"The Look at Me Look at Me" Girls and Boys

[lalate]

In case anyone is interested ....

"The Look at Me Look at Me" Girls and Boys

The Rise and Fall of Hollywood Nightlife

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A Three Part Investigative Report by LALate

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How the crowd that built Hollywood nightlife killed it in Summer 2004

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Introduction

It's a storyline that could only happen in Hollywood. Act One. A series of restaurant-nightclubs start opening in tinsletown's eastern corridor. Setting: 2002. Patrons flock. Great money is made. Just when you thought good times would never end, we cut to: Act Two. Conflict. Too many venues start to be built, rebuilt, opened, and reopened in the area, breading too many dancefloor for not enough clubgoers. Venues start to struggle. Clubgoers start to leave.

Fiction or Reality? For Los Angeles nightlife, this storyline that can only happen in Hollywood is reality.

In a three part investigative report, LA's preeminent nightlife authority that gained its reputation on impartiality and access to LA's top VIP venues, a company built by clubgoers for clubogers, reports on the changing face of LA nightlife, how since mid summer, the scene, vibe, groove, happiness, freakiness, and general excitement that was once LA has been lost by a larger upswing of a newer, more pretentious LA clubgoing community. "Ask anyone out and about, they would agree. This has been the most boring summer in LA in recent memory and the worse scene in LA since post 9/11."

In this three part investigative report, LALate provides one of the most blunt portrayals of the scene ever. In Part One, LALate reports "Painted Girls and Boys - How Hollywood Fed into Fakeness and Lost", how the Hollywood scene spread city-wide and killed the LA vibe Summer 2004. Next week, in Part Two "Smile, you're on Camera - How the Vibe got Lost in LA Summer 2004", LALate reports how alcohol consumption, dancing, and overall wildness has been replaced by a Hollywood scene comparable to a networking function for the American Librarian association. In Part Three, "The Fall of Hollywood and Rise of Santa Monica - How Santa Monica has captured the scene in 2004", LALate reports how the true shining star this summer has been Santa Monica with new venues openly monthly and a vibe and spirit that is captivating, electric, and lots of fun.

Part I

"Painted Girls and Boys - How Hollywood Fed into Fakeness and Lost"

Saturday Evening. LALate rolls into one of the biggest hotspots in LA, a Cahuenga corridor venue. The occasion: a major promoter's birthday party. The venue is filled, not packed, but filled. The line is there, not long, but a few moments wait. Inside, however, the story is told. Close to only 20 people out of an approximate 300 person crowd is dancing. Those drinking appear to account for less fifty percent of the crowd. Those sitting in tables, not mingling, account for nearly half. But irrespective of all this, the reading on their faces is most telling. Percent of people smiling or laughing: less than twenty percent.

Why?

Ask any promoter, DJ, or person regularly on the scene, they have seen it too. "The scene in Hollywood this summer has been people that don't want to have fun, are more important about their appearance than how they have fun that night," said one DJ recently. "It's dead because of this mentality to be fake." Said one former promoter, "it's not good, not good at all."

"I don't like the Hollywood crowd. Despite how hot they are, they are pretentious and not fun to be around." Rave or rave? That is the stark image that has now placed Hollywood nightlife in jeopardy. On a given night, you'll see this cast of characters that make this made-for-tv-movie a reality. Enter stage left, the overly pretentious girl in her Jenny-on-the-Block white hot pants with her cap turned sideways walking around holding hands with her girl friend who has more colors in here hair than dollar bills in her wallet, both girls searching for tomorrow's agent being eagerly pursued by today's bartender-actor-metrosexual, who at the same time is searching for the same agent, and hopes to the win the agent, and the girl, and a reality tv spot with his oh-so-spiked affected haircut and an intentionally-rinkled-morrocan fitted shirt made in Korea, labeled as Italian, and sold on Melrose.

Call them as you may, Hollywood's nightlife "look at me look at me" crowd, a term used to describe people that will flock for a venue opening to be seen, more than to see the venue, or the "painted girls and boys", people that spend more time prepping for their night making sure their orange-bottle-originated-tanning-lotion skin matches their brown-blonde-highlighted-frosted haircut. Whatever label, their reputation is, as the expression goes, everything. First, locally they were known. Now, the look at me look at me clubgoers of Hollywood are part of a national clubgoer attention, a famous, or infamous, "Hollywood crowd" reputation. It's that reputation, this reputation of self-involved clubgoers that flock to Hollywood venues nightly, that once built the Hollywood scene and is now assisting in its downturn.

LALate, the preeminent authority on nightlife in the nation with presence in three cities by summer end and the largest clubgoer following in Southern California history, reports a stark fall off on Hollywood-venue referrals since late spring 2004. LALate carries nearly 90% of LA venues but the weight of recent referrals has been to venues outside Hollywood. "The repeat patronage of Hollywood venues by our clubgoers is down. Since late spring, they go once, or twice, and don't return. In nightlife, repeat patronage is everything. If it doesn't happen, it means the patron was unhappy with the clubgoing experience at the venue. Moreover, requests for Hollywood venues have fallen off enormously second quarter this year, with LALate clubgoers going elsewhere, more every week," reports LALate.

"They don't know how to have fun. They only know how to stand around and look pretty," said a friend to LALate Thursday as they exited a Hollywood hotspot. "The summer of 04 in LA has been as boring as it gets in Hollywood. I'm on my way to Downtown."

And with that, a pack of cars headed off to find the real vibe that is LA, a vibe that arguably has been lost in Hollywood.

Why the vibe was lost in Hollywood, and where the vibe is very strong currently in Los Angeles? LALate reports in the next two segments of this investigative report. Next Week: Part Two "Smile, you're on Camera - How the Vibe got Lost in LA Summer 2004".

[dgmodel]

[misk]

..seriously....summarize man

[lilbarbiegirl]

...why pay money to get into a club and just stand around and looking bored... you can stay home and be bored for free...