It was Friday night, and I was chilling at industrial, sexy music haven Club 101. I was up on a black VIP couch, free bourbon and Coke in hand, chilling with some laid-back buddies. Suddenly, bam, I had an eyeful.
Two trashed party girls — both slender-framed and long-legged, each in a minuscule party dress; we'll call them "Blonde" and "Ed Hardy Dress" — had shakily hopped up onto the stripper-pole platform and had began writhing to a Michael Jackson "Beat It" and "Thriller" combination remix. Sandwiching the pole and embracing each other, they dry-humped and wiggled toward the ground — teetering precariously on their high heels and swaying with the devastating buzz of their ladies' night drinks.
"I can't see," frantically hissed my male buddy, Beard. He dared not turn around; their dirty dance was occurring directly over his right shoulder on an elevated platform that placed their crotches at perfect eye level. My two classy female companions shook their heads at the spectacle and tried to continue their highbrow conversation. That became impossible when Ed Hardy Dress wiggled down so low that she unabashedly exposed a crescent line of her lady undergarments. And she kept going lower.
It wasn't even midnight yet, and things were heating up in a very alcohol-soaked way. But let's start from the beginning.
Ambiance: 101 is the kind of nightclub where the sexy bartenders take shots before they serve the patrons, just because they can. The prominent VIP section boasts velvet ropes and black leather couches; the crescent-shaped bar is flashy and candle-lit; the seizure-inducing strobe lights flicker across the gothic wood paneling and copious disco balls. On this particular night, giant flat-screen TVs inexplicably played the movie 300, the bloody Frank Miller interpretation of a Spartan war (because who doesn't want to watch eviscerations on a night out with a hot date?). Promotions girls wandered around with beakers full of alcohol. A giant zoomed-up picture of a guitar hung on the wall, stripper poles occupied the corners, and to the left of the door was a massive DJ booth.
The 411 on 101: The reason for the large DJ booth was easily explained by DJ Stevie D., a DJ turned nightclub general manager with a lean, attractive frame. "The DJ booth is huge because this club was designed by a DJ," he said proudly.
I complimented him on his white striped fedora, which he told me he had purchased in Toronto. Still, he forgot my name within ten minutes.
"I used to DJ on Monday nights here," he went on. "I brought in a huge crowd — made it the most popular night. I took over the place and got hired as the general manager."
He also told me that the club was 3 months old and 2,500 square feet and possessed equipment for VJing and live broadcasts.
"We hold our music to a higher standard here," he said seriously. I detected a T.I. techno remix in the background.
He nodded in the direction of two mini-dress-clad single ladies who had just walked in.
"Girls are welcome here," he said with a coy smile. "Guys are allowed. It's like in South Beach — if you're a single guy, you have to wait for a single girl to go in."
Though, with a half-empty bar at almost midnight on a Friday night, they couldn't exactly be choosy. Because the place wasn't yet bumpin', it allowed for candle-lit conversations. However, instead of partaking in any romantic repartee, I began a drinking game that required alcohol-slurping during any 300 slow-motion battle scene. Fifteen or so minutes later, I halted the game to escape brain shutdown and a subsequent bourbon-soaked demise. By then, I had a good buzz going.
Dancer: I might've been slightly inebriated, but I swore to Goddess that the chick by the door was a gothed-out Japanese anime character. She had enormous pink-and-blond dreadlocks, wore thigh-high white fuzzy boots (imagine two sheepdogs attached to her legs), and the rest of her outfit consisted of pink fabric and black fishnet.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Jae," she said. "I'm the dancer tonight. This is my first time here." She told me she dances in clubs all over town. "Been dancing since I was 16. I love it."
"Well, I love your outfit," I said.
SuperDreads gave me a preoccupied smile."Well, it loves you," she said.
"How do you tell if an outfit loves someone?"
SuperDreads gave me a small head shake as if to say, "What?"
Yes, it was awkward. I wished her luck on the pole and scampered over to the black VIP couch my friends had claimed.
Pole-dance aftermath: After their sloppily Sapphic pole dance, the drunken broads were pulled from the pole by two guys. Blonde chilled out, but Ed Hardy Dress wasn't quite done showing the world her spectacular posterior. She plopped herself down onto some dude's lap and began grinding him from behind as her minidress slowly rode north. Mr. Hardy, if you're reading this, can you please design some slightly less skanky clothes sometime in the near future?
More fedoras: I turned my attention to Rob, AKA Rob the Milkman, AKA the Ghost. As his names might imply, he was pale in complexion and rail-thin. He was wearing a fedora and had a sprinkling of facial stubble. People had been shaking his hand and kissing his ass all night long, and I needed to know why.
"We're here promoting," Rob the Milkman said. He gestured to his friend, who gave me a lazy nod of the head. "We're DJs, promoters — trying to get people to recognize us around here."
"It seems to be working," I said.
"Last night, we had a show at a South Beach club," he said. "The bass literally blew out the speakers."
"Awesome." I was distracted; I'd just noticed an eye-catching pink and black, tiger-striped purse touching his leg. "So, uh, what kind of music do you produce?"
"Dirty South, hip-hop, house, all kinds," he said.
"What do you think of this club?" I asked.
He smiled. "Cool. It has potential."
I asked if he'd ever DJ here.
"I don't know," he said politely. "I tend to be a little more underground."
Just then, Jae walked over, snatched up the pink-striped purse, and withdrew a cigarette. She lit it and took a puff. Then, seeing that the drunken amateurs had abandoned the pole over my shoulder, she hopped up and began gyrating slowly, from the hips. She paused for intermittent cigarette puffs.
"That's my girlfriend," Rob the Milkman said sheepishly when he noticed I'd abandoned conversation with him to watch her shake her ass, take a drag, and repeat.
I went back up to the bar to contemplate drinking more when I almost ran into two attractive, blue-jean-clad blonds. Jamie and Ambra were reunited sisters out for a night of partying. I asked them what they thought about the club, the music, the South Beach feel, the fact that 300 was playing on the TVs, the fedoras, and the dancer's fuzzy boots.
"We're having fun," Ambra cut me off and smiled. "And that's about all that matters."
