(Why We Couldn’t Get Into) The Vans X Max Fish Party In NYC (And What We Did Instead)
I tried, I failed, and it’s no one’s fault but my own.
The night started at The York, my favorite bar and the perfect launching point for an evening out with Vans and Max Fish in celebration of their OTW collaborations which was what the night had promised. After a few rounds, I set out to meet our contributor, Elena, and my other companions who had all been invited to skateboarding’s most lavish night. We met at Spring Lounge in SoHo just blocks from the Vans venue, and sank three more.
Properly buzzed and ready to be wow’d by my favorite skate shoe maker, we set out the eight blocks to the bespoke venue on Grand street, and to my dismay, it was absolutely brimming. I had misunderstood the nature of the event. It was not a party for skate nerds like me with jump ramps and miller lites. This was a proper OTW fashion event in New York City, complete with the glamor, glory, and a major line of hopeful entries. Also in the line: us.
We made our way slowly to the front and discovered that most of the other people queuing were also listed invitees, and that once again, I am not special. When I say that it was packed, I mean it, it was packed, and especially for a secret-ish event. I saw numerous celebrities (and not only skateboarding celebrities, but some of those, for sure (hi Atiba, I’m your biggest fan)) and only a few of them refused to hold my gaze. The space itself was nonchalant, which only accentuated the scale of the crowd outside, each person desperate to be a part of what was clearly the event of the night in the city.
The place was bumping, and everyone who’s anyone was in there, which is probably why I wasn’t. George from Vans, the sweetheart that he is, handed me and our photographer, Elena, our wristbands, but Elena and I had arrived with two other people who had been invited but didn’t have quite the same hookup, and when you’re rolling with friends, trying to skip the line and leaving them to rot outside is a very un-homie thing to do. Even worse, it’s a very bourgeois, fashion world thing to do, and if I take enormous pride in being anything at all, it is specifically neither of those things, so wait we did, and I would immediately discover that even with the wristbands, the chances of me getting in were as fucked as everyone else’.
“The place was bumping, and everyone who’s anyone was in there, which is probably why I wasn’t”
I asked the bouncer when he thought I’d be able to go in, and he said plainly that I wouldn’t. I told him that I had to, that I was on the list and that I was there for work and that I was specifically invited, and that I even had two wristbands. ‘Who needs a random gross sweaty guy when we’ve got gorgeous people with k-amounts of Instagram followers? Also, you write for a skate magazine and this is a skate event, but do you even skate? When’s the last time you even did a kickflip, Naz? I saw you practicing crooked grinds this morning at 5th and 5th, that shit was weak as fuck, and if you think that you have the skate credentials to get through me, you are wrong and you should be ashamed’ said the bouncer. Well, he mumbled it. I mean, he mumbled something at me, and that’s what I heard. I don’t know. It’s all a blur, now. But he was for sure a dick and didn’t give a shit about my wristbands, and though I had spotted someone in the crowd that I have been waiting ten months to fight, it was not this bouncer, so I quit my gambit.
A sincere shoutout to George and Vans. I see you doing your best and looking out for us and all of the other skate publication nerds and I appreciate it very much. It isn’t Vans’ fault that I was the least cool person queuing for their event. After all, I was the one who was smoking cigarettes in line like a dick, got there late and already a few drinks in, and for maybe the tenth or eleventh year in a row, much to my shame, did not receive an invitation to the Met Gala.
I want to be absolutely and positively clear that there is no bitterness from me whatsoever for not being permitted in. It isn’t our VF daddy’s fault that the fire department was present making the safety capacity a really hard number, and furthermore, if I were a bouncer - or more specifically, the man who worked for the production agency that helped to put on the event who was deciding who got priority entry and who did not (even more specifically, the one with the strange facial hair who gave big hugs to people who looked like Rick Owens’ leather gimps and then let those gimps walk up off the street and skip the line entirely) - I would not let me in either.
We came close enough to the door - only three people away, it would have been two but someone’s uncle pushed his way to the front and caused a scene and while line-cutting is a pet peeve that I would normally be very vocal about, I felt like the embarrassment of that red shirted fuck being shut out like the rest of us was punishment enough - to hear surprise special musical guest, the newly re-assembled TV On The Radio play their set, and between the muffled tones of Cross the street from your storefront cemetery bleeding into me through the garage door and the dozen-or-so identical Instagram stories that I saw of the performance, I can deduce that it was fucking marvelous.
After about an hour of waiting outside (Elena insists it was longer but I am skeptical), we abandoned the line, handed our wristbands to strangers and wished them better luck than us. My legs were weak and only being able to hear the band without seeing them was too much of a frustrating experience for me to take. Defeated and distraught, we headed off back to the comfort of my favorite bar in the East Village, a very comfortable and low-key place for working class uncool plebeians like us.
Still, though, I owe you an article, so here’s what I did instead.
We found our way to the empty establishment and took up space at the bar, ordering two large waters, two margaritas, and four shots of tequila. As the bartender began to close up shop, a smartly dressed man and a woman in a gown followed by far more smartly dressed men and women in gowns ventured in with the sort of self-assured, ‘I own this place’, confidence that can only come from years of stepping into places that they literally do in fact own. They saw the bartender closing up, and the crowd disagreed with her.
The exclusive vibe had followed us, I suppose, and I was pained to remember that it is fashion week in New York City; that special time of year where people whose fathers own diamond mines (this was a real thing that one of those well-dressed people told me last night) who have a facade of vague creativity and have the financial means to maintain it infest the city that they all say that they hate, insisting on following up their high-budget productions with ‘slumming it’ at some small nook, kind of like when you see a member of the royal family stepping off of their chariot or whatever to drink a pint in a pub for the sake of a photo, which would normally be fine, but tonight they took my nook, and I was very bothered. I was also drunk.
“I’m not sure that I’m allowed to tell you that the celebrity I’m referring to is Alexa Chung, so I won’t tell you that.”
After a few minutes in the company of the fashion crowd’s sinful and uncalloused hands all busy signing bills without tipping, I discovered that this was the after party of the release of a certain celebrity’s collaboration line with a certain clothing brand, no component of which could I or any of my friends be able to afford, and said celebrity was present. I’m not sure that I’m allowed to tell you that the celebrity I’m referring to is Alexa Chung, so I won’t tell you that. I also forgot to mention that around this time, one of my friends gave me some weed edibles.
We exchanged a few brief words, her and I, and she was really very sweet to me, though her decadence and beauty was perhaps a bit out of place in the setting, like when you see girls eating at Taco Bell after prom and they’re still in their gowns. I told her in so many words that her friends were shitty and that she should find better ones, and she didn’t seem to like that very much, so I took another shot of tequila and departed.
On the train home, my friend Nick called me to tell me he was having a party on his roof and that I should come by, and by this point in the night, maybe two in the morning, there was no saying no, so off I went. I found Nick on his roof with four other people, and he assured me that at the time of the phone call, it was in fact a party, that somehow in the thirty minutes since, the party had dispersed. Then he told me that he had drugs and alcohol. Then he told me that I should put both of those things into my body, so I did.
I vomited off of his roof and staggered my way home and fell asleep in my outside clothes, my legs aching from the queue, my spirit shattered from the rejection, and my throat stiff with smoke. All together, not a bad night. I got to see some beautiful people and piss them off. I got to drink a lot of drinks with my good friends. I got to hear TV On The (Fucking) Radio, surely a highlight of my year.
Sorry Sam, I wasn’t able to tell Curren that you’re in love with him. Sorry George that I couldn’t make it in, thank you to Vans for giving a shit enough to actually put on consistently cool events like these for all of us to come out to, and know that I shall be at the next one - perhaps the block party this weekend - even if I have to claw and fight my way in.