Welcome to the Meat Market

Talker, one of the PAs on set had her 28th birthday yesterday, and the big celebratory event was an excursion to her favorite bar. She explained it as a big dive bar that played really great music, which sounded fine to me. "Will there be dancing?" I had asked. Dancing is a major selling point for me. "Of course! It'll be so much fun!" I was excited to hang out with Talker...she's a really nice, friendly girl with a boyfriend sob story that rivals mine. And she's the first person I've met here in New York who talks more than I do... I think I use a bit more discretion in my jabber though, believe it or not.

Up until now I hadn't really been out in the meat packing district, even though I've heard about the super trendy hot spots there. So last night after the Dance Parade, instead of passing out on the couch and watching Grey's Anatomy like my feet wanted to do, I prettied up for a night on the town.

I made it to the bar around midnight, and on the approach I noted the standard crowd of smokers. Then I got closer and saw that half of the people outside weren't smoking, they were waiting to get in. I sauntered up to the bouncer and flashed a smile. "I'm meetin' some folks, baby," I drawled. The Southern accent usually works to my advantage. I had noticed the tiny black dot on a smoker's hand as he exited for a cigarette break. "I was here before but that tiny little dot y'all gave me just washed right off." He raised an eyebrow but returned my ID, re-dotted my hand and sent me in.

Once inside I immediately wished I was back out there with the smokers and line standers. The near-solid wall of people that greeted me beyond the door was one of the most daunting sights with which I have ever been met in all my nightlife experiences. I have been in some crowded bars before, but this rivaled Bourbon Street on Mardi Gas Day. Somehow I found a bar back pushing his way through the throngs and jumped into his wake. As he pushed our way through I surveyed the clientele and realized that I had found the Manhattan meat market. 95% of the patrons were very clearly there to pick someone up, and the other five percent were already with someone. I recognized the familiar beat of bad top-40 style rap music, and quickly understood that Talker and I have very different definitions of the term dive bar, because as far as I could tell the word dive had no business being used in conjunction with this place.

Once I got toward the back and found the rest of the group it wasn't so bad. They actually did play some okay music, but nothing I would call great by any standard. I also discovered, as drinks were bought and conversations were screamed, that most of the people there were from New Jersey and the rest were from Connecticut. I had a lot of fun imagining an awkward two hour car ride in the morning from Mr. Connecticut's house to Ms. New Jersey's apartment.

The "dancing" basically consisted of everyone smooshed together and bouncing up and down, shouting the lyrics to standard meat market bar songs. Every once in a while a drunk girl would try to bust a move and then topple over onto her drunk girl friends. Those drunk girls...they just never learn. And they spilled beer on my shoe.

Even though that kind of thing isn't really my scene I still had fun. When you're in a place like that you just have to let go and play into it. So Talker and I sang our hearts out to "Sexy Back" and bounced up and down with the crowd and even drank beer (which I NEVER do). Payroll showed up with some of her pals (from New Jersey) and we all threw our heads back for an excellent "Ohhhhhh! We're halfway the-ere! Ohhohhh! Livin' on a pray-er!"

Turned out, Talker had never been to this bar on a weekend before, and I've heard from a few people that it's a great place to hang out on a Wednesday.

I had good company and it was kind of fun to throw myself into it, but I don't know that I'll be back in that kind of place any time soon.