to inspire much of an all-night, we’re-not-quitting-till-the-sun-comes-up attitude.

At Universal City, the main square at CityWalk was vacant 45 minutes after a seething mass of people packed in for the countdown and jumped up and down like a thousand out-of-sync pistons when the clock struck 12.

What had been a raucous scene of dancing, kissing, squeezing, pushing and passing bodies across the crowd gave way almost suddenly to an orderly exit of thousands of people heading for the parking lot.

“We may stop by a party or two on the way home, but then that’s it,” said Yolanda Barrientos of Riverside as she left with her husband, Alex.

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A half-hour after the century turned, James Wells of Kenosha, Wis., said he had some sleep to get. Wells, in town with his son to cheer on the University of Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, would be getting up at dawn Saturday to grab seats at the Rose Parade.

“Son, it’s time to hit the road,” Wells said, as he drained the last drops from his plastic champagne flute and cuffed his 17-year-old around the shoulders. “Let’s hope we don’t get lost again on the way to the hotel like we did before. Last time we ended up by the sea.”

At one of the drinks tables inside the theme park at Universal Studios Hollywood, bartenders swapped strange-customer stories as they crushed cardboard champagne boxes and scooped dollar bills from their tip cups, preparing to close up shop.

“ ‘Member that woman who came up here with three bucks in her hand and said, ‘Help me, help me, I have a problem?’ ” laughed Koranda Banks, one of the bartenders. “This lady wanted us to sell her a beer for three bucks (the price was $6 a bottle on New Year’s Eve). I told her, yes, you do have a problem.”

Universal City was among the few places in the Valley with any sign of life. With the streets damp from a day of rain and a heavy mist blanketing the area, few people were out past midnight. Organized parties at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City and at Van Nuys Airport drew fewer people than expected.

Many Valley strongholds, like Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in Van Nuys that generates a crowd every hour it’s open, were closed for the night.

Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake enjoyed something of a wee-hours scene. At 3 a.m., a few booths at the all-night diner were occupied by glassy-eyed thirtysomethings chugging coffee and shoveling forkfuls of syrup-soaked pancakes and open-faced sandwiches into their mouths.

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Mike Bialys, a stand-up comic whose feathered haircut and wide-open eyes are reminiscent of Luke Skywalker, had just come from a karaoke bar. The highlight of his New Year’s Eve was singing Bee Gees tunes with his sister, he said.

“The Valley’s so dead right now we might as well have a seance,” said Bialys, who lives in Woodland Hills.

He took a sip of tea and then paused for a moment of contemplative, dawn-of-the-new-millennium deep thinking.

“Next year,” he said, “I want to be at Hef’s. I mean, here we are at a diner, drinking tea and getting ready to go home. Just imagine what Hugh Hefner is doing right now.”