Murderer Michael Alig

Never heard of ANY of them

I've only heard of them because of the movie "Party Monster" (2003), I never gave a shit about any generation of NYC scenesters. It's a good movie, BTW, and I recommend it to any Datalounger, as it's very gay as well as very good.

But it totally reinforced my pre-existing belief that any ultra-cool party scene ruled by a Queen Bee is inherently toxic, and that the Queen Bee is always a horrible person and intoxicated with the power of being a big fish in an eensy tiny pond.

I remember when Michael Alig and some of the club kids were on Maury or Oprah or one of them.

Their lifestyles were *shocking* to middle America!

They’re all dead, former club kids.

Yup, all these marginal kids sleeping on each other's couches or floors, spending every cent they had on costumes and drugs, throwing their lives away because they didn't see any reason to live other than partying and looking fabulous.

It does provoke a tiny bit of nostalgia, not for any of those idiots, but for the days when kids who had nothing could find a way to live in New York. There's no scene like that now, is there? Because the Party Monsters can't afford to be there.

Alig’s YT channel is still up, for those interested.

The only one I know is Ernie Glam. An accomplished and good person. Here's his recap of Alig.

[quote] They’re all dead, former club kids.

No they’re not.

I’m alive, bitch.

I remember reading a pretty good article about him, his entourage, and the crime itself in "Details" in the 90's (remember that magazine?)

Unrelated: "Party Monster" has a killer soundtrack!

I always loved when the daytime talks shows would parade those party kids around.

Horrible people in fun outrageous costumes. There were a lot of good points to that soon but fuck was it crazy and mean.

It did seem like a good time I agree the movie is awesome

There is no way that kids like this could exist in NYC today.

R10, I remember that article. So long ago though.

I was a club kid by the mid 90’s in Boston before moving to NYC. The scene was over the top, I remember the first time going to NYC and Limelight, as well as some after hours clubs with friends. Yes, we spent every dollar going out, fabulous outfits, doing drugs, and partying. I had way too much fun doing cartoonish drag and got into too much trouble and didn’t do it very often.

The party drugs back then were bouncy and light, meth hadn’t ravaged the scene- it was around, but I didn't dabble with it becuase I knew better.

You could go out every single night of the week and find loads of fun and debauchery. Dance clubs like Twilo had both straight and gay and everything in between. There was nothing like it today, I really wish there was.

True r14. NYC has become way too expensive.

[quote] There is no way that kids like this could exist in NYC today. True [R14]. NYC has become way too expensive.

Inflation has made murder and dismemberment totally out of reach for most kids today

r8 You bumped this thread to say that?

They weren’t even the most interesting club kids at the time, just the most notorious. Limelight was dull and had shit music (except for Merrit’s more underground gay party opposite Disco 2000 and some decent techno on Sundays)

I am on several NYC Club FB pages and get annoyed when someone posts they are looking for old club kids they haven’t seen in awhile. Geez! Did you ever think maybe they have a prestigious or sensitive job nowadays- where revealing oneself being a former club kid or drag queen isn’t a good thing? (Principal, owns a daycare, finance, lawyer, etc.)

Also, watch the documentary about Madonna’s backup dancers on Truth Or Dare. It’s just sad where they wound up, I’d think a few of us might be embarrassed to show our sags and wrinkles too.

Some perspective back then- Twilo at the most was about $40 admission to get in, you’d get in free if you knew someone or reduced if you came in early. The drinks were maybe $5-8. A bottle of powder K was maybe $40 and E was $30. At the time, I lived in Boston and could catch an Asian bus for $20 and get there just in time for Junior Vasquez’ set.

So for under $200 I could party all weekend, we’d take a disco nap then head out to Boy’s Life Sunday night and do it all over again.

If you went to Le Bain today, $200 wouldn’t get you past the door. I know there are fun clubs out in Brooklyn, but it’s just not the same.

I went to Twilo a few times and it was bullshit, total B&T crowd. And they were agressive about "fags." Awful place.

R22, you had to wait out the B&T crowd, it didn’t get good until early morning around 7am. We’d stay until 2pm close.

They were selfish pieces of shit.

I had seen the so-called Club Kids at Limelight at least twice in the late 1980s. I never understood what they were really about or their appeal. They just looked like posers trying to score drugs. I had only been to Twilo once with a friend who dragged me there. I agree about the Bridge and Tunnel crowd. I think that was in the early-mid 1990s. I'm pretty sure that same location is where the McKittick Hotel now is.

Club Kids had some fantastic looks, but the lovey ravers were far.more fun to hang out with.

Lisa Edelstein

I went to Cheetah and Centro Fly in the late 90s and had a great time, but Cheetah was more intimate and Centro Fly more socialite-oriented for the true lunacy of the club kids.

Saw a lot of Amanda Lepore and her crew, for what that's worth (very little). Debbie Harry (so sweet) and pals, Ultra Violet (crackers), Lou Reed (once or twice - he was civil) and the the last gasp of the Factory (yuck).

Used to hit up Limelight for I think a weds night party where the back was all men and the front was mixed...Club USA, the roller skating club was messy fun....I lived in CT and was barely 21 and would head into nyc like 2 times a week...Drinks were cheap and the worst thing we had to worry about was if they cut the coke with baby powder or exlax...

I avoided them like the plaque. If they hung out at some place, it was a place not to be. it wasn't that they were trashy. And they were TRASH. It was that they brought NOTHING new. It was all rehashed, stolen and borrowed. Really, one of the first scenes that had zero originality. And close to zero talent. Odd time.

Susanne Bartsch was a better and more creative scene than Michael Alig.

I was a hairdresser and picked up a job bartending in Boston on Saturdays. Suddenly I was flush with cash and able to go to NYC almost every single weekend for several years. My stomping ground was always Twilo, then Limelight on Sunday and later Boy’s Life.

I had a ragtag group of club friends, and though it was a lot of fun, and they were a lively group, eventually I realized none of them had any money, relied on their youth or beauty to get what they needed, and had a hodgepodge of menial jobs the rest of the week. They also weren’t the type of people you had deep meaningful discussions with. Several had wealthy boyfriends, so we could crash at their pad for the afternoon or get ready for an evening out. I never stayed in a hotel, and only brought a toothbrush and a smile.

When you hand around these kind of people, enjoying youth, spirit, and beauty are what drives you, not especially money. Susanne Bartsch is an excellent example of this energy. No one ever thinks, “This will be the last time I go out”. There is a bit of sadness around the edges of club life because we all age, and as you get older, going out becomes more frivolous and unhealthful as we age. And the fear of becoming a ridiculous old whore no one wants.

You could say it was a pilgrimage of sorts, at the time I was heartbroken over a breakup and just wanted to escape. I found a LOT of fun, but honestly wish I had set aside some of that cash and bought a place back then. I had the money to make decisions, pay my own way, and eventuallly pivot my life a different direction towards meaningful purpose.

A lot of these club kids came from broken or unsupportive families and did not.

I think Alig couldn’t merge back into nightlife, that everything he was doing wasn’t working the way he expected and NYC had changed greatly from the familiarity he left while in jail. Also, once a drug addict always a drug addict, he should’ve embraced sobriety rather than try to skirt around it or teetottle around meth- there are so many strong examples of those that don’t partake of drugs in the thick of the scene nowadays.

I think his end was in away a suicide of desperation and hopelessness.

I enjoyed my nightclubbing days but they've been over for 20 years and I wouldn't want to do them again.

What's the point?

He was doing moderately successful as a club promoter and artist up to his death. What did him in was sloppy drug addiction and his moral and body degeneracy.

[quote] I am on several NYC Club FB pages and get annoyed when someone posts they are looking for old club kids they haven’t seen in awhile. Geez! Did you ever think maybe they have a prestigious or sensitive job nowadays- where revealing oneself being a former club kid or drag queen isn’t a good thing? (Principal, owns a daycare, finance, lawyer, etc.)

Which century are you posting from, hon?

What did they do all night? Dance, drugs, drink… that’s all? Sounds boring.

R36, the queens I hung out with were loud, messy and druggy- the best kind back then! Some did drag to get away with things, not be responsible.

I also knew a drag queen back then that had serious psychological issues with the fact that people preferred him in drag and his over the top persona- but he was a forgettable wisp of a man out of drag and quite bland.

If I had a prestigious or politically sensitive job, or lived down south in a professional academia position, the very last thing I would want is a pic of me in a dress, painted for the gos and doing a bump of K off a stripper’s erect shaft at one of Kevin Aviance’s “Azugar” parties!

Anyone remember the quite black club Bentley's? And there was a lactating fat man, or woman, or in between, who would squirt from the stage? La Escuelita was good stomping ground for a size queen, if you don't need masc. Sally's was a trip.

I have to laugh at Michael Musto tagging around with them. He was so out of place.

[quote]I have to laugh at Michael Musto tagging around with them.

He’s still here! Most of his party people didn’t survive.

I worked at Limelight in that era.

Mostly fun, harmless people, sure druggy, boozy, but nothing as crazy as one might think...until they were.

Alig was always a shapeshifter, but foxy and canny about generating cash....but then things went hinky. He could be sober and rather charming, or messy as fuck, but a lot of it was just part of the show. Murdering an acquaintance was not part of the show. Melendez was no saint, but of course nobody deserves to be murdered.

r3 IIRC Phil Donahue had like, four of them on his talk show once in the early nineties. I was enthralled by their clothes and accessories but the drug use turned me off.

I remember reading about the Michael Alig case in The Village Voice.

I heard about Michael Alig once.

I was there, and they were all losers. They never had a dime and always had their hands out. I was too busy working, as I actually had a job. They actually were a bit of a joke….clowns if you will. By the time Alig killed Angel, I had moved uptown. PS Musto is a bottom feeder. He smells like feces and his clothes are filthy.

The club kid scene was very dark and nihilistic. It wasn't my thing at all. It was never "let's dance and have fun." There was a twistedness to it. And r46 is correct, they were all pretty sad.

R45 I meant I followed the case when the Village Voice covered it extensively at the time. I was living in upstate New York and knew nothing about the NYC club scene. Hope that meets with your standards.

I ended up at DJ Keoki's apartment at an after-party after Limelight after its heyday, after Alig was jailed. He was playing music and one of the few who was relaxed and in the moment and not a collapsed pile. He was borderline sexy (I had seen him before and thought otherwise, but his looked seemed to shift a lot.) He was super flirty with me and we went off to a bedroom a couple of times and made out a bit - that archaic time a good description of some groping and kissing and feeling up.

R35, From what I understand he wasn’t doing well at all, argued with the people he was living with, and running out of options and was asked to move out. I had approached him about creating graphics for a haircare line I was developing and he was being very lax and cagey- not even returning an important phone call promptly.

At the end he was trying to sell off his cache of old party invitations and BTC a brac from his storage closet.

As a sober addict myself, what did him in was not having any sort of plan at ALL to stay sober but his own will, that may work for awhile but when confronted with this era of exponentially stronger drugs and hookup apps, he was woefully unprepared-If I were him, I would’ve made it a point to make sure all my business partners KNEW I was sober, or spearheaded one of the sober parties sweeping the city, He could’ve really made a difference..

Also, rather than trying to distance himself or “move on” from Angel’s murder, I would’ve made a point to create a charity and fundraiser and name a youth homeless shelter after him.

How do people like him get released from prison while people who do lesser crimes are still in prison?

I remember after Angel’s murder, wearing angel wings were pretty much forbidden, frown upon and you were called out for it if you dared wear them. For many, many years after.

Angel was a drug dealer and the wings were how people could find him in a crowd.

Was there much of a call for the wearing of angel wings?

I remember when those wings were very popular at circuit parties.

Who knew?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Excuse me, r56, but the hour is growing late. May I draw your curtains and prepare your nightclothes?

What as missing was CONTRITION. Michael didn’t really express this, and as a shapeshifter personality, if he did it wasn’t sincere. Or, after acknowledging his responsibility he’d excuse it for being high. He needed to approach Angel’s family that he was sorry, beg for forgiveness, and find ways of making amends- devote the rest of his life trying to make it right. He didn’t, and he had NO business trying to break back into the club scene.

This is very much a Dickensian tale among hopeless characters because the truth is Angel would’ve likely overdosed or ended up dead some other way later in life.

I walked among many “party hard” real deal club kids for decades, if not dead, very few made it out unscathed. The multimillion dollar lawsuit that closed Twilo when that medic student died from an overdose was the first nail in the coffin for NYC nightlife.

Rampant meth addiction, the hook up aops, and bottle service came along and swept away the rest.

[quote]How do people like him get released from prison while people who do lesser crimes are still in prison?

Well, Alig served his whole sentence, he wasn't let off with a wrist slap, he served seventeen years in state prison.

R59. AND THEN HE DIED! Whoopsie!!

He was out for just about a year. This was about when the friends that were carrying and provided for him were either getting tired of being taken advantage of, or he was out in the parks smoking meth and looking for large donged, Latin trade instead of finding a frigging JOB.

I think the peak was late 80's and early 90's. When Guiliani became mayor he purposefully cracked down on all the nightclubs so by 95 or 96, it was nothing like it used to be. Plus you had the bridge and tunnel people starting to catch on and it became straight guidos muscling around on the dancefloor - as straight people do - ruining the vibe completely.

Saturday night - Roxy then Sound Factory was an amazing gay combo. Limelight was fun on Sunday nights - but agreed with above, the music was SHIT. Way too kitchen sink techno - utter crap in the main room. Some of the other rooms were better.

I remember Michael, Amanda LePore, Richie Rich and others. They were fun to look at - very much a 'notice me' - but that was the point, wasn't it? It was decadent and over the top - some glamour, but you also saw a lot of fucked up stuff when people were on drugs and out of their minds.

I'm glad I experienced it - and made it out OK without getting caught up in the scene too much. Still developed a nasty coke addiction for several years - finally kicked that shit.

R62 Yeah, the drugs was the big catch to all of it. As someone who was never a druggie that side of it always turned me off. Most of their focus seemed to be how to score some drugs every time they were partying.

[quote]Plus you had the bridge and tunnel people starting to catch on and it became straight guidos muscling around on the dancefloor - as straight people do - ruining the vibe completely.

They were awful. Crude, thuggish and very homophobic.

Maybe "Party Monster" should be made into a Broadway musical?

What as missing was CONTRITION. Michael didn’t really express this, and as a shapeshifter personality, if he did it wasn’t sincere. Or, after acknowledging his responsibility he’d excuse it for being high. He needed to approach Angel’s family that he was sorry, beg for forgiveness, and find ways of making amends- devote the rest of his life trying to make it right. He didn’t, and he had NO business trying to break back into the club scene.

I'm sorry but who did he need to do this for? You're not being clear. It wasn't some accidental death, like he was a drunk driver. He murdered someone, and dismembered the corpse. The only reason he wasn't charged with first-degree murder was because prosecutors hoped he would testify against his former boss, Peter Gatien, who was jailed for allowing drugs to be sold in his clubs. Alig and his partner in crime accepted a manslaughter charge and a lesser sentence.

Sorry, redo:

[quote]What as missing was CONTRITION. Michael didn’t really express this, and as a shapeshifter personality, if he did it wasn’t sincere. Or, after acknowledging his responsibility he’d excuse it for being high. He needed to approach Angel’s family that he was sorry, beg for forgiveness, and find ways of making amends- devote the rest of his life trying to make it right. He didn’t, and he had NO business trying to break back into the club scene.

I'm sorry but who did he need to do this for? You're not being clear. It wasn't some accidental death, like he was a drunk driver. He murdered someone, and dismembered the corpse. The only reason he wasn't charged with first-degree murder was because prosecutors hoped he would testify against his former boss, Peter Gatien, who was jailed for allowing drugs to be sold in his clubs. Alig and his partner in crime accepted a manslaughter charge and a lesser sentence.

I always thought it was crazy to bust a nightclub over drugs that were being brought in from the outside.

Sound Factory did not sell alcohol. How the hell was everyone still up and dancing from 5am to 9am? It wasn't caffeine.

The war on drugs has always been against minorities - blacks, latinos and gays. Double points for gay blacks and latinos.

Meanwhile - down on Wall Street - straight white male traders were doing coke at their desks.

R64 - exactly. They ruined The Tunnel first - funny enough.

A lot of people were turned away at Roxy and Sound Factory - mainly straight and B&T crowd, but also many gays as well.

Say what you will - it's a vicious and cruel system to have to be picked to get in - but there is a reason to it. Thankfully I always got in - it helped to be tall to stick out. But I felt awful for friends who weren't let in.

And Sound Factory wouldn't let in a lot of women - it was very selective. There were always some women there - but they had to be there with like 4-5 other guys.

Michael started learning the trade at Danceteria.

In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, dance clubs were everywhere.

[quote]Say what you will - it's a vicious and cruel system to have to be picked to get in

Mary!

No, it's NOT "a vicious and cruel system" at all. People are paying to come to a club for the vibe and experience which largely is the crowd and the energy they create. This is not random! The crowd must be largely curated to enable this vibe which is why people are willing to pay a cover charge.

If they just let in whoever shows up the experience never happens. Straight people flock to gay/mixed, hot/cool clubs they've heard about with their vibe and don't add to, nor fit in to the crowd. That attracts more and more of that type and the cool crowd that created the sizzle stops coming and moves on. A hot nightclub experience is a very difficult thing to create and wildly difficult to maintain without very savvy doormen creating the experience by who they let in.

R71 - yes, you're stating the obvious. But anyone with a shred of humanity felt sorry for those left on the outside and never picked. Sometimes they would stand outside for over an hour in the cold. You know what I'm talking about.

It's a gimmick to make a club seem exclusive and popular, then a lot of idiots vie for the opportunity to get in when any normal person with a shred of dignity or self respect would walk away and say "fuck them."

R73 - yes and no - there's also crowd control too. It's not only a gimmick. And yes, there are some people you don't want in a club.

[quote]Sometimes they would stand outside for over an hour in the cold. You know what I'm talking about.

No, actually I don't know what you're talking about.

If you stood outside a club, there was a reason. If you didn’t walk right in, why bother going out? Sounds snobby? Maybe it is. But that’s the way it was. Don’t come for me…I didn’t make the rules.

I don’t feel bad for people who stand outside of clubs and don’t get in. They know what the deal is you have to accept you may not be let in. People should be realistic about who they are. I never would have gotten into a hip club. I’m okay with that

Listen bitches, those of you whining about "those poor people who weren't let in" clearly didn't have dealings with the bridge and tunnel guido pieces of shit who wrecked the whole club experience for everyone else. There's a reason why there are door policies.

Oh please, the bridge and tunnel crowd arriving was a sign the club was already on the down slope. They would never know the newest and hippest clubs when they were on the ascendent, thus peak cool.