Rachel Uchitel Is Not a Madam

April 30, 2012 8:01 PM

On a recent Thursday night around 2 a.m., 1Oak is packed. The tables, U-booths near the D.J., are spotted with candles and spired with bottles of Grey Goose. Under the jaundiced glow of the spotlights, there are hands on rears and girls in small dresses and men in shiny striped shirts. They have carefully chosen their clothes and they have spent time in front of mirrors trimming hair from nostrils and tonight is about sex and status and supply and demand and have and have not. After Jay-Z and Lady Gaga have had their third and fourth plays of the evening, thumping up from the floor comes the Kings of Leon, their song “Use Somebody.” The general-admission crowds dance, and the table crowds dance a little more woodenly, a little more entitledly, with their finger pads on their tables. The promoters are dancing with the models and the waitresses are dancing with the bottles and everybody finds a place on the floor.

The floor people, they are just to fill the place up. The celebrities and the athletes and the tycoons are the ones for whom this world is zealously designed. A rung below in after-work pinstripes are the money guys, the Deutsche guys and the Goldman guys and the no-name hedge-fund guys—the “whales”—guys like that one over there in a Boss suit and John Lobb shoes, standing beside the table that cost him $3,000. Standing very close to it, like a Little Leaguer who wants to steal second but has never done it before. This gentleman’s not dancing, but he’s thinking about it. Soon Beyoncé will call all the single ladies to action and they will channel toward him in a centripetal swoosh.

Bottle girls, half-hookers, Tiger Woods, Rachel Uchitel, and the 21st-century courtesan economy: New York magazine takes a look at how America's elite night clubs operate. [via]
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear (8 comments total)

Men like to hunt, and there is no need to hunt a prostitute. Men like to cheat without strings, and you can’t stop a civilian from falling in love

For some reason I find myself already looking for ways to criticize the reporting. I wonder why.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:08 PM on April 30, 2012

It's funny, I lost interest at the exact same line.
posted by oddman at 8:19 PM on April 30, 2012

There must be some reason we didn't discuss this article two years ago when it was published... oh right it's crap.
posted by nicwolff at 8:21 PM on April 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

OK well that was fairly sickening.
posted by wilful at 8:21 PM on April 30, 2012

I actually read the whole thing, and it didn't tell me much I hadn't already figured out about 30 minutes into my first (and only) visit to Tao in Vegas.
posted by spitefulcrow at 8:22 PM on April 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's cliche but: don't hate the player, hate the game.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:24 PM on April 30, 2012

Why does hating the game preclude one from hating the player who perpetuates it?
posted by fatbird at 8:25 PM on April 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

Don't hate the player, hate the League Commissioner?
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:28 PM on April 30, 2012 [3 favorites]