Mr. Black L.A., Don’t Ever Change

Even though a nightclub or a club night has a strong brand in one city, it's always hard to know if it'll translate when it moves to another city. So, when we heard that Mr. Black, the infamous New York club (now roving, it seems) that featured a pantsless waiter dubbed The Ass, was setting up a weekly night in L.A., we hoped, but wondered whether the Angelenos would like it. Answer: they liked it very, very much.

We knew that it was going to be just fine when we were greeted in the stairway of Bardot by a Mr. Black sign, the first signal that we were about to enter familiar territory.

Upon entering the lair, we were immediately relieved to see not one, but two pantsless waiters with perfectly formed buttocks, carrying their drink trays high above their Top Hat-clad heads. Oh, yes, we were home, darling. We almost ran up to them and gave them a pinch, thinking it was Luke Nero, who was the Ass in New York, but remembered that he’d graduated and was allowed to wear pants now.

I ran into him, looking handsome in a tux, at the top of the stairs. He was all jittery. “I’m nervous,” he tittered. “What if no one shows up?” I looked around the room, which was already filling up quite nicely at 10:30 and said, “I think you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’ve this many people out on a Tuesday night.” Sure enough, by midnight, you could barely get a drink from the bar.

As for the crowd, they looked quite familiar,too. With the help of his hosts, Lenora Claire, Gregory Alexander, and Mr. Rusty Updegraff, Nero, who has graduated from being the Ass to the promoter of the party, has managed to recreate the New York downtown crowd of cute, hip gay boys, and their fabulously overdressed girlfriends, with a sprinkling of club freaks paying homage to Leigh Bowery.

Culled partially from the East Side and partially from the more savvy Hollywood and West Hollywood crowds, the Mr. Black attendees would have been perfectly at home in New York. I mean, there was World of Wonder’s James St. James running around doing interviews, with a teeny tiny thing that resembled a hat perched on his bald noggin. (He even interviewed me and told me that I looked like Rosie Perez, which was quite funny). Another familiar face, Alexis Arquette, was there in all pink get-up.

A few things were different, of course. For one thing, I couldn’t embarrass myself the way I used to in New York because I had to operate a motor vehicle for 30 minutes on the drive home. For another, people weren’t engaging in Mr. Black’s time-honored tradition of taking photos with their faces next to the Asses for the blog. Luke, apparently has decided to not keep that tradition alive for now. (Whatever, with the classing up of the joint thing, dude.)

And the music is lacking a focus; while the DJs Riley More and Josh Peace have good taste (we heard Sheila E and Miss Kittin), there lacked a cohesive style that we are used to hearing in New York. One of the refreshing things about Mr. Black is that the DJs played first-rate dance music that would have satisfied even the most hardcore discerning music geeks. No shrilly Junior Vasquez mixes there, nope.Eventually, I’m sure that will coalesce, too, as the DJs get to know their crowd.

But some things will never change. I asked one of the two Asses what they did to get ready for the night ("I shaved, tanned, and lotioned it,” he replied), and asked if people were behaving themselves. Of course not, he said, “I have to swat their hands away.” Ah, just like home.