KCRW is a nice and very listenable radio station in Los Angeles. I wonder if they were even aware of what they were promoting last night at the Pussycat Lounge in Manhattan. The club, located south of the new site for our Freedom Towers (jesus), houses a pack of genetically modified naked ladies on its ground floor, and its remaining two floors are dedicated to live music performance, drinking, and nudity-optional reveling.

As part of a goodnight kiss to the College Music Journal Marathon, KCRW hosted (or at least hung banners in and spread stickers all over) a party in the Pussycat Lounge. It was loud, crowded, and late – three things for which I used to have an infinite amount of patience; a figure that has been on steady decline since I turned 26 years old – and from the moment I entered the room with Lucy my muscles ached with acute skepticism. The DJ was playing OK music – mostly Miami bass for the ass, including three Two Live Crew songs in a row (barely forgivable), all from the same album (absolutely unforgivable) – but broke a very important rule for party DJs: he spoke. And he spoke on a microphone that was amplified with more wattage than the music. This made his asides to the attendees sound like one of those rare terror-inducing, deafening subway announcements where the PA system has been jacked to an unusually high and always irreconcilable volume.

The volume of the DJ's voice wasn't the only thing alarming, either. He used his on-air time to berate the audience for acting "all junior high and shit" when they were supposed to be acting "all collegious and shit." He repeatedly interrupted songs to remind us that he was playing some X-rated type of shit while we, the audience, were behaving in a manner that could only be described as PG and shit. Shit. There's nothing more appealing than getting bullied into grinding.

And I think this is what really divided me and the mostly college-aged audience. (This, and my receding hairline and sagging scrotum, and sprawling $10 million estate.) They were perfectly willing to be coerced into dancing for this jackass DJ (His name was Disco D. Good one!) while I was perfectly willing to drink some vodka with club soda, and complain about the noise.

Were it not for the company I was keeping, the whole experience would have made me feel existentially glum, especially when the DJ started asking (screaming) who, in the audience, was fucked up and drunk. Satisfied with the percentage of respondents who were affirmative, Disco D proceeded to play a bunch of tracks that promised "women are ho's" and having sex with a woman who has fake tits is OK, as long as they feel all right. As DD dug deeper into his set, pausing only to assure us he had been provided with "the shittiest mixer in history," it seemed like his every musical cue had the following subtext: I AM NOT GOING TO LEAVE HERE UNTIL I TURN ONE OF YOU FELLAS INTO A RAPIST.

After I drained my drink and almost indulged a very passive and irrational moment of hostility where I wanted to pick a fight with a nice-seeming black guy because he was wearing a Terry Richardson t-shirt*, it seemed like it was time to go. As I left, I was thinking about how I'm at a point in my life where I'd honestly rather eat really delicious cheese and get drunk with a table of friends than order a watered-down cocktail from an attractive and aloof bartender. I don't miss college a bit, you know.

*I wondered this guy would be so supportive of a photographer whose non-commercial work is, at best, a cross between Larry Clark's least interesting work and something like Art School Girls Gone Wild and, at worst, just something like pictures of Terry Richardson jacking it into some girl's asymmetrical haircut. I thought, for a moment, maybe this kid posed for Terry at some point, and that would explain the t-shirt, until I remembered Terry doesn't get turned on by black people, or perhaps black people aren't as suggestible as white people when it comes to having a skinny ex-junkie with a disposable point-and-shoot ejaculate all over their faces in the name of art. To his credit, Terry's stuff sometimes demonstrates a sense of humor and, well, his dad left a decent artistic legacy, so that's covered.