I already knew Miley Cyrus and I had a lot in common: a love of hot pants, pole dancing. But not until her recent oh-no-she-didn’t interview with Ohio radio station Q92 did I realize we were sisters from another mister. Smiley hates Twilight, too! Our reasoning is a tad divergent. Cyrus says she doesn’t “believe in [Twilight]. I don’t like vampires ... I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t like the shirts, any of it.” Perhaps church-girl Miley is aware God hates fangs, but, really, jealous, much? I, on the other hand, am fine with vampires. Bill Compton can suck my blood any time. If True Blood’s Bon Temps, Louisiana, actually existed, I would be at Fangtasia like every night. Yet even the hair gel-loving vamps on the CW’s Vampire Diaries are about forty shades darker and more complex than Twi’s limp fish Edward Cullen. Who we know is a ruthless bloodsucker because his skin glitters in the sun. Come on. Inside me is still an awesome 13-year-old girl, and she is insulted.

Today's title paraphrases the Thin White Duke as word comes from a strange source that Rebel nightclub may be changing hands. I was asked to be involved with the renovation, so it just might be true. If so it will mark the end of an error and quite possibly the beginning of a new one. As a rock mecca back in the day, the space had a mediocre run as Downtime. I went to a few goth nights there cause they're always great fun for 15 or 20 minutes. I might have caught a long-forgotten band fronted by one of my waitrons as well. Downtime/Rebel was/is located on a "seam" block smack dab in the middle of the city at 30th Street and 8th Avenue. Although not far from anything and real easy to get to, the location was just never sexy. It always felt like I was in Jersey -- or worse, Philadelphia.

An unassuming tourist type at an unassuming football bar tells me this: "New York restaurants are crazy! There's a club in every basement!" I nod my head. He means RdV, the bass-thumping club below Bagatelle. "No," says the unassuming tourist, "We were in some East Village pizza restaurant or something!" Jesus, it can be tough keeping up with the NYC Jones. There seems to be tons of hidden gems that try to stay away from the people like me who can write about them, Twitter about them, Facebook about them, and ultimately ruin them. Some things are worth keeping a secret, but when the party is in the basement of Coffee Shop or some media lunch spot that regularly gets off on decent press, it's easy to broadcast. Some other things will remain a mystery, until I can fully understand if it's an actual basement party or simply a couple of bus boys getting high between shifts.

One thing I love about Los Angeles is that everyone comes here, and I don't have to go anywhere -- they come to me. Case in point: Joey Arias, the drag diva who first made a splash in New York's underground drag scene and then went on to infamy at Cirque du Soleil's sexytime Zumanity in Las Vegas, is here in town. I can go see him without jumping on a 3,000-mile (or 250-mile) flight for the next few weeks, in "Arias with a Twist." The name stems from the collaboration with Basil Twist, a puppeteer who conjured the fantastical set that Mr. Arias performs on.

Do you remember the first drink you ever ordered? Mine was an Amaretto sour -- not very adventurous, and though I like them to this day, I’ve been fine-tuning my drink list ever since. I’m now partial to sidecars, although more often than not, a bartender turns me down. So I’ll ask for something easier -- a lemon drop, a mojito, or, facing a very limited bar, that girly drink every mixologist knows how to mix: a cosmo. But I’m always embarrassed to utter that word. I am not a cosmo girl. They’ll do in a pinch, but how much lovelier to saunter up to a long bar and order something refined, raising one’s eyebrow and rolling each syllable off the tongue -- Bran-dy Al-ex-an-der, or Sing-a-pore Sling? The elegant romance of these classics is evoked by Assouline’s glossy new picture book, Vintage Cocktail. Gorgeously photographed by Laziz Hamani, the drinks in this coffee-table treasure were mixed at an equally urbane watering hole, Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle Hotel.

● Evening Call (Strip: South) - Mandalay Bay hotel bar that specializes in spiking: coffee drinks, ice cream drinks and plain ol' drink-drinks.
● Fusion (Strip: Central) - "La Vida Loca" Latin-themed bar at the Palazzo, with appropriate cocktails to match.

Any trip down the memory lane of nightclubs must pass by the Mudd Club. It opened in October 1978 and was the best joint in town -- some say the best ever. When it closed in 1983, it had morphed from the chicest of places to a punk/hipster haven. Any visit to the Mudd, even as a memory, must go through a door manned by Richard Boch. Mudd was located below Canal at the end of an alley at 77 White Street. At the time it was unimaginable that people could live down there, as it was a domain of rats and bag people with frequent visits from the new culture of graffiti artists. The music was rock and roll, and the crowds were punks and rock stars and rock stars who were punks, plus an uptown crowd slumming for flesh or drugs. Movie stars came through with their apricot scarves and that rarest of commodities: cash. It was a time before we thought of AIDS, and only Betty Ford went to rehab. Orgies and drugs in tenement squats were a common end to an evening on the town. There were few designer labels, save for Trash & Vaudeville or Natasha or Levi’s. But everybody wanted to get into the Mudd Club.

● Le P'tit Paris Bistro (Windsor Terrace) - Windsor Terrace gets down with L.P.P.
● The Union Square Lounge (Union Square) - Relaunch of the lounge under Coffee Shop. Good for young'uns not yet out of the habit of partying in basements.
● Roman's (Fort Greene) - Marlow and Diner peeps bring the white tile and marble to Ft. Greene.

When I walked into Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard for Mary Forbserg Weiland’s book reading on Monday night, it was immediately clear this was not your average book party. For one thing, there was an inordinate number of extremely tall, extremely beautiful, extremely well-dressed women in a crowded indie book store. That would be because the author was also a model. Then, there was the presence of a genuine rock star or two ... Dave Navarro (If I really have to tell you -- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, yadda yadda yadda), and Dave Kushner of Velvet Revolver. A writer version of a rock star, Cameron Crowe, was also there, and yes, we stammered something stupid to him. The reason for all the celebrity fanfare? You might recognize her last name: she was married to Scott Weiland, the lead singer of Velvet Revolver and Stone Temple Pilots. Her friends in high places came to support her debut book, a memoir about her drug addiction and mental illness, co-written with Vanity Fair writer/editor Larkin Warren.

Like any slightly (or not-so-slightly) compulsive Top Chef aficionado, I have scoured the show’s site for contestant bios. I’ve found that, like most Americans, the majority of chefs on the program boast multicultural backgrounds and cite various culinary traditions in their cooking. And of course the sweaty, knife-tossing, and slightly panicked contestants often whip up fusion dishes, combining elements from disparate traditions (along with the pizzazz from their own imaginations). Recently, I decided to take their some of this, some of that philosophy to heart -- and to the kitchen. Perhaps it was the irresistible scent of baking dough and melty cheese that wafted into my apartment from nearby Cheeseboard Pizza Collective, but I knew I had to include pizza, that quintessential Italian dish, and principal sustenance of college kids everywhere. Feeling adventurous, I left my tomato sauce and oregano in the fridge. This would be an international pizza.