Victor Corona - Night Class: A Downtown Memoir

Copyright 2017 by Victor P. Corona

First Soft Skull paperback printing: July 2017

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940028

Cover design by Debbie Berne

eISBN 978-1-59376-674-0

Soft Skull Press

1140 Broadway Suite 704

New York, NY 10001

www.softskull.com

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by Publishers Group West

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To Guadalupe, Victor M., Joel, and Talal, my family forever,

and to the memory of Jeannie Stapleton Smith, mentor and friend

PREGAME

My first step into New York nightlife was almost a disaster. For weeks my friends and I plotted how to sail past the velvet rope guarding the wild weekly party called Ladyland, a sparkly mix of twirling models, queer art kids, and glam rock devotees. Held at the Hudson Hotel, a trendy venue that had appeared on Sex and the City and Gossip Girl , their night pulled in hip downtown DJs and passed free booze and champagne around the modish crowd of teal hair, mesh tops, and designer leather. Debbie Harry, the blond downtown goddess herself, had stopped by to bless the affair, while magazines deployed their style photographers to document the chicly outfitted It kids. And they were readyalways readyto pose, pose, and pose.

I did not belong there.

Three years of dissertation research with the US Army, plus a year of working in Washington, DC, produced a dowdy cubicle rat version of me. I wore wire-frame eyeglasses on a face dotted with acne and shaved my whole head down to shiny skin. My way too bony body was dressed in clothes plucked right out of the Gaps sales racks. Picture Gandhi in baggy khakis walking around the Pentagon. Finishing my PhD at Columbia and becoming a sociology professor had not exactly improved my outfit choices or aesthetic tastes.

Of all nights, my first outing to Ladyland happened on St. Patricks Day, 2011, when most nightlife folks avoid the drunk bridge-and-tunnel mobs stumbling around, leaving in their wake green party hats and vomit puddles. But two friends dressed as frumpily as me insisted that this was the night we would finally make it into Ladyland. I wore a drab black polyester jacket from Macys, a plain purple T-shirt, dark jeans, and clunky black loafers that made an already horrible look even worse, all while carrying a huge satchel that had no business being anywhere fabulous.

The party itself went on in the Hudsons darkly lit library, adorned with strangely chic posters of cows and a purple pool table in the center. The main organizer was Kelle Calco, a suave member of a downtown clique known as the Rivington Rebels, sort of a rock n roll mens club. Their home base was the storied St. Jeromes bar on the Lower East Side, where Lady Gaga and her friends first stirred up their scene years ago. Brian Newman, another Rebel and Gagas trumpeter and jazz bandleader to this day, often dropped by. I was especially eager to meet Darian Darling, an incredibly glamorous Ladyland hostess and old Gaga friend, who back then still reveled in a closeness to her downtown buddy turned global pop star.

Once my friends and I arrived at the hotel, the glowing neon lime escalator took us to a lobby filled with woodsy motifs and festooned with what was probably faux ivy. I approached the doorman at the librarys velvet rope and shyly asked about Darians party. Eyes narrowed, he gave us all the once-over. Clearly unimpressed by our nerdy selves, he pretended not to know what we were talking about. We foolishly assumed that we were at the wrong spot or that maybe the event had been canceled. But checking our phones, we saw everyone inside tweeting about just how fabulous the party was. So, we went back to him, this time being told to ask our supposed contact to come out and bring us in. One friend wondered if flashing our Ivy IDs might persuade the unwelcoming doorman. I glared at him. Eventually the doorman said that one of us could go in, find Darian, and have her come out to bring in the others. As the unofficial leader, I walked in to my very first big nightlife party alone, humiliated, and tasked with asking one of Lady Gagas old friends to tell her doorman to let in my frumpy pals, pretty please.

I walked around the dark room as the music pounded away, recognizing this or that corner from all the Ladyland photos I had seen online. And there was Darian, in a corner, her vintage houndstooth jacket and blond Technicolor halo clearly visible amid her gaggle of young admirers: muscular models, colorful club kids, the Jeromes crowd. The boys hovering around her were very cute, making me even more self-conscious about my bargain bin clothes. But Darian was actually pleasant and chipper when I introduced myself and leaned in for a double air kiss, and against all odds the rest of the night flowed smoothly. My two friends were let in and, drinks in hand, we took in the fabulous scene.

Clearly that nights dreary version of me, pathetically pleading with the doorman, would not fly in clubland. Of course his rejections hurt, but it also pushed me to become a better version of myself. To some it all might just expose nightlife as a snobbish, sadomasochistic practice. But as I often tell my students, if they let just anyone into this school, your diplomas wouldnt mean anything. Its the filter, the gatekeeping, the conscious curation of a community inside that creates value.

Now zoom ahead five years to my thirty-fourth birthday. Watch me breeze into downtown hotspot The Box, a hub for A-listers and Wall Street millionaires where I had become a Friday night regular. My glittery red eye shadow matched my lacquered nails and the burgundy highlights in my hair, now grown down to my eyebrows. Accompanied by a friend in high heels, the beloved nightlife artist Muffinhead, I strolled right in, past the lines of people waiting outside, and dove into the outrageously chic crowd packed in front of the stage. Before long one of the hosts handed me a flute of champagne and I found my friends and some former students in the bouncing mass. For a few of them, it was their first Box night. They seemed overwhelmed by their immersion in flashy spectacle and maybe a little shocked at seeing their former professor wearing shimmering make-up and face jewels. A gorgeous friend had of course quickly been invited by some handsome finance guys to sit in their booth, while a fellow writer sipped on a Stella and relayed her thoughts about the crowd.

Bottle after bottle of champagne and vodka arrived at the hosts table as combat boots and Louboutins crushed the limes and ice cubes spilled on the floor. Soon bow-tied staff members started marching through the crowd, asking everyone to sit down in preparation for the nights performances, which would include beautiful topless dancers aerial contortions and, thanks to the great Rose Wood, raw shock and awe. Before it was over the stunning chanteuse serving as Mistress of Ceremonies hushed the crowd to announce that it was a special night for someone in the house. She called me up on stage and asked everyone packed in there to raise a glass and toast my birthday. On stage, at The Box, on my birthday. Gandhi had gone gaga.