The other day I raised a mathematical question. The New York Post summarized the Harvard Business School study of Marquee and posted a daily summary of revenues generated which added up to around $120,000 per week. The summary also said that the club generated more than $12 million annually. Well, $12 million annually is $1 million a month or approximately $250,000 per week -- not $120,000. So I had to ask where that extra $130,000 per week came from, and if they taught math over at Harvard. Well, I got an email from one of the Harvard surveyors assuring me that they indeed had "their " math straight, and that the Post had gotten it mixed up.

I was reminded that they had indeed interviewed me outside the outer Chelsea hotspot a long time ago when they were preparing the study. I had forgotten a Marquee insider agreeing and saying that the "weekly projections were from a pre-opening business plan and were merely projections," and another Marquee insider saying "obviously the club has done much better than those projections.” He added that the projections were clearly marked, and that he couldn’t understand how the Post blew it. At his birthday bash last night, Marquee co-owner Jason Strauss pointed out that this was the sixth time he had celebrated his birthday at Marquee. We looked around the club together, reminisced about design decisions made so long ago, and realized how we had gotten lucky as now it seems we were very right, though at the time it was really unclear.

Recently I’ve been blasting DJs for playing "predictable" records, and I’ve complained about hearing similar or even the same sets from the mash-up boys. I specifically said that I couldn’t stand hearing Beyonce or Kanye West cuts anymore, and that I would die if I heard that Kid Cudi anthem again during the day or at night. Then, of course, the BlackBook dream team booked him for my anniversary bash this past Wednesday at Greenhouse, and the dude blew me away. I was dead wrong -- that song is classic and can be played almost always. I guess all those great cuts go through this phase before they become forever young. I’m sure that “Stairway To Heaven,” “Satisfaction,” and “Break for Love” were at this point back in the day, but now are undeniable once again. Anyway, I want to pay mad respects to Kid Cudi and his crew because they were amazing.

On a more serious note, I've asked around to get reactions from various people about the raid of the SLA offices in Harlem on Wednesday. Allegations that SLA employees took payola to expedite cooperating owners’ liquor licenses have shocked many people and sickened many more. One well-respected man said to me, "Is it any wonder that when it takes 8 months to get a liquor license that the law requires to be done in 30 days, and huge investments are sitting there waiting for a liquor licenses that are long overdue, that people will get desperate and do whatever they need to do in order to get an honest review of their application? That is the real scandal here. Notice that there are no allegations of anyone getting a license that they were not entitled to -- they were just reviewed quickly. This crisis was created by the outgoing anti-NYC administration at the SLA who have slowed down the review process here in New York City." The people I talked to implied that there "may be some lawyers taken down in this.” But they were “hopeful this was not the case.” One experienced hand added, “I doubt this goes higher than the clerk level."

I asked the New York Nightlife Association for a statement, and I got an email saying that “The NYNA has been publicly concerned about the time it is taking to review and process applications for well over a year now and been complaining to whoever would listen.” The email went on to ask, “Why isn’t anyone investigating why it is taking so long? Why with the same number of people and applications has the processing time doubled in the last 2 years? It is not a backlog. It is changes made at the SLA to slow the process down and make it harder to get licenses, especially in New York City (for example if CB2 says no then that’s an extra 2-month processing time).” Another owner with a notorious Chicken Little mentality wonders, “if bar owners could pay people at the SLA to speed their applications, could savvy rival owners or special interests pay SLA staff to slow the process?"
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