Tao nightclub hosts some of the hottest parties in Las Vegas, and it's Bob Shindelar's job to make sure it stays that way. As the club's Director of VIP Services, Shindelar is responsible for taking care of the "CEOs, athletes, models, film and music stars, media, politicians, and royalty" who make Tao their nightlife home base whenever they're in Sin City.

I was told to dress in white for Noah Tepperberg's birthday bash at Lavo last night. I normally don't do costumes but there's something about Noah that is undeniable. I complied, wearing white pants, a white shirt and matching sports jacket. Even my hush puppies had white shoelaces. Someone said if I had worn a black tie and was traveling with a little person I could easily be mistaken for Ricardo Montalban from the last season of Fantasy Island.

Once upon a time there was this club called Earth, as in what on Earth were they thinking? It was a disaster before they chose the name, and remained so until it shuttered. Nightlife is a game of smoke and mirrors, but also one of connections, service, experience, and heart. It also requires vision and -- how do you say it? -- balls. Most places that the “In” crowds are clamoring to get into now started off as decidedly unglamorous, until someone (or multiple someones) with vision, money, and the guts to invest showed up to lay claim. Arguably one of the worst joints on Earth, Earth gave way to Avenue— one of the best.

The culture of nightlife and the culture of hotels is about to change. For years, we have discussed the advantages of nightlife finding a protective home in the bosom of a hotel, with all its services, amenities, insurances, lobbyists, lawyers and all that expensive stuff that operators in non-hotel-based joints need to pay for on their own. Hotels are more than ever before driven by their food and beverage establishments. Plus, they come packed with rooms filled with guests who have the best money there is: vacation money.

There were a few times this winter when the summer seemed as impossibly distant as an Oscar for Tom Cruise. I still look for patches of tough snow when I walk the puppies through McCarren Park, and yet here we are, less than 2 weeks away from the summer season. The big news on the Hamptons party circuit is the redux of the Tavern space in Southampton as South Pointe. Leading the charge at South Pointe is Jonathan Schwartz, a one time promoter who has often been associated with Noah Tepperberg, Jason Strauss, and The Strategic Group.

Tomorrow's can’t-miss event is a toss-up between the 2-year anniversary of the W Hoboken, which I may actually attend, and Andrew Goldberg's birthday bash at Avenue. Amanda might not be able to make it to Jersey (something about allergies), so I’ll be looking for a ho to bring to Hoboken.

With the Academy Awards looming just a few weeks away and the Golden Globes behind us, we're smack dab in the middle of awards season. Of course, nightlife has its own awards. Nightclub & Bar has announced 21 winners for the 2011 Nightclub & Bar Awards. Almost 300 nominees that include bars, clubs, restaurants, DJs, and industry professionals were voted on by a panel of judges. These judges are consultants, developers, writers, editors, and trainers in the industry, who are required to rank their first, second, and third choices in each of the categories they're qualified to judge. I was selected as one of the judges, but I’m unaware of the names of others. Names are kept secret so that bribes can't be offered up, but I’m considered way too dumb to take a bribe, and so I reveal myself.

Chicks dig dragons. Or Thai beer. Or swank Midtown lounges. Or an exhilarating combination of all three. That’s the feeling I got the other day at Covet , where I showed up for a live wall painting by LA-based street artist Jeff Soto (and free-flowing, civilization building beer). I've never been to Tao, or Lavo, and I don’t usually spend too much time lurking around Midtown (at least since getting tossed out of the News Corp building by my favorite Simpsons character), but a graf-savvy Cali friend who’s down with the LA Taco crew told me one of his favorite West Coast graf cats had flown out to NYC to do a wall and that I should check it, so I took the 6 down from the BX and descended into the rustic-plush confines of Covet to scope it out.

I left California with fun facts resonating in my head. First, I heard that In L.A. there are more medical marijuana distribution joints than there are Starbucks. Secondly, the people who live in Venice Beach call themselves Ven-utians. My crew has settled there and in West Hollywood. I ate strange fruit and peed next to movie stars in restaurant bathrooms. I had conversations with local nightlife shakers about celebrities as commodities and their car-based clientele. In good old New York it's hard to make a place that is what we call a "destination” work. Notable exceptions have been Bungalow 8, Area, Cielo, Lotus, and The World, which popped up in hoods that were less than traveled.

Saturday night was going to be my long overdue movie night, but instead I was talked into going to Tao’s 10th Anniversary party. Plied with the promise of good company, Kings of Leon band members, and nudity, I got all of the above, and then some. My partner in the endeavor had been attending these anniversary parties for 10 years (so, all of them), and assured me that if ever I were to visit the sceney Pan-Asian restaurant again, Saturday night would be the night. I called up to consult my friend on what to wear to a midtown throwdown. "Something really slutty,” she said.