Model Behavior Recommends: September Edition

1. I’ve continued to reflect on the recently traumatic experience I endured last weekend in which I was abducted (by that I mean ‘went willingly’) by psychopaths (by that I mean ‘my friends’) to the third circle of Hell (by that I mean ‘the Hamptons’). While I wrote about this debacle previously in a humorous light, I’m now overcome by a sense of personal and civic duty to learn something from this experience. I know the lesson here, and I’m going to share it with you. It’s called:

Listen to your instincts.

I’ve been in many cars with drivers who couldn’t walk a straight line or finish a sentence without slurring. I’m not proud of this fact, but hey – I lived in Italy, a country in which ‘drunk driving’ doesn’t even exist as a concept, let alone a national safety slogan. And set aside driving under the influence, I’ve been in cars with sober Italian men who view stop signs and red lights as a recommendation to stop; Recommendations to be often overruled by their super-macho sixth sense. My creepy, ex-boss Ivan always used the highway’s breakdown lane as his own personal speeding aisle whenever we hit traffic. I’ve also been with four people cramped into a Smart car on the autostrada. Clearly, I’ve made some bad decisions. I’ve trusted some reckless drivers. But never before in my life did I get such an instinctual, gut feeling that something was wrong as when I set foot into the vehicle that transported me to the Hamptons last Sunday night.

My friend who invited me out to Long Island is an international who can’t drive in the USA. So a friend of his I'd never met before was at the wheel, and something about him was just off. So I rationalized it. He seemed to have a decent taste in music, he wasn’t drunk, and his haircut scared me, but his baseball cap seemed okay. He was a friend of my friend. Why should I distrust this guy?

Despite my attempts at a convincing inner monologue, when we stopped to pick up another one of my friend’s on the upper West side before heading out of the city, I was overcome by a violent urge to grab my girlfriends, break out of the car, and take the subway back to the safety of my apartment. Well, I didn’t. And we all know what happened next (the most terrifying three point five hour drive to a destination that should’ve taken ninety minutes tops).

The next day, post-trauma, consulting with my girlfriends, they confided that they’d had a similar feeling that something was wrong upon entering the car. In trying to make the best of things, none of us communicated this sensation to one another. The whole drive to Long Island, I thought I was just being paranoid. I tried to calm myself down by observing that no one else seemed to need a paper bag to breathe into. I told myself I was a hypersensitive freak (which in most cases, is the truth). Little did I know that all of us in the backseat were experiencing the same intense fear that the next phone call our parents received would be from a local state trooper announcing our car-related death. Lesson:

Speak up!

This entire experience reminded me of a wonderful book I read several years ago and want to reread again now. It’s called “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker and I highly recommend it, especially to any female readers as it has some great chapters on self-defense. In a world sophisticated enough to birth the iPhone, it’s easy to forget that we are animals. Our instincts are constantly telling us how to survive; only too often our logic gets in the way. As de Becker writes:

“…What many want to dismiss as a coincidence or gut feeling is in fact a cognitive process, faster than we recognize and far different from the step by step thinking we accept so willingly. We think conscious thought is somehow better, when in fact, intuition is soaring flight compared to the plodding of logic…Intuition is the journey from A to Z without stopping at any other letter along the way. It is knowing without knowing why.”

Oprah’s obsessed with de Becker and calls him “the nation’s leading expert on violent behavior,” but don’t let Winfrey’s seal of approval scare you. This book is not cheesy. It could save your life.

2. I’ve written quite a bit about fake designer goods and various options for acquiring them. I therefore felt it my duty to report that decent, fake Tiffany’s jewelry is now available on Canal Street in Chinatown, New York, complete with those robin’s egg blue pouches. Louis Vitton has been over-duplicated to the point that it no longer exists as a legitimate brand in my book (which is fine because I thought they sucked as a brand anyway). Now, a day I thought would never come has arrived. The WASPYness that is Tiffany’s is being pumped out in a factory near Shanghai and being sold to the American masses for fifteen dollars a charm bracelet. Go crazy.

3. It was recently my grandmother’s 80th birthday and since I never leave my New York apartment in the summer unless it’s absolutely necessary, I began shopping for her online. Sadly my favorite online destinations {blogs, Bebe.com, Armani Exchange (just to check out the underwear ads), the Bulgari engagement ring creator (just to fantasize)} weren’t really grandmother gift appropriate. Now don’t roll off your seat laughing or anything, but for the past several Christmases/gift giving occasions I’ve been giving my grandma and my step-granddaddy these adorable decorative garden frogs that they LOVE and place in picturesque areas of their absurdly well-manicured backyard.

Amazon is the find everything shopping God, but I’ve exhausted their not so large garden frog category. That’s why I was thrilled to find this site: Online Discount Mart. Not only to they have an exhaustive and affordable supply of garden critters and gnomes, they have about every gift on an old person’s wish list from bird baths to holiday decorations to adorable ‘welcome to my garden’ signs. I’d struck a relative gift getting gold mine, because seriously: In Manhattan, where’s a person going to find this stuff? With the hateful Holiday Season and all the sugar coated cheer it brings with it coming up, I thought I’d pass on the link, since for us uber-cool young people it’s often difficult to access the ideal gift for great uncle Harry.

Survivor: Hamptons Style

My posting schedule this week has been a little cracked out. Don’t worry. I’m chalk full of excuses, the most pertinent and truthful of which is that this weekend I suffered several near death experiences, all in the same 10-hour period. Stressful? Yes. The chords in the back of my neck have only now (four days later) begun to relax into their normal position, and that’s only because in an act of desperation I used one of my roommate’s sun salutations yoga stress-reliever DVDs. Note: old men in instructional yoga videos are creepier than your average pedophile. What I gained in flexibility I lost in peace of mind.

So how was my life endangered repeatedly? Well. This past Labor Day Sunday night could perhaps be defined as the night to be in the Hamptons. There was P Diddy’s silly all-white extravaganza, there were six zillion ‘fashion week parties’ (whatever that means), there was the end of the summer fiesta at that club that starts with a ‘T’ that I can never remember, and then there was Rocco’s Sunflower children’s charity event and finale blowout at Pink South Hampton hosted by Buddha Bar. Now we all know I hate the Hamptons and that I haven’t ventured there since Memorial Day. But when I got a last minute invite for a ride to Long Island on Sunday morning, I succumbed to the idea. I decided I’d begin and end my summer in the Hamptons on the two hot holiday weekends that open and close the summer. What can I say? I like symmetry.

The adventure that ensued is still too raw for me to talk about fully. I haven’t really progressed to that funny ‘ha ha’ looking back in joyful retrospect stage of a situation that was at the time, dreadful. I’ll kick off by saying that I was in a car with seven people. Uh-huh. You do the math. We also had six cases of Veuve Clicqout in our car’s trunk, so everyone’s luggage was on their lap or at your feet. The fact that there was NO space was remedied by the fact that our happy jeep-bus of seven was drinking insanely expensive sake out of Starbucks paper cups. Our hosts also had some champagne on ice. There was also the distinct odor that several joints had been enjoyed in the vehicle before Bartok and I had even been picked up. And how many bottles of sake had already been consumed before our arrival remained a mystery.

Our designated driver was not drunk, per se. I think he was just a really bad driver in general and one of those people incapable of multitasking: i.e. every time he’d speak on his cell phone, send a text, or smoke a cigarette (which was about 90% of the voyage) we’d often drift into the opposite traffic lane, come close to rear ending someone, or miss turns. The car had a satellite navigation system, a function the driver thought was purely decorative, as we got lost several times. My favorite moments on this hellish journey had to be:

1. After pulling over for a pit stop, when everyone was piling back into the jeep, our driver took off with two of us still in the parking lot and one girl’s body half-in / half-out of the moving vehicle. She’s lucky to be alive.
2. When I saw the ‘Montauk to Hamptons’ exit sign over five times, each from a different direction.
3. When our driver pulled into a jail / concentration facility to ask a cop for directions. The moment we pulled into this sketchy parking lot, complete with a guard, a high fence, barbed-wire, and a big yellow sign that read “Correctional Facility” to turn around, I knew our driver was officially insane and that it might be time to start text messaging people my will.

With everyone acting as a backseat driver and me shrieking out directions and survival techniques like an opera singer on steroids, we ultimately arrived at SAG Harbor with a newfound appreciated for life. I then made it my personal project to get me and the people I cared about as far away as possible from the aforementioned driver. Me and my girl’s had a conference. Our driver and our host (by association) were clearly out of their minds. And our host is someone I know quite well. I don’t know if it was the glare of the full moon or his eighth glass of sake after two joints, but I no longer saw him as an entity to be trusted. And if this was the drive up, did we really want to stick around to see what kind of Hampton’s accommodation these whack-jobs had to offer? From that moment on, the night metamorphosized into a game of survivor. And I think girls alone in the Hamptons is a much more frightening prospect than girls alone on a deserted island.

I proposed we find a way to get to Rocco’s party at Pink in Southampton because at least at Pink we’d know half the club. The majority of our friends were there, so I game-planned that at Pink we could recount our story of woe to sympathetic ears and locate a friendly soul who’d take us in for the night. This meant scouting prospective transportation from SAG Harbor to Southampton in a nearby bar, since our hosts were preoccupied drinking the Veuve we brought with us out of paper bags on the street. Every time a police car passed us, I feared for my life.

Luckily, after much research and over an hour of conducting interviews of eligible bachelors with licenses and cars, we found gentlemen responsible enough to lend us a ride to Pink, where they were going anyway. Our now officially drunk driver from before a little too carelessly tossed me his car keys so we were all able to retrieve our luggage out of the large, crack-den on wheels that had transported us to the Hell which is the Hamptons.

I like having millions of cabs surrounding me like Christmas lights. I like the 24-hour subway system. I like being able to walk everywhere. You mix with the wrong crowd in the Hamptons and you are STUCK in all caps. There’s no escape, except for the one you create yourself. And me and my girls epitomized that Destiny’s Child song ‘Survivor’ last Sunday night as we bailed out of SAG Habor looking for safer territory.

We left our overnight stuff in an anonymous friend’s trunk and made it into Pink by two thirty am. Naturally, the place was a shit-show. Rocco stripped and danced and fell off the bar. And for three blissful hours, as sad as it may sound, I felt safe and at home in the company of my fellow douchey partygoers. And when Pink becomes a sanctuary you know you’re in a freaky, emergency-like situation.






My bliss was naturally cut short because at five thirty am I had to deal with where we all were going to crash. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say my stress level rose another thirty percent. We ended up all four of us in a bed trying to get some shut-eye at six in the morning. Sleeping was an impossible task since house music was playing in the adjacent living room at mega-watts and the majority of our companions were engaged in those never ending, coked-out, seven am in the morning discussions about the meaning of life that are more painful than nails on a chalk board to listen to if you aren’t also high. Needless to say, our crazy driver and negligent host had failed to provide us with any kind of dinner, so at this point we were more starving than your average child in Somalia. One of the owners of the house kindly offered us all that was in his fridge: some wheat bread. So we nibbled on that and drank water and realized we surviving off bread and water – literally. We were prisoners in a Hamptons jail.

The minute I saw the sun had fully risen, I knew it was safe to venture out of the shed/refugee camp where we’d spent the night. I gathered my girls and high-tailed it out of there, stepping over unconscious bodies on my way to the door.

We walked around a random, cute, Hamptons street before seeing our equivalent of a rescue helicopter – a Hamptons Jitney put-putting by at eight in the morning. We all waved our hands in desperation, and even though we were no where near a Jitney stop, the driver pulled over and let us in. I think he just took a look at our smeared make-up, haggard faces, luggage, and weary walk and knew this was a legitimate emergency. And once we were on the Jitney, I finally felt safe. Traumatized, but safe. And just like in any rescue aid vehicle, support started flowing in. The Jitney hostess gave us water (be blessed), muffins (nourishment!), and a New York Post (where we cautiously read reviews of the parties we attended from the night before).

I wanted to kiss the Manhattan sidewalk when I exited the bus onto 3rd avenue. I wanted God Bless America to start playing and to crescendo at the moment I’d dive into my own warm bed, huddled under my covers in the fetal position like a genocide survivor. And the Hamptons – well, until I’m married with a mansion in Montauk – I’m never going there again.

Midgets at Pink & Greed is Good

As someone who was extremely well-behaved this weekend, sleeping Friday, attending a simple house party Saturday, avoiding Cipriani’s Sunday, I have little douchebaggery to report from this weekend. That is, until I recently engaged in a conversation with my Argentine friend about midgets (I really don’t have a midget fetish, even though they live in my brain with power tools when I’m hung over and I talk about them constantly). Naturally, the absurdity of oompa-lumpa-like creatures brought to mind an equally absurd phenomenon – Pink Elephant in the Hamptons.

“Speaking of midgets,” the Argentine said, “Did you know that at Pink in the Hamptons people get so shit-faced that there’s actually a colony of little dudes whose livelihood it is to get these people home.”

Me: “No way! How?”

“They’re these little guys on tricycles, except the bike has four wheels. Whatever that’s called. They throw their bike into your trunk and drive you home…”

Me: “And then they bike back to Pink to transport the next intoxicated loser?”

“Yep. No one wants a DIU.”

Me: “The midgets must be making a killing!”

“It’s like sixty dollars flat rate for a certain distance and then an additional charge per mile.”

How the Argentine knew such specifics made me think that he in fact once participated in this outrageous nightlife transportation scheme. But I decided to forgo him the humiliation and not ask. I’m not sure why, but the image of midgets (although I’m sure these workers are actually full-size human beings) on tricycles escorting slurring hedge fund owners home from a night of Ecstasy-ed out fun had me giggling hysterically for days. And since I have no going out stories of my own to share at the moment, I give you this.

On separate note, I send a message to my fellow bloggers. I realize we all write because of our deep rooted artistic integrity and we revel in freedom of the spoken word and condemn advertising (thanks to TiVo we actually don’t have to condemn it, we can just skip over it) and we loathe pop-ups blah, blah blah. But crossing over to the dark side for a moment I thought I’d FYI you guys in on a site an anonymous friend of mine keyed me into. payperpost actually caught my attention because it’s basically a service that just lists opportunities to bloggers of stuff to write about if they so desire and make cha-ching cash. You can also make $7.50 for just reviewing other peoples posts, something I feel most of us do anyway. And as an ex-script reader, critical writer, and avid opinionate, anytime I’m rewarded with something other than resentment for my opinion is a winning situation for me. So I’ve given it a try. My thoughts so far? Even if the listings I currently qualify to write about don’t include my favorite topics which I’d be willing to stealthily sponsor (those being booze, clubs, make-up, thongs, stilettos and clothes) I’ve found the site pretty interesting because it has some good literature, links, and explains a blog’s Google and Alexa ratings, a concept of which I was wholly ignorant of before. In an era where we all have two myspace, a facebook, a WAYN, a ConnectU and if you’re a real loser – a Small World account, who can resist not signing up for another potential networking tool that involves the good green stuff instead of bad spam emails?

So check it out if you so desire, and they work on a referral program, so be sure to enter through this pretty purple link:

I think anyone who reads my blog is fully aware of the fact that I’m essentially a misguided gold-digger (I blame my Barbie-doll mother) so I have no intention of sugarcoating my monkey making schemes for y’all. I leave for Europe tomorrow and am about to pay for everything in the Euro for the next month – feel for me! Besides, none of us write blogs for money … but a book deal would sure be nice, right?

Poking Fun at aSmallWorld.net

Some of you may already be aSmallWorld members, others may not know what the hell I’m writing about. In my words, aSmallWorld is an online community like any other only that it’s by “invitation only.” At one point, it was so small and elitist that only European royalty and their stunning American equivalents like Paris Hilton were members. I’m assuming aSmallWorld was set up so that these glamazons could arrange to use one another’s private jets and castles in Lake Como online while the creator of the site reaped profits from advertisers like Cartier and Verve Clicquot. In the site’s words:

aSmallWorld is an online community that is not open to the public. It is designed for those who already have strong connections with one another. It allows you to interact more effectively with like-minded individuals who share similar interests, schedules, and friends. The aSmallWorld Yellow Pages is becoming the ultimate reference guide for what is best in the world and most relevant to you. It is generated by members who are local experts who rate and rank restaurants, hotels, night-clubs, etc. in 60 major cities and resorts. The aSmallWorld Forum is a place where trusted friends can exchange secret tips and information, as well as goods and services from vacation homes to collaborations.

Well, since the site’s creation the number of membership has obviously grown and the “quality” of people has obviously declined (Exhibit A: Yours truly is aSmallWorld member). I first learned about aSW in 2004 while temporarily living in London. I had friends who were members and they’d occasionally drop abbreviations I could not understand (the aSW online lingo) and raved about the exclusive and intimate SmallWorld parties that were usually held in places like San Tropez and Dubai. People also marveled about the effective housing exchange, and one of my friends even managed to negotiate a free weekend at some dude’s penthouse in Buenos Aires just because they were aSW chums. Obviously I was green with envy. I mean, we all want what we can’t have, right? Even if it’s just a bunch of posers on the internet. And I, for the life of me, could not get invited to aSW.

What kept the network exclusive (although that exclusivity can be debated now) is that only a few select members had the power to invite new people. So while I might be pub-crawling every weekend with ten aSW members, if none of them were high enough up on the totem pole to posses invite power, they had no way to include me in their special club. I thought I found my key to entry through a friend of a friend who founded a highly successful internet start-up and was tight with the aSW investors. He had unlimited invite power and after hanging out together in London and NY a few times, he promised to invite me. I’m still waiting on that promise to come through.

Next I hoped to gain entry when a wonderful Brito-Italian friend of mine LT was promoted to have invitation rights. This was a trusted friend and confident who’d pull through on such a promise, yet alas since he IS a dear friend (and therefore usually wildly inappropriate) he was soon suspended from aSW for trying to repeatedly connect with Paris Hilton.

I returned to the States and promptly forgot about this silly site until around New Years 2007. LT was visiting New York and back in aSW’s good graces. They had sent him three invites to disperse to us commoners who must resort to networking on places like Facebook and MySpace. While enjoying beers at my apartment, LT mentioned that he thought he had one invitation left. I seized the moment and quickly ushered him to my computer. I forced him into a chair and made him log on and invite me that very minute. Thus the entertaining kingdom of aSW was unlocked for me. I mean, where else can you find thread listings such as this?

We are in Marbella. We need a glamorous-looking infinity pool, and a boat to shoot on, sometime over the next few days.

Does someone have a villa in the Hamptons for 1 or 2 nights to rent?

I am considering staying at the Puerta America but cannot decide which floor to stay on, any advice?

Does anyone know where to get a good facial and/or a manicure in Singapore?

Or job postings like this?

Midwife required for royal family! Experienced midwife to look after a newly born in a royal household.

French/Spanish speaking chef for part time job in family

CHAUFFEUR & HOUSEMAN/BUTLER - Executive Associate (Salary posted at 75,000 a year)

Private boat is looking for a stewardess for 6 months (april to september). Girl must be fluent English and motivated. Experience is not necessary. Boat will go in Corsica, Baleares and Sardinia.

Owner of a sailing ship, 42 feet (Dehler 41 cr), located in Lavagna (Genova,) is looking for a sailorman (25/40 years old) to be on board for two months in the Tirrenian Sea from the end of June to the end of August 2007. Must be Italian or fluent in Italian. Boat will go to Sardinia, Corsica and Cost’Azzur

Or, if you’re really looking for quality entertainment, check out the aSW Watch Enthusiasts Forum! I shit you not, this exists.

I’m looking to buy a simple timepiece crafted by Breguet, Patek Philippe or Blancpain. The question to you is: which craftsmanship is more exclusive, better valued by experts, keeps better residual value and have better feel of ownership? I think this is a tough one!

What is your opinion on the Bvlgari, Diagono, 44mm, Chronograph with white/black face?

Wow, I don’t know! My head is still spinning from the fact that there are watches other than Swatch and Rolex. Do people really buy watches as investments? I tend to smack mine into bar tops and drunkenly dive into swimming pools with them on a semi-regular basis. That’s why my Rolex is from CHINA.

More aSW hilarity at a later date….

Journey to the Hamptons

After hearing outrageous stories about the Hamptons and its night life for years, I ventured into Long Island this weekend to check it out for myself. In conjunction with praise for the Hamptons-style getaway, I’d also heard from particular friends that the Hamptons were overrated and that the glamorous nightlife was actually a bunch of posers, guidos and misled Manhattan socialites. After seeing it all for myself, my consensus is that the Hamptons are overrated if not downright sucky. I feel confident enough about this statement to want to sky write it over route 27 and graffiti it on the jitneys.

Why? Well, my journey out there was actually quite pleasurable. Scruff and I drove out with a bunch of friends Saturday night at around eight p.m. We hit no traffic and picked up fabulous Greek food in Queens on the way. Painless. Then we arrived at my friend T’s South Hampton share. The house was spacious and charming with a great deck, green yard and large pool. Everything was going well so far.

After drinking and changing clothes, it was time to hit our first destination. Memorial Day weekend means the grand opening of most Hampton clubs. We arrived outside of an establishment called Dune after paying twenty dollars to self park our car in a weedy patch of sand. If that cost twenty I was afraid to know the cost of valet? Fifty? It was just midnight and the heard of people already outside Dune resembled this fall’s immigration march in new york city. After many uncomfortable moments in line, Scruff finally picked us out of the crowd. We then past a large Maxim ad where certain douchey individuals chose to pose and have their picture taken by some kind of fake paparazzi.

When I envisioned a Hamptons club I was thinking outdoors and on the ocean with men in suits and women with backless evening gowns sipping champagne. Instead, Dune was entirely indoors and smoky with the décor of a dive bar. It was so crowded that moving literally equaled pain. I was stepped on and shoved by some vicious Long Island girls on the way to our table, which was of course was typical toilet bowel size and squeezed between a wall and a wooden stool. For our party of twelve to fit into this area we’d have to learn the trick of the sixteen clowns who stuff themselves into one car.

We attempted to hover near our table while bottles of Trump vodka arrived (Trump made a vodka? Dear God, why!?). One male friend of Scruff’s established himself as head of the table by sitting in the only available seat, spreading his linen clad legs apart and bobbing his greasy-haired head to the music like a crow. Oh – he was also wearing sunglasses.

SUNGLASSES?

And he wasn’t the only one. Didn’t men get the memo that wearing sunglasses in a club was code for slimy loser after nineteen eighty nine? Meanwhile, the DJ was spinning a different song every thirty-five seconds. We’d literally hear ten bars of a piece of music before it changed, and we were doing transitions like Fifty Cent to the Beach Boys to Madonna to Fergie to The Red Hot Chili Peppers to Bon Jovie to Ludacris. My ears almost went into epileptic shock. Perhaps as an artist I’m overly sensitive, but songs in my book actually have a beginning, middle and end. Blending is fine, chopping them down to twenty seconds each and tastelessly scrambling them together is just unacceptable. Songs changed so often that I worried that by twelve thirty this heinous DJ would run out of material having already played every song in the English language.

As someone who goes out often, I’ve seen many drunken people in my day. I’ve seen very tipsy women leaving Marquee, I’ve seen people dancing with themselves at four thirty in the morning, and I’ve heard occasional rude remarks from people fighting over a five a.m. cab. None of this prepared me for the Hamptons, where people were just shit-faced. Behavior at the Dunes was so wildly inappropriate that it made your average new york club look like a monastery. People were dancing obscenely like monkeys, many seemed like they were attempting to imitate fourteen-year-olds at a high school dance. I saw one fifty year old man joyously try to climb the wall. The majority of the women couldn’t even stand. My male friend went to the bathroom only to witness a full-fledge fight break out – and it was only twelve thirty. If these people were the Hamptons classy and fabulous I wanted a one way ticket back to Manhattan stat. Me and one of my girlfriends looked at each other with such confusion and disillusionment, shrugging our shoulders as to how it was possible each of the tables in this horrific institution were selling for a thirty five hundred dollar minimum. What was the world coming to?

After half an hour we escaped Dune through the back door and piled into our cars to go to Pink Elephant. I was in disbelief about what I had just seen and clung to the hope that there had been some mistake, that the fabled Hamptons nightlife was still somewhere out there.

The good news was the music at Pink Elephant didn’t make me want to knock myself out with an ice bucket. There was also an outdoor section of the club – not on the ocean mind you, but in the courtyard of some motel with fake sand. In addition, everyone from patrons to staff of Pink Elephant Manhattan was there. Creepy.

I bee-lined for the outdoor area. If I had wanted to be in a muggy indoor club I could’ve stayed in the city and gone to the bar below my apartment. While Pink’s music and ambiance was a definite improvement, the condition of the people mirrored Dune. I saw older women jumping erratically around the outdoor beds like chimpanzees and an attractive blonde hump a tree only to break into a full out striptease. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge supporter of drunken fun, but there’s a difference between a party and a shit-show. T and I ventured back to the house at three. The scariest part of all was that nearly all the hammered people we saw would be driving themselves home. Get me outta here!

Hanging out with friends by the pool the next morning was great. But for most people hanging out with friends anywhere is a guaranteed good time. Why people flock to the Hamptons remains a mystery to me. Sure it’s a beach, but the water’s fifty fucking degrees.

I knew in my heart that if I saw another pair of robin’s egg blue pants (yes, on men), oversize diamond watches (on men and women) or Lacoste polo shirts (on every breathing thing) I was going to strangle the nearest passerby. Hence I left South Hampton earlier than Scruff and co. and for a whopping twenty nine dollars was transported back to the peaceful reality that is new york on a long weekend.

Phew.

Outrageousness at Pink Elephant

This Wednesday at Pink Elephant I, Model Behavior, had a run in with not one but TWO douchebag-ettes (Cajun, you’ve inspired me to use this word. To everyone else: Yes, it’s pronounced like the French bread with “douche” in front and it’s the female version of a douchebag.)

Now, perhaps we can label me a douchbagette for frequenting such a pompous, elitist club like Pink Elephant in the first place. My defensive is that as a writer, I need to open myself to all experiences (including the often sickening and cutthroat New York club scene) since such adventures provide me with something to write about. This entry: case and point. And, to be quite frank, New York club-land is a kind of chaos I find myself quite comfortable in. It must be because of all those nights spent at age seventeen in the Hollywood VIP (yeah, in Milan they don’t card).

Anyway, my run in with douchbagette #1 occurred on west 27th street before even entering the establishment. Throngs of people were hurling themselves toward the Pink Elephant entrance, and I, as an admittedly frequent Pink Elephant attendant, knew that this amount of people was not normal – especially for a Wednesday night. I had been made aware that there was a Hamtpons magazine launch party starting at eleven p.m. I had been on the guest list and had planned to attend – not so much because I cared about the magazine party but because I had wanted to get into the club early, enjoy the open bar, and avoid the heinous situation out front which I was in now. Getting there early hadn’t worked out (long story) and the club was perhaps the most crowded I’d ever seen it. This further proves that the word “Hamptons” in any context is like catnip to New Yorkers. Say it and watch them pant and lick their lips. A Hamptons party at Pink Elephant? Everyone wanted in.

In the process of entering a New York club, there are the people who properly line up against the wall of the establishment and the people who go straight to the red rope street side, assuming the bouncer will recognize them/let them in without them having to waste time in any kind of line. I prefer the non-waiting in line tactic, although it can be quite competitive. You only have three minutes tops to get the attention of the person in charge and convince them that you’re worthy of immediate entry before the security bouncer reprimands you for crowding the sidewalk and being a fire hazard. This Wednesday night was so chaotic that there was a bulky line of people against the red rope, hoping for immediate entry. Further complicating the situation, Pink’s usual bouncer, the Aussie Cliff, was not working. Us attention-getter hopefuls didn’t even know who was in charge and me and douchebagette #1 were stepping on each other’s feet. I smiled gracefully and tried to engage her in friendly conversation about what table she had her clearly coked-out investment banker older man friend were going to, since I thought I had overheard him using the same name of entry as us. Douchebagette #1 instead just scowled at me, a rather frightening image since this girl had eyes like a Siamese cat: slitty, slanted, and shining with hate for me and probably every other attractive girl in the planet. She was a competitor this one. Her dress was to die for.
Me and my friend (we’ll call him T) caught a lucky break and were admitted inside along with douchebagette #1, her man, and some others. We were apparently supposed to have some kind of ticket to pass guard number two stationed at the interior entrance of the club. I sweetly explained to him that I’d been inside since eleven and had just ran out to grab my friend T (a blatant lie). After repeating six times that “he was over capacity and couldn’t let me in there,” my unrelenting persistence changed the bouncer’s mind and he let me and T slip through under his thick right arm.

The place was a madhouse. The craziest and fullest I’ve ever seen it. We wandered around searching for our table, a challenging task since is was impossible to move or breathe without being spilled on and the psycho lights were making everyone look different shapes and colors at five second intervals. After texting my Argentinean friend for directions to his table (keep in mind, we’re in a space smaller than many Manhattan apartments) we successfully arrived at his corner. Who was there to greet me? Douchebagette #1.

I smiled at her and moved forward to navigate myself toward the inner part of the table where Argentina, the host, was sitting.

“Sorry, this is our table,” she said. Uuuh, does that mean I’m not allowed in this close proximity of it? And WTF? This is MY friend’s table. I felt validated when Argentina recognized me, burst into a smile, greeted me with cheek kisses and pulled me into the table area.

“It’s a madhouse here,” he said. “So full that they re-sold my table to this guy.” Argentina pointed to Dougebagette #1’s male companion who I’d seen out front.

“So we’re splitting the table and banquette,” Argentina continued. This is my half.” Argentina drew an imaginary line through a section of the corner.

What was this? Kindergarten. Please keep in mind we’re talking about a “table” the size of your average toilet bowl. Lucky us, we were the proud owners of half of it. I had a brief moment of rage because it was so like Pink Elephant to capitalize on their best night ever by ripping EVERYONE off and reselling halves of tables to people out front for three grand each. Someone give me a champagne bucket to throw up in.

T and I danced and attempted to enjoy ourselves on our half of the table banquette, Douchebagette #1 giving me her occasional she-devil Siamese glare. At a certain point, an anonymous white haired, fat man arrived. He had a drink, handed a baggie of coke to Dougebagette #1’s douchey older male companion and left. After Douchebagette #1 realized I saw this not-so-subtle transaction take place she warmed up to me. When I next ventured over to her side of the table on my way to the loo she had the courtesy to say:

“Sorry if I was mean before. There’s just so many people.”

Don’t remember what I responded, but at least she apologized – and especially after seeing the pathetic-ness that was her douchey man, my heart actually went out to her and I hold no hard feelings against her to this day.

In my run in with doucebagette #2 on the other hand, there was no apologizing. This was later in the night when I found myself at the bar with some Italian friends, my favorite of which, Luca, was buying a round of drinks since it was his birthday (wooo!). In my happiness for him/in the thrill of the moment, when he asked what I wanted to drink I joyously replied, “anything.”

Ladies, this is never a good answer. I received some hybrid version of a vodka tonic with a clear mixer that tasted more like gin. Needless to say, I shuddered when I drank it. SO – I did what any logical entrepreneurial girl would do. I spotted a vase of cranberry juice on the far side of the bar and maneuvered myself toward it to add a splash of bearableness to my drink. I thought the cranberry juice was out on the bar waiting for some cocktail waitress to take it to its appropriate table. No one was going to miss a thimble size cup from the liquid. How wrong I was. As I approached and reached for the juice an Asian chick, Douchebagette #2, who one of Luca’s friends was chatting up, physically pushed me away.

Did she mean to push me? I reached for the juice again and succeeded in pouring a splash of cranberry into my drink.

“Hey!” This girl was screaming, dear Lord. “That’s not yours!” she shrieked. Well, yeah. Correct. It wasn’t mine. But what was she implying? That it was hers? It then occurred to me since they were splitting toilet bowl size tables in half, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the misers at Pink Elephant had decided to sell table service on top of the bar. This way they could say to the hopefuls out front “Bottle service only to get in and your table will be a section of the bar. Two grand.”

And people were doing this!?!?!!?

Further proof of the absurd lengths the word “Hamptons” will drive people to.

“She didn’t take any vodka,” Luca’s friend pointed out to douchebagette #2.

“That’s not hers! It’s not hers!” She exclaimed like a enraged five-year-old. Okay. There was no way this woman bought this ridiculous on-the-bar table service, and sure enough, the Asian gentleman who rightfully owned the bottle and its mixers soon appeared to see what the commotion was about. He smiled and offered me a drink. This didn’t make douchebagette #2 happy at all.

“I have one, thanks. I just stole some of your cranberry because my drink is so strong. I’m so sorry to have upset your friend,” I replied, backing away as fast as possible.

“It’s okay. She’s a little drunk,” he said.

Yeah. Well. This is Pink Elephant at three a.m. We’re all a little drunk, but that doesn’t mean we can act like infants. I got away from that crowd as fast as possible and Luca’s friend and I had our own brief conversation about the absurdity of what had just happened.

Best part: douchebagette #2 gave me a slight but noticeable shove on her way out. And I swear that I’m someone who usually makes friends with women quite easily. It was a Wednesday Hamptons party at Pink. If that’s an excuse for all this behavior, well, I don’t know what to say…