Saty-Rai-con

I’m trying to shake the winter doldrums by looking at photos from Rai, which takes it back. Waaaay back. Pagan, naked, super-camp — humankind hasn’t partied this degenerately since 99 AD.


Fellini couldn’t make this shit up. Drenched with sexual juices, rolling in glitter, Rai is a terrifying glimpse into the ancient depravity that exists in each and every one of us, if we can just get past face control.


Somewhere between heaven and hell, this Rai, although last weekend’s inclusion of Boy George tipped the scales towards the latter. Who better to take part in the pre-Christian orgiastic fury than a man recently charged with false imprisonment of a male hustler. If Rai could get R. Kelly up in there, it would be quite an interesting afternoon.

Doesn’t promoter Andreas look like a fun-size Caligula? Doesn’t he just?

Close the window! Go back to from whence you came! Once you realize there’s a place on earth you can indulge every perverse fantasy, including bug-eye sunglasses, you can never feel pleasure again!


Enough. I’m nauseous of boobs and lasers.

Photos: geometria.ru

I Less Than Three DJ Anton Ms

In the tradition of MDBIT half-heartedly stalking bizarrely coiffed fashion queens, let me introduce DJ Anton M, who is certainly no Danila, but turns up on this website so often I am proud to finally get an ID on him.


Lurking in the background of every high-fashion event, Anton M stands out for his aggressively asymmetric bangs, ambiguous sexuality and little Asian dudeness.

Laying down the beats at Solyanka

Laying down the beats at a children’s furniture exhibit opening

This is a man who has spun everywhere from East Moscow to Ukraine, from the opening of TopShop in Yevropeisky Mall to some party at Respublica bookstore. Named Harper Bazaar Russia’s “Most Fashionable DJ in Moscow,” still Anton maintains, “I’m not a DJ, I just play music my friends like.”

Photos: anton.m.pdj.ru, geometria

Suck an Egg! MDBIT in MT

Some at the Moscow Times are, like me, fascinated by the dizzying highs of Moscow at play. The holiday season brings in a special wave of short bus-riding elitny ridiculousness: corporate parties. Since it's already mid-December, people have left for the holidays and no one is paying attention to what's going in the paper anyway, I was able to make my debut as an authoritative nightlife anthropologist correspondent.

Na, kartoshka:

"Companies skimp on health benefits, toilet paper and coffee creamer for an entire year for the ultimate holiday blow-out," nightlife blogger Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears, or MDBIT, said in an e-mail interview. She declined to give her real name because she said a corporation owns her and could easily withhold her lunchtime blogging privileges.

Companies are also willing to pay top dollar to bring a famous face to a party. "They don't do much more besides smile confusedly and pose for photo ops," the nightlife blogger, MDBIT, said in e-mailed comments.

"Remember Gwyneth Paltrow? Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow? Martini paid to have her in a cage at one of its parties" MDBIT wrote. "If Moscow history has taught us anything, it's that anyone can be bought."

"The presence of a celebrity validates the affair under the principle that if you throw enough money at something, it becomes truth," MDBIT wrote. "Also, it's a middle finger to the rest of civilization: 'We OWN you, bitches!'"

For the record, it was a Facebook, not email, interview, but the AP style guide doesn’t yet accommodate that medium.

The big news of this season is that Oleg Deripaska rented Rihanna for a Russian Aluminum party, and invited fellow brazillionaire Roman Abramovich. Actually, Tvoi Den put it better: “Deripaska Gives Black Woman as Present to Abramovich for $500,000.” Ah, oligarch love.

All for you, Roma: Rihanna performs at Club XIII

Back on earth, corporate parties are less about human trafficking, more about scamming halyava (free shit), especially alcohol. I am told it is the case with corporate parties the world over, but for reals, everyone at my corporate party was dry-hump-the-secretary, put-on-an-afro-and-pull-a-nylon-over-your-head-“Look-I’m-black”-dance drunk.

Here are some poor Russian’s corporate party photos, because I didn't take any of my own. But it looked pretty much the same, down to Igor filming it all for Monday morning retribution.

Photos: Tden.ru, picasaweb.google.com/Filimonenkow