Back in the early 90’s, my friend Roxanne (not her real name) had this completely bonkers gig in “club promotion.” She being younger, more energetic and significantly more fabulous than myself, it was literally a job of hers to hit six or seven hopping night clubs during the course of a single evening, handing out flyers for upcoming parties and events. On a couple of occasions, she dragged me along, opening up a whole new world to me. I was certainly familiar with a few of the major clubs, but mostly from going to see bands. Going to a club for the sheer sake of going to a club wasn’t something I was normally inclined to do, so this was a true learning experience.
On a few of those evenings in early 1991, I remember breathlessly trying to keep up as we hit long-vanished places like the LoveSexxy Lounge, Big City Diner, The Tunnel, The Palladium, a place, I think, called Morrissey’s (no relation to the Smiths) and about a half-dozen more hotspots. We’d glide past the velvet ropes, thanks to Roxanne's clout (her good looks didn’t hurt, either), and I’d wander around the place looking lost, drinking overpriced beers and listening to bad house music for fifteen to twenty minutes before she’d grab me and we’d swoop off to the next venue. We covered a lot of ground.
Between missions, we’d frequently repair back to the cavernous interior of the Limelight, which was the de facto base of her operation. I vividly remember one particular evening doing just that. Roxanne had to re-stock her supply of invites and check in with her boss, with dopey, uncool me tagging along behind her. I remember following her through the dark to what looked like a rugby scrum of garishly dressed characters. Roxanne marched right up to this one individual who was wearing a particularly bizarre ensemble involving clown make-up and assless pants. Through the ample rear portals on said pants, he had bright, electric blue teardrops painted on his buttocks. Despite the …er….”festive” nature his of attire, when he and Roxanne spied each other, he was all business, sternly rattling off a laundry list of directives for her to dutifully absorb and execute, as if he was the chief operating officer of a very important organization. Between blunt orders to Roxanne, I think he gave me a withering glance or two, but then turned with dramatic aplomb and vanished into the crowd, with the rugby scrum dutifully following his posterior teardrops. I felt like I was trapped in an NC-17 version of “Alice in Wonderland.”
Roxanne grabbed me again and we headed off into the night. “What was up with that?” I asked as we slipped out some secret exit and onto West 20th Street. “Oh, that’s just my boss,” she sighed, “he can be kind of a ridiculous jerk, sometimes.”
That boss was Michael Alig.
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