Team Party Crash: 'Paper' Nightlife Awards @ Show
Hello, this is your still-hungover friend Alex Blagg, of Blue States Lose and Best Week Ever fame. I don't know how your Wednesday night went, but let me tell you about mine. I wandered into some Times Square one-word-noun nightclub called "Show" for the who cares annual Paper Nightlife Awards, ready to have my burning questions about the city's best bars, DJ's, and parties for homosexuals answered — FINALLY. Gawker's Nikola Tamindzic was on photo duty; plunge heedlessly into the sleaze with our gallery of photos, or bounce over to Nikola's plumper version. After the jump, dangerous proximity to MisShapes.
Aspiring models with big tits and bad hair in blue dresses are dropping bottles of Grey Goose onto the 40 or so tables that the pretentiously decorated room accommodates. This must be the "models and bottles" I've been hearing so much about. I make a mental note to steal one of the bottles, then spend a few minutes walking around trying to come to grips with the fact that there are seriously people in the world who think "New York Nightlife" is important enough to warrant this sort of pageantry. The realization that I'm deep within the heart of darkness washes over me, and I wash it down with a few deep sips of the vodka that will clearly be my sole friend for the remainder of this evening.
Moby is here. Isn't he always? I introduce myself and, remembering something I read about him giving up the Internet, inquire about when he'll resume blogging. He informs me that he only managed four days away from his online endeavors and that he's still blogging every day. I'm not sure how I missed that, but his sheepish prattling is making me nervous and I decide to seek retarded conversation elsewhere. I vaguely recognize thatdouchebag who got popped for drunk driving last week (Fabulous Basehead, or some other idiotic rich kid name like that), and decide he probably has some really interesting things to tell the world. While slugging down scotch and groping some whore with low self-esteem, he confides in me that he actually did NOT get arrested, and that he was actually in Costa Rica at the time of his alleged incarceration. When I mention that the police department filed a report with his name, identifying information and photograph, he smilingly concedes that he was in fact arrested, but he's innocent and the victim of police harassment. It would seem that wealthy white males are the new poor black man when it comes to law enforcement brutality, and Mr. Basehead is a veritable Rodney King.
This is getting ridiculous, and so is my increasingly compulsive need to pour Grey Geese down my throat at an alarming pace. There's Tinsley Mortimer and Lydia Hearst. They sure look interesting. Having grown weary of my attempts at conversing with these freakshows , I retire to the table that has been assigned to me by the kind Paper flacks, who clearly have a sense of humor, as they placed me right next to my fabulous friends theDipShits. Leotard Fantastik is bangin' as ever, the other guy is frowning purposefully, and I've never wanted to hatefuck Princess Coldstare quite so much. But I shouldn't be rude, because this is THEIR NIGHT. It seems like every voice surrounding me sounds like the world's gayest gay guy on his gayest day, under incredible amounts of urgent pressure, constantly saying things like, "Oh my god, you HAVE to take a picture of us together!" More vodka, general loathing, let's get this fucking show on the road already. And like flamboyant mind-readers, the homosexual powers that be finally, mercifully, commence with the dispersion of their completely inane awards.
Perez Hilton and some painted-up whore give out the evening's first Trophy of Exceptionally Moronic Achievement, for Best Place I'd Never Go To in a Million Years or something like that, and the inherent absurdity of all of this just hurdles forward. Party promoters and bar owners and DJs and people who want to be DJs and people who know DJs and people who feel proud to know DJs parade across the stage, one after the other, sincerely caring about these arbitrary accolades, which is with equal parts hilarious and depressing.
Steve Aoki wins for best DJ and, seriously, "was unable to be here tonight," so in lieu of a self-indulgent acceptance speech no one would really listen to, Aoki has taken the time to prepare a hilarious MTV Movie Award-esque video depicting himself as an Al-Qaeda hostage about to be executed, which I somehow empathize with despite the unfunny tastelessness of his ill-conceived little sketch video. Some other people win some stuff — Ultragrrrl announces her retirement from playing other people's music, which doesn't have quite the gut-wrenching "oomph" she seemed to be going for. TheMisShapes win something for something, actually THANKING Gawker Media in their acceptance speech (which fills me with an unspeakable guilt for the dirty work I do each week in Blue States Lose), and Kid's Meal sheepishly joins them onstage to showcase for us all the silent stupidity that has achieved him "It-boy" status in the heart and mind of some idiotic reporter from the Village Voice who so clearly suffers from a profound lack of anything to say.
As much fun as I'm having watching Fergie rap-sing her hit song no one here seems to care about, I feel an inexplicable surge of joy as the ceremony draws to its close. I slug down a couple more free vodkas for my troubles, finally understanding why people become "cutters". As I'm leaving the venue, LeotardFantastik requests a word.
"Please," he whispers in the sweetest little voice you've ever heard, "you can make fun of us, but don't say anything about Jackson's ("Kid's Meal's") age. He's only seventeen."
In the interest of the child's welfare, I shall honor Fantastik's request, and not ridicule the poor kid for being a misguided product of a Williamsburg childhood who feels that the only means by which he can express himself is through a transparent need for the fleeting attention of fickle people who will hand him a robot-shaped statue for his supreme ability to play other's people music, then forget about him as soon as the next arbitrarily fabulous person with no discernible talent comes along. Who needs high school when you have that shit?
As I stumble off into the night, my faith in humanity utterly annihilated, I realize I forgot to steal that bottle of Grey Goose, which would have been the only good reason for my having attended this condemnation of goodness. Fuck.