Graffiti in the bathroom of the hotsy-totsy gallerist Gavin Brown's soon-to-close bar Passerby: "I make a living scraping the coke off the floor at Passerby. Thanx Gavin!"

In an attempt to determine where in New York it's still socially acceptable to do cocaine, our former intern Neel Shah travels around various city locations "pretending" to snort cocaine. Here he is at Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn, where it is apparently completely okay to get your snort on. [Radar, an absolutely phenomenal publication that we recommend you all read regularly.]

In the Labor Day weekend raid on Mr. Black, the gay party spot at Broadway and Bleecker, "the NYPD collected 55 packages of cocaine, five vials of cocaine, and 16 Ecstasy pills that were either found on the floor or collected from patrons," according to Tricia Romano at the Voice. This prompted Luke Nero, the bar's cocktail waiter (who is nicknamed "The Ass" [NSFW!]) to claim that "They came to shut down a drug racket, but there wasn't any drug racket to shut down." Uh, really? 15 patrons and 17 employees were arrested all told, two of whom were drug dealers, and eleven more of whom were charged with misdemeanors, including an employee who had four bags of coke on him—in his own pants! Didn't Lindsay teach him anything? Related: Coke is apparently still back!

Serge Becker's nightlife portfolio includes the perennially hip Joe's Pub, the now-closed Area, and the snooch-magnet Bowery Bar. Recently his properties have expanded to include virtually all of the Lower East Side hotspots: Club 205, La Esquina and the Box. The last week has been a tough one for Serge. The Box was raided and shut down (temporarily, we hear) and now word comes in that La Esquina too was raided and closed, due to its complete and utter illegality! As the Post noted, the Box raid occasioned an exodus of celebrities onto the asphalt jungle of Chrystie street. It could have gone worse. The fuzz could have found the mountains of cocaine that went into the eightballs that reportedly are included with table service. And all agree that the raid on La Esquina—it lacked a certificate of occupancy—was inevitable. But two's a trend, and it makes us suspicious. What—or who—is behind Becker's troubles?

For whatever reason, this is the line that made us laugh the hardest this week. You people are reading Achewood every day like we told you, right? Anyway, happy birthday, Philippe! [Achewood]

The "Office of National Drug Control Policy" (©Halliburton) issued a press release yesterday that said workplace drug testing in the first six months of 2007 resulted in 16% fewer positive results for cocaine usage than last year. In the tri-state area, only 1 in 200 tested positive for coke, which we think means that only .5% of the population is too stupid to stop using cocaine two weeks before a urinalysis. Of course, these numbers are from the White House, so this "unprecedented reduction" could easily be a statistical anomaly. Or just a lie! Still, the worst case scenario: Y'all really are running out of coke. How's your weekend looking now?

We hear that at a party last weekend attended by Topher Grace, May Anderson, "a million horrible socialites" and, come to think of it, party reporter Alyssa Shelasky, a couple of girls had to be carted away in an ambulance! "Girls passing out left and right—bad batch LOL," says our disturbingly morbid tipster. Don't ever take diet pills or nose candy from strangers, ladies!

Lindsay speaks, to that idiot Billy Bush: "Yes. I am innocent... did not do drugs they're not mine. I was almost hit by my assistant Tarin's mom. I appreciate everyone giving me my privacy." Good luck, babe. [Access Hollywood]

• Lindsay Lohan had coke on her in her DUI arrest this morning; she was arrested after cops got reports of her white Denali chasing another car. (Two other people were in her car, by the way,and they were released.) [TMZ, TMZ] [Photo: X17]
  

Eavesdropping on the gays is the surest way to find out what products and people are hot and what are not. Rod Townsend records the gays in and around their natural environment of Fire Island and reports back. All dialogue 100% verbatim.

How has Jay McInerney survived, even prospered? He's like one of those runts of the litter on a Discovery channel documentary: Not smart enough to find the teat, not wily enough to outfox predators. So sad. And yet! For decades, somehow McInerney has turned his loose-living puppy-eyed idiocy into the stuff of salary. His blog for House and Garden has recently chronicled his inability to walk functionally or to talk about anything but his failed film adaptation of "Bright Lights, Big City." The latest post catches McInerney at his best. At the end of a meal at Babbo, McInerney comes into some unpleasantness.

The Economist examines the street price of cocaine worldwide. "No surprise that it is cheapest in Colombia, the world's biggest producer of coca: at $2, a gram costs less than a Big Mac." [The Economist]

The Daily News has its dance belt in a bundle upon the arrest of New York City Ballet principle dancer Nilas Martin, son of balletmaster Peter Martins, for possession of cocaine. Though we're more ABT fans than NYCB, a little perspective is needed. Namely, that pretty much every single ballet dancer includes cocaine in their nutritional regimen of Diet Coke and cigarettes. How else could Martins, at age 40, and with a history of excruciating bone spurs, maintain his ballon? How else do these ballerinas—jostling for a place on stage in an extremely cutthroat environment—maintain their weight and self-esteem? Clavicles like that don't define themselves on pure grit alone, people.

"Looking for SnowBunny to stand in line for IPHONE on Friday." Also: "no skanks." [Craigslist]

Earlier today we announced the astonishing trend (still to really take off!) of celery tubes replacing dollar bills as the vehicle of choice from coke mirror to brain. You responded en masse, celebrating the benefits of such a healthful and nutritious coke straw. But that was this morning. In the interim, we've discovered a tastier and more apt tool: Froot Loops Cereal Straws.

Lindsay Lohan allegedly had coke in her (not on her!) when she crashed her car over Memorial Day weekend. "Allegedly." [TMZ]

Since parenthetical poet Melena Ryzik of the New York Times acknowledged the re-rise of coke in New York, we figured that soon artsy Brooklyn ski bums would combine the trendy worlds of epicureanism and recreational drug use. In the July issue of Gourmet, we learn of the existence of celery straws, hollow tubules of celery that are exactly nostril-size! Say farewell to that moment of hesitation when you ponder the hygienic implications of shoving a tightly-rolled bill up your nose. Now you can get your coke with just 15 calories and 2 grams of dietary fiber.

"What cocaine does to a cornfield" [Daily Mail]

Times reporter Melena Ryzik has spent the last five months interviewing young New Yorkers about how, in spite of the fact that drugs are widely known to be bad, "cocaine is a prominent part of a night out." Using evidence gleaned from Craigslist, blogs, and quotes from cokeheads, Melena does a good job of showing that coke is so hot right now, but the question remains: why is this the case? Don't get me wrong: I am not trying to be all D.A.R.E. on you, because there are some substances I support wholeheartedly. But I've never really gotten the appeal of a drug that limpens dicks, promotes nasty-tasting postnasal drip, and turns ordinary sick hangovers into scenes from some cliché drug movie. I decided to get to the bottom of the mystery of what the appeal of blow is, besides getting to say all those incredibly cool-sounding euphemisms like "skiing" and "Bolivian Marching Powder." So I asked a wide array of—okay, I asked some professional blog-types—what they see in cocaine.

We knew that it was only a matter of time before a news organization with Us Weekly's vast investigative resources would finally marshal the courage to finally expose Hollywood's Drug Problem, a social scourge that threatens to devour our finest, excess-prone famous people, greedily gnaw at what's left of the meat on their malnourished frames, then vomit back up their coke-bleached bones into the nearest luxury rehabilitation receptacle, preferably one with easy beach access. How bad has the crisis gotten? Says a highly placed Us "scenester" who's obviously been to at least one bar in WeHo in the last two years, "Coke is so not a big deal for young stars in Hollywood. It's like having a drink." Indeed, the public consumption of illegal narcotics is now so accepted that many of the city's finer nightlife establishments will deliver punchbowls brimming with blow (in a variety of flavors) directly to one's VIP booth, where parties can unashamedly blow rails at their leisure, eliminating the onetime annoyance of having one's drug use rushed by a bitch with a shy bladder constantly banging on one's bathroom stall door.