It's 1:20 a.m. on a Thursday night, and I've lost my dignity. I become painfully aware of this as the heel of my shoe cleaves itself between two bricks and interrupts the flow of my hopping up and down. I recommence, once establishing my balance, and start waving my hands wildly in an attempt to cover up for my near fall and get the attention of a burly, scowling bouncer on the other side of the glass door. "Come on!" I am waiting here, stuffed into a crowd, with all of my hottest girlfriends, condemned to stand unnoticed in the freezing cold, waiting to pay $10 for my remaining 40 minutes of fun. Such is the nature of making a glamorous Monte Carlo entrance.
Once I finally do push myself through the door and ascend the red velvet steps, I am confronted with the scene; which, for the moment, before I break into the crowd, is a wall of humanity, vibrating with the hum of hob-nob. I push through -- not an easy process, although made feasible by the slippery nature of all of the bodies I'm maneuvering through (at least the male ones). The dripping sweat and hair gel lubricates my entrance as I slither up the steps to make my rounds.
Amidst puffs of smoke and chest hair, and the near-deafening Spanish din, I struggle to protect my dainty feminine enigma, despite the curious hands that seem to find their way across my body. This is a good place to practice my Spanish, discuss my recent international voyages (especially since everyone there seems to have homes and or family in every locale I've frequented), and possibly even try out my recently acquired karate skills in self-defense of this red velvet meat market.
Or I might take out my aggression on the dance floor. At this point, the Latin songs have become every-other-Thursday night favorites. Otherwise I would never dance, let alone hear these redundant beats. And I might not mind. Indeed, there is much to write about the atmosphere on the corner of 2nd and South -- unfortunately for those trying to create a certain Copacabana feel, however, the music makes me feel no less Euro or Latin than the disco ball, mirrors and dimly lit booths make me feel like laying down lines of coke and happening upon the Bee Gees or Donna Summer. It's all a quaint attempt to transport us into the vivid, stylized, sophisticatedly greasy Euro imagination.
But I'm still somehow aware of the "fauxness" of it all. Maybe it's the orange street lamp that flickers into the otherwise macabre, dark red room, illuminating the precious, colonial, brick-street outside. Or maybe it's the preppy A's boys struggling to keep up with the Maimi heat as they order one more bottle of Grey-Goose in the far corner. Or maybe it's the fact that "Stephano," the mysterious Jim Morrison look-alike who rips me off at the door, is actually named Steve and from Jersey. And yet somehow, I keep coming back, every other Thursday.
