Beyond Tiger Woods & Rachel Uchitel: How It Works

Lemme tell you somethin', this pimpin that I got in my blood, it came from a family tree. My granddaddy was a pimp, my great great great granddaddy was a pimp. I'm talkin' bout pimpin' since been pimpin' since been pimpin'. -- Baby Powder

Rachel Uchitel has club roots. Her grandparents ran El Morocco, which should always be mentioned in the same breath as places like the Copacabana, or the Stork Club or 21 or the Cotton Club. She grew up in the biz. People who work in the club industry might not like this little story -- or it will be so obvious to them that it's not worth reading. Promoters, hosts, waitresses -- not all but many have, over the last five years or so of the "bottle service era" become basically pimps and ho's. I have a good friend who never refers to a model as a model. He just calls them hookers. "Yeah, I'll be rolling deep with about a dozen hookers." He might text me something like this to entice me to his table. Is this all not obvious? Is this not how the world works? The photographers want to meet the models who need to meet the photographers to make their rent money or they’ll go to a club to meet a rich dude who will pay their rent and so on. The "real"' models -- the ones who are actually making bank -- may just want to meet interesting, like-minded folk. It's the same old story. I've seen it in Bogart movies.

('’)

The bottle service era just defined it and refined it a little better. Say a rich dude or a celebrity who the club wants to entertain regularly and constantly is coming to a joint. A publicist or a friend with connections will hook him up with a dependable promoter or a club hostess or in many cases an owner/manager type. This VIP shows up ... a credit card will secure the real estate ,table, and some booze is thrown into the mix. Where that person is seated is the whole tamale. Promoters bring girls—girls who would die to meet a celebrity or a whale. They will have sex with him. Wake up, America—everyone is having sex, especially hotties and successful types. Cash may not actually change hands for sex; it’s not a straight-up money deal necessarily. But it’s more like a “pleased to meet you famous or rich sir” deal. A VIP usually has “entanglements” like a wife a gal or at least an image to maintain. The VIP can’t be seen hitting on random waifs in a club. He doesn’t have time to court or date these pretty young things. He might be thousands of miles away tomorrow. The getting-to-know-you phase is taken out of the mix. Promoters bring party girls out for a good time, and what happens after that is their own business but also the underlying business of clubs.

Waitresses in high-end clubs are required to book tables. If they don’t, they are replaced by waitresses who can. Although many can get by with a flirt or a sit on the lap, many butter their bread and butter. Sometimes it’s just an occasional dinner, or they serve as arm candy at a function ...sometimes they make introductions for their clients to their attractive, available, and very willing friends. Clubs encourage these outside-the-club meetings. A waitress with a big client will be allowed to come in late as long as they bring a whale to the joint after the opera or benefit. Some waitresses are flown to Vegas or LA because the whale needs beauties around him he can trust. That trust is the all-important commodity here. Trust comes first, even before sex and certainly after. The Tiger-in-your-bank scandal seems to have legs—lots of them. The “fore” golf jokes seem to be moving past four and even seven and, well, it doesn’t seem it will end anytime soon. Rachel Uchitel has done her job. She has kept her mouth shut. That was always the deal and is always the deal.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and what happens in New York clubs stays in New York clubs. When Malaysian millionaire Jho Low was spending megabucks in NYC clubs, this reporter did not run the story because it would have broken the rules to talk about his fun. The New York Post broke the story, and Mr. Low started to lay very low. Talk is not cheap. It costs the clubs megabucks when spenders and celebs feel too unsafe to partake. Rachel Uchitel is a not a waitress. Whether she slept with her client Tiger Woods or not is irrelevant to me. She has a Blackberry full of business and celebrity clients. Every host in NYC has the same.

The Blackberry of one host at a high end joint that I have seen tells the story. In it was a line-by -line description on how to service hundreds of very important people ... for example, the client likes Grey Goose or Dom Perignon . He likes a table in the action, or maybe a quieter less conspicuous location. He likes tall fun blondes, or he likes a more intellectual type. He’s looking for action or whatever comes his way. The host provides what the VIP needs. “Dependable” girls are always ready. Some of these gals are aspiring actresses or looking for a husband or just like the fun, the thrill. It’s the reason they left Kansas in the first place. Whatever—the main thing is that over time they didn’t blab about what happened with the men in question to the gossips, and the clients enjoyed their company. This is merely the tip of the iceberg, and I’ll let you guys fill in the rest of the blanks. This is business as usual in clubdom, and as I said, obvious to everyone in the game. It takes a good national scandal to say it out loud.