The Night Stuff loves the First Friday Downtown gallery walk.

Hundreds of locals and tourists wandering the streets, art galleries and retailers of Chinatown. Street performers street performing. The usual inebriated folk sleeping on the stoops of closed stores replaced by inebriated young couples making out on the stoops of closed stores. Long queues of people outside my favorite downtown haunts.

And every once in a while, someone actually purchasing a piece of art. Joy!

First Friday happens again tonight. Take a walk with me around last month's edition. ...

6:12 p.m. — Nursing gratis Shirley Temples at The ARTS at Marks Garage, massage therapist/modern art lover Malia Reed and I study Bundt cake sculpture, bronze frogs acting out kama sutra poses, housefly mobiles and a Simon Cowell woodcut. "There should be alcohol in these," says Reed, emptying her paper cup.

6:23 p.m. — I win a stick-mounted organic frozen panna cotta — shaped like a female-reproductive-organ — in a game of jan ken po at ARTS. People applaud.

6:30 p.m. — Musicians on keyboards and stand-up bass dig into "Summertime" on a flatbed truck parked in front of artist Roy Venters' Nu'uanu Avenue studio. My panna cotta has no flavor.

6:35 p.m. — No Martini Madness $3.50 discount martinis for me at Indigo Eurasian Cuisine. There's a line to get in. A half-hour of gallery-browsing flies by.

7:14 p.m. — There's a line to get into Bar 35, too. Sigh.

7:21 p.m. — I talk story outside Hanks Cafe Honolulu with artist/proprietor Hank Taufaasau as a cover of Bobby Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" drifts out. We head upstairs to The Dragon Upstairs to finish our conversation over a Rolling Rock (for me) and scotch (for him) while Bobby Cortezan plays standards. I spend way too much time here.

7:40 p.m. — A couple makes out in the entryway of closed-for-the-day Tea at 1024. The sidewalks are loaded with revelers at the Nu'uanu Avenue and Hotel Street crossroads.

7:46 p.m. — At a crowded Louis Pohl gallery, Sam and Rula Rabin, of Saskatchewan, mention that they are looking for some art to take home to commemorate their 42nd wedding anniversary trip to Hawai'i. Rula wants a glass heart she saw at Venters' studio. Sam wants "something that says Hawai'i." They tell me I'm fortunate to live here. Sometimes I need that kind of a reminder.

7:58 p.m. — Smith's Union Bar looks downright festive. Red Chinese lanterns, twinkle lights and gold streamers hanging from the rafters bring a warm glow to the old-school watering hole. There's a gratis dim sum, manapua, roast pork and gyoza mini-buffet. A mix of barflies and First Friday yuppies sing along to Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" and "Unchain My Heart." And there's face-painting at a corner table. That's right, face-painting! At Smith's Union!

8:05 p.m. — An older gentleman with a snow white goatee identifying himself only as Lee briefly gets off his bar stool to shuffle to Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff." "Whoo doggie, that was my song, brah!" he exclaims afterward, inhaling roast pork and coughing up bills for a round of beer.

8:15 p.m. — I'm hungry. Maria Bonita is close but full. A trio of smokers wants me to sign a "Ban the Ban" petition. I hear one of them call me a "fascist" as she walks away.

8:21 p.m. — Note to self: Grand Cafe & Bakery closes at 8:30 p.m.

8:27 p.m. — A couple of teenage girls in black skirts and tops do Irish step dancing near The ARTS at Marks garage exit. People gather and toss them spare change. A passing dude eating from a napkin full of sliced salami yells, "Riverdance! Whoo!"

8:41 p.m. — I catch up on notes outside rRed Elephant Cafe as a singer-guitarist inside sings "Everybody's Talkin'." A twentysomething woman with pink streaks in her auburn hair and clutching a Hello Kitty bag asks for directions to Mercury Lounge. "This song (expletive)!" she says, before walking off, muttering into her mobile. I don't hear a word she's saying.

8:48 p.m. — Soul de Cuba. Busy.

8:49 p.m. — Brasserie Du Vin is full, but a couple allows me to have their seats at the bar as they depart. I find relief in a bottle of Rogue Dead Guy Ale before phoning my partner in Night Stuff to inform her I'm coming home. A bartender pecks at a small plate of steamed Salt Spring mussels and pomme frites behind the bar. My Night Stuff partner wants Big City Diner. Dinner sounds really good.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.