When I lived in
In March 2005, Ania J. traveled to
Since America's a bit behind on the vocalist bandwagon and many clubbers, myself included, don't fully understand what a vocalist is, I sat down with this “rock star angel” to learn about nightlife through her eyes.
1. This actually might go in the category of “more than mildly entertaining.” I somehow landed at Kiss and Fly on Saturday night and as I stood at a slightly elevated table surveying the crowd in a typical drunken cry for help, I was continually jabbed in the crotch by the flailing arms of a couple madly making out on the dance floor inches below me. This situation was made less uninteresting when a man in a black dress coat approached the couple, ripped them apart, flipped the girl around and began intensely making out with her as well. Boy #1’s jaw dropped, but he adjusted to the sharing idea in two seconds flat and continued to grind up against the girl as she macked face with the second male entity.
If any of these people knew each other remained unclear. The girl flipped around once again to immediately lip lock with her original partner, and black-dress-coat-man proceeded to stick his hand up her very tiny dress and finger her on the dance floor. Yes, while she’s making out with Boy #1. And yes, right in front of me where I looked down upon the raunchy threesome in awe, confusion and amazement. I hadn’t seen a performance like this since the girls accepting cash like strippers at Buddha Bar.
2. Since reality TV is all we got these days, I was excited about Make Me a Supermodel the new Project Runway / America’s Next Top Model hybrid show hosted by Niki Taylor and Tyson Beckford. Anything that gets male models on my TV set is good. I find it sort of unfair that women are objectified on every network, but a male model show remains impossible to find. The bad news, however, is host Niki Taylor. Someone needs to take away this woman’s right to be on TV.
As you may imagine, Make Me a Supermodel isn’t that stimulating a show. It’s essentially America’s Next Top Model if you took away any semblance of class (which the show doesn’t have a lot of to begin with) and got the models naked every episode.
THE MODELS ARE LITERALLY NAKED (OFTEN MAKING OUT) IN EVERY EPISODE.
I’m sure some bigwig exec genius figured out the correlation between naked hot people performing acts of mild porn and high ratings, but this is still a little too much nudity to stomach. If I were in this competition I’d drop out immediately. Because if you’re going to stoop that low you might as well get PAID to be naked rather than reveal yourself for free on network television every night. Plus, Make Me a Supermodel lets “America decide” which of the three worst models should go home.
“America’s” qualified to make these kind of decisions since when….?
But ultimately, this trainwreck of a show is really a vehicle for aging Niki Taylor to humiliate herself in mid-age. Let’s put it this way: Whatever the superstar on-camera quality that Tyra posses in the gallons, Niki Taylor doesn’t have in droplets. I think the middle school MC for my school play at age twelve was a better announcer than Taylor. Listening to her is like being read aloud to from a children’s storybook. Except that brother’s Grimm would be more interesting than anything she’s saying.
While Tyra gives an in depth critique and entertaining analysis of her models, Niki repeats statements like this, slowly, painfully and without energy, on a weekly basis:
your photo is fabulous and
you rocked the runway
you are this week's winner
you may leave the catwalk
No details. No analysis. No enthusiasm. No complex verbs.
Some models work well on TV. Tyra epitomizes this concept, Rebecca Romijn kicks ass as a transvestite on Ugly Betty, and Heidi Klum’s incredibly adorable, energetic, and drop-dead gorgeous on Project Runway. With Niki Taylor, it’s impossible to even imagine this woman once was a supermodel. And it’s not about the fact that she looks like your average soccer mom in way too tight clothing; it’s about that fact that some people just aren’t good on-camera.
Tune into Make Me a Supermodel on Bravo if you want to check it all out.
I haven’t been to Pink in weeks. I was under the impression that I’d actually kicked my Thursday night addiction, yet somehow got dragged there (I blame the wine at dinner) for Wilhelmina’s Modeling Agency’s 40th Anniversary after party last night. The first thing I noticed as I approached the 27th street strip of debauchery was Marquee’s super-weird new awning-like entrance.
In this picture it looks white, but I swear the atrocity was neon green. It looked like an alien hovercraft had landed on top of the club and Martians had perhaps taken over inside. I doubt this was the look they were going for. Apparently, Marquee was hosting some sort of NASCAR party, but the only thing I saw on the red carpet backdrop were lame ads for Sprint. So who knows? More importantly, who cares? I just can’t believe the city of New York let Marquee extend their already obnoxious entrance into two lanes of traffic. My shocked cabbie had to swerve in order to not collide with the thing. Let’s all hope this ridiculous glowing awning is temporary.
Enter Pink. New phenomena to note!: Men with bright color pashmina scarves. More specifically, men with neon PINK pashmina scarves. Observe Pink’s doorman (sorry I don’t have a better photo, I didn’t bring my camera out and took this with my phone…SEE…proof I wasn’t planning ITAL to going out).
When it started to get chilly in the city, Euro men had some sort of hidden fashion conference and decided to dawn colored pashminas with dark jackets. Most of these guys were sexy anyway, and the spark of color added a little flair to their outfit, while also making them look gay by American standards. Anyway, this started with electric blues and deep reds. That I can handle. Then around Halloween, guys started wrapping orange scarves around their collars. While the orange scarf-look may look stunning on a Helmut Lang billboard, it just doesn’t work in real life.
But now!
Now we have men with pink, that’s right, pink scarves. Last night saw two. One Pepto Bismal pink and the other baby pastel pink. Is the doorman sporting pink accessories because he works at place called Pink and is trying to mesh with the club’s title? That doesn’t even make sense since the cocktail waitresses are wearing gold. And what are the two others guys’ excuse?!
The club filled up around one thirty. The music was entirely uninteresting…dare I say bad. The crowd wasn’t impressive. Roberto assured me Wilhelmina had a 150+ person guest list, and that people were just arriving late since this was the ‘after party.’ I decided to take my tired ass home.
I dawned my coat and just as I walked toward the exit, I saw the most beautiful man I’d seen in weeks. I shamelessly made eye contact with him, and I like to think he looked a bit sad that I had my coat on and was heading to the door. As we proceeded down Pink’s labyrinth-like steps, I saw not one, but five more men of the same caliber.
The male models had arrived.
And they weren’t gross, diaper-wearing, baby models like the ones I recently encountered at The Madison. These boys were clean-cut, well groomed, not-inebriated and appeared to have full possession of all their bodily functions. Pink Elephant also actually cards. So they all had to be plus twenty-one. I immediately took my coat off:
“I’m staying to ogle the man-meat!”
So I stayed another twenty minutes and did some schmoozing, although the beautiful boy I’d first seen never resurfaced. When I finally did leave, I saw Alex Karev from ABC's Grey’s Anatomy standing on the staircase below me.
My first instinct was just to pass by and say to him: “Alex Karev!” But that seemed absurd. Besides, the guy was shit-faced! He looked like a seventeen-year-old baby model who’d gone shot happy with a bottle of booze. From my limited reading of US Weekly, I’d been under the impression he was married and a nice, family guy. Well, he was walking in ‘S’ shapes while a woman (his wife?) bitched about not being able to find something in her purse.
I slid by them as one of the doorman began announcing, “Clear the way. This is Justin Chambers!”
Sadly, his name didn’t elicit any kind of acknowledgement from the crowd. As I exited, Justin pushed against me before wobbling to the left and announced to everyone:
“I have to take a piss!”
The Pink doorman took him by the shoulders and steered him back inside the club.
Charming.
I was done for the night.
Dear Brad,
As Bettina and her family pointed out, you lack any sort of formal college education, so this concept may be hard for you to get your head around:
People don’t watch reality TV to see reality.
See, we’re all already dating guys who say stuff to us like, “You posses every single quality I’m looking for in a woman, but I’m not interested.” The Bachelor works to ensure women that true love might actually exist. That dreams can come true. That hot, successful men out there are willing to settle down. If not any of those things, the show works as proof that there’s at least one man on the planet who’s not a total dipshit. That’s why ABC gets to charge advertisers $1.5 million for 30 second spots on the show.
Have you no respect for the system?
I decided not to judge you until watching last night’s cheesily titled “After The Final Rose” Special Edition of The Bachelor. Sadly, you were a worthless asshole last night too, and even got booed by the female audience.
Brad – I get that it’s difficult to be sure you want to spend the rest of your life with someone. That’s why past bachelors have sort of finagled the proposal and handed the ring over saying, “let’s get to know each other better and see if this works in real life.” Did you find both DiAnna and Jenni so repulsive that they weren’t even worthy of that non-committal statement? You’d really rather just walk away? Jeez. The past six weeks must have been torturous for you if you hate them that much. Considering you showered them with assurance, that also makes you a fabulous actor. Agents in LA probably already have you on their speed dial. Maybe that was part of this whole plan.
I guess I remain baffled that you couldn’t just make a non-committal proposal to one of these girls and take one for the team. Give American women something to smile about and dump whoever you picked five days later.
Is that so much to fucking ask?
Now, already emotionally schizophrenic women like me have learned that even if I open up to guy and spill out all my feelings, and even if he considers me ‘perfect’ for him, I’ll still get used like a Kleenex. Women will never want to be contestants on this show again. They sign up for a chance at happiness, not to participate in a rejection-fest. Women can get rejected in real life everyday without having to fly to LA, live in a house, and compete with twenty-four other women for your attention.
You’ve also made the ABC execs piss themselves to the extent where on last night’s special they brought out two happily married couples from previous seasons to affirm the show’s credibility. I’m impressed the head of reality programming at ABC hasn’t strangled you with his tie. I wish he would, because that would be affirming to watch.
That’s all for now.
Keep on sucking,
Model Behavior
PS Keep it up with the creatine because I think you’re getting fat
I admit that I girlishly squealed when Enrique Iglesias strode into the douchette America’s Next Top Model girls’ trailer last night. Considering I was watching The CW, I figured the models would be practicing their lame dance moves by debuting in some cheesy B-level rap star wanna-be’s video. Best case scenario, I was thinking Chris Brown. When my long lost teen crush Enrique strolled on screen, I think I swooned louder than any of the zanies on the show.
I realize I’ve written about how I look down on whole celebrity crush thing, and I do. Enrique, however, I’ve had a thing for since day one. Back when everyone was ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ with Ricky, I remained a loyal Enrique supporter. Then he started dating Anna Kournikova, and my respect for him went up an additional twenty-five points.
Kournikova’s sizzling hot. And she can play tennis. No, she hasn’t won a Grand Slam or any important tournament of note, but when you’re that good-looking, I remain impressed with the mere fact that you have hand-eye coordination. When she starred in Enrique’s “Can’t Escape My Love,” video, it was the golden age of Enrique. That song was catchy as Hell. And the PR geniuses that decided to put Anna in the video deserve an award. The fact that these two were actually dating made it all the more hot – and trust me; I’m not the kind who normally buys into this celebrity bull-crazy.
When watching Enrique on ANTM both my roommate and I knew something was missing.
His mole.
Granted, Enrique chose the mole removal route years ago, but one still feels its absence when looking at his adorable little face. Which brings me to my next question…
What happened to the mole?
Was it somehow preserved and auctioned off on eBay to charity? I realize that sounds gross, and perhaps even medically impossible, but when you have three grand bids for a pair of Britney’s underwear (which we know she’s never used) and stars like Scarlett Johansson giving away her wisdom teeth as gifts, one has to wonder about the financial value attached to one of the world’s most noteworthy moles.
As you might expect, most of the ANTM girls sucked in the video despite an extensive ‘how to shake you thang’ music video lesson from Tyra Banks herself the day before. Some of the girls looked downright hoochie, others like a deer in headlights. Sara looked so self-conscious that she got kicked off the show.
Then Heather fainted because she was hungry, hot and the simulated party set was just too overwhelming or her (imagine how fast she’d be out if she ever went to a real party). Heather was revived with an oxygen mask and a banana snack. If it weren’t for the occasional footage of Enrique, I probably would’ve stopped watching.
Enjoy the ANTM girls (fop the most part wisely edited out) in Enrique’s new video:
On a separate note, anyone confused or curious about the Writer’s Guild of America strike will find this simple, informational video interesting:
As I mentioned in a previous post, yesterday marked the club Pink Elephant’s third anniversary. And in typical Pink style, the miser owners of the establishment are milking the event for all it’s worth with no not one, but three nights of celebration – Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t try to stretch it out to a whole week).
I remain flabbergasted by the fact that Pink Elephant has existed for only three years. I feel like I’d heard about it since my childhood (shows I had a messed up childhood). And the club has already taken up foreign residence in several European and soon-to-be South American countries.
This is all extremely disturbing. If one club has wreaked this much havoc on New York nightlife (and on my life personally) in a mere 1,080 days, what will it be capable of in ten years? It has already attempted to become a planet. What’s next? Will it have a Chelsea 27th street clubbing monopoly? Will it shut down Marquee? Will there be Pink Elephant champagne? (They already have their own vodka.) Pink Elephant spas? Resorts? Games at Atlantic City? A Pink clothing line?
Dear God. Make it stop!
Despite the fact that the DJ whose music I want to make love to was spinning on Wednesday night, I showed up only for the Thursday segment of the celebration as “special gifts” were promised to all the tables from the “Pink Elephant family” according to the invitation. Who is the Pink Elephant family anyway? I picture a bunch of Scrooge-like accountants in a back office drinking scotch and using patrons’ credit cards to cut cocaine lines before they snort, cruelly sniffle, and then ring the card up for a seven thousand dollar charge. But hey, who knows? Maybe it’s even worse than that.
Knowing it would be hectic night, I arrived at 12 am sharp. This clearly wasn’t early enough as the door looked like something out of a comedy sketch: people tripping over one another, dodging umbrellas, bodysurfing forward in an attempt to get a word in edgewise with the unsympathetic doormen. There were throngs people outside the door from every angle, and literally no one was getting it. All we kept hearing was:
“Clear the sidewalk. Clear the sidewalk, please. I need my sidewalk clear. No. No. The answer is NO. Clear my sidewalk please.”
It was it’s own mini version of Hell. But soon we realized what had all of Pink’s bouncers’ balls in a knot; Rihanna and her remarkably unattractive posse were working their way into the club with bodyguards etc.
Gross.
When she passed, I really wanted to ask her for an umbrella considering it was slightly drizzling and she managed to produce a number one hit pop tune containing only the word ‘umbrella,’ but my friends advised me against it. Once she got through, the door laxed slightly and we were finally ushered in after I had my ID photographed with a digital camera. Apparently scanning IDs just isn’t enough anymore and now Pink can access my driving record (and I’m sure a bunch of other government records as well.)
Great.
The music was what I call ‘B Minus house,’ i.e. house music spun by someone who actually has no house music experience, just spent several summers being a DJ in Ibiza (NOT the same thing). It tends to be really thumping, unoriginal, and unpleasant unless you’re on ecstasy, in which case dancing to Raffi would feel like a unique pleasure. The place was also crowded to the point that I made it my own personal mission to never leave my elevated spot at the table for fear of being molested, trampled, and burned by flaming cigarettes poking out from the crowd in every direction.
The so-called ‘gifts’ tables supposedly received seemed to be these large Dom Perignon buckets of what look like green larva and Dom Perignon champagne stand holders made of plastic. Unimpressive. 
Here's the green larva gift bucket from another angle complete with a photographer trying to snap a pic of Rihanna (not visable) and an woman oddly (inappropriately?) wearing a pantsuit.
The only part of the evening I found especially entertaining was also a horrifying example of how Pink Elephant will soon be a ride at adult Disney Land. That's this huge, fuzzy Pepto-Bism0l pink elephant in the DJ booth - who then ran through crowd.
I snapped this picture as one of the impractically enormous, child-size bottles of 5 grand champagne was making its way toward me.
Note that the pink confetti you see on the bottle was drizziling down on all of us for most of the evening. I spent this morning trying to remove the champagne soaked confetti from the inside of my purse. The stuff got everywhere.
Festive? Maybe. Fun? Absolutely not.
Here’s a question: Why is fashion week so painfully long? I just want my normal New York lifestyle to resume. During fashion week, all once-pleasant Manhattan activities are suddenly on steroids. And if it lasted just a one week as its title implies, maybe I could handle it, but fashion week is dangerously akin to Christmas – you see suicidally-annoying ads and promotional material for it ions ahead of time and then have to continue to watch the holiday deteriorate as people trees slowly end up in their driveway weeks after the fact. Why doesn’t the fashion industry fess up and just call this excuse for debauchery, ‘fashion mini-month’? At least then we’d know what we’re in for.
Needless to say, I’ve completely rejected this ‘fashion week’ excuse to party. In fact, if I see one more invitation to something with ‘fashion show,’ ‘fashion show after party’ or ‘open bar’ on it (this open bar shiznit is 96% of the time a LIE) I’m going to pull out my own expertly highlighted hair. Am I the only human being in New York who thinks fashion week is completely overrated? Am I the only one who doesn’t enjoy sitting through fashion shows in the first place, and then especially doesn’t enjoy having to pretend you liked the whacky feather contraption they body-glued to a six foot starving Croatian girl before shoving her down a runway? For me, the strangest fashion week phenomena is that I honestly don’t notice the extra influx of models and ‘fun’ that theoretically occurs. When I go out, everything looks the same. The amount of beautiful women is the same; the amount of male models in hoodies is the same. And I’m fine with that. New York doesn’t need fashion week to be more spectacular. This city’s so glittery you need industrial strength sunglasses on an average day. If anything, fashion week means there are so many parties occurring simultaneously that it actually diffuses the crowds (and by consequence, the party’s energy). People are frantic trying to hit up six events a night. Where’s the fun in that?
Here’s another mystery. How is it that people who don’t work in the fashion industry have fashion week parties? Does this make sense? For example, I recently received text invites that read:
“Come to Jay-Z’s fashion week party at the Inferno, going to be off the hook.”
“Mandy Moore’s fashion week blow out party tonight.”
What do these musical artists (if you can even qualify Many Moore as that) have to do with fashion week? Why can’t Jay-Z’s party just be Jay-Z’s party? Does no one pause to analyze how ridiculous this whole thing sounds? It’s like if you plaster the phrase ‘fashion week’ across everything it makes it ten times cooler. And let me be the first to tell you that this promise of extra hot women and free booze never pulls through.
So I’ve made it a mission this season to avoid all fashion week related activities. Sadly, a birthday party I attended last night also had a link on aSmallWorld announcing, ‘come celebrate fashion week.’ This made me want to sit under my bed sheets chewing my nails for the rest of the night, but out of respect for this friend (who was a huge hit at my birthday party) I went and got drunk in a bitter way. Can’t we just celebrate a dear friend’s annual existence without bringing the fashion week nonsense into it? It’s like they feared no one would show up unless those silly magic words were scribbled across the invitation.
My next biggest fear…doesn’t fashion week come every season? As in several times a year? And for a mini-month each time? Fashion Gods, help us.
I’ve never understood girls fawning over actors and musicians. I’m guess I’m just way too practical. Why waste your precious seductive thoughts and energy on someone who doesn’t even know you exist? On someone you have no hope of succeeding with? The superstar is unavailable, out of your league (sorry to be harsh), but seriously – save your screaming for an emergency fire and your wall space for a global cause that actually matters.
1. I never been into the ‘hot actor’ because we all know attractive male actors are five foot two in real life. Face it: These are men who were forced into the theatrical path as a kid because they were too small to succeed in sports at school. Do you think any good-looking guy who was large enough to be the star quarterback in high school would choose starring as Willy Wonka in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory instead? No. No, I think not.
2. I’ve never been into the ‘hot drummer / guitarist / boy band guy’ because I’m really not a fan of concerts or live music (I know, throw rotten fruit at me. I’m a weirdo). Since worshipping such musical stars usually involves paying exorbant amounts of money to attend their ‘live’ usually lip-synced performances, where you battle tens of thousands of other people in a mosh pit for oxygen and have to listen to female tweens shrieking bloody murder, I’ve always passed on the whole ‘band fan’ idea.
3. Lastly, I’ve never taken interest in a molebrity [that’s a model / celebrity] male model crush since having worked the biz in Milan I know that 80% of guys in print ads secured the job through sexual favors to powerful male photographers. This puts a large, dark, homosexual cloud over your fantasy of you and the Calvin Klein underwear model in a field of sunflowers together. Uugh.
So there you have it. I’ve never been into celebrity crushes … UNTIL NOW …
Monday night I went to see Rescue Dawn at the Angelika and fell in love with Christian Bale. It wasn’t just his boyish charm, humbling good-looks, longish hair and radiant good nature. This guy’s a fucking fantabulous actor. He MADE the movie. I was ready to watch him struggle through the jungle of Laos for another four hours, just because he did it with such charisma in an utterly believable, blended performance – humor mixed with unrelenting hope. And this is coming from a girl who’s not a huge fan of Vietnam movies. Rescue Dawn is worth seeing. The POW camp was a fascinating and incredibly written study of human nature that utilized black comedy in an amazingly realistic way. Besides, how many men can look sexy and have a sense of humor while eating a strangled water snake with heir bare teeth for survival. I’m one hundred percent positive that only Christian Bale could pull it off. 
Like any new fan, I came home after the movie and googled the shit out of Christian. My love for him only grew. He’s a serious Method actor known for his pursuit of intense acting jobs and his willingness to gain or loose weight in order to best personify his character (he gained 100 pounds in 6 months before filming Batman). He’s also actively involved in the world of independent films, which means he’s maintained artistic integrity. He’s also an accent expert, so could woo me with heavy British slang one day and a rough Greek accent the next. I’m ready for him to star in every screenplay I’ve ever written. We could be a dynamic duo – entertainment partners. I think we’re meant to be!
Too bad he’s already married …
