Naughty Naughty New Years

It happened. I haven’t even snarfed down my annual butterball turkey with extra stuffing when I was confronted at a dinner party last night with one of my least favorite questions on the planet. Right up there on the same level as, “How many people have you ever slept with?” is:

“What are you doing for New Years?”

As if I’ve even thought about that! I still haven’t even worked out the details of what I’m doing for Thanksgiving and it’s a week from today. I haven’t even started mentally preparing myself for the disgustingly glossy, commercial ‘cheer’ that is Christmas – a holiday I find not only stressful, but vomit inducing.

New Years conversations? Really? Already?

Ironically enough, I don’t find New Years vomit inducing (although I think January 1st may be our country’s national high for people puking). New Years instead is an annoyingly tricky holiday, and it doesn’t help that people (especially people in Manhattan) are obsessed with it. Everyone wants New Years to be a good time, but ultimately the pressure to have fun undermines the holiday. Plus it’s an opportunity for every bar, restaurant and half-decent club to rip off the American public.

Some of the abuse people have to look forward to on New Years Eve includes:

1. Buying three hundred dollar ‘tickets’ a month in advance to enter your typical douchey club on 27th street.

2. Being forced to hitchhike, hire a limo, or take the bus, since finding a free taxi in the city will be more competitive than purchasing a Hermes Birken bag.

3. Should you venture outside of Manhattan, being subject to drunk partiers irresponsible behind the wheel judgment.

And last, but perhaps most importantly:

4. That dreadful awkward ‘after the ball drops’ moment. I feel pretty confident that the first few nano-seconds of 2008 are inevitably the most uncomfortable of the entire year. I’d like some sort of award-winning psychologist to develop an informational pamphlet on how to handle those theoretically ‘joyous’ after midnight moments.

Technically, you’re supposed to embrace/kiss/slobber on your significant other in a state of euphoria as confetti swirls around you like in an uber-cheesy movie. So if you’re a serious couple at least you have a game plan. The out of control drunken nature of New Years however, has been known to cause fights between even the most stable couples. So even if you’re hitched, there’s no guarantee you and you loved one will be on speaking terms by the time the clock hits midnight, in which case you can pretend to mack on each other as the ball drops and welcome in the New Year secretly hating each other. Not fun.

Even less fun, is surviving this entire situation with someone you’re in a ‘grey relationship’ with. Suddenly, what you do together when the ball drops serves to define your entire relationship. Like if you kiss in front of everyone during those chaotic New Years moments (as if anyone’s watching…or cares) you suddenly run the risk of morphing into a ‘real’ couple. You could just pull each other into a joyous hug, that’s very grey appropriate. Or you can avoid eye contact all together. Or hide under a table with a bottle of champagne and wait for the moment to pass. Grey relationships thrive on grayness. The smog is the relationships fuel. So any social situation which calls for a clarification of your status is probably best avoided. Yet another reason why New Years often sucks.

Single and spending the holiday with friends is probably the least stressful option. Then you can spend the moments between 12:00 and 12:01 A.M. squirting champagne in one another’s faces and jumping around like apes. Unfortunately, a New Years level intake of alcohol usually makes people hornier than an in-heat hippopotamus on estrogen medication, so you run the risk of hooking up with one of your friends, or worse, some predatory sleazo at the bar.

So a New Years game plan where you don’t end up pissed, an embarrassment, insanely emotional or full of regret?

If someone comes up with something let me know, because apparently I have to start planning now.

***

Thank God the bras have still not caught the fashion bug. The ailment is limited to handbags and jewelry and anything else that is visible. That of course means no more buying from wholesale jewelry.

Socialista Ain’t Social

I’d like to take a quick moment to ridicule Tenjune’s failed attempt at Halloween décor. See below:
What is that stuff? Bubble gum? Strewn cotton candy? An effort at spider webs? If so, why is it the color of Pepto-Bismol? Note that the crowd seemed generally happy. No one seemed disturbed by this plentiful pink nastiness but me.



This week I finally got myself to Jane Street and West Side Highway to check out Socialista. Was I excited? Not really. I’d just had one too many people ask me ‘Have you been to Socialista yet?’ and was sick of replying in the negative. My underlying motivation for going however, remains that the place is co-owned by my favorite Mafioso Italian in the city, Giuseppe Cipriani along with former Bungalow 8 doorman Armin Amiri. I felt I owed it to Giuseppe to check out his latest creation of exclusivity and frivolity. Just for fun.

On the cab ride over, my friend warned me to lower my expectations.

“They sort of pride themselves on the place always being empty,” he said.

Sigh.

Now I was bracing myself for a sight worse than Rose Bar on a Saturday night – the pool table gathering dust and the place so quiet you can hear scurrying cockroaches. I feel the whole ‘exclusivity’ by keeping a place empty tactic is kind of like cheating. It takes a lot more hard work, energy and talent to keep a club full than it does to just turn everyone away. But then again, that’s assuming these establishments want to make money, which for Socialista isn’t the case. It just exists as Giuseppe and Armin’s ‘pet project.’



Upon ascending the rickety staircase to the main bar my first thought was: “Really? So much freakin’ hype for this?” The place looked like a frail haunted house, and that’s without Halloween decorations. As promised, it was empty. Eight other patrons. Two bar tenders. A DJ. That’s it.

But after ordering a drink and settling into one of the many plush and available mauve couches, the place began to grow on me. The design is minimal, Cuban-style. I felt like I’d landed on the Hollywood set used to shoot Casablanca, which is actually pretty cool. The lounge’s relaxed vibe suggested that a Rick type character might push through the kitchen’s wooden shutters at any time and serenade me with “As Time Goes By.” The fans, the white washed walls, the quiet. Socialista felt like our living room away from home. Which wasn’t what I was expecting at all.



As we got increasingly drunk, we became mesmerized by this Van Gough-like painting to the right of the bar. At first I thought it was a cat with bound feet, but then I starting noticing and counting all the geese.

So there’s everyone’s weekend homework. How many geese do you see?

Green Fairies, Flappers, Tuxedos…Oh MY!

I’ve been a bad blog poster this week, but I’m chalk full of excuses, none of which are particularly interesting except one:

I drank an entire bottle of absinthe and recovery time was slightly longer than expected.

Okay…

I didn’t drink an entire bottle. I shared a mini bottle with a close friend. But considering that stuff in like 300% alcohol and I’m a lightweight, the result was still hallucinatory. We’d been drinking rum and coke for two hours when my friend remembered she had a stash of absinthe left over from a recent trip to Prague. It was then that I announced we were going to drink all of it.

“Why?” She said cocking her head. This was just a normal, rainy, New York City night out. There were no great reunions, birthdays or charity events to crash ahead of us.

“Because tonight,” I replied, already tipsy, “I want to be one of those people. Those people who can’t properly walk, those people others look upon in disgust while being secretly jealous because they’d pay cash money to be as outrageously drunk and elated as us.”

I’d been sick and housebound for over a week. I was finally going out, and like a caged animal, was running on overdrive since I’d been bed bound for so long.

I also have a theory that planned party nights tend to fail. Anytime someone says, “tonight’s going to be a wild night,” prepare for mediocrity. Once the expectation for debauchery has been set up, a subtle pressure creeps in and ruins everyone’s sense of carefree relaxation. Predicting outrageous fun is like shooting yourself in the foot before even strapping on stilettos. Because in my experience, the best nights always occur at random. When you’re utterly relaxed, in good company, with no high profile plans and zero expectations. It’s then that you realize you have a bottle of unopened absinthe in your desk drawer. That it’s raining, but you don’t care. That there’s no need for concrete plans when you can just follow wherever the sparkles and Green Fairies you’re now hallucinating happen to take you.

The last time I’d drank absinthe was at age seventeen in Italy. I’d ended up naked on a city rooftop with a bunch of friends screaming obscenities at the Milanese skyline. I passed out in a sleeping bag on the apartment building’s garden terrace. At some point the next morning, my friend and the previous night’s host stole the keys to his dad’s Lamborghini and drove me home.

We’d done absinthe that night the proper way. With sugar (or salt?) – the details are blurry – lighting it on fire and consuming the liquid in warmed shot glasses. This time around, my friend and I forewent all such formalities. We just swigged the whole bottle passing it back and forth – no sugar, salt, or fire aiding the consumption process. We’d scream at regular intervals at the immense disgustingness of the taste. It was like drinking gasoline. It’s a miracle one of us didn’t puke right then and there.

Needless to say, the rest of the night we bounced around like teenagers on ecstasy and my entire prophecy of being those people was fulfilled to the highest extent. We went to D’Or and fueled our inappropriate state with vodka. By the time we went to a club at 2 a.m. I was craving champagne and was sure that a glass of bubbly would help all the liquids I’d consumed that night magically blend together.

Again, how I didn’t end up as one of those people who’s carried out of a club unconscious or one of those girls who randomly begins throwing up on herself remains a mystery. I just danced like a machine all night. And according to texts and phone calls from the next day, I’d apparently run into a bunch of friends and going-out regulars that I know and had failed to say ‘hello’ or make eye contact with any of them. Jumping up and down elated sporting a sloppy grin seemed to be the only activity on my agenda. Or as my friend put it: “We were in our own little Absinthe bubble.”

I almost wish I had gotten sick so I wouldn’t be so blatantly re-craving the experience.

* * *

In other local news, this Wednesday was Goldbar’s doorman Jamie’s birthday bash at Cain. I initially didn’t even recognize Jamie at the party since he wasn’t wearing a scowl and generally announcing, “We can’t accommodate you,” to every non-regular in line. It’s always fascinating to observe door people away from their door, and come to find out, inside a club Jamie is charming, generous, hospitable and frighteningly attractive. Especially, with his British accent and tuxedo (second from the right).


Cain had been completely redecorated for the event with glistening chandeliers (that looked legitimately expensive) and brothel-like red velvet curtains. The safari theme (which we’re all a little sick of after three years) had been stomped out. I appreciated the change and thought the decoration staff deserved whatever a Chelsea nightclub workers version of an Emmy is.




Adding to the already vibrant festivities were the tuxes, pre-mature Halloween costumes, and fabulous flapper girls.

Even as a Halloween hater, I take my hat off to the flapper women whom I believe did a noteworthy job of balancing sexy and chic in their costumes.

This should be a big weekend for costume taunting.

Let’s see what the city has in store…

Be Careful What You Wish For

Cajun Boy in the City recently and perceptively created an accurate analogy in which the NYC clubbing establishment Pink Elephant is Heath Ledger and I, Model Behavior am Jake Gylennhal whining, "I wish I knew how to quit you." This astute remark not only rang as true to my house-music damaged ears, but also reminded me to give Brokeback Mountain a second watch on DVD.

The truth is I’d like to quit Pink. I’d run into a lot less people I’d rather not see, my alcohol calorie intake would drop significantly, and I’d no longer have Bob Sinclair in my head 99% of my working hours. But as in dealing with any addiction, walking away cold turkey is rarely the best strategy. That’s why I’ve often wished a new Manhattan club, far from meatpacking or the 27th street strip, would open, providing me with a fresh, more private, and perhaps even less douchey location to waste my inebriated nights.

Finally, my wish has come true.

Sort of…

This Friday my friend Safari did the impossible – she took me to a club I’d never seen or even heard of that wasn’t a remake of another failed establishment. She described it as:

‘A new hotspot. Small. Intimate. Top crowd. Think Bungalow. Meet there 1 am.”

Naturally, I was hooked and Bartok and I began preparing outfits. Perhaps the best perk of writing this blog is that a great deal of social misconduct can be justified as “research.” So off we went and at around one thirty am climbed the rickety, filthy stairs which led us to this supposedly secret, new lair of treachery – the club upon which I’m bestowing the code name ‘The Inferno.’ Why? Because the activities taking place inside this undisclosed joint too closely mirror Dante’s description of the third circle of Hell.

When my eyes first swept across the club it appeared empty. The music sounded, as I’d describe, ‘lame.’ I’m not a big fan of large empty spaces when I’m going out. Breathing room is appreciated, but especially after one thirty I feel any place worth its salt should theoretically be rockin full of people. So I’ll describe my first emotional state upon entering the Inferno as ‘disappointment.’

The bar was void of human activity. The entire crowd consisted of six or seven tables in an elevated privet. Bartok, Safari, and I ascended the small stairs to mesh with our fellow party seekers. We said hello to our host, and around this time I was overcome by my second strong, reactive emotion of the evening, this one similar to a kick in the stomach – ‘horror.’ I was surrounded by dozens of baby models, some swaying back and forth in a seated, drug induced stupor, others performing lap dances, some grooving to their own queer beat, some spastically twitching as if being continually electrocuted by barbed wire. For those of you lucky enough to be ignorant of this phenomenon, I’ll explain that baby models are dangerously attractive girls, usually foreign, and always under the age of twenty-one (often under the age of eighteen) who hang out at places like Cipriani’s Upstairs and now the Inferno because of these institution’s extremely lax carding procedures. I wanted to open my mouth to scream but before I could manage our host (kindly?) stuck a joint in my mouth which I had to immediately focus on spitting out since I don’t smoke.

I was momentarily ‘wowed’ by the fact that this place was so chill and so clearly unconcerned with keeping their license that they were letting people smoke joints in public, until I noticed a man in a striped shirt doling out cocaine on his house key to the six baby models the surrounded him. Now I literally double taked. I mean, in the Old Fashion privet in Milan I once, repeat once, saw crazy Arabs do lines off their club table in public, only to be scolded by their bodyguards moments later. Even in Hollywood, Milan, everyone had the common decency to go inside the handicapped bathroom to get snow-blown. Here, keys of cocaine were being innocently passed around as if they were maraschino cherries. Had I taken a wrong turn up the creaky stairs and ended up in some sort of time warp ala Studio 54?

Me and my girlfriends shared a look of mutual shock before shrugging and pouring ourselves drinks. My first instinct was to have a Peroni and then high tail it out of there to attend some less novel location, like the city’s standard Friday night at Room Service. I mean, the DJ was playing 50 Cent, the place was empty except for the privet, the palm trees were faker looking than Bungalow’s, and the poor bathroom attendant was dressed in a joker costume (complete with multi-pronged hat). This just wasn’t my scene.

Three glasses of an anonymous brand vodka brand later, Safari, Bartok and I had somehow magically meshed into the crowd. The fact that the club was 80% women, 40% of which hadn’t celebrated their sweet sixteen, no longer seemed as bothersome as it has upon our arrival. Since there was no crowd surrounding the DJ booth, I gave him some musical instructions to which he was extremely receptive. The musical situation improved. At around two thirty, I again considered heading over to Room Service, the same moment in which our Room Service Friday night crowd strolled into the Inferno themselves. Wow. Maybe this place really was going to be something good.

I went to the bar and got the Inferno low-down from one of the Pakistani owners. It had been open about a month, but only for private parties and events related to fashion week. Jay-Z had been there on Tuesday, blah blah blah. You get the picture. They’d recently been letting ‘civilians’ in on a very limited basis – only people they could trust (probably a smart policy since the amount of illegal activity going on in there required two hands to count). The owner insisted he didn’t want anyone to know about the place. I admitted to him that in preparation of my arrival, I had googled the club’s real name and come up with nothing. And google’s a hard monster to hide from. So I promised the owner I’d write about my experiences at the club with the utmost discretion for the time being. Let’s not fool ourselves. In six weeks, this place will be the new 'The Box' and it’s name with be zipping through Manhattan like wildfire.

The Inferno theoretically stays open until six am (also illegal), but Bartok insisted we leave at around four thirty am to attend after hours, which was being held at a large man’s house nearby. This jovial after hours host was sporting a long white beard, wearing a kilt and had a yellow sash across his chest. Weird? Definitely.

Everyone piled into cabs and entered what appeared to be a federal building. That’s right: a federal building. Our host, Mr. King of Scotland enjoyed serving more drugs to baby models by the small square bar at the far side of his enormous high-ceiling loft. I got immediately distracted by his ping-pong table and began playing matches against fellow partygoers. I used to compete in New England level tennis tournaments, so like to think of myself as a kind of ping-pong princess extraordinaire. Unfortunately, it was dark, making it difficult to see, and I was drunk, making it difficult to focus. Somehow I still beat my most worthy opponent and was rewarded with a pair of chopsticks as my prize (it made sense at six in the morning). At one point in the night, Bartok and I scampered around trying to find the bathroom, yet every door we opened revealed only another loft-like space filled with Apple computers. Finally, King of Scotland’s assistant escorted us to the ladies room on the federal building’s main floor. It was soon after admiring the thirty, empty, glistening bathroom stalls and noticing the security cameras everywhere that Bartok and I decided to high-tail it out of there.

The next morning, piecing together details of the Inferno, she and I both concurred we’d officially been to hell and back. I’m appropriately worried since the club’s walking distance from my apartment. Let’s all think about how often I go to Pink and realize with this place I won’t even have to set foot in a cab to get there. Dangerous? Definitely.