Round midnight at 21st and 10th, the Conde Nast Rock and Republic pre-party was ending. Great hives of inebriated party-people heaved out, wobbly on margaritas and spike heels, into the waiting Conde Nast town cars. Then we saw Nicole Brydson, the Observer's gal on the fashion streets. She and her Nat Sherman cigarettes were with Observer media reporter Michael Calderone and Brooklyn Paper's Adam Rathe. Page Six's Corynne Steindler was talking urgently into her phone. They were going to Pete Wentz's party at Tenjune.

The scrum outside Tenjune on Little West 12th Street was dense and fragrant; sweat, trash, desire. Ladies in high heels pushed up against the velvet rope like pieces in a game of human Tetris. Were they just pushing to get in because a large black man was pushing to keep them out?

Pete Wentz being paraded across the red carpet like a lemur in heavy eye makeup. Behind him trailed NBA baller Jason Kidd, who is very tall and who wore little or no eyeliner.

On the main dance floor, ex-Top Chef beefcake Sam Talbot was dancing with another Season 2-er, Josie Smith Malave. Celebrities! Of sorts. Nearby ex-Project Runway gay Malan Breton was standing with a guy with a faux-hawk and a cougar tattoo. Though they did time on the same network, these reality folks did not greet each other.

Other than them, the place was completely packed with that kind of striped-shirt-collared men and tarted-up women that you'd expect in the Meatpacking but not necessarily at a party nominally thrown by a singer in an emo band; a man that once wrote, "What meant the world imploded, inflated then demoted all my oxygen to product gas and suffocated my last chance..."

A man in a "The Hamptons Are For Suckers" t-shirt angled for entrance into the VIP lounge. He has a house in Water Mill. A man in close-cropped gray hair tried to kiss, rather violently, a young girl of Indian descent. She firmly placed her hand over his mouth and said no. He moved on to her friend.

Devorah Rose, editor of Social Life magazine and socialgay Kristian Laliberte came in from the Hilfiger party at MoMA. Laliberte was in a good mood and drunk. He tried unbuttoning my shirt with one hand and taking a picture with the other. "Promise you'll be nice," he said. Devorah Rose snaked an arm around my waist. Seriously. This was supposed to be a good party?