Notes From A Playboy Party

My original plan was to retire with the wife and cat shortly after a particularly exhausting American Idol, but the last-minute opportunity to attend a party hosted by the premiere publisher of masturbatory journalism is too tempting. Additional pressure to attend comes from the fact that Hugh Hefner is no spring chicken. No telling how much longer the Viagra and adrenalin shots can shore up his mortal coil.
On a side note, assuming he’s already spent the last 50 years in heaven, where does he go from here?
My friend with the invite, a veteran of such events, gave me the rundown before we went in to the Marquee club on 10th. He quite accurately described the crowd as women who want to be in Playboy and the men who want to be in those women. He was dead on.
There was little room to maneuver, and my elbows frequently found themselves meeting with unnatural resistance as they struck the many bosoms that were heaving about the place. Women danced. Men leered. The music was at a decibel level that reduced most communication to shouting and gyrating. A woman performed a dance where you kiss a guy’s crotch for a long time. Not sure what you call that dance, but it sure was classy.
Apparently the party was to celebrate the latest issue of Playboy which offers, amongst a few articles, pictures of model Rachel Hunter naked. Rachel Hunter clothed was seated upstairs, surrounded by women who didn’t think she was so hot, and guys who did. People apparently stand near the famous person table, looking at the famous person. Perhaps famous people like such things, but it seems like it might be tiresome. Of course, if you get naked in a magazine I have to assume you want people to look at you.
Mayor Bloomberg’s smoking ban was ignored, most likely because the smoke police weren’t on the guest list.
Getting a drink was like getting France to cooperate. Speaking of France, there were a lot of Frenchmen. I’m not sure if that’s because of the club’s French-sounding name, or because it was a nudie-mag party, but I heard a lot of Gallic jabber. My vodka tonic was an outrageous $12.
There was a man in a kilt. Wearing a kilt in Scotland is fine. No problem with kilts in Scotland. When you wear them to a nightclub in New York on a snowy winter day, you belong to Clan MacLoser.
Aside from Ms. Hunter, who had to be pointed out to me, I didn’t recognize anyone. Not that I’m particularly good at that anyway. There were a lot of people who wanted to be recognized, which would explain why they wore kilts or dressed like they were attending an open call for Dirty Debutantes Volume 237.
Because of the abundance of attractive, kind-of attractive, and all-out whorishly-attired women, the only one I really noticed was middle-aged and dressed like she had to open the library in the morning. She stood alone near the front door, probably waiting for her daughter to stop doing that simulated fellatio dance.
After the second outrageously-priced vodka tonic and a nice shoutversation with my friend, we made the rounds, screamed goodbye to a few folks, and headed to coat check.
Coat check was like Haiti, but with more chaos. Silicone and testosterone vied for a space at the window. The harried coat-checkers ran up and down stairs. They were often barked at and visibly flustered. When we finally got to the window I found out why: they had no idea what the hell they were doing.
My claim stub (Yellow #404) netted me a lovely Ralph Lauren long coat. Quite beautiful. Not mine. After I discovered this error, we had to get back into the line, fight our way to the window and request the correct coat. I refused to return my new Lauren jacket until my not-as-nice one was found. They didn’t like this much, but in such chaos I wanted nicely tailored collateral.
Ultimately, I was brought into the bowels of the beast and asked to search for the coat myself. A harried coat check (a Czech, no less) searched through the coats with me. I learned that they had a 200 coat capacity. Unfortunately for them, me, and everyone waiting, there were several hundred coats. Twenty minutes later I found my jacket, hanging with a different claim stub (Blue #404). This meant someone else would have a similar problem retrieving their coat. I returned the lovely Lauren jacket, though God knows if it will ever make it back to its master.
Hopefully they’ll sort out the coat check issues before tomorrow night’s party; apparently being hosted by one of the N’Sync guys. Not the boob-grabbing one.