Say Goodbye to Hollywood

As much fun as it’s been writing this blog unfortunately life has intervened and I’m going to have to step away from it. I’ve become too busy with other pursuits and will have to stop writing and scale back the promoting to mainly special events. I’m actually quite happy about it but it’s bittersweet. Thanks for all the emails and messages, I definitely appreciate it.

I started this blog because I wanted to pull back the curtain of Hollywood nightlife and show you that the emperor has no clothes. I wanted to show you that if you think Hollywood nightlife is superficial, racist, and corrupt on that side of the velvet rope, on our side it’s 10 times worse.

I’ve been going out in this town for damn near a decade. I saw Jay-Z sing “bubblin’ in Dublin’s” in the actual Dublin’s…where he was apparently “bubblin’. I danced with tweaker girls at 4am at Coconut Teaser. I got thrown out of a Playboy party at the Century Club. I rolled into Concorde with some USC sorority girls.

I remember going to the opening night of Opera. It was absolute mayhem as I walked up. As I waited for my friends to park I saw a guy I had been introduced to a week earlier. He was one of the managers of one of the other then hot clubs in town. The other manager introduced me to him and told me after he walked away that the guy was a hardcore coke addict. And 40. And sleeping on friend’s couch. I saw him walk up to the door past everyone outside Opera, give the bouncer the half handshake / half bro-hug and stroll in.
























Just then I heard the one of the girls standing next to me say “Who is that guy? He must be important”

And that, my friends, is what I want you take away from this blog.

Hollywood nightlife is all smoke and mirrors. That dude isn’t really a producer. The club with the line outside is empty inside. The girl who tells you she’s only been with 3 guys – that first time that she didn’t like, her high school boyfriend, and you – was also seen blowing the bouncer last week. The “VIP” in bottle service lives with his parents. The 9 is really a 6 with 2 hours of prep time. And most importantly, the so-called “important” person is a 40 year old cokehead.

See these places for what they are….places where pretty people go to fuck each other. That’s it.

Making it into a hot club doesn’t make you someone. It doesn’t make you “cool” or “in the know” or a “tastemaker” (someone please tell me what that fuck that word is supposed to mean). If you derive your self esteem from being able to get into Club X on a Tues. night, you are a douche who has the mentality of a high school girl. And if you are over 30 and think this way, please get into a paper cut fight with Magic Johnson.

“Parties are intended to be celebrations, and celebrations should be only for those who have something to celebrate” – Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged

Growing up my hero was Michael Jordan. Late in his career he wrote about the problems with the NBA, mainly that the accolades (the $80M contracts, etc) came before the achievement. “Status symbols are meant to be just that - symbols. A flashy car should represent the underlying achievement, not replace it.”

These places, especially during the week, are often filled with the utterly useless of our city. They should not be admired. They should be ridiculed.

It’s a problem that infects our broader culture. What Bill Maher once called it, “the Guitar Hero culture. Everyone wants to be a rockstar, no one wants to learn the chords.” And Hollywood is ground zero for it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love nightlife. It can be a lot of fun and it has its place. As much as I poke fun I think it’s great to go out with your friends and have a great time, have a few drinks, and meet some attractive strangers. I’d go so far as to even defend it as a good place to meet people. Let me tell you, it’s a hell of a lot easier to go to a place filled with attractive girls and find the few interesting, smart, or substantial women there than to go to a place where supposedly more substantial or intelligent women go (let’s say, a professional mixer) and try to find the 1 attractive girl (let me clue you in….there aren’t any). I even have a friend who tried going to church to try to meet a normal girl …and he was fucking atheist!

I’ve met some great people in nightlife. I’m happy to call many of them my friends. So even though I’m stepping away from the blog and promoting, you’ll still see me out sipping on my Crown and Coke, chatting up some model / actress (aka “mattress”) and making fun of her every time she says “supposably”. And I’ll still be having a good time doing it.

But remember, if you start bragging to me about getting into some club I’m going to remind you that it’s no different than that unibrowed Persian guy telling you about his BMW (that his dad bought for him).

Talk about the achievement, not the status symbol. Tell me when you actually do something.

Otherwise please get the fuck out of our bottle service. :)

Love,
Xander

Who's that?

At the gym last night and cycling through the tired selection on my iPhone. I got so desperate I actually allowed a Creed song to infect my eardrums for a few seconds before hastily removing the plug from the topside of my phone and linking up to the audio on the TV screens in front of me.

Besides discovering that it is impossible to look manly on the elliptical machine, I stumbled on a show called Basketball Wives and watched the whole thing as I burn off the afternoon’s Pinkberry. Aside from inexplicably ignoring the 800-lb gorilla in the room – that the major requirement of being a basketball wife is looking the other way as your husband “takes it to the hole” on every cocktail waitress, bottle service girl, and club skank in 30 cities – this particular piece of journalistic drivel exposed a peculiar quality of hot chicks that I encounter regularly.

They interviewed several wives and each one said the same thing when recalling meeting their huge future husband to be.

“My friends said “Oh, Jason Kidd wants to meet you and I was all like, who is that? All the other girls were totally all over him but I didn’t even know who he was.”

Riiiiight.

Every one of the wives gave the same story. She didn’t know who this guy was, she kept ignoring him, he pursued her for 15 years before she finally relented and went out with him and it was another 15 years before they actually had sex. Because if there is one thing pro athletes are known for, it’s putting in a lot of work to get laid.

I hear this same line of B.S. all the time. I’ll be chatting up some 22-year old Santa Monica College psychology major and I’ll point out some B or C level celebrity at another table.

Me: Hey there’s Turtle from Entourage

Her: Who’s that? From what now? Oh I don’t really watch much TV.

So let me get this straight. I, heterosexual male busy with a day and a night job, whose interests include sports and finance, somehow recognize a celebrity (albeit not a very big one) but you empty-headed retard whose entire existence is spent reading US Weekly and TMZ and watching the E! Channel on a continuous loop, somehow is oblivious to the famous person in the room.

Really?

“I don’t really watch much TV”

I’m sure your days are spent pouring over the latest iteration of the Senate’s health care reform bill and furiously nitpicking at the details or thumbing through your latest copy of The Economist considering the implications of microfinance in Indonesia and you’ve just pulled yourself away from this important work to come to Voyeur on a Wed. night but I somehow don’t buy that even with all on your plate you don’t notice the millionaire in the room.

“I don’t really care about celebrities…I don’t even notice them”

So a couple of weeks ago when I saw LA Laker Luke Walton at a certain hotel lounge on Hollywood and Orange and every girl in the room started hovering around him like the proverbial golddigging moths to the 6-year, $30M dollar guaranteed contract flame, it was just a mere coincidence that they were all standing around in that huddle making eyes at him. I mean your friends probably told you who he was but you don’t didn’t care because they’re just people like everyone else. People who are now making out with you.

“He totally hit on me once at party and slipped me his number but I never called…I was like ‘whatever’”

If she somehow slips up and actually admits to recognizing a celebrity, she will undoubtedly tell me about how she is unfazed by them and that it’s not big deal that they buy her a drink / call her / give her their number / bang her in the back of their Phantom. I’m sure she’s regularly passing up opportunities to instant riches by becoming Ray J’s baby momma or at least end up on a reality show. After all she has Stitch, the unemployed actor / part-time tattoo artist waiting at home for her. She’s too good for Ray J.

In the words of Seth Myers…..Really?

Fail

Shopping for a new belt at the Beverly Center on a leisurely Saturday afternoon and I see an attractive blonde girl about to walk into Forever 21. She's not really my type but she has what we call "door value" meaning the club will be happy I invited her (i.e. she has more value when she gets to the club front "door"....presumably because she has a poof in her hair).

Anyway there's no rest for the promoting weary so I decide I need to approach her. Approaching girls during the day is good because they aren't always connected to 100 other promoters like most girls you see out on a Tues. night. So I stop her:

Me: Excuse me....hi, I'm Xander, I'm a club promoter. I was wondering if you go out in Hollywood.
Girl: Um, not really.
Me: So what you like, stay in on Sat. night, watch Grey's Anatomy reruns? *smiling*
Girl: Ha. No. I'm 15.

Just then her Mom joined her and looked at me like she was ready to report me to Dateline: To Catch a Predator.

Fail

At the door

As I discussed in a previous post, one of the hazards of promoting is that you don't always know who someone is friends with. So I might know a really cute girl, but she might be the cute one in the group.

So started promoting at a new spot on Friday night. The night is going well, all my people are getting in no problem until I get a text from a cute girl in my phone.

Girl: Hey I'm here. I gave your name at the door but it didn't work.
Me: Who are you with?
Girl: 4 girls

I cringe because I know what this means. I walk out to take a look and I see them standing there. They aren't linebackers or anything but I see the problem. Never-the-less I pitch my case to door guy.

Me: "Hey man, these four are mine...what's the issue?" (as if I didn't know)
Door Guy: "2 girls are alright, 2 aren't. One of them looks like a penguin."

Ouch.

The funny thing is, she wasn't fat. He just apparently thought she looked like this:

Thank you

These have got to be the 2 rarest words in all of Los Angeles. I marvel at how infrequently I hear it. My fellow promoters and I talk about it all the time. Look I know you think you’re doing me a favor coming to the club. Yes, I get paid when you come but our life isn’t quite the Lil’ Wayne video you probably imagine. Sure I have a good time - after all it’s why I do this - but let me break it down for you.

If you are a girl and at our table, we might give you a drink from our bottle. Keep in mind you are one of many girls we’ve brought to the club..maybe as many as 50 or 60. Now a bottle of Grey Goose holds enough booze for about 12 drinks. I know they probably don’t teach math at FIDM but 12 is much less 60 and that doesn’t even include all the random bottle rats hovering around the table. Now I’ve mixed and given you a drink. Is it too much to ask for a little not-so-common courtesy? I know you have an inflated sense of self-importance because you have a skinny headband on and a poof in your hair and of course your new store bought boobs but that doesn’t mean you forgo the little bit of etiquette you extend your local Starbucks barista. Because even if your mom didn’t teach you any manners, I will.

Just this past Saturday night I heard stories from promoters I have worked with of girls barking drink orders at them and jingling their empty drinks like the promoter is some hired help or something. You wanna bark orders at someone? Go yell at the Wendy’s drive-thru guy. If you’re coming to our table and looking for a drink – because God-forbid you actually pay for something – then at least have the decency to say hello and introduce yourself and say thank you when I hand you the mostly roofie-free Vodka / Soda from our bottle.

This goes for guys too. If we get you in when you don’t show up with any girls then say thank you. Maybe even offer to buy me a drink. Yeah I know it looks like I’m ballin’ but I assure you I’m not getting paid that much and only have a few drink tickets and bottle for a lot of thirsty and sober girls looking to get fucked up. So I end up buying my own drinks most of the time.

I know this isn’t exactly global warming or health care or something actually important but it’s just endemic of an overall sense of undeserved entitlement that most people (especially women) in this town have and it irritates the shit out of me.

I mean if a “thank you” is good enough for one of Mickey Avalon’s groupies, its good enough for you.

The one that got away

The French girl from your study abroad. The grade school crush. The girl from the bar that one night. Everyone has one.....even a jaded club promoter.

Heidi and I went to high school together. We barely knew each other but our brief interactions were among the only things I remember – or choose to remember – from my formative years. We sat next to each other in Advanced Placement Biology. She was studious and nerdy but underneath the square glasses and overalls lay the burgeoning femininity of a half-Swedish, half-Vietnamese young girl, not yet full aware of her ability to weaken men’s knees. She was like the girl in the Freddy Prinze Jr. movie, beautiful but slightly awkward and focused more on class than the varsity football game, ready for a makeover to truly unlock her potential.

We sat up front. Her for the proximity to the overhead projector. Me for the opportunity to steal glances of her thighs as her rose-patterned black shimmering skirt hiked up her leg when she sat down. My focus on fossil records and DNA replication was constantly being diverted each time Heidi raised her hand to ask a question, or ran her fingers through her hair, sending her straight sandy blond hair back to the small of her back.

I make her laugh by signing into the lab sheet as “Mike Hunt”. She shows me pictures of her that her mom says makes her look too “chink-y.” Each time I get up and walk toward the Bunson burner during lab, I sneak a glimpse of her frilly, pastel colored underwear as she crosses and uncrosses her legs, sending an unfamiliar tingling sensation through my boy parts.

As graduation approaches, I’m informed through a mutual friend that Heidi doesn’t have a date for the prom. My desire to ask her is overwhelmed by my painful shyness. This future Hollywood club promoter is paralyzed by a deathly fear of rejection. Prom passes and graduation arrives. As we are signing each other’s yearbooks I am surprised to find that Heidi has left me her phone number. On the last day of school we run into each other in an empty hall:

“You have my number right?”
I do.
“You should call or something”
“I will” my voice cracks

I stared at her phone number in my yearbook for more than a month. Endless permutations of potential future interactions ran through my mind. By the end of the month I had married and divorced her dozens of times in my minds eye and with each machination of imagined captured and lost young lust, I became more fearful and convinced of the futility of picking up the phone.

I never called.

Over the years, Heidi became a metaphor. A reason to approach the random girl at the coffee shop. To head out on a rainy night when I’d rather stay in. The ups and downs – especially the downs - of finding lust and love in Hollywood were occasionally tempered by the memory of a 17-year old closing a yearbook and the feeling of defeat as he stored it away in the back of his closet for the last time.

For most people, this story epilogues with a chance encounter at the grocery store years later, or a name-tag wearing high school reunion where the object of their past crush has morphed into a stroller pushing suburban resident, heavy-set and married, the remnants of youthful desire only faintly conspicuous behind a nostalgic twinkle in each other’s eyes. The sting of lost potential is assuaged by the knowledge that not all that glitters is gold and the passing years reassure that your idealized crush was just that.

But this isn’t a storybook Hollywood ending. This is a True Hollywood Story.

Last Saturday I am on a bar stool, watching UFC 109. Between fights I glance up and see a familiar face smiling on the glowing screen. The glasses that slid down her face as she looked up at the chalkboard are gone. The sandy blonde hair is dyed platinum but the dimply smile is unmistakable. She waves at the camera…a wave once directed at me more than a decade earlier when a lesser known member of the cheerleading squad stretched and said hello to a lesser known member of the basketball team as he warmed up for a game.

I entertain a brief fantasy of reconnection. Walking outside a club to greet a long lost crush. Walking through the crowd with fingers interlocked as gawking observers see the more polished versions of two people from humble beginnings.

My eyes return to the plasma screen and to her right side where I see her companion seated next to her at ringside. My brief fantasy is quickly dashed away and my day-dream comes to an abrupt awakening.

Heidi………… is Chuck Liddell’s new girlfriend.

FML

Help me help you

This is a phrase my friends and I use. What we mean by that is when you come to the club, I want to help you get in. In fact, that’s my job. I want the door guy to marvel at my ability to bring gorgeous girls to his venue. I want to walk out and have him say, “Nice work Xander, I have been standing here with a rod in my pants for the last 2 hours just staring at the prime trim you’ve brought out tonight. You are the Pied Piper of Poontang.”

And I want you to have a good time too. If I invited you out, chances are I’d like to hang out with you. If all goes well you have a good time, I get paid, we have some drinks, maybe hang out at our table, and everyone goes home happy (and hopefully with someone attractive).

But I can’t do it alone. You’ve got to work with me here.

That means if you say you are coming you don’t forget to mention that you are bringing 5 dudes with you.

That means you leave your 300 lb coworker with the overbite at home watching CSI reruns.

That means you don’t dress like you are going to 80’s night in Ecco Park.

Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say I want to hang out with you. So I call you up and you say great let’s hang out. And you add “Hey I’m going to my weekly Anti-immigration group meeting. Tonight’s topic is keeping Mexican midgets out of the country because they are taking all our good pro wrestling jobs." (Apparently you're an Orange County Republican). But regardless I agree to meet up with you.

On my way to meet you, I stop by and pick up my friend Chuy.



















As you can see, Chuy is Mexican. And a midget. But I like to keep Chuy around because he makes me feel better about myself. I mean, sure I might have the occasional premature ejaculation, but at least I’m not 4 ft tall right?

So Chuy and I show up just as you are discussing Luche Lubre. Now tell me, should I be surprised if you don’t seem happy to see us?

But Chuy is soooo fun I say. He had me cracking up the whole way over with tales of his midget life. Why do you have to be a dick about it? I just wanted to come hang out at your Anti-immigration rally and maybe enjoy some of the refreshments.

You see this is exactly what you are doing when you show up to club like this:













It’s actually worse because in my case you can actually get me fired. And promoting isn’t like working at Toyota where if you screw up, you sit down with HR and they write you up and discuss disciplinary actions for your excessive porn use at the office. Nope in my case I get fired on the spot. At worst I get fired. At best I’m going to be enduring weeks of “Hey can you keep your guest list under 2 tons tonight?” jokes.

So save the angry text messages. Save the questioning of my abilities as a promoter.

Side note: In general, questioning the credibility of a promoter is like questioning the table manners of a chimpanzee. Of course if you are reading a blog about the crooks, drug addicts, and bathroom blowjobers of the nightlife industry, you’d understandably expect the highest degree of journalistic integrity. Just had to get that out of the way for any blog tourists. :)

So in summary, help me help you get into the club. We all know that these places are in the business of bringing the most attractive women in and selling the chance to try to sleep with them to a few dudes in bottle service in a kind of high stakes mating ritual. Don’t be surprised when they don’t let you in if you aren’t bringing the goods and definitely don’t expect me to help you reverse this rather obvious and explicit requirement like I’m MLK marching on Washington for the overweight and unsexy. I don’t make the rules here, I just live by them.

So please….leave Chuy at home.

Occupational Hazard

I'm dancing with a Xander special - trashy blonde with an nice body. My buddy comes behind me and leans in my ear.

Buddy: Don't make out with her.
Me: Why?
Buddy: She just blew a guy in the alley.
Me: That's a good reason.

I walked away without saying goodbye.

Only in LA......

..... is the checkout girl at the supermarket hotter than the model on the cover of the magazine displayed next to her.












Forget Voyeur on Thursday, I'm going to start hanging out at Ralph's on Poinsettia.

Bottle rats or How to get a girl attracted to you

It's a rainy week here in the City of Angels so I've been reminiscing about the great summer I had. It reminded me of a story a friend and fellow promoter told me about his first time at XIV in the summer.

XIV Sunday afternoons in the summer were as good as it gets in LA. The heat was on, the house music blaring, and the 9's and 10's were dancing in the booths overlooking Sunset Blvd. Traffic slowed to a crawl as gawkers and passers-by stared slack-jarred in disbelief, wondering what the hell was going on in broad daylight on week's sabbath day.

My buddy and his friends get a table and a few $500 bottles of vodka. Eventually a random girl comes by and starts fixing herself a drink. My buddy's friend - we'll call him Mark because that's what the girl thought he was - engages her:

Mark: "Hi"
Bottle Rat: (not making eye contact, continues pouring) "Hi"
Mark: (louder, like he's rudely interrupting) "HI!"
Bottle Rat: (continues pouring, still barely acknowledging his existence) "Hi"

Mark then grabs the full drink out of her hand, puts his hand over the terrace balcony and turns the cup upside down, pouring heavily marked-up Grey Goose into the bushes outside.

Mark: "Get the fuck out of here"

In the words of Ali G....Respect

Be a Mark and not a mark and don't let bottle rats ruin your night.

"My phone died"

Translation: I did not want to talk to or hang out with you.

Guidos vs. Persians

Got into another NY vs. LA discussion the other day and it got me thinking about a couple of things. First, why does NY has so many great classic songs by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Tha Dogg Pound to the latest Jay-Z and Alicia Keys song yet the best LA can do is "I'm in LA, bitch" - a crappy remix to a crappy song?

But more importantly I thought about the two blemishes on otherwise fine respective nightlife scenes. So it's time for a look at......drumroll please......Guidos vs. Persians.

	GUIDOS	PERSIANS
Facebook Profile Pic	Shirtless in the mirror	BMW
Native Habitat	Jersey / Staten Island	Westwood / Beverly Hills
Ride	Escalade	Magic carpet (Daddy's SLR on the weekends)
Blasting out of car	Shitty house music	Shitty Indian music
Fashion Statement	Popped collar	Gold chain
Wants to sell you	Mortgage Loan Modification	A luxury car
Free time spent	Tanning, Working out	Bragging, Waxing body hair
Has weakness for	Nose rings / Tramp stamps	Blonde white girls with poof in their hair
Tan	Artificial	Hereditary
Often mistaken for	Puerto Ricans	Cousin It
Can usually be seen	Lifting weights	Arguing loudly
"The Situation"	Mike Sorrentino's Abs	Your drain is now clogged with hair
Biggest Fear	Herpes	Airport security
Tattoo	Italian Flag	Mercedes symbol
People (incorrectly) assume your family is	In the Mafia	In Al Qaeda
Famous Ladies man	Giacomo Casanova	Daaavid from Brenvooood (see link in comment section)
Biggest disappointment	Sopranos Finale	Cousin just bought more expensive car than you
Preferred hairdo	Blowout	Back hair
Last Name Ends In	Vowel	Having to spit
Signature move	Fist pump	Cussing out bouncer, yelling "I can buy and sell 10 of you" then apologizing profusely and eventually buying bottle service

Shwayze - Let It Beat

If you are looking for a great soundtrack to the LA lifestyle, I highly recommend this album (no, I'm not getting paid to endorse it). I saw these guys open for label-mate Mickey Avalon and again at the Sunset Strip Music Festival. While their debut album was all about the beach and the sunshine, this one goes a little more risque with tales of club bathroom sex and casting couches. Shwayze's familair lyrical topics - women and weed - are again laid over Cisco Adler's catchy production and the result has been playing in my car as I roll down Sunset in 75 degree January-in-LA weather. Check out the single, my favorite song on the album, pasted below...

Brutal Honesty

I was reminded of this story by my friend Juni, who attended the opening weekend of a A-level club on Santa Monica Blvd. with me. The promoter on the night is arguably the biggest promoter in town. We roll up and are talking to the bouncer as a frantic and growing crowd outside is trying to get in and pretending to text someone to ameliorate the awkwardness of being on the wrong side of the velvet rope.

The promoter - who I'll call "Simon" - comes out and people start shouting his name to try to get themselves in.

A guy shouts at him:
Dude: "Simon, I know you from blah, blah, blah"
Simon: "Sorry bro, tomorrow night I might know you, but tonight I don't. "

A pair of girls (cute, but not hot) start shouting at him:

Girls: "Simon, Simon get us in!!!"
Simon: *looking them up and down* "Sorry girls, only the pretty people inside tonight"

Then he walks back inside.

Wow. I've never been more inspired in entire my life. I think I actually shed a tear of joy.

Under New Managerment

So after bagging on Halo (previously Ritual, previously White Lotus), I should pass along the info that the closed-since-summer club named after the video game of the same name was recently purchased by SBE Entertainment (XIV, MI6, Area, Hyde). A redo and reopening is scheduled for the first quarter of 2010.

If previous SBE incarnations are any indication, the new spot will be ultra hot and have a very short name.

More Plausible Deniability

These are two of my favorites

“I don’t go to clubs to meet guys”

This is ALWAYS followed by this exchange:
Me: The last guy you dated. What was his name?
Girl: Blah, blah, blah
Me: Where did you meet him?
Girl: At a club
Me: *Staring blankly, then walking away*

“I don’t really go clubbing”

The majority of girls say this at some point in the conversation. I get it; you don’t want to be known as a “club girl.” But seriously these places are packed week after week, with girls who supposedly don’t go clubbing. It reminds me of reading that 74% of people say they have better than average judgment (this is obviously mathematically impossible). The same principle has been shown in studies of job performance, driving ability, and physical appearance.

But really you don’t go clubbing.

"I just want to dance"

She don't want a man,
She just wants to dance....
-Asher Roth

I understand that girls need plausible deniability but you must know how ridiculous this sounds. If you really wanted to just dance you could go to a dance class or a gay club. But instead you spend 2 hours getting ready, putting on uncomfortable clothes and shoes, getting your flakey pain-in-the-ass friends together, arguing for an hour where to go, dealing with Saturday night traffic and parking, dealing with door drama, dealing with other bitchy / hating girls, getting bumped and shoved all night, paying $14 a drink at a 700% markup, having said drink spilled on your new $200 dress, getting grabbed aggressively by douchebags, and taking care of your drunk friend who you actually hate…..all for the chance of meeting a guy or at least having a guy grind his boner on you from behind.
















But you just want to dance.

Life Cycle of a Hollywood Club - Pt 2

Alright in Part 1 I went over the first 3 phases of a clubs life span. Now we’ll go over the Tiers 4-6. One point of clarification. I wouldn’t be caught dead in any of these places. But I know what they’re like because when I was 21 and started going clubbing and I often ended up here with me and my entourage of dudes. Anyway, here we go…..

Tier 4 – Community College
So named because 1) no matter who you are, are, $20 gets you in and 2) there are a lot of Asians. Usually a club is predominantly Asian in this phase with some Hispanic and Indian (7-11, not casino) mixed in. Girls get charged cover as well unless they’re very hot. Some clubs that have had extended Community College phases are Highlands, Area, and Element.

Tier 5 – Pack a Vest and A Chrome















There’s one word for this phase: G-H-E-T-T-O. It’s like Saddle Ranch came to the club. “Bankrupt” just got out of prison and wants to get his groove on. The people come from the Inland Empire and places that you’ve heard of in N.W.A. songs. Lots of Tapout and sports jerseys. There are entire herds of 200 lb+ Mexican girls. The whole place smells like weed. Guys = neck tattoos, Girls = boob tattoos with their man’s name (may he rest in peace) in cursive writing. I’ve actually seen a guy with a FACE tattoo in one of these clubs. Not just Mike Tyson around the eye tribal symbol stuff. I’m talking both cheeks fully tatted and the word FUCK on one side and YOU on the other.

Fights will often break out in these clubs. Let me rephrase that. Shoving matches will break out. Guys in LA are way too pussy to actually ever throw a bunch. It might screw up their faux-hawk.

Tier 6 – Clusterfuck
My friend Kelly correctly identified and named this phase when we unintentionally ended up at Ritual a few weeks before it closed. In the clusterfuck phase you have:

• A mostly empty club. Only about 15% -20% as many people as when the club was hot
• Random ass people in the club. A midget in a wheelchair. A creepy 70-year old guy in a hospital gown (hey he had $20). A woman brought her kids and they’re drinking.
• A random “10” – you have no idea what she’s doing there. Is she a hooker? Is she dating a bartender? Out of towner? Have a penis? All of the above?

Tier 6 clubgoer

After this phase the club mercifully shuts down for 6-12 months, remodels and changes its name to something cooler and more vague and starts the lifecycle over again. A few observations about the whole process

• Clubs surprisingly make the most money in the later phases. Everyone is paying cover and they pack the place in like sardines. AND they still buy drinks. This is more lucrative than a bunch of 9’s and 10’s who don’t spend any money and just a few baller dudes in bottle service.
• Clubs will try to only shut down for a short time and reopen but this doesn’t work. You can’t fool me Empire, you’re still Sugar. The worst was Ritual not even closing but actually sectioning off half and calling it Halo. You can’t fool me; I can still smell the weed coming from Ritual next door! You’re sill Ritual and you’re still a Tier 5!
• Some spots are blessed and some are just cursed. The place that is now XIV was Privilege before that and Shelter before that and all 3 have enjoyed elite crowds and long runs. Contrast that with a not-to-be-named place near Hollywood and Highland that over 3 turnovers has never been higher than Tier 3.

"We need more sluts"

Only in this business can you go to your Monday morning business meeting and hear this phrase.


















I guess if you worked at a brothel.

The general manager of the club said this when referring to the fact that he noticed the bottle service clients weren't getting laid. So if you or someone you know is whoring it up around town, please get in touch with me. Apparently my clientele skews too classy.

Xmas in Hollywood

The promoting team and I did a one-off promoting gig at Playhouse on Christmas Day. You would have thought people would stay in on this of all days but you'd be wrong. Not only was it packed but notorious nightowl and former UFC champ Chuck Liddell was in the house. So you could say I had a very Hallmark Christmas - 72 degrees outside and hanging out in bottle service with The Iceman. Can't help but think it's what Jesus would have wanted.

I love when my east coast friends visit and they say about LA weather "Yeah but I like seasons." I like seasons too....that's why I live in a place that skips the shitty ones.

HDNet Filming

My promoting partners and I just filmed a special for HDNet about the Top Ten Party Cities in America. It went really well and we can't wait for the airing. Pictures and videos will be uploaded soon....stay tuned.

Translating Bouncer Speak

“We’re at capacity”
The place is empty but you rolled up with 3 dudes. (My favorite part of this one is a minute after saying this stretch hummer of 20 girls will roll up and walk right in)

“It’s a private party tonight”
By private I mean it excludes fat chicks.

“I don’t see you on the list”
You’re ugly and I’m hoping dumb enough to not realize there isn’t actually a list in my hand

“That promoter isn’t here tonight”
I’m going to go yell at him for inviting you

“Who are you with?”
Ditch the guys who drove you here (And they will)

“That promoters list is closed”
To you

“Gimme a sec”
You’ll be out here all night. Save yourself some time and just go straight to Saddle Ranch.

There's a great movie called Bounce that takes this a step further and looks at the lives of bouncers in NY and LA.

NYE in LA

If you're planning on being in LA on New Year's Eve, I got all the info and best deals. Go to http://www.XanderEvents.blogspot.com to check out the events and email me at XanderAfterDark(at)gmail.com for tickets!

Life Cycle of a Hollywood Club – Pt 1

Generally a Hollywood club has a 2-3 year lifespan. There are some that go longer – Les Deux for example has had an almost 4 year run and counting – and some go much shorter (Apple Lounge got Ed Hardy-ed in less than a year). But in general this is how it goes:

A couple notes on this: 1) It might sound like this is about race but it’s really about social class and sometimes social class and race go together. 2) These are broad strokes…each tier bleeds into the other. Ok on to the show….

Tier 1: "You’re not on the list"

When a club from a proven owner opens up, it starts in Tier 1. It’s packed with 9’s and 10’s and there are hardly any guys except the promoters for most of the night (by the end it’s about 30% guys). 7’s get shot down at the door and go home to purge. There are a ton of paparazzi outside. Inside there is a heavy skew toward scantily clad white, blonde girls with big fake boobs and poofs in their hair.

When a club from a proven owner opens up, it starts in Tier 1. It’s packed with 9’s and 10’s and there are hardly any guys except the promoters for most of the night (by the end it’s about 30% guys). 7’s get shot down at the door and go home to purge. There are a ton of paparazzi outside. Inside there is a heavy skew toward scantily clad white, blonde girls with big fake boobs and poofs in their hair.

There are some celebrity sightings, most of whom have been paid to be there. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to get past the door. The club gets press in Us Weekly and TMZ. They sell bottle service at exorbitant prices and still they make sure that the guys dropping $2,000 are good looking. Voyeur is currently a Tier 1 club.

Tier 2:"300"

Once the Persians know where the blonde hotties go they immediately start infiltrating. The door people form a Spartan like phalyx to hold off the invading Persian army. However the Tier 1 crowd has been frequenting the same club for months and ennui is setting in. Their burnout means the crowd gets lighter, loosening the door policy. Eventually they start selling bottle service to Persians, bankers, and guys who live at home with their parents and lease their car so they can buy bottles at the club. The girls are still really hot but they are more diverse and the ratio drops to about 55%-60% girls. Towards the end of this phase the club starts charging cover charge to guys but not girls. This practice is actually illegal.

Tier 3:

"Bridge and Tunnel"

Everyone in the club is from the valley (Burbank, Sherman Oaks, etc) or similarly far away places. We don’t actually have bridges and tunnels in LA so the equivalent are the hills that separate the valley from Hollywood and the Westside. Clientele are primarily Hispanic and Asian and the ratio is about 60% - 65% dudes. You’ll also start to see a lot more grinding as the preferred method of approach.Empire is currently a tier 3 club.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week where I cover Tiers 4-6

You look....Haute

Just getting back from the soft opening of Haute, the new place occupying what was formerly Apple Lounge. The new décor is cool and the kitchen is huge. Like Apple, they have separated the lounge / dining area from the skanks-get-their-groove-on section. Didn’t get a look at the menu but I assume it will be typical skewers and sliders. By the way, just because you shrink a hamburger down and call it a slider doesn’t make it gourmet cuisine. I’ve never understood this.

Anyway this promising new spot will hopefully revitalize this interesting space in the heart of Boystown. More details to follow as the club gets its real opening.

Great Drake Line

"Shorty wanna party so don't let your girl up out the house,
Or there'll be shots on TMZ of me giving her mouth-to-mouth"

Bye Bye Bar Delux

Found out the Bar Delux is closing in Feb 2010 and will remodel to become a restaurant / lounge. There is no truth to the rumor that the club failed because it refused to let me in on opening night (can't a guy show up with his 2 buddies at midnight anymore?).

I heard the original name for Bar Delux was going to be "We Only Have Tables So Buy One or You'll Look Like a Huge Douche." I guess that wouldn't fit on the sign out front.

Irony

I'm hanging out at MI6 and strike up a conversation with a "blonde." Her roots are clearly showing and she has rather obvious long extensions. She's wearing a pound of make up, green contact lenses, and fake porn-star looking eyelashes. Her breast implants brush up against me periodically when one of us gets bumped. She's wearing 6 inch heels and confesses that she's only 5' tall. We're having a NY vs. LA discussion when she drops this gem.

"I hate how everyone in LA is so fake."

After staring at her blankly for a second, I walked away without saying goodbye.

Introduction

Xander: Forgive me father for I have sinned

Father: Go on

Xander: I’ve treated women poorly father

Father: Have you beat them?

Xander: No. But I have rated them 1-10 in my phone. And invited them to events based on that rating.

Father: Go on

Xander: I’ve fucked….sorry, I mean fornicated. I’ve fornicated with these women. In the clubs. In the bathroom at these clubs.

Father: Go on my son

Xander: I’ve insulted these women. I called them fat. I told them to take their ugly friend home and come back to the club. I may have called them a wildebeast and said that her open toed shoes looked like she was baking bread. I’ve called them a cougar and clawed them all night with my paw.

Father: You have much to confess

Xander: There’s more. I have discriminated against others based on their race.

Father: Oh my. How have you done this?

Xander: A Middle Eastern gentleman tried to get in my club. I denied him.

Father: I guess that’s not so bad.

Xander: And then I tried to explain to Ali Baba that he and his girlfriend could get in but his 40 thieves would need bottle service.

Father: That’s racist

Xander: There’s more father.

Father: Oh no

Xander: I have much to confess. Drinking in excess. Sex. Coveting. Adultery. Bearing false witness. Wearing Affliction. What should I do?

Father: What do you mean?

Xander: Hail Mary’s? Our Father’s?

Father: Huh? You know you’re in a bathroom stall right?

Xander: I don’t go to church, you’ve all I’ve got man!

Father: Um, I guess you could tip the bathroom attendant.

Xander: Then what?

Father: You could confess online. Like a blog or something

Xander: That’s a great idea father!

Father: Oh, and stop calling me father. It’s creepy.

Xander: You’ve got it. And one more thing.

Father: What?

Xander: Say Xander’s list at the door!