PAUL SCHRAG: NEW YEAR’S EVE PERFORMANCE >>>

So, who better to help ring in a year that is sure to be one of the most memorable and tumultuous we’ve seen in decades? How about Lynn Di Nino, backed by Doug Mackey and Laura and Matt Ecklund? Yeah, cosmic shit’s going down on New Year’s, and it’s called Hi Jack.

It will begin New Year’s Eve in front of Sanford and Son on Broadway, with throngs of people in various states of intoxication â€" from sober (it's First Night Tacoma after all!) to whatever state Alan Gorsuch will be in by 2 a.m. They will gather before what people at the port call a TEU â€" or 20-foot-equivalent â€" container. You know, the big metal boxes you can see stacked across the Foss. Audience members are encouraged to bring an instrument made from recycled plastic of some sort â€" a milk jug filled with gravel will allow you to participate, says Di Nino. Audience members also are invited to bring a piece of bread or toast, which will be toasted atop the container in a bank of special toasters. We don’t know what makes them special, or what they’ll do to your toast, but we promise you’ll end up with some magic mf’n toast. So you can toast in the New Year. Got it?

Doug Mackey, flanked by dancers, will be on board to rile up the audience, who are expected to make their plastic instruments sing, bang, shake and whistle to a point of blessed cacophony, which we all hope will trigger the money shot â€" a gigantic puppet, crafted  by Laura Ecklund and crew, that will burst out of the container, sending Mackey flying through the air into a vat of goat brie (I made that last part up).

For those of you not tempted by sheer awesomeness, there will be souvenirs too.

“We know that people love souvenirs, so we had to come up with something,” says Di Nino. “We’re not saying what, but they’re going straight up in the air.”

[Hi Jack, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 8:30-10 p.m., Sanford and Son, between Seventh and Ninth on Broadway, downtown Tacoma]

LINK: First Night Tacoma New Year’s Eve celebration