Monday, Monday

When going out in NYC, weekdays are much better than weekends. I had an open mind when experimenting with going out on Friday night this past weekend, but as I was home accepting defeat by midnight, that didn’t work out so well. But Monday night, from divey bars to trendy parties we found fun around every corner.

Monday has been one of my favorite nights to go out since I moved to NYC nearly seven years ago. At the time, the biggest Monday night scene was at Sway, this kinda divey bar downtown, but I liked it best when the party migrated to the Tribeca Grand Hotel. I have many great memories of those days as a freelance writer, hanging out with the downtown hipster crowd that packed the lobby bar of the hotel every Monday. The party had a good run but after about a year Butter established itself as place to be on a Monday – and years later it remains unrivaled. If there’s a celebrity in town on a Monday–from Demi to Jay Z – it’s a safe bet they’ll be in the basement of Butter.

Last night, feeling cute in a comfy Issa dress from their new cruise collection (they’re my favorite), I started the night at Monkey Bar uptown for a media mixer called Newsmakers- a networking soiree started by my friend Shawn Sachs, who apparently has a lot of friends, because it was packed. I had a glass of wine, did a bit of requisite schmoozing and then hopped in a cab downtown to meet Amber and some girls for a low-key dinner in the Lower East Side. We had some time to kill till our next stop, so passing Welcome to the Johnsons, a dive bar I’d heard so much about but never been to, I suggested we pop in for a quick drink. Amber and my friend Ali warned me it smelled inside but I was intrigued by the sign outside that said $2 drinks. Unfortunately, my vodka on the rocks was $7 and not enough to numb the BO stench. But, we made the most of it. Ali and I sat at a table, chatted and drank our $7 cocktails while Amber stayed sober and started dancing by herself to rock songs like ‘Roxanne.’ She later took her dancing to the streets where she was dancing to the music in her head. (see photo).

When we were done with our drinks we took it up a notch and caught the end of a dinner party at Stanton Social – where Paris Hilton was at a table drinking Marquee Platinum vitality drinks with her 20-year-old boy toy du jour Alex Vaggo. I tried a taste of the pink energy drink mixed with champagne, but since I just had an espresso I opted for a ginger sake martini instead. Just after midnight we headed over to Butter, minus Amber, who’s not much into ‘the scene.’ We left her on the sidewalk chatting with guys we ran into who run the deli we used to go to when we first moved to New York – and were so broke we used to trade them gift bags for sandwiches!

At Butter Emile Hirsch was walking out as I was walking in and I wasn’t there two seconds before my friend Jo introduced me to Joey Fatone – who was still at Butter at 1am but looked well-rested and energetic when I turned on the TV and saw him the on “The View” about ten hours later. Currently hosting “Spelling Bee” – a talent show where competitors have to accurately sing the lyrics to popular songs, Joey told me song he thinks they lyrics people most often get wrong is the line in Jimi Hendrix song Purple Haze “scuse me while I kiss the sky.’ He said, ‘People always think it’s ‘scuse me while I kiss the guy.” In case you were among those making the mistake.

Next I saw my friend Hill Harper. Love him. He went to Harvard where he became good friends with Barak Obama, and recently co-hosted a party for him at Oprah’s house! He didn’t invite me there. But, he did once invite my friends and me to the set of “CSI: New York” and set us up in director’s chairs while he filmed a scene. It was very cool. He’s so humble and always has a smile on his face.

Paris was at another table with Alex until about 2am and then joined “America’s Next Top Model” winner Caridee English and her boyfriend Nick for a stop at Bungalow 8 before moving on to Runway, a nightclub. I went home at 2. Maybe if I’d had some of that vitality drink she was sipping I would have rallied later. Actually, 2am was probably a good time to call it a night. After all, it was only Monday.