Since time immemorial, or since maybe 2004, we have received missives from a person called The Earl Grey. As frequently as possible, we print these letters as a service to society.

About 12:30 or 12:45, early Wednesday morning, 16 May, 2007, Stereo on West 29th St. CANDACE BUSHNELL and 2 women pull up in a cab. Candace is what, mid-40s? Her companions look about 25-ish. One of them is quite attractive, maybe a Jennifer Love Hewitt type but with honey blonde hair? She's wearing a baby doll mini-dress in light tan and she has nice legs. Candace & friends survey the seething line of about 100 people straining to get into Stereo for the "Laverne & Shirlee" DJ tour- which is Steve Aoki & Danny Masterson + guests. Candace & friends are very put off by the throng, and don't even attempt to push their way through to get the attention of a doorman/bouncer.


After a few minutes just standing there, they see that line is not moving, in fact more people are joining in so the disorganized line bulges. Stereo's bouncers are pretty rude although the actual doormen, when you do speak to them, are human beings & do seem to be letting some people into the club. Candace asks her friends 'Why are we doing this?" While the crowd is basically early 20-somethings, and some of them are dressed ok in an attempt at glamour, the other half of the crowd looks like Jersey or Queens and ironically very influenced by Sex & The City, but a poor version of that show's clothes & style.

Candace's hot friend pulls out her cellphone & calls someone inside. "We're standing outside right next to this big bus," she says. Aoki & Masterson made up a special big tour bus with their Laverne & Shirlee promo pics all over the bus.

About a minute after making that call, Candace & her friends go over to the main entrance & presumably someone whisked them inside.

I was inside about 10, 15 minutes later & I never saw Candace again all night. I did see Calvin Klein model Jaime Burke, he was kind of greasy & sweaty looking and wore dirty rock & roll clothes but I suppose his facial bone structure is good- he does photograph well, although he was much less impressive in person.

One of his friends told me that Lindsay Lohan was there to see Jamie's band Bloody Social, but they played like 12, 12:15 and I didn;t get there til about 12:30-ish.

Candace was wearing a short beige trench coat with wide lapels, a dress shirt in a nice French blue unbuttoned about 3 buttons, and glen plaid trousers that were very wide in the leg. I thought her outfit was nice & very appropriate for her. I thought she had too much makeup on but looked about the same as she does when you see her on TV. She does have big hair—almost a Farrah Fawcett cut. It looked like she'd had her hair blown out that day. She was a little shorter than I imagined she would be; is she 5'6" or so? I've seen her in pictures with her dancer husband and she always looks lean and long cradled in his arms.

I'm not exactly sure why this Laverne & Shirlee DJ tour was so popular with the Tuesday night crowd. Is it cos of Danny Masterson's TV work? I saw him arrive & about 5 or more nightlife photographers were shooting him. His music didn't make much of an impression on me, I guess he played mainly 90s hiphop? And when Danny & Aoki DJ-ed there were a few photographers right in front of the booth shooting them all night—I can't imagine those pics are particularly great? Maybe it's Aoki's personal photographer recording the event. Is Steve Aoki becoming a big DJ name? It was my 2nd time hearing him, he has a pretty exciting style where he jumps around from record to record every 2 minutes or so, and lets the tracks play over one another. For example he played Mims "This Is Why Im Hot" but it had a hot deep house beat under it. He played that Outfield song that was on MTV a long time ago. He played Modjo's "Lady" mashed up with a hip hop song, Lady sounded great. Aoki wears these colourful hoodies he sells with these cartoons all over them, looks like a dinosaur print but I didn't really study it. Masterson just wore a white tee shirt and maybe a hat? He looked kind of sweaty and debauched.

Also Stretch Armstrong came on after Aoki and he played his established hip hop set. Stretch has long been a quality NYC hip hop DJ. I remember when he spun at "PayDay," this early 90s hip hop club really far downtown. Also when I was clubbing a lot in Sag Harbor in the mid-90s he was resident at Amazon on the long wharf there, those were some nice nights of summer revelry. Stretch played a lot of hip hop hits last night, Fat Joe/Lil Wayne "I Make It Rain," 50's In Da Club, Dr Dre G Thang, Naughty's "Hip Hop Hooray," Chamillionaire/Krazy Bones' "Ridin Dirty," There was a pretty good atmosphere and energy to the night, the hip hop seemed to be pleasing the crowd but I'm much more of dance music/house fan. Aoki did play one song that had more of a twisted hard house vibe, but not enough of that for my taste. I also thought Masterson's rambling shoutouts on the mic were pretty retarded, he sounded quite drunk & simply reciting your friends names in a Brooklyn 'hood accent isn't terribly energizing. But I guess his TV fame makes that babbling exciting for his fans.

Stereo seems to fancy itself some kind of chic club, this was my first visit there, but the crowd was generally a Jersey or Borough throng, some dressed fairly stylishly, others tried but ended up looking like the aforementioned Jersey mall version of Sex & The City- not hot. The bulging crowd was more of a hassle than I expected. In the end the head doormen did treat me well, giving me free admission, but some of the bouncers outside were quite rude & having these Jersey & 718s pressing up against me from all sides as I'm getting the attention of the head door people was irksome to say the least. Aoki had some good music and it was okay hearing lots of hip hop hits from the last 10+ years, but I could do without hearing those songs again for a few months now. I wish I'd caught Bloody Social, some say they're good? I will check Jaime's band out sometime soon i hope. I wish I'd seen Lindsay Lohan, maybe she left after Jaime's set? He left for a bit after his set but then came back like an hour later. The bartenders & bathroom guy were all really polite & friendly, I was much less impressed with the bouncers outside but then again it was a teeming, seething mob and clearly more than half of those people did not get in. It was pretty good for Tuesday night; I will check Aoki out again in the future but I'm undecided about Stereo. Although my night was decent on the face of it, it wasn't that great of a club night that I'm eager to return there, at least not for several months. I stayed till past 3:00, not bad for a Tuesday night out clubbing.

The Earl Grey- 10021