Saturday, April 12, 2008

Free Drinks

A lazy Saturday afternoon. I am watching the Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. Its background noise, except for the annoying commercials. I cancelled all the premium cable channels yesterday, and so I am watching network stuff and basic cable.

Went out again last night. I hadn’t expected to go out, but then there I was, getting dressed and tromping down to the subway to meet some friends in the 20s. We met at a strip club, but stayed only momentarily whilst the group assembled. One of the guys in the group owns the club, Tens, and so we got together there to meet.

I was connected to the group through my friend Yuson, who is town because he’s a talent manager for Columbus Short, who I’ve spent some evenings out with in LA. Columbus was the lead in the movie “Stomp The Yard,” and has a bunch more coming out. He came out, with his co-star Jeffrey Wright, the amazing actor who is in tons of movies, like Syriana and recently, Casino Royale as Felix Leiter. They are both working on the same movie. Jeffrey lives here though. We’d never met, but he seems to be a good guy as well. Certainly no airs about him.

Assembled, I had made arrangements because of our celebrity companions to have comped table and bottle service at Marquee, which is a New York nightspot. We first headed over to Kiss and Fly, making the second time this week I’d been there. Jeffrey knew one of the managers, Randy, who is an icon on the New York club scene. I’d met Randy through my friend Ryan, who is my oft club companion, and who had arranged our table for us at Marquee.

Kiss and Fly was OK, though and they kept bringing bottles of champagne. Now I always think about New York being expensive and Los Angeles being cheap, on a relative basis. But actually, I always forget to factor in how rarely I pay for drinks in New York. Since I am currently on a pretty tight budget, I think about these things. But it occurred to me last night that I’ve been out, pretty hardcore, twice this week, and haven’t spent a cent on drinks. Which is nice, no?

Anyway, we lasted at Kiss and Fly for a few hours, I chatted with some ladies (a Charlotte from Norway, and a Flavia from Brazil, by way of Miami, cha cha cha). Got a message from Ryan that Marquee wasn’t worth the trip, but that he would meet us at The Box instead if we wanted to. But Jeffrey and Columbus wanted to go to Bungalow 8, so we headed north out of the Meatpacking district upto 27th street. They knew these folks at the door, so despite being very guy heavy, it wasn’t a problem (being with movie stars helps I guess).

More free drinks would be forthcoming at Bungalow, but frankly, I wasn’t into it. I’d had enough, and drinking at four AM pretty much makes me think that I would just be adding to my potential hangover. So I made my stay brief, said my goodbyes, and made my way home after an evening’s free entertainment.

If only I could get the cabs for free now. Hmmm.

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