It began at Seamless, picking up adult actress Aurora Snow as she completed an interview for Sunset Thomas’ Internet radio show. I was not wearing my glasses, so when confronted by the Picasso jumble of ass, head and exposed breasts at the taping, I wasn’t sure which of three women’s intermingled bodies belonged to my friend. Snow and I had met professionally when she agreed to host a webcast with me at Adult Entertainment Expo/AVN in January 2006. (In truth, I had introduced Snow to the audience, handed the microphone to the former AVN Performer of the Year and stepped off-camera.) Two years later we are regular e-friends who never meet up IRL. However, since she had this free night in Vegas before her morning flight, she agreed to tag along as I went to work covering Pure’s popular surprise concert series on Tuesday night.
Despite reporting on Las Vegas entertainment for a living, I spend very little time in nightclubs. (I have early morning deadlines, and the clubs open at 10 p.m.) I had to buy a pair of shoes just to make dress code. Nightclubs tend to attract scenester writers who write in prose that resembles the quick pace and exuberant rush of the clubs themselves. Nothing ever seems to slow or stop them—like the large, bald, heavy-set security guard who stopped me and Snow at the door. Teams of girls streamed past us. Guys tripped past as the bald man said, “Take care of my friend.” I knew what he wanted before he’d looked down to see if my name was really on some list. This was the old Vegas slipping-of-grease culture, transplanted into the center of hot new Vegas.
I’d been told by friends that if I wasn’t a cute girl, I should expect to cough up $100, even if I was on the list, on a Tuesday. But to a working reporter, offering cash for access doesn’t feel quite right. Anyway, I figured between being on the list and having a famous adult-film star with me, everything should work out. Plus, I had my new shoes. I felt covered. I was wrong. The guard must’ve figured any middle-aged guy who could get a girl like that could afford a good tip.
“I am supposed to be on the list,” I said.
“Sir, all these people are on the list.”
“I was told I would not have to wait.”
“Well, you could get a table. But that’s a whole other ballgame. Tables start at $375.”
I am condensing what was in reality a half-hour of being told to stay put and hold my driver’s license in my hand, as cooler people from the line kept being let in ahead of us. The guard then instructed those of us who remained on his rules for the line. No smoking was one. A good rule. But it also made clear that he was planning for some people to wait a long, long time. It was also clear we were going to be among those people.
Then, out of nowhere, I heard my name, and one of Pure’s owners, Robert Frey—whom I’d met on assignment in 1999—was standing in front of us, parting the ocean of black-suited security. In that moment of recognition, I was one of the cool kids—the coolest, in fact. Snow and I were eventually placed on one of Pure’s VIP beds, next to the DJ booth. We sat there watching Too $hort perform a variety of raps that showed the many and varied ways the word “bitch” can be rhymed.
Standing a few feet away from me was another of Pure’s owners, Steve Davidovici. He probably knows more about nightclubs than any other person I’ve met. He also does interviews only occasionally and reluctantly. Many times I had thought how great it would be to get close enough to chat. But with the music so loud there was no way to ask him anything. He seemed delighted by this fact, giving me a friendly wave from his safe distance. I stood up and walked a few feet forward. “I would love to interview you some time!” I yelled. I don’t think he heard.
I returned to my VIP bed. Scanning the crowd, I learned two things. First, it might be too loud to talk, but these days there is plenty of communication thanks to texting. Second, although my BlackBerry is barely a year old, and I was in a room jammed full of people using handhelds, I might as well have been holding an eight-track tape machine. iPhones were plentiful, as were the latest of everything in texting devices. I think the entire crowd and every employee was using some sort of handheld, texting someone about something. (Not Stevie D., though. All he has to do is move a finger and an employee someplace knows what to do.) It is the first total text conversation culture I have seen. All of these people having hundreds of conversations without speaking a word. Of course, they were all probably writing every friend they had the same message: I got in Pure. If you get in, text me.
I arrived as the coolest thanks to Frey. But one thing about Vegas nightlife is that there is always someone cooler than you. Suddenly, Stevie D. was actually heading toward me. “LeBron James wants to join your party,” he said. He may have phrased it this way to be polite, but there was only one reasonable answer. I nodded. Soon the NBA player, in sunglasses, arrived with an entourage including his own security person, who promptly evicted Snow and me from our seats. In fact, the security man, with no one else to worry about, seemed deeply suspicious of me. As James greeted the crowd and then began to dance by the rail, the security guy shifted to keep himself between me and the Cleveland Cavalier. It was as if he were afraid that, like some mighty turnip, I might leap up with all my effort and slap at the giant player’s shin.
Well, he could have his space. I had seen the performance we were there to see, and I was ready to go. However, LeBron James was between us and the exit. The security guard was between us and James. The bodyguard had no interest in negotiating terms for our departure. Leaving Pure was proving as difficult as getting inside.
James, meanwhile, just kept dancing up a storm and waving to the crowd, totally ignoring us tiny gnats at his feet. He wasn’t exactly dancing with any one person. He was dancing for the entire crowd, like a man imagining himself onstage. He was being watched and photographed with cell phones by hundreds of dancers below him. As I tried to shift around the bodyguard, some of the ever-present Pure staff in dark suits took over the project. But we weren’t directed to the exit. Snow and I were moved to the DJ booth. Pure staff, even the bouncer dissing me out front, are always elaborately courteous. This politeness is especially true as they move you about. Over the night I met perhaps half a dozen men in suits. Met isn’t quite the right word. They yelled names in my ear, pumped my hand and gave me cards as they shuffled us about.
The DJ booth in Pure is an intoxicating piece of heaven for a music geek. Working were DJs Hollywood and Vice (who will be the resident at LAX when it opens at the end of the summer). It is an amazing thing to watch how computers have allowed them to manipulate, bend, mix and bleed recordings in so many interesting combinations. With monitors facing the booth, where we were standing may have been even louder than the rest of Pure. After a couple of feeble attempts at communication, Hollywood handed us earplugs, which at least allowed thought to pass between our ears, if not words between us.
For close to two hours I sat in rapture, studying the computers and the crowd, and then, suddenly, I had enough. It was close to 3 a.m. Snow had a flight in the morning, and I had a deadline. I talked to a man in a suit. There was, apparently, a problem: Boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr. was arriving. In order to clear passage for him to enter it would be best if I had another diet soda and waited a moment.
Then Hollywood announced his arrival. The crowd went wild. The entire time, LeBron James just kept dancing in his own universe, presided over by his own security. Since I was bathed in sweat standing still, I think he was getting quite a workout.
At last, three men in suits guided us from the DJ booth and out the door. Suddenly Pure was over, the hundreds of sweating people, pounding music and all; I was just standing in Caesars Palace feeling like I was Dorothy returned from some Oz. The only evidence that something was still happening within were the last stragglers in line finally getting in.
I looked at Snow. There was a question I had been afraid to ask all night because the answer would have been so infinitely complex to achieve.
Aurora was with me, totally—it was like she could read my mind: “I need to find a bathroom, too,” she said.
Off we went. Fortunately there was no bouncer or line.
Richard Abowitz is a Weekly contributing editor. Catch his blog on lasvegasweekly.com.