If you've been looking for a reason to laugh at the douchery of some of your fellow New Yorkers you need look no further than Guest of a Guest's awesome find of the day: TheNativeSociety, "a private membership organization and social network founded by native New Yorkers and their friends." From the horrific website "design" to 23-year-old founder Oliver Estreich's self-serving quotes ("We're like a traveling Soho House meets 740 Park Avenue," he said. "That's a good analogy."), this thing is pure gold. more ›

Six years after New York City enacted a smoking ban inside bars, restaurants and clubs, patrons of upscale nightclubs continue to light up, according to a Times investigation. Cigarettes are commonplace at venues like Goldbar, Avenue, and Griffin, the paper reports. "Everyone looks the other way," said Guest of a Guest writer Billy Gray, 25. "It's more of an illicit thrill now," he said. "Like when you were a teenager and snuck a beer in your parents' basement." more ›

This short video of James Gandolfini menacing a Guest of a Guest photographer who was videotaping him in the West Village is funny, but also kind of sad, for a couple reasons. First, Gandolfini's worked hard to find roles that take his career past the Tony Soprano archetype, and now here he is acting just like Tony about to thrash the Bada Bing bartender for not being sufficiently anxious about Al Qaeda. more ›

The "owner" of the super-exclusive secret club El Baño, who mailed us a much-appreciated roll of toilet paper last week to promote the joke lounge (accessed through a sliding door in the stall of a locked bodega bathroom), has sent us an email expressing outrage that a fake club has been "mocking" El Baño. This one, which has a website bearing a striking resemblance to El Baño's site, is called El Evator. You can guess where it's located. At this point, the parody of a parody of pretentious clubland is starting to wear a bit thin, but we do love that El Evator is opening for Administrative Assistant Week. Says El Baño's unidentified owner/prankster, "I guess when you're the best of the best you pick up haters along the way." more ›

The current global food crisis signifies many things, including waning tolerance for exclusive, speakeasy-style bars. The newest, most secretest Lower East Side club of all, called El Baño, has all of the trappings of Marcel Duchamp readymade, only more scatological. From a post on Down By The Hipster last week, quoting the club's reps:

El Baño is a secret club, and like all things secret it's only known by few. more ›

Usually blog Guest of a Guest entertains us with a look at night life and social news. But today, there's an account of how crappy it is to be a subway rider. And how crappy it is to be the subway rider who sees someone pee on the platform and poop on the train. more ›