The Double Life is Twice as Good by Jonathan Ames

Author:Jonathan Ames
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

I leave the girls and think about what they said—specifically the phrases “TV show” and “theme park.” In America we want to live in theme parks and TV shows. Why? We don’t want real life. Real life means pain. It means taxes, STDs, aging, bad breath, impotence, traffic, the loss of people we love. No wonder we want life to be Sex and the City and Disneyland.

We leave Spice Market, and we stroll about, passing literally hundreds of pretty girls out on the town, and I remember what a friend of mine calls the Meatpacking District—“Little Miami.” Then we go to the legendary bar Hogs and Heifers, paying five bucks each to get in.

It’s a rough-hewn, good-size place, without anything notable about it except for all the bras hanging from the ceiling, like some kind of huge lacy stalactite formation. It’s supposedly a biker bar, but it being Friday night, the large crowd seems touristy and not very tough. I’m wearing my seersucker jacket, and as I approach the bar to buy drinks for my friends, the bartender, a sexy brunette in a leather bra and low-cut jeans, says, “It takes balls to wear seersucker in here. I’m giving you a free drink.”

I thank her for this and then ask her how many bras are hanging from the ceiling. “There are 11,802 of them,” she says, “1,300 pounds of bras.”

Then she and her two bartending partners, a blonde and another brunette, get up on the bar and, wearing clogs, do a spirited dance to the AC/DC song “You Shook Me All Night Long.” When they’re done, the girl who liked my seersucker grabs a megaphone and implores the ladies in the crowd to get up on the bar and dance. One woman volunteers, dances nicely, and then reaches under her shirt and adds her bra to the collection, which is the Hogs and Heifers tradition. Somewhere in the formation above our heads is a Julia Roberts bra and a Britney Spears bra.

My friends have a few more drinks, and then we leave as the bartenders implore the crowd, through their megaphones, to “make some noise!” Why people have to make noise to indicate they are having a good time is something that has always bothered me. I once went to Club Med on a magazine assignment and the people who organize things there—they were kind of like camp counselors for adults—kept shouting at us to make noise. I wonder if it’s a Tony Robbins–like principle—that if you make noise you fool your brain into thinking that you’re alive.

SATURDAY, J UNE 30, 2007

The next morning I sleep late again, and then, wearing my bathing suit, go down to the basement of the Gansevoort to their spa, which is flirtatiously called the G-Spa. I pass some empty massage rooms and find the steam room. I wrap a towel around myself and begin to sweat. I’m all alone—I have the steam room to myself.

The G-Spa is a spa by day and bar by night.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.