Club Kids Loaded Up ON Macrobiotic Dinners
WEDNESDAY NIGHT was our flagship party, Disco 2000 at Limelight. After three hours of getting ready at the Chelsea Hotel, where I lived throughout the ’90s, I’d join my fellow club kids at photographer Michael Fazakerley’s studio to have our looks documented. Emerging as a Technicolor chain gang, we would tread in our platform shoes to an outlaw party staged at a high-traffic hub like Twin Donut or the L train—think flash mobs but before they were invented. We’d flood the joint with splendor and party until the cops came, then drinks would fly into the air and a herd of club kids, ravers, and banjee boys would stampede toward Limelight.
Whisked through the crowds waiting to get in, we’d regroup for a surreal, yet surprisingly civilized, sit-down dinner party around 11:30 p.m. The strategy behind the dinners was to get as many fabulous people into the club as early as possible, so when the paying patrons made their way though the door, they weren’t confronted with an empty room. Seats were given to the top-notch club kids, hinting at our internal hierarchy. There’d always be a quirky special guest, usually a personality from a campy ’70s show like Three’s Company or The Jeffersons. These dinners had an Alice in Wonderland quality with all of us sitting at a table in colorful sparkling costumes, surrounded by onlookers, eating a macrobiotic meal and chatting with someone we’d grown up watching on television.
The energy would build throughout the night until everyone was completely lit—obliterated on E, a mushroom punch, or some other powder or potion that had been passed around. For those of us working, it was a signal that it was time to get paid. Some of us would go home, shower, then dance until noon at places like Sound Factory. Wherever your nose or your feet led you, eventually you had to eat breakfast, and that spot was usually Cafe Orlin on St. Marks Place, which was known for its cheap breakfasts and gender-nonconforming staff. There was a giant round table in the corner near the front windows where club personalities would often hold court and swap gossip about the previous night’s adventures.