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After we were disappointed by the desultory clustering at the Out magazine party, we headed home to watch reruns of "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style." Mistake! Photographer Nikola Tamindzic headed to a party called Slingback, where all the passion we missed at Lotus was in full effect. The party was hosted by Kenny Kenny, the oldish doorman from Studio 54, JD Samson, everyone's fave mustached lesbian from Le Tigre and Michael T, of the long-running party Motherfucker. Slingbacks are a style of shoe that is slightly slutty and tend to dig into the heel of the wearer. Slingback the party is a very slutty party full of sexual healing. Even more of Nikola's photographs of the party are in his extended gallery.

There are parties in New York not run by publicists, parties that don't promote perfumes. Tracie Egan (the artist formerly known as "Slut Machine") and Nikola Tamindzic went out in the field this weekend to a real party: A raging kegger in South Williamsburg. There, they discovered oddly-shaped hickeys, uptight douchebags and a lack of alcohol. And we learned a lot about the way we live now. Or did we?

Guest of a Guest got their hands on legal docs charging Cordell Lochin (who, with Serge Becker, is a major backer of the Lower East Side hotpost The Box) of running a drug smuggling operation. In the filing, the government alleges the operation ran Montreal-grown pot over the border—the docs say Lochin handled the operation's distribution in New York City. He has been charged with conspiracy to import marijuana, conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute marijuana and money laundering. He pleaded guilty to the first two counts and will be sentenced in two weeks.

Cordell Lochin in Trouble with a Capital T [G of a G] [Photo: NYO]

In the Labor Day weekend raid on Mr. Black, the gay party spot at Broadway and Bleecker, "the NYPD collected 55 packages of cocaine, five vials of cocaine, and 16 Ecstasy pills that were either found on the floor or collected from patrons," according to Tricia Romano at the Voice. This prompted Luke Nero, the bar's cocktail waiter (who is nicknamed "The Ass" [NSFW!]) to claim that "They came to shut down a drug racket, but there wasn't any drug racket to shut down." Uh, really? 15 patrons and 17 employees were arrested all told, two of whom were drug dealers, and eleven more of whom were charged with misdemeanors, including an employee who had four bags of coke on him—in his own pants! Didn't Lindsay teach him anything? Related: Coke is apparently still back!

UPDATE: See an important update here.

Sometimes two mysterious and crappy things that seem like they should be related actually are. This is great, since it reduces two crappy things into just one. For instance! The gutting sense of wonder at why the "hottest celebrity hangout" is actually the upstairs of a cruddy Soho cafe was somewhat eroded by today's revelation that the owners of "Upstairs" (as Cafe Bari is called) are the swarthy brothers Martignetti. Les freres Martignetti are the proprietors of the eponymous Bar Martignetti, which is to pink-shirted preppy dickheads what an empty parking lot by I-95 is to day laborers: A place to gather and drink and await desperately-needed attention. With that, the fog of mystery dissipates, leaving only the stench of knowledge in its place.

Danny A and Bar Martignettis Don't Jive [Guest of a Guest]

We were all ready to place coins on the eyes of clubby old West Chelsea, say the mourner's kaddish and move on. But the neighborhood—once the festering apotheosis of New York clubdom but of late home only to the sordid, the has-been and the almost-ran—isn't dead yet. As New York reports, J. E. Englebert, the Staten Island nightlife entrepreneur from whose loins sprang Quo, Pre:Post and Retox, is opening a new venture in the neighborhood: "In October [Englebert and his partners will] open a 4,000-square-foot lounge called Suzie Wong's." The name comes from Richard Mason's 1957 novel The World of Suzie Wong, later turned into a ballet (pictured!), about a Chinese prostitute with a heart of gold. Kind of like those who hang out in West Chelsea, minus the ethnic qualifier. And swapping crotch for heart and crabs for gold.