The New Way of Clubbing

A good friend of mine is a well-known dj in Atlanta, my homeboy DJ Scorpio. I got the word that he was having a birthday party, and of course he had 2 vip passes for me and Deen. I asked him ahead of time what type of crowd I should expect. I wanted to know so that I would know in advance how I should dress for the event. He told me that some of the artists that were invited were the Yin Yang Twins, Killer Mike and Gorilla Zoe. So yes, this was going to be one *classy* event (notice thie sarcasm there). Anyway, I knew right then that I would outdress any of the chicks there. Period. I knew that these hood chicks weren't going to know how to look fly up in the place, so I would have to show them how it was done.
I decided on a dressy pink blouse that I own and a long flowing fishtail skirt to match. That with my pointy toe heels, and I knew that it was all me. Deen complimented my look by wearing slacks, a long sleeved button down plaid shirt, and a blue sweater over it. He and I looked like a young professional couple out on the town.
The party took place at Studio 72, which is Jermaine Dupri's club. When we got to the club some guy walked up to our car and told us that it was $5 to park in the parking lot. Now this wasn't some paid lot, the club was in a damned strip mall. So these bastards were basically charging us to park in front of the damned barbershop in the same plaza. Niggas are ALWAYS trying to get over. We reluctantly paid it and walked up to the door. When we got in line there was a gentleman checking i.d.'s. I asked him how old people had to be to get in the club that night and he replied with "18 to party, 21 to drink." he must have noticed the stank look on my face because he responded by telling me that they didn't expect a lot of partiers under 21 that night. *sigh* I stood in the vip line to enter the club. I noticed that they were actually patting people down. Sweet Jesus. Patting people down? I'm a grown ass woman and I'm going into a club where people are getting patted down because they don't know how to act? I should have went back to the car right there. But I was there to support Scorpio. The guy in front of me was told that he couldn't enter the club with the black bandana that he had in his pocket so he volunteered to throw it away. This is around the point where I knew that I outgrew this scene a LONG time ago.
We got into the club and I quickly realized that I not only outdressed most of the women in there, I trampled the bitches. Since when does every woman walk into the club with sweaters and jeans? It was a little breezy that night, but dang, they could have at least tried. I was taken to back when I was 21 and hitting the clubs. My homegirls and I had the hair done, nails done, new outfits. We looked GOOD. Hell, we had to, competition was fierce. Women didn't walk into the club with jeans. We wore dresses and short skirts. Our boobs were hanging out. We looked like call girls, but dammit, we looked like high priced call girls. The chicks in Studio 72 that night looked like the came in from hanging at Starbucks. Somehow I didn't get the memo that women were no longer required to look nice while going out. I told Deen that he could go holler at a chick if he saw someone he wanted, and he shook his head and looked at me like I asked him to kill himself. No surprise because I sure as hell wasn't checking for any of the dudes in the club either.
When we got in there Deen headed straight to the bar. He ordered a cranberry and vodka. He complained for the next 10 minutes how watered down the drink was. Damn, Jermaine can charge people $5 to park but they're watering down drinks? Bastards. As he sipped, he also noticed that very few people were drinking. I guess other people felt the same thing about watered down drinks because most of the guys had beers. None of the chicks had drinks either. So basically, dudes weren't even buying drinks for the ladies. Hell when I was 21 and half-dressed, dudes were BEGGING us to take shots. The hoochies that night didn't even look good enough to get drunk to take home. With my friends, since I'm not much of a drinker, they normally had guys buy drinks, get drunk as hell, I kept a sober eye on them to make sure that no one tried anything crazy, and I took their drunk behinds home. Good times.
I don't know what happened to clubs. Granted this place was far more ghetto and younger than I've grown accustomed to. Deen and I left pretty early. I was done. I got dressed up and looked too damned good to be surrounded by kids that wouldn't know a real party if it happened on their doorstep. Things have changed. Ladies don't know the value of looking like ladies, dudes don't know that once you are 30 years old, there is no reason to dress like a 16-year-olds. Men don't buy drinks for ladies. I was utterly disgusted. I'm going back to MJQ Concourse in Atlanta. Where men still buy ladies drinks, great music is played, I know the djs, a nice outfit is appreciated (but not required), and I won't get patted down.