the meet-pack-in district?

www.pinkelephantclub.com on 17.11.07 (i can't remember if i've been doing day/mo/yr or mo/day/yr - oh well. i've never been sharp on the details.)

above is the (virtual) site of my first (physical) experience at a big ol' meatpacking district box club. V.K., who has been in town for about 3 months now, and i finally made a plan to hang out. we had been thinking about going dancing. with her height & hotness & my dexterity & lack of shame, we make a pretty stellar combination. V.K. had heard of pink elephant, so we made a plan to go. we met around 10 pm. which was clearly way too early to go to a club, apparently. after the fact, apparently. so we went into a nearby restaurant, had an appetizer & drink while we waited / warmed up. oh yes, it was super cold. i had thrown caution to the closet & worn a slinky dress. i made the mistake of wearing that dress without an under camisole on another ladies night excursion and spent the entire night staring at my own cleave, wondering if i was pulling a tara reid, boob-hang out sesh. anyways. no need to worry this time. the rustle of air created by someone walking across the room (a la butterfly effect) would not turn my outfit into a malfunctioning wardrobe or scandale (shucks.) we wait in line for a long time, but it probably wasn't a long time. it felt like an eternity since my toes had long ago conceded defeat to the elements and had fallen into a hibernation or coma or had moved into survival mode. there were three lovely young ladies behind us, all from minnesota. one was living in ny and had just moved to ny about 3 weeks earlier, and the other two were friends visiting for the weekend. everyone in line was about as clueless as V.K. and i about the club (the music, the cover, whether they would ever let anyone in, ...). but we stuck it out, and finally moved up to the front of the line. we entered the club as a group of 5. V.K. later pointed out that one of the minnesotans was extremely tanned for such a northern clime. maybe she was part cherokee or something. i doubt it. anyway, we get inside. the decor of this place is really something else. as you walk in, there's someone standing there (doorman / bouncer) who checks ID and takes a picture of it or something. he actually took a picture of my passport. what kind of fool takes her passport to a club. in a small handbag that she dangles from her wrist. precariously. good question. apparently, i do. so i haven't actually gotten a NY state id card which would not be expired, as my alberta driver's license is (even though i haven't expired since i'm about as alive as i can be, the door person gets nervous and i didn't want there to be any reason to punt our asses back to the street.) of course the picture on my passport makes me look like the leader of al qaeda's lesbian sleepy cell. but all clear. we actually enter the threshold of mega-club. all along the wall are lush green plants / faux plants (unsure). pretty lush and exotique looking. inside is tiered (a little bit) with two dj stations are the far end and two possible dance floors (one slightly larger than the other.) it's not a big club by any stretch. that would make it exclusive in club-speak. not just any plebe from the street can get in. only plebes from the street who waited in line, endured the cold, patiently waited past the doorman's posturing about VIPs, VVIPs and guest lists actually did get in. V.K. and i were just so impressed with ourselves for getting dressed up & leaving our homes & showing up & waiting in line. her friends who were going to join us ended up bailing so it was a party of 2, smoking. smoking hot that is. but i digress. anyway, there were small tables, low to the ground placed around sectional-couch type seating. those were the "tables". you could only sit at a table if you wanted table service. table service (according to some people departing the wait at the door) was minimum of $2000. could that be true? i have no way to confirm but it's as true as anything else i can tell you. so it's pretty much law. anyway, V.K. and i (not being the ballers we aspire to be) pretty much figured we'd stand / dance anyways, and decided to keep our $2000, thankyouverymuch. we went to the bar, ordered two wines and went to scope out the scene. by the time we got in (sometime after 11:30), it was still pretty empty, but it became ridiculously packed very soon after. as hordes of kids with gucci & fendi etc& came in and went straight to the tables. some of these "kids" looked like they had just finished their SATs and came out to party afterwards. hey kids, the bowling alley is down the street. but whatever. i'm an old crone with delusions of youthful frolic. as we were standing looking around, V.K. and i were approached by a man in his mid-40s. he was the proprietor of some choice table real estate in the club. he struck up a conversation with us and in due course we found out that he had brought his wife to pink elephant after the stevie wonder concert (which opened with tony bennett & prince) at madison square garden for her birthday. he was wearing a concert t-shirt and genuinely seemed friendly, nice & not perverted. plus, he invited us to partake in the flow of champagne, patrone and whatever else they had going on at their table. so we did get to sit down. in the course of our conversation with J and his italian wife V, we learned that he used to work for citigroup in some sort of making-lots-of-money i-banker capacity, that he retired young and now spends half his year in italy and the other half in westchester. V, his wife, was beautiful & in such fantastic shape. J made us guess her age. i guessed 35 because i figured she hadn't been his child bride so she must be somewhere around his age, but i took off significant years of age (she was turning 43). V.K. guessed 25. so V (the wife) fell in love with V.K., while i kept J occupied by pretending i understood what he was talking about and speaking to him in french which really seemed to please him (his mother is french-canadian from quebec city but he doesn't know french.) apparently, hearing us butcher french was titillating. we went out on the dance floor with J, V.K. and i. it was fun. i coined a name for his dance style -- unoriginally, "the J" -- it basically consists of stationary feet and a sort of weaving, bobbing & swaying of the upper body only, with no movement about the torso except the shake of a head once in a while. i amused him with my witty put-downs and general wryness which moved him to the point of telling me that he'd scoop me up if he were on the dating market. to which i said, "ohhhh, cave man style. that's hottttt." ahhhh. the evening turned out to be lots of fun, despite the waiting in line, $20 cover each, packed dance floor & $28 tab sans tip (for the two drinks we bought ourselves -- 2 glasses of red wine that the bartender couldn't even identify by general classification.) the other highlights were that the giant disco ball in the middle of the dance floor moved up & down, which was kind of freaky at first. and they also sprinkled us with some sort of foamy stuff. for birthdays or maybe just celebratory champagne table service, the wait staff would bring the bottles with a bunch of sparklers stuck to them. kind of a big production. with confetti and cheering.

and that was the time when i went to the meet-pack(ed)-in district to a club. though J.H. tells me that the location (27th & 10 Ave.) isn't meatpacking district, but whatever. close enough and it's harder to make a fun pun on chelsea.

adios.