TGIF: Harlots, Hoodoo, and Hotel Griffou

Did some Nostradamus-type advertising guru from T.G.I. Friday's invent textese, therefore predicting the SMS revolution me and my Blackberry are now celebrating? I went to the T.G.I. Friday's website to check and was bombarded with heavy metal music and images of violently searing meat, bottle-tossing bartenders and sexy Midwestern waitresses. Too much before my morning lemonade. I'm in love with my Blackberry. It doesn't mean I want to marry it, but I do plan on taking it on vacation. Some say I'll have a better time if I leave her at home and go with some random gal, but I told them to gft.

My brain is indeed withering from the heat of my mid-summer night’s dreams. Last night, I attended the “Harlot Nights” party thrown by Collective Hardware’s very own Puck, Stuart Bronz. It was a stooopid hot event, with only two floor fans for a massive crowd of hipsters, dipsters, and scenesters. In midsummer you can tell how good a party is going to be by counting all the cute summer interns dressed up and doing important things. This party was no joke. There were gaggles of beautiful, sweaty women everywhere. As I sat in the big couch and chatted up all that I could, I was constantly reminded by an annoying intern of the “Win a Date With Steve Lewis” contest Blackbook was going to host for me way back when. I told the nosey intern that I was seeing someone on-line. I explained that I wake up most mornings and go to sleep most nights chatting up a sexy Facebook friend far, far away, and sometimes we text or SMS or tweet during the day. I told the squeaky intern that indeed I had “never met her in the flesh.” After this horrible intern stopped laughing in my very sweaty face, she asked me if that wasn’t “a bit two-dimensional.” I said it was sort of like dating a model. People were changing into bathing suits, hand-painted right there in front of me, and I guessed that and the sweltering heat and the obnoxious intern were the “harlot” part of this monster gala. Patrick McMullan took a thousand photos of me with the irritating intern and introduced me to his son, that hot boy about town Liam, for the thousandth time. I left, because I know when to leave.

Tonight, Noel Ashman is hosting a party for Candace Bushnell, who of course had that bestseller book-to-series-to-movie Sex and the City. This uber-hot event will be at Mr. West, which seems even farther west than when it opened. I saw on the Facebook page Noel posted that 23 people had agreed to attend. This was less than the 25 people who are members of the “Noel Ashman Screwed Me Out of Money (and I’m Suing)” group. If you add in the 1 member of the “Noel Ashman Slept With My Girlfriend and I’m Angry” group and the 3 members of the “Noel Ashman Is Not the King of New York” group, you can see that he is clearly outnumbered. However, if he rolls in with Chris Noth, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessie Bradford, Damon Dash, and other members of his loving and loyal investment group (ready to change nightlife as we know it any minute now), then it’s a push. Unless Ivy brings Scratt—but that’s a different story altogether. I contacted Noel for comment but got none. Could he have been shacked up with that guy’s girlfriend? I assure you that although most of you have no idea what just happened, there are others who are really enjoying this. It’s all on Google—or is it ggl? I love Noel Ashman. He is a frnd and not just of the FB variety. I may just go West to see him tonight.

I went to Hotel Griffou the other night. I was told the place was working out the kinks, and I should not judge it harshly. I guess when they fix the crowd, decor, lighting, and noise I will give it another look. When I mentioned this to the friend who brought me there, she made all these excuses and told me that “the food would be great when they work out the kinks ... it’s new!” I used to pop into the place from time to time when it was the great secret hang Marylou’s. Jack Nicholson would enjoy a cigar there and was such a regular that when the smoking ban kicked in, Jack said he would pay the six figures to put in an air filtration system to keep things right. Alas, the city retreated from its approval of these systems because the ban is about employees as well as patrons, and cleaning up and such wouldn’t be fair to these people. I was told not to say bad things about the place, so I decided that every time someone says “Hotel Griffou,” I will just say, “god bless you.” See you l8r.