Magazine Editor Denied Entrance to His Own Awful Party
Good gravy. After a tough week of feeling like a schlub, it's nice to get a reminder that going out sucks. Today's example? A disastrous Paper magazine party to which an editor was denied entrance.
It was a party for the nondescript publication's annual "Beautiful People" issue, this edition featuring Christian rocker turned manufactured pop rocker grrl Katy Perry. And, aside from the general hideousness of that as a concept (not to mention what sort of asshole you have to be to consider yourself worthy of going to a party called "Beautiful People"), the thing sounded like a damn organizational nightmare.
Four thousand buffoons RSVP'd to the shindig, held at Hiro Ballroom in Chelsea, which proved far over capacity. Scores of people were turned away at the door, left to wriggle and clatter on the cold, cold sidewalk like so many ugly, normal people. Among them: Poor stricken heiress Lydia Hearst and, embarrassingly for everyone involved but especially whoever the party planners were, Paper magazine editor Peter Davis. He'd just flown in from India and was left stranded at the door, Guest of a Guest breathlessly reported.
It was Paper Magazine Editor Peter Davis. He had literally just flown in from India. Keith Lissner and I showed up an hour late to the party and found Peter with his hot new boyfriend (a student at Parsons), unable to get passed the door. They had been at capacity and the mob outside looked straight out of L.A. We had no choice but to leave…
Yes, sigh. GoaG was stuck outside too.
On the precious inside was your usual cacophony of idiocy and reasons why New York can become such an easy place to hate. Like the Katie Couric of New York weeklies, the New York Observer went around asking attendees an important, hard-hitting question: "What does it mean to be beautiful?" Every little oil slick they asked said the same sad thing: it's what's inside! Which, as we should all know by now, is one of those lies children are told about the world, like "You can be anything you want to be." They should have just asked this robot. Case closed.
Our favorite party response? The doubling-back-on-itself theorizing of soap star Chrisell Stause:
It's all about what's inside. It's kind of used and tired. But especially in this economy when you can't really maybe afford the finer things, you've got to rock the vintage or whatever. But you've got to do it with confidence. It's all how you feel.
We feel :(
