Hellmuth Loses Crown!!

[Rushmore]

It didn't seem possible, but I believe we have a real contender, at the very least.

An article by Antonio Esfandiari, appearing in All In magazine:

Body English Spoken Here

It's midnight in Vegas, two nights into the brand new year. A cool mist falls on rain-slick streets as a limo pulls up to the Hard Rock Casino and spills out its passengers, me, my buddy Adam, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, David Williams, Kasey Thompson and some others who have the good sense to stay nameless. We're heading to one of Sin City's top nightspots, Body English, for a little drinking, dancing, and feasting of the eyes. Especially feasting.

Since opening last Memorial Day, Body has become the place to be seen for the primo stuff strutters of Las Vegas and talented amateurs who come from out of town long on attitude and short on clothes. If Body isn't wall to wall with beautiful betties tonight, we'll eat our hats.

We make our way to the club entrance just off the main casino floor, past display cases crammed with the usual Hard Rock memorabilia. A David Lee Roth jumpsuit. Signed Eric Clapton guitar. Tupac Shakur's mug shot, whatever. There's a long line of rockstars-in-their-minds at the door, waiting behind the proverbial velvet rope, hoping to get in, hoping that their Scarface Tony Montana (boys) or Paris Hilton (girls) look will get them the green light from Cory and his men at the door. We don't wait of course. We've booked a table with bottle service. So we pass under the jealous gaze of the rope riders and slide inside. Poor rubes, they'll waste their night on the rope line, hoping just to pay the $20 "official" cover, and turtle into the club if they get the chance. Don't they know that life's too short to wait in line? Guess not.

Antonio’s First Rule of Nightclubbing:

Always book a table in advance. The more you pay, the more it’s worth.

Down we go into the throbbing heart of the club, two full floors of hot decadence buried deep beneath the casino.

DJ AM is spinning the steel wheels. He's flown in from LA specially for this gig and right now he's chilling the crowd with some smooth dub house but later he'll have everyone bouncing to his beat like puppets on a string. Props to the man, when he gets workin', he's Pavlov and we're his dogs.

The stunning Jennifer leads us to our private booth where we find a dark oak table surrounded by red leather couches and tricked out out with mixers, chilled glasses, snacks and an icebucketed bottle of Grey Goose. Yeah, I know that bottle would cost, like, twenty-five bucks at BevMo and here it'll set us back three bills, but it's totally worth it. While we're in here winning the party, the wannabes are still be riding the rope line, waiting, going nowhere fast. If you're a hottie, you could shake your way into Body, but for Joe Schmo and his buddies from the boondocks, they may as well go sit in the parking lot and watch the neon signs – either that or slip Mr. Franklin into the right hand.

Antonio’s Second Rule of Nightclubbing:

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

The night ripens. Some petite betties from Canada drift over, shyly orbiting our booth, looking for a way to break the ice. Silly betties, just being them is all the icebreaking they need. But we know what they're thinking – have they seen us on TV or what? To help them out, I give them my trademark "Antonio wave," and they break out into squeals of laughter. "I knew it!" shrieks one. "I knew it was him!" Do we invite them to join us for a drink? Does a bear [censored] in the woods?

Antonio’s Third Rule of Nightclubbing:

Celebrity has its privileges.

The Grey Goose gives way to more Grey Goose, Patron Silver, a bottle of Belvedere, and then Jesus just has to have some Dom. The lovely Jennifer keeps everything running smoothly, and we all start to run smoothly too, mixing trips to the dance floor with lengthy lounges on the couches in the company of our new friends from the Great White North. One laughing betty fails Adam's patented sobriety test, where he holds up his hand, fingers spread, and asks, "How many hands am I holding up?" If they say one, they’re still sober...

If they say five, they're not. This one just falls out into hysterical giggling. Not fit to drive. Not fit to do much of anything but sit there and be beautiful, but baby that's enough.

Antonio’s Fourth Rule of Nightclubbing:

You know you've had too much to drink when you go to brush something off your shoulder and it's the floor.

Before we know it, it's 4:30, officially closing time but in fact Body stays open as long as the seals on new bottles are still getting cracked. The world's dull normals will be going off to work before we roll out. Maybe we'll head over to Drai's at the Barbary Coast for a little after-after-after-hours action or off to the Egg and I on Sahara for breakfast. Or maybe we'll just cruise back to my place to see what the day will bring. It always amazes me the way time goes away in a great nightclub. Once you're in that groove, the past and the future disappear, and all you have is the hot, perfect now. It's like an intense poker game, or even meditation.

Meditation's a damn sight cheaper, though, right? Yeah, I guess. If cheaper's what you want. But meditation won't get you a night like this, or a bevy of betties from Canada who jump in the limo with you when you go. As for the money (our tab tonight will top out north of two grand) I say what the hell, you can't take it with you. As my friend the good Dr. Vorhaus puts it, "You're born broke, you die broke, everything else is just fluctuation."

Back when I was struggling and scuffling, waiting tables and performing magic at parties to make ends meet, I never dreamed I'd have the scratch to do it up right at a place like Body English. Now that I do, I never forget I'm blessed. Blessed that I found my gift of poker. Blessed to turn that gift into big wins. Blessed with great friends who have my back. Blessed by the betties – what would life be without them? Someone once said, "Living well is the best revenge." I don't know about that, but I do know this: Anything that's worth doing is worth overdoing. And that’s the best rule of clubbing of all.

Author: Antonio Esfandiari