Last night at that theater on Union Square that used to be home to De La Guarda, Ben Harper played a secret show (secret as in it was in Page Six) that somehow promoted the Sundance Channel. For some strange reason we wanted in. The tip sheet said Fabiola Beracasa, Jamie Lynn Sigler and Amanda Hearst would be there. Were they? Who knows. The place was packed with a motley crew of UES girls, ski bums and dude-like dudes. Everyone was clutching a complimentary issue of GQ, the one with Jessica Biel in it. And so, though Ben Harper was doing his best Sam Cooke impression on stage, most men had their noses firmly buried in the 2-dimensional cleavage of Ms. Biel. While they were distracted me and Nikola Tamindzic caught up with the doorman of Armin Amiri's new club Socialista. We heard he was a midget (which would have been cool) but it turns out he's just short. galleryPost('benharper', 4, 'Ben Harper at the GQ Party');
His name is Aaron Bakalar. We tried to extract from him what exactly the door policy was at Socialista, a club that wants to be the next Bungalow 8 but, you know, socialist—but Aaron wouldn't say. Well, he kept on saying, "I don't know. I don't know." And we kept on saying, "What do you mean you don't know? Is it just a feeling you have like, this person is a real socialist under that striped shirt and hair gel?" And he replied, "We're not allowed to comment to the press." Which means Socialista is pretty much like the USSR in reverse. Then you couldn't get out of that country for myriad and nebulous reasons. At Socialista, you'll probably never be able to get in but you'll never find out why.
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