The Gawker Underminer Jan 17th 2007

Live from the pages of The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life, we invited everyone’s favorite frenemy to chime in from time to time on various hot topics. That's right, The Underminer has a column now. But keep trying! You’ll get one someday! You trooper!"

“Instead of VIP seating, they rely on techniques, some from the speak-easy era, like obscure locations, secret (and oft-changed) reservation numbers, and “soft openings” that cater to insiders, to create the perception of exclusivity…small and quiet is back in vogue.” NY TIMES, January 10th 2007

Hi there. Did you read the Sunday Styles article about super secret bars? Wasn’t it hilarious? Can you believe people still GO to Death & Co and The Anchor?

Oh …that was the first time you heard about those places? Well, no that’s cool. I mean in a way it’s almost more hip NOT to know about them at ALL. I mean I know you haven’t really been going out much lately, and I totally respect that. You know who you are. A person who can’t just have one glass of wine.

But I’m not a snob, I mean it’s so great that people get to feel really exclusive and special because they can go somewhere other people can’t go and stand near Chloe’s brother.

But once again the Times has no sense of the times. These places were so old news, like, Saturday. They mention Beatrice Inn, The Waverly Inn, and the upcoming The Inn LW12, which isn’t open till February, but as you know I’m partially clairvoyant? So I’ve been there and let me tell you from my experience it’s just like any other Inn.

Overall, you walk into these places, and there are about 40 people there, and everyone is tired and tired of each other and sick of talking to each other so you sort of sit there alone and listen to the i-pod mix of some dreary guy with a beard. Sort of like that bar you basically never left in Brooklyn before this whole sober trend of yours. See? You’re not missing anything!

My favorite place is right smack dab back where it all started on 42nd street. It doesn’t have a name but it’s a nondescript doorway in the back of the Cold Stone Creamery. You just have to push past the angry girl mopping the floor for minimum wage and walk through the kitchen.

The other day I was at a table there with Salman Rushdie, Carolina Herrera, Lou Reed, Bob Costas, and the cast of Coast of Utopia still in their period garb, and we all suddenly let out this unanimous super exclusive exhale of utter depressed defeat at our lives, our country, our souls. We realized we were so sick of these exclusive spaces so we all grabbed our jackets, cloaks and capelets and went to Astor Place spun that big cube around.

Some other great places: Wachovia Bank Midtown. The manhole cover on 34th and 8th. Graydon Carter’s warm fatty inner thighfold, and “Stomp.” But now I listed them. So forget about it.

I heard about this other place that is kind of amazing and intimate apparently. I don’t know the name. When you leave they beat you on the head with a blunt object so that you get amnesia and don’t remember where it is. I may have been there, but I don’t know. So I can’t really tell you where it is. Sorry!