Friday, November 05, 1999

2 Fire Trucks, 2 Cop Cars, 1 Wild Drink

Normally several hundred people standing outside a club usually guarantees a long wait, but when two cop cars pull up followed by two fire trucks, you know the evening isn't ending any time soon. I watched a dozen sexy firemen pour into 113 Ludlow Street to investigate MTVi's party for fire-code violations.

The crowd was getting antsy and Jordan, the bouncer, was polite but stern about keeping the sidewalk clear. Michael Tchong of Iconocast broke the crowd up when he shouted out, "that's it! I'm pulling all my banner ads!" It wasn't too much longer when even the bouncers knew what a threat like that meant, and a few of us gained entry.

Downstairs in the loud, hot, smoky club I said my first "hello, how are ya?!" to The Industry Standard's fabu-NY news bureau chief, Mr. Jim Ledbetter. Through the tightly packed club with swirling laser-beam figurines, I made may way upstairs and saw Mr. BigStar himself, David Friedensohn. David and I snuck up to the VIP lounge where Eve-il served up portions of the potent and rare Absinthe. "Carl" snapped photos of us as Zoe Adlersberg (Wit Capital) and Laurel Wells (Gurl.com) came up to join us. Nicholas Butterworth (CEO, MTVi) was comfortable in the back, lounging with friends.

Not wanting to slack off too much, I descended the spiral staircase into mid-performance of some head-spinning break-dancers. I circled my way around, saw Sarah Lefton of KPE and Taariq Lewis of Satellite Records & Clothing. Just before leaving I met Pavia Rosati, director entertainment channel of AOL and Jonathan Esdon of AOL. The party was still well underway and even some Mail.com-ers came by after their party from the upper Chelsea area.