"Hey, there, New Times guy," slurs this boozy biddy in a pageboy hat beside me. "Show me what you're made of."
I didn't look twice at her perched there as I approached the bar, especially as her boyfriend was sitting on the other side of her. Guess someone must've told her Jett and I were the Inferno crew, or she surmised as much watching us interview people throughout the eve. Normally, I'd be all for some limber-limbed chicalina grinding on me like this, lifting her legs up over me like she's doing Pilates. But not with her papi chulo starin' over her shoulder.
I ease away with a pat on her shin and a smile, cadge my alkie-hall from the tender, and survey the piles of glammed-up bods squirming in the booths along the wall, waiting to get kicked out. An appropriately slutty close for a night aiming to evoke the glamour and excess of Gotham's notorious Club Kids as depicted in the 2003 flick Party Monster, based on the shockumentary of the same name and on James St. James' gruesome memoir Disco Bloodbath.
As most everyone knows, in the film and in real life, the special-K/ecstasy-fueled character arc of New York party promoter Michael Alig spirals out of control with the brutal killing and dismemberment of clubber/drug dealer Angel Melendez. Alig's still doing 10 to 20 for bludgeoning Melendez with a claw hammer, pouring Drano down the guy's throat and taping his mouth shut, then slicing up the body and dumping it into the East River. At the height of Alig's prominence during the late '80s and early '90s at Manhattan's Limelight club, trannies, freaks and geeks paraded through the converted church, popping, snorting and smoking every illicit substance known to man, while dressed as trashy chickens, scuzzy bears, serial murderers and so on, often doffing their duds at some point during the debauch.
Needless to say, The Biz ain't no Limelight. Still, there are trannies, freaks and geeks about as we enter. Jett's the first to note the unique smell of booger sugar in the air, though that's par for the course for just about every dance hall in P-town, and anyway, no one offers me any. In recent memory, The Biz has been known as a real rug-munchateria, and strangely the MAC-phobic, mullet-friendly diesel dyke contingent is in attendance for most of the F/G par-tay, playing pool on one of the tables off to the side, their Marlboro hard-packs poking outta their jeans pockets, completely oblivious to the glitzier goings-on beneath the mirrored disco balls. There, busty Snow Whites, hopped-up gay harlequins, platinum-blonde stewardesses and creepy goth chicks twirl about while Austin Head, Tiffe Fermaint and Jonny Noir take turns spinning a selection of electro, dance rock and New Wave.
The TV sets roll clips from the Party Monster documentary. On the bar and rises are some fairly hot go-go gals, and one particularly ripped go-go dood who spends a lot of time looking glassy-eyed and rubbing his black-spandex-encased man candy. Right off the bat, we run into The Noirish One, who's as tall as Yao Ming and sporting Herman Munster makeup, a blood-red poodle skirt, and a black tee with matching maître d' jacket.
"Love the go-go dancers, Jonny," oozes the J-blade. "Where did you get them?"
"Mostly from MySpace, dearie," confesses Jonny Boy. "I just post that I need some hooches, and they sign up."
"See, Jett, if you buy yourself a 'puter, you too can score hooches on MySpace," I tell her.
"I'm hooch-free for '06, Ass Master, you know that," she carps unconvincingly. "But there's nothing wrong with making out with them, right? I mean, it's not the same as goin' all Melissa Etheridge on their ass."
"Pardon her, Jonny. As you can tell, she has issues. So which one are you, anyway, Seth Green or Macaulay Culkin?" I ask, referring to the stars of Party Monster, the motion picture.
"Well, I haven't killed anyone yet, if that's what you mean," he says, laughing. "To be honest, the night came about because I was bored with what Phoenix had to offer. I enjoy the fashion and the makeup. I wanted to do something that was completely different from all the hip-hop nights out there."
"Looks like it's kinda 50-50 as far as who's costumed and who's not," I observe.
"It's not exactly the Manhattan Club Kids," Noir admits. "It's a slow start getting people to dress up, but everyone does do their own little thing. A change from the norm. People here are gay, straight, or whatever in between. Really, it's a night for anyone."
Señor Cabeza, a.k.a. Austin Head, stops by, glammy in a sparkly gold jacket, bare-chested with his trademark neon-blue pompadour giving him that Adam Ant-meets-Brian Setzer look. Jett runs her hand over his paper-flat torso with its graveyard tan, and oohs.
"Why can't yours be like this, Kreme?" she inquires.
"What, you mean hairless?" I crack back. "My chest hasn't been that bald since I was a baby."
I ask Austin, "So did you and Jonny finally kiss and make up?"
"Oh, you mean that MySpace catfight we had?" he replies. "We're all over that now. We're not working together as the band 'HEAD' anymore. It's just me, solo. Jonny wants to be a party promoter. He started this night, and I told him I would DJ for him. So here we are."
"Do you get laid more as a DJ, Austin?" queries Jett.
"Like I wasn't getting laid every day already?" he vamps. "Oh, sure, it's up to twice a day now."
"Ever do it in the DJ booth?" purrs the Jettster. "Seems like the perfect place to get some, uh, head."
"Not yet, but I am looking forward to that," he assures us, eyebrow arched.
Austin's gotta run as local fashionista/DJ Tiffe Fermaint is coming off the decks, and soon she's on the floor, playfully slapping some cute girl's fanny. Jett finally pulls the energetic, effervescent and always fetching Tiffe over to us to chat as Austin drops some Lords of Acid. Tiffe tells us that she also hosts this Thursday night called Sparkle over at Camus with Austin, and that her entire clothing line is now available online at www.tiffefermaint.com.
"I see your name all over the place, Tiffe," states the Jettster. "You're so ambitious! You've got to tell me when your next show will be. Maybe I can model for you."
"Well, the next big thing I've got coming up is this fashion show I'm doing with Authority Zero and the Gin Blossoms on this cruise from L.A. to Mexico called Rock n the Seas," she relates. "I can't wait. It should be pretty fun."
"Oh, Kreme, can we cover that? Puh-lease?" she begs.
"Is Britney Spears a good mother? Can Dick Cheney shoot straight? Will Madonna ever fix that gap between her two front teeth?" I reply. "Um, in other words, no."
"We never get to have any fun!" she fumes, stomping off, as the midnight hour tolls, and the Filthy/Gorgeous go-go babes take over a stage in the middle of the dance floor for an impromptu striptease to the tune of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer," eventually pulling some lucky mug up with them and treating him to some lap dance action. Afterward, I spot Donnie Burbank of Sadisco fame, who informs me that his arm is on the mend after being broken months back, apparently by one of the bouncers at Tranzylvania. Sadisco's been at The Sets lately, but it'll be moving on after this Saturday's "Autopsadisco" Sisters of Mercy afterparty. Future locales to be announced at www.sadistic-disco.com.
After his set, Austin descends from the DJ booth and we hang for a bit. He tells me his glamour-puss jacket was made by fresh-from-Hollyweird fashion designer Desiato, who's in house tonight, looking the part in a heavily brocaded black velvet jacket and waving around a white, peacock-feather fan. So I ask Desiato his opinion of the local fashion scene.
"I can't wait until this whole deconstructionist phase dies out locally," he snorts. "Sort of like that apocalypse we're all hoping happens, but instead of clearing out Republicans, it clears out all of these fucking designers practicing deconstruction."
"By deconstruction, you mean these people who go out and buy stuff from Buffalo Exchange and then cut it up?"
"Exactly," he states.
"What are you two talking about?" demands the Jettster, inserting herself back into things from wherever she'd been pouting.
"Nothing you'd be familiar with," I tut. "Jacques Derrida for beginners. You know, the school of deconstruction."
"Are you kidding me?" cries the J-Unit. "When I was at Central High, we used to beat those preppie wimps in football all the time, I don't care who the coach was."
"You dolt, Jacques Derrida was a great philosopher," I tell her. "We're talking about his school of deconstruction as applied to the world of fashion."
"Whatever," she says. "I still say those charter school kids are no better than the little shits over at Brophy, no matter how much scrilla their parents make."
