A New Kind of Scream Queen

by Andrea Nicolay
----------
January 4, 2000 | Page 1

Once upon a time, I walked into a party that I'd been looking forward to for awhile. I began to mingle, as people do. As I completed an initial scan, I thought to myself, "This party is jumping! I'm going to talk to those people standing by the dip." One of those people turned out to be the father of a friend, a mildly drunk dad, who began to tell me stories about his sort-of wild youth. They were genuinely amusing at first, but as time wore on, they became numbingly self-indulgent.

There came a point, I think it was after the risky avant-garde photographs in college, but before the illegal sublet in New York, when I didn't want to be the person he was talking to anymore.

James St. James, author of the recent drug-addled true crime-ish Disco Bloodbath (Simon & Schuster, $23.00), is not a tipsy suburban father-he is an ex-charter-member of the early 90's New York City club scene. But he does offer a portrait of his certifiably wild youth that starts off vivid and weirdly charming and devolves into something you find yourself being resentful of.

Early on in Disco Bloodbath, James St. James distills the art of making a disco entrance: "You must be eye-catching but simple. If you and your 'look' can be reduced to a simple caricature… you've got yourself a hit."

In this glam tale, St. James has reverted to said party formula of dramatic entrances, biting sarcasm, witty monologues, and leveling descriptions of various drugged-out club kid debutantes. The result will titillate the part of you that always wanted to be strung out on Special K and naked in Times Square, but eventually the reader wants to sober up a bit and take a good look around. Unfortunately that's impossible, since the author himself was lost in the sauce during the very time frame he's trying to illustrate.

St. James finally cast off his gold lame and retreated from the late 80s/early 90s club scene after the murder of clubgoer Angel Melendez-the murder that is loosely chronicled by St. James within this volume (whose ingenious packaging and design starts the buzz that is later killed). The details of Melendez' demise are the stuff of a grisly urban legend. Back in 1996, during the heyday of clubowner Peter Gatien's reign over NYC clubland, drug dealer/Limelight regular Melendez was murdered by drug taker/professional party thrower Michael Alig. Melendez and Alig couldn't agree on who owed drugs and money to whom. One afternoon, amidst an exchange of allegations and blows, Alig killed Melendez by hitting him in the head with a hammer. In order to ensure that Melendez was dead, Alig then suffocated him with a pillow and injected him with Drano.

Although blood and guts are present and disgusting, they actually play a small part in this wacky tableau. St. James is more interested in constructing the backdrop of the crime by telling stories that are supposed to show how distorted the perspectives of Alig and those around him became as the drugs flowed and the mirrorball spun. The reader becomes an insider of sorts, a person-worthy-of-fantastic-stories-and-gossip. At times, it becomes a little like reading Page Six, only with a more consistent cast of characters and more detailed "shocking details."

Sometimes those details are delightful enough to make it all worthwhile. On a transvestite: "She was a ticky-tacky, bottom-rung nightmare of the first degree. You'd rather swallow a bucket of snot than spend ten minutes with her." On drugs: "We did so much cocaine, asteroids were falling out of our noses." On craziness: "There was an armless drag queen wearing a floral bikini who spent a great deal of time shivering behind Mavis' potted fern."

Pleasing sound bytes and vicarious drug binge thrills aside, Disco Bloodbath left this girl bored and strangely hung over.

----------
Text