No Women, No Nightlife

...or Why Every Night Is Ladies Night
By Gamal Hennessy

A couple of weeks ago, a New York judge threw out the anti-ladies night lawsuit of attorney Roy Den Hollander. In theory, the suit was brought on behalf of all men over the age of 21 who went to a club on a ladies night. Hollander claimed that the practice of ladies night unfairly forced men to financially subsidize women’s partying. The judge decided that since private clubs can set any price or practice they want for entry, the suit was frivolous. While throwing out the case is the only thing that makes sense, the ruling fails to articulate the basic connection between women and nightlife.
You can come to the conclusion that Hollander is a petty, conniving, opportunistic leech looking for someone to sue. You might also come to the conclusion that he is a misogynist (Hollander’s other current suit is against a university’s woman studies program for discrimination). I think it’s pretty safe to assume that this guy is single. But the most obvious conclusion that you can draw from this story is that Hollander has no experience in nightlife.

If you know anything about nightlife living, you can ignore the fact that women have been disadvantaged politically, economically, socially and legally since before the Bible. You can ignore the fact that the money that women are pressured to spend on hair, make up, clothing, shoes and various pseudo artificial parts before they even step into the club dwarfs whatever they save on ladies night. But if you know nightlife, the one thing you can’t deny is that entire industry and culture revolves around women.

The attempt to attract and appeal to women is basic to almost every aspect of the nightlife experience. The lyrics in the music are for them or about them. The dance floor is put there to entice them to gyrate. All the fancy cocktails and impressive interior designs are created to appeal to their senses. Men don’t care about any of those things. Men care about women.

Nightlife needs women because where women go, men and money follow. Men clean themselves up, get dressed, go out, and buy bottles to meet, or at least hoping to meet, women. When I was learning to DJ, other DJ’s told me that I wasn’t really playing for the crowd. I was playing for the five or six girls who would jump on the dance floor, draw other women to join them and create a party through a ripple effect. Unless you’re in a gay club, you need to understand that women are the superior sex in nightlife. Men will go wherever they go.

And if you’ve ever seen straight girls hanging out in a gay club, you know they get treated like gold there too.

Ladies night is nothing more than the recognition by a club that women are the engine that makes the machine work. A bar without women is a dive bar, a sports bar, a cigar bar or closed. Give women free admission and lower drink prices and your bar becomes something more. It becomes a place where men and women want to go. Hollander claims he brought his suit on behalf of all men over the age of 21. What he won’t admit is that we wouldn’t change a thing.

Have fun.
G

What’s Your Hustle?

Back in the day, “What’s your sign?” might have been the default pick up line. The new line now should be “What’s your hustle?”

A hustle is anything you do outside of your regular job to advance. Hustles can be legal, semi-legal or illegal. They can be done solo or in a group. A hustle is often thought of as a street level enterprise, but every aspiring writer, adult night student or part time real estate broker is working their own hustle…

So far this week, I’ve met the publisher of a liquor magazine, scored a couple of DJ gigs, facilitated a birthday party, set up a photo expert with a new client, scheduled a demo recording and negotiated a license agreement for my new book. All of this happened while writing for New York Nights, pretending to work at my day job and taking care of my people. That’s not bad for a short week, but I don’t think you can hustle by standing still.

I’m not alone in this lifestyle. This week I met a lawyer who doubles as a fashion designer. Two weeks ago I met a banker who also works as a club promoter. The musicians I hang out with at night are advertising executives during the day. More than a few of my DJ friends are lawyers. I date a social worker who is also a dancer. A driver for the car service I use is a music producer. When we go out at night it’s rare to meet someone who doesn’t have a hustle.

Most hustlers are working their way up, but I don’t think we hustle just to get ahead. The way I see it, millionaires from Jay-Z to Donald Trump still hustle, even though they don’t have to. Maybe hustling isn’t about money. Maybe it’s a frame of mind.

The willingness to hustle might come from several places. It could be that New Yorkers hustle by instinct, giving up their days working for the Man so they can spend their nights doing what they love. It could mean that the jobs we really want to do don’t pay a lot of money so we hustle to keep things from falling apart. It could just mean that everything on TV is crap so we find something else to do to pass the time.

Nightlife lends itself to hustling. There is a lot of stuff that needs to be done, but you usually don’t have to be there until your day job is done. Nightlife jobs often come with perks, but most of them don’t pay enough to make a living. These kinds of hustles are fairly easy to add into a normal life. Combine that with the fact that you can run things remotely through the internet and there are ready made hustles everywhere you look.

So what if you don’t have a hustle? Do you need one? Maybe not. Maybe you have everything you’re looking for in your job, your relationship and your personal space. Maybe you have enough money, freedom and excitement in your life to skip the hustle. If so, you should feel good about that. If not, then maybe its time for you to find your hustle.

Have fun.
Gamal

Prince of the City 5: Too Many Lawyers?

by Gamal Hennessy

When you’re a lawyer, and you spend all day with lawyers, and you divorced a lawyer, meeting more lawyers at a bar is not on the top of your to do list. But it’s hard to avoid them in New York. They’re like Starbucks. You can find one any where you look.

N invited me to the Inn, a new spot in the Meatpacking District that trying not to be a Meatpacking District spot. I wasn’t there more than five minutes before he introduced me to some attorney he met smoking in front of the bar. She was wasted, lost and leaving with a guy I pegged as a B&T implant, so thankfully there was no conversation. I was OK with that. I generally dislike people in my profession.

We were at the Inn for an hour of talking business, and sizing up the female population of the bar, which was mostly aspiring models and established cougars. I don’t know how many of the cougars were lawyers, but they were definitely forward and self-assured. That in and of itself isn’t a problem. It’s actually a nice change of pace. We probably would have stayed, but we had another party to hit.

Sugar Bar is one of those Tribeca spots that you won’t miss if you’re looking for it. Even though the cab practically left us in front of the place, and N had a GPS, and I went to law school a couple of blocks away, it still took us 15 minutes to find it. Being tipsy probably had a lot to do with that.

When we finally did find the bar, wondered through the empty first floor and stumbled on the party in the basement, it was time for more drinks. But before we could do that, we had to say hello to the birthday girl. She wasn’t a lawyer, but she was a law student. Law students are easier to talk to because they haven’t been corrupted by the Dark Side. She was cute, friendly and she could dance. Based on all those positive qualities I decided to like her in spite of the whole law school thing.

At 2 AM it was time to go home. I stood on the platform at Canal Street avoiding the construction workers and confining myself to the late night passenger waiting area. There were two girls laughing on the platform near me. They were joking about contract law. Contract law isn’t actually a funny subject unless you’re in law school, which they obviously were.

I decided at that point it was useless to try to avoid lawyers in New York City. Then I laughed at their joke.

Have fun.
G