Not to be disrespectful to Nate Dogg, or anything.

But that particular part of the chorus of "The Next Episode" certainly fits the situation when you're renting a bus from Pittsburgh Party Bus.

To get a general idea , combine for me, if you will, a prom night limousine service, a sweat-box club, a college frat party and a high school field trip.

I give you the Pittsburgh Party Bus.

While I find myself slowing down appreciably as my 20s dwindle, I find any opportunity to reach back to those days holds a certain appeal.

One might think, for instance, that I would have forgotten how to tap a keg. Such a person, myself included, would have been wrong. It's just like riding a bike. I enlisted the help of a friend from college, who, conveniently, used to join my fraternity in throwing parties. So we'd been in this situation before and spent much of the night comparing what had and hadn't changed in the half decade since we left college.

Not much.

The evening began not on a bus but at an apartment, which looked, unsurprisingly, like most college apartments, with a Will Smith poster, narrow hallways, a keg in the kitchen and people smoking out front -- and a bunch of people eager to be new and temporary best friends.

Note: There is a nice little cottage business of Pitt undergraduates supporting their weekend activities through throwing public parties for a price. My host for the evening was happy to tell me that between her and her four roommates, they have made up to $400 in a single night by buying a few kegs and charging $5 a cup for guests

Given safe transportation, a keg and cover charges to three clubs had been renegotiated as part of the Party Bus Rental, I'm told that $20 is the suggested contribution.

Ouch. But OK. Far be it from me to stiff a student. Ramen in the rear view may appear closer, and all that jazz.

The Web site for Pittsburgh Party Bus (www.pittsburghpartybus.com/contact.asp) says 5 hours runs $590 with the sixth hour free and admittance to a number of clubs included. So, throwing in a Jackson for three covers, transportation and a couple beers (the keg, to our dismay, was kicked rather early and drinks at the clubs were not included) probably was justifiable.

Cost aside, it's still unbelievably fun. A lot of it is the fact that you don't have to spend the last hour of the night wondering how your going to get home without being a passenger in an intoxicated person's car. Pittsburgh has always worried me in that respect. I always have the sense that drunk driving is as much a part of the night life as public transit is absent from it.

When we file onto the bus, our driver, June, cards everyone. He is also our DJ for the evening. I ask my friend from college to run back and grab us a couple of beers to start off, in exchange for my seat, so I end up being one of the first people standing, grabbing the support bar to steady myself.

This leads to me dancing alone in the aisle of the bus.

But by 10:17, June has been spinning the hits (some Lil' Kim "Lighters Up," Mike Jones' "Back Then" and "Ludacris' "Move ...," for instance)(Listen to the music: Dancing on the Bus), and the colored tube lighting on the bus (roughly in the position I remember the emergency exit instructions being on my school bus in high school) is pulsing over the "dance floor." Bus aisle grinding becomes not only a good idea, but the activity of choice for the very highest echelons of the party's social order.

The birthday girl, who's reaching the mighty milestone of a score and two and the reason we've all been brought together in the first place, toddle-dances with some native skill, given we're on a moving bus with a drink in one hand. She dances grinning to the back of the bus to fill up a Solo cup with beer. The Union Switch and Signal beams out over the mercury-lamp-washed rippling of the Monongahela.

And the party hasn't even really started yet.

We hit the Boardwalk first.

The Boardwalk has three clubs in it -- once we get into the summer and the live music is back on the deck for practical purposes, there will be four distinct dancing areas . To the right as you come in the main entrance is Tequila Willies, which plays popular dance music, heavy on danceable hip-hop. (Listen to the music: Biggie at the Boardwalk) Off on the left, downstairs, is Light. which plays '70s and '80s dance music, (Lionel Ritchie's "Dancing on the Ceiling" plays when I first go in). Then upstairs is Level, which plays a wide variety of contemporary dance mixes.

I visited Light first, where there were few people but a nice enough atmosphere. You could look out on the river, you could shake it on the lit disco-squared dance floor or take advantage of the dollar drink specials. Despite manning the bar on what seems like a slow night (but really isn't -- most of the people have collected in Tequila Willies) the barkeep, Jen, is speedy and in good spirits.

It occurred to me that older professionals could have a ball at Light. I usually hear criticism of Pittsburgh night life from older singles who don't want to deal with we young ones' foolishness. Going to Light not only has the music -- classic Michael Jackson, ABBA, etc. -- but is pretty frat guy/teeny-bopper free.

Just after 11, over at Tequila Willies, people are taking shots from a bartender at the top of a ladder. Some folks seem to be of the opinion it's actually cranberry juice.

The place is packed. People aren't really dancing too much across groups; pretty standard rings of women protect one another but bask in the gaze of pretty standard ogling guys in "This is your girlfriend's shirt"-type novelty tees.

Up in Level, smoothly arranged but unidentifiable dance music plays. The dance floor is half full and only a few people are in the booths. But I notice they have these rather nice sofa bed areas where one can recline and drink with friends. They are, according to the signs, available for reservation. I bump into a friend from high school in Level, but have to run back to the bus . We were pulling out for Blush at 11:30 sharp.

However, that was not to be.

When I reached the bus, a full-blown revolt was in progress. The partyers did not want to stay in the Strip. They clamored for Station Square. So the birthday girl, the party bus organizers and June all gave in, and we headed off to Matrix -- which I've already reviewed.

All that I can add is that I gave the oxygen bar a whirl this time. I found $5 for five minutes a nice experience to have once, and I did feel a touch reinvigorated. But in the future I'll skip the Mountain Berry flavor -- not that it was bad, but rather that it smelled like dryer sheets and I had been expecting berries.

Whereas the lime flavor actually smelled like a popsicle. Which is nice.

A number of concerned readers (the first, and most persistent of whom I'd like to thank; this means you Justin Mistovich) brought Dowe's "Save the Music" benefit to my attention some weeks ago.

Dowe's on Ninth, if you hadn't heard, is the last dedicated full-time jazz bar in the city. When I was still in school in Pittsburgh, I'd been to the Crawford Grill in the Hill District and later there were two other jazz bars. Now, they might have to close down Dowe's as well for lack of patrons.

Thus the fund-raiser.

A free slot in my schedule led to a change of plans and one of the nicest happy hour experiences I've ever had in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Why? In a word, style.

I get to the club at a few minutes past 6 and, although I think I know a little about the sort of people who come to arts fund-raisers, I'm still extremely impressed with how well dressed everyone is -- the cocktail dresses, the suits. It's quite nice. There are so many men in black turtlenecks and earth-tone jackets, you'd think they'd either planned their outfits or were answering casting calls for movie roles as university professors.

I really like jazz in the sense that I think perhaps too many of us do, which is to say that we love to hear it playing in the background while we're doing other things. But I confess that I've found the genre intimidating. People who know jazz always sound like art collectors to me.

But did you notice his mastery of tone shift there? Stunning!

But there was nothing of the kind at Dowe's. I got into a conversation with a lawyer and his wife, who works at UPMC, I ran into a friend from the theater community and saw a local sportscaster just lounging in the back. There was even a sprightly older couple dancing when it was barely 8 o'clock.

The club has two floors, the first with the main stage, two bars and abundant cocktail seating, and the second with a nicely secluded but sadly underused balcony. By 9 o'clock, when I left, there was a crowd of approximately 150, which left plenty of room to move around to the buffet, where fried chicken, casserole, mixed vegetables and salad were offered. It actually reminded me of the old Crawford Grill that way.

To close, I'll leave you with a taste of Ms. Dowe and her father collaborating on a song.

Oh, and if you get a chance, you have to hear Etta Cox sing at some point. You can feel her love of the music. It's like she's tasting the music as she sings it. She exhibits the bounce and verve of a show-tune professional but the confidence of someone who owns a share of the club. Because she does.

Online audio: Sandy Dowe (vocals) and her father Al Dowe (trombone) are joined by Tim Jenkins and Harold Betters on Gershwin and Heyward's "Summertime."

"Life Ain't Nothin' But a Funny-Funny Riddle..."

The key thing is that I don't think about it too much -- having a good time, I mean.

I should explain.

I've wanted to go to Saddle Ridge for weeks now -- and even though I am a West Virginian by birth and not at all averse to country music (Clint Black's "Killin' Time" will always have a special place in my heart, for instance, and Roy Clark's "I Never Picked Cotton" is the anthem of working-class determination, in my book), I know that I'm not going to go to a country western bar without sidekicks, preferably country enthusiasts, because when I hear country, I also think "line dance," and I don't even know how to do the "Boot Scoot Boogie."

So I am really happy when one of my friends from here at the office, who had told me he loved visiting Saddle Ridge, clears out space on his schedule to accompany me. We end up dragging six other coworkers along as well.

When we walk in and pay the $5 cover, the first thing I notice is the size of the place. It's a really generously sized club. Even at its most packed hours later, there's always enough space to move freely on the dance floor, but never the sense that the floor isn't hopping.

There's a girl dancing in chaps over a trough with "Saddle Up" spangled on the rear, Y108 stickers abound, and the addition of a chain-link holding area completes the look around the edges of the dance floor.

"You better saddle up!" the DJ says to a roar of approval as the late John Denver is heard singing "Thank God I'm a Country Boy."

The effect it has on the crowd is wonderful: Little circles form and couples link at the elbows, stomping in little rhythmic pinwheels.

I'm getting into it as well. I have worn my boots and tucked a flannel shirt into a fairly snug pair of jeans. It's a popular look among the patrons. Girls have their tops tied in a knot at the belly, wearing pigtails, that sort of thing.

It is really fun music to dance to; tromping and shouting in time to the songs is usually all that's necessary. And on the portions of the floor where people get line dances going, even if you don't know the steps, it's not the end of the world. Nobody's really studying anyone else that hard. It seems an easygoing grin fest.

Until my childhood showed up looking for me, right in the middle of a dance.

There's a fisty rap on my right shoulder. A slight young man in a sleeveless T-shirt with a rebel flag on the back has turned to me.

"Git out!" he yells over the din.

"Huh!?" I yell. He leans in to reply.

"We don't want you here. Git the [f-word] out!"

I try to turn away.

"We don't want YOU here." he says pointing in my face.

"Git the [f-word] OUT [n-word]!"

It's such a cliche I almost laugh. Which, oddly leaves me still in a pretty good mood. I really had been enjoying the dancing, all my friends dancing and smiling and knowing the words to the songs. I mean, they actually played "Pour Some Sugar on Me." Who doesn't sing along to that?

This good mood leaves me in the mood to discuss. Perhaps he's a man of reason. I humor the guy. That kid who used to fly into a rage at any drop of the n-word, that kid who was so horrifically bothered when his best friends in second grade decided he'd make a much better scapegoat than a friend, has gone away. I find my self pitying him.

One of the first things I learned growing up black in an all-white setting in West Virginia is that only the most desperately disadvantaged, uneducated persons resort to such coarse buttressing of their ego. He just needs to feel better about himself, the poor guy. This was like Paxil for him.

Any black guy stepping into this joint would have expected as much, and that makes me feel sad for a moment. The high scores on the hunting arcade game in the corner should have clued me in: "Highest score: JEW, second highest score: BEN, third highest score: JEW."

"Why?" I say back, like I'm genuinely puzzled. And the funny thing is that the music is so loud, we're practically in embrace, this guy and me, his left shoulder touching my right, and oddly intimate posture for someone as he is vomiting hate on you. But whatever.

He goes on.

Turns out he's a homophobe as well. Well, no matter, I am feeling generous still, so I whip out my passport, which has my state of birth. West. Virginia. I point to each word separately.

"I was listening to Conway Twitty when I was 8, my man!" I say, enthusiastically.

"I don't care. Git out. Git!"

It was getting downright hilarious. It was like an archaeological dig or something. No one told him about the '60s I suppose. I realize at this point that a big part of the reason I'm so unintimidated is that I'm 5-10, and he's probably 5-7 and slighter of build. Something in me just couldn't take him as a threat. And he's so drunk he is practically holding on to me.

I wave over to one of my friends to get him to come over.

"He doesn't believe I'm from West Virginia!" I shout.

My friend, a Jewish kid from Queens, as it happens, says, "He IS from West Virginia," pointing at the passport page.

Now he lets loose with an antigay tirade. I'm thinking, he's getting a bit confused. Is he saying this because he actually thinks I'm gay? Is he saying this because he hates black people? Or both? The hate tent is a big tent, I suppose, but it doesn't matter. Nonetheless, I point between myself and my boy from Queens.

"We both LIKE girls," I say.

"That's right. You don't like girls!" he yells. "Git out!"

My grandmother would have said to turn the other cheek. My middle-school self would have wiped the floor with the guy. Instead, I unfurl my longest digit in his face and herd him off with it like a priest warding off evil with a crucifix.

I guess free speech zigs and free speech zags. I'm wearing an "I love hot moms T-shirt," under my open flannel (which makes the gay comments especially interesting) and he's sharing his "I hate black people" sentiments.

I continue dancing. The rest of the night goes without incident.

Before the end of the night I seek out the only other black man I've seen in the place . He says he really likes it here, and he's never had any problems. He's got a group of men and women of unknown backgrounds all dancing with and around him. They welcome me in, and I give him my card, hoping to talk with him before publication about how much fun he has, about the fact that he says he's never had anyone say anything to him.

He gave me a call back Monday morning. His name is Michael Drayden, originally from California and now of Carrick. He says he "went there when [Saddle Ridge] had first opened up, and I've had no problems there. It's always been very nice, everyone's really outgoing ... [but] no, it wouldn't surprise me, you being approached or having a confrontation. ... A lot of them have confederate flags on and what have you."

Then again, Mr. Drayden appeared to be at least 6 feet tall and is definitely a lot bigger than me. Maybe instead of hitting up my closet for a plaid shirt and boots to prepare for the trip to the Ridge, I should have hit the gym. It certainly couldn't have hurt matters any.

I've been a waiter, a bartender, an expediter and a short-order cook, and, as my big brother and the economic climate consistently remind me, I could be sent back at any point, given the right (or, wrong, depending on how you look at it) circumstances.

So when I heard that Downtown's Bossa Nova hosted a special DJ and drink special night in honor of service-industry professionals, I knew I had to check it out.

Altogether, I'm very glad I did. There were three-dollar Heineken bottles, four-dollar Absolut cocktails and five-dollar Absolut martinis. A low-key live DJ lent a comfortable air to the evening's proceedings, and the crowd was notably jovial and approachable.

But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

Industry Sundays is held that night, because, as you might know if you've ever worked in the service industry, Friday and Saturday nights are the biggest nights for everyone involved and the servers and bartenders routinely make more than half their week's wage on the weekend.

Thus there isn't a whole lot of opportunity to go out with the regular club crowd.

Bossa Nova, on Seventh Street, Downtown, is a popular destination for the after-work crowd, especially (of course) on Fridays, when, as a rule, it's pretty packed with unwinding networkers.

Usually you -- the hypothetical server/bartender you -- go out after work during the week with your co-workers to a regular watering hole your shift or work crew likes to gather. It's a common practice mostly because getting off of work at 11 o'clock at night totally wired from serving and doing side work makes it hard to go straight home and hit the sack.

It was a crisp and pleasant Sunday evening as I walked to the lounge. The sky was pitch black, a soothing green cast of flourescence leaked from the vacant windows of the old Horne's building, and the sidewalks were pleasantly peopled with parents leaving an event at CAPA.

When I walk into Bossa Nova, I ask the bartender straightaway when the DJ would start spinning.

"Uh, when people get here I guess," he replied. Fair enough.

So I posted myself up at the bar and entertained myself with the rerun of "Law & Order" playing on one of the TVs. Shortly thereafter, I ask another bartender what these Sundays have been like and she said, "At first I was like, 'Sundays, no way. ... But it's been nice. A pretty good crowd. Last week we had guys in here break-dancing."

She also concurred with my assessment that it's often nice to wait on people who work in the service industry. They know the deal, know the job and tip better than the "amateur night" crowds of Saturday nights..

People do show up eventually, mostly during the 10 p.m. hour. When the DJ takes over the sound system, he starts with an Aretha Franklin cut with a smooth new bass line mixed in. It sounds like Grover Washington's heirs stole his master recordings and retired to some Toronto basement studio to mourn Tito Puente's passing.

By 10:16 a Mos Def track is on and the trickle of people has reached the level of "a sprinkling" throughout the bar. All told, there are no more than 40 people in the place, but it suits it somehow. It's Sunday, and a couple of pairs of two-stepping co-workers are really all the energy level required to lend the proper air of restrained revelry.

When the DJ plays Spacehog's "In The Meantime," I walk over and comment that the chord progressions are eerily reminiscent of Weezer's "Sweater Song." He squints in the glow of his Powerbook and nods.

The people I met were among the most conversational I've come across recently. Maybe it was the fact that the DJ was restrained enough that you could easily talk over him. Maybe everyone was tired from working all weekend. Maybe working in the service industry made the balance of patrons "people persons" to begin with.

But it was definitely a good time -- especially for people who have Mondays off of work -- but also for anyone looking to casually unwind before getting back to Monday's rat race.

"Going clubbing" and "going dancing" are often used interchangeably and I can't help but wince just a little whenever someone does so.

Mostly because I don't always feel like dancing and, being someone who goes out more than his share, I know I'm not at all alone in feeling that way. In the pursuit of a memorable night out, dancing brings as many problems as it solves, starting somewhere around "I'm kind of tired tonight," and ending somewhere north of "I just made a complete fool of myself." So, I welcomed the opportunity to visit a club not at all about dancing but at the same time all about milling, meeting, swilling and greeting.

5801 is a gay bar, and though I'd visited with friends over the years and had a great time (when it was still called New York, New York) as a sort of vestigial straight wingman, my inner boy scout urged me to avoid false advertising and bring a buddy, not only to talk to, but perhaps to decode the surreptitious glances and perhaps strategically colored bandanas I've heard can be key to understanding the goings on in your average gay bar.

Honestly, I needn't have bothered.

It felt basically like a bar where people mixed and mingled much more than they would otherwise -- though, admittedly, most of the female patrons stayed upstairs and most of the males downstairs.

The decor has improved dramatically from the New York, New York days, with subdued green backlighting being the signature feature of the design. That and the flat screen TVs. Green light is reflected behind the infinity symbol outside that serves as the bar's sign, and it's matched indoors in a tasteful and (for St. Patty's Day especially) appropriate manner that keeps the ambience cheerful without being obnoxiously bright.

The television behind the bar downstairs is playing an assortment of upbeat videos, both dance and pop, which don't necessarily sync up with the music being played over the sound system for the most part -- so a Kylie Minogue video flashes on screen as Jo Jo's "Leave" plays, followed by Destiny's Child's "Lose My Breath" paired with a video I can't place, though it looks like a British house group.

Not that it particularly matters if a video doesn't match the music playing -- no one's paying the videos that much attention.

The bar isn't crowded until 10:45 or so, at which point moving anywhere, upstairs or down, requires the standard sideways edging through the throng, using your shoulder like the prow of an icebreaker frigate, or something.

But everyone seems very friendly all around and it occurs to me, as I'm navigating past a cluster of people around the staircase that that is what is special about this environment -- people are eager to meet new folks, or at least give them a chance to talk or come onto them, or ask them if they know the score of a game. (Two flat screens, one downstairs, and another upstairs show college basketball. It is March, after all). It seems, and again, it is just possible that I'm missing something, to be a friendlier atmosphere.

And no, no one hit on me, so that's not it. Don't be silly.

Upstairs, the crowd, again, mostly women, is more densely packed, probably due to the relatively small size of that space. The room has the air of a party at someone's home, with loose clusters of folks hung together by laughter and appearing oddly school teacher-ish in total.

A word about age: I have visited Pegasus, the Downtown gay dance club more recently, and 5801 skews a touch older. There is gray hair in the building. In numbers. While I have seen the odd group of boomers at Pegasus, in total 5801 is probably one-third middle aged.

But then, I did say that I get too tired to dance sometimes. Maybe it's my own increasing age I should be worried about.

I also wanted to take time out to thank those of you who've written in about the journal. Yes, it is nice that Pittsburgh now has someone to cover nightlife. Yes, it is a fun part of my job. But I'd love to get suggestions from any readers as far as things you wish were covered, nightspots I should visit and events you recommend. Just drop me an e-mail at pstephenson@post-gazette.com.

I'm coming around to the opinion that the most important thing about a club isn't its location or music selection, drink prices or special events, cover charge or target demographic. The most important thing is layout.

I've been to Deja Vu many times over the past few years, and it's notable that -- for a club that still manages rather brisk business -- there have been few changes to the place, and to its main bar area downstairs in particular, since it opened.

It's set up like a restaurant: the circular booths, the soft incandescent lighting, the black-slacked servers and so on. It's quite the decent restaurant if you get there before happy hour.

But who does, really?

Now, there are bars that pretend to be lounges, bars that pretend to be clubs and bars that pretend to be restaurants, and happily Deja Vu is a bit of a restaurant that transforms into a lounge after happy hour -- with the layout of the lounge playing an important role.

Usually, by the time I get there, there's a medium-density sprinkling of folks throughout the place, meaning that it looks healthily full without being cramped, roughly the people concentration of a hallway in a mid-sized public school when classes are changing.

The first floor is split between the main lounge area and the bar with the walkway leading from the front door to the staircase separating two areas. Up the steps and to the right is the dance floor, which has its own attached bar , in the back.

But if, instead of peeling off to hit the dance floor, one rounds the turn at the top of the first flight of steps and continues up another flight, the floor opens out into another lounge area, with another small bar attached.

This area is almost eerily uncongested regardless of how packed the rest of the place is. It bears a resemblance to a hotel lobby -- a really nice hotel lobby, where one might affect a casual air by untying one's bow tie and picking out odd bits of concertos on the unattended baby grand.

That seems to be a good amount of the attraction to Deja Vu. It has an upscale feel but an approachable spirit. You could get a nice glass of zinfandel, then go shake it to 50 Cent with someone you've just met.

For instance ...

It is a nice dance floor, though very small. While one would be tempted to say that it should be bigger, there's a sense that the delicate balance that is maintained would be upset somehow by more floor. It's altogether a sedate, polite place to be, where gentility (or at least the Fraternal Order of Banana Republic) and polite professionalism carry the day. More dance floor could mean more raucousness; one can never tell.

I pose the question to my second dance partner, Celia (I think -- it could have been Delia or even Lia ) who has a propensity towards slipping entirely around me mid-dance. I actually pose the question while she's in front of me and at first think she didn't hear me. But after she completes this orbit and is back facing me, she offers, "I think twice as big would be perfect," and spins around once more.

That seems reasonable to me. So, I ask her if she thinks that would change the atmosphere, to which she answers:

"If the atmosphere was going to be bad, it should be bad now."

"What?" I say back.

She repeats herself, I nod, and look puzzled until she clarifies.

" 'Cause of the no-cover."

That also seems reasonable. It's one of the reasons Deja Vu was so popular when I first moved to Pittsburgh a few years back to go back to school. With no cover, it was the perfect place to plan a sortie into a given Friday or Saturday night. You can just meet for a first drink there and hash out the details of the evening without having to throw away a cover charge when you're intent on moving on.

A funny thing that occurred to me is that perhaps we don't like dancing as much as we think we do. Clubs, after all, function just as much as places to meet new people as they do as places to dance -- and it becomes fairly obvious, especially at a place like Deja Vu, that dancing is not necessarily the thing we are primarily going out for.

Given the choice between dancing and milling about, most people choose the latter. So maybe it's time for a club that doesn't even pretend to be about dancing. You'd just dress well enough to get past the bouncer then join the public cocktail party shoulder-rub session and make the best of it, although ...

I think I'd always rather have a dance floor of some sort. Even if it's a very small one. Or perhaps, especially if it's a very small one.

Even someone who is as poor a planner as I am has to have something approaching a schedule for most Saturday nights. I generally prefer a more organic/casual evolution to the datebook when I'm planning my fun, but more often than not, on Tuesday someone mentions a birthday party, on Wednesday you hear an ad for a club you haven't been to in a while and Thursday you get a mass party invitation on an antiquated and largely unused e-mail address. So, before Friday even arrives, you find Saturday completely booked and there's no way to decide what to do, whom to ditch or where to start.

If you haven't considered it, it's always my first suggestion to go everywhere. It makes for adventure.

I chose to bookend my Saturday, sandwiching an evening of clubbing between cocktails and late-night after-partying. To accomplish that, I started my Saturday night so early that I'm almost embarrassed, on the North Side attending the Polish Cultural Council's Ostatki around 8.

The Cardello building's first floor -- a brightly lit web of halls, antechambers and offices -- was well-suited as far as business spaces go to receive a crowd of friendly schmoozers. It was the perfect way to begin an evening.

It was advertised as a winter white party, but I was told after I'd arrived that it was actually a carnival celebration. There was a vodka tasting, a lot of food and a rare opportunity (for me, at least) to meet an older couple who visit most of Pittsburgh's clubs regularly.

They were only in their 40s, but I was impressed and gladly accepted both of their cards -- I'm sure to need middle-aged wing-folk at some point.

I'd been missing Station Square a good deal lately, so all week I was looking forward to hitting that scene -- and after long absence, the multi-DJ, multiroom layout of Matrix seemed attractive.

The line of cars to Matrix's parking lot, after managing to successfully navigate the turn from the nonstop processional on Carson Street, was winding all the way around the front of the complex. There was still a lot of space left in the lot nonetheless, as everyone tried to park as close to the doors as possible. My wingman and driver for the evening, a buddy from college, was unenthused about the venture and his attitude wasn't improved by the substantial line outside the club.

I can't describe Matrix in a word, but my best attempt would be "a la carte."

The "multi" aspect I mentioned comes from the fact that Matrix has four main areas: three are dedicated purely to dancing, but the first chamber (called Club Velvet) is much more of a lounge/bar atmosphere; the main entrance and the coat check are both off of this area, in which they play Latin music. I say Latin because I could hear both what I would call merengue as well as salsa -- though no reggaeton. When I first walk in, a woman in a black dress is availing herself of a small section of the bar for dancing, yet the area maintains a calm atmosphere. A delicate balance, no doubt, but nicely done.

The other three areas -- Club Liquid, Club Exit and Club Goddess -- all spin different types of music. One does dance, one does top 40 and one does '80s music. Or those at least seem to be the themes.

They waive the cover after we pay for parking, giving us a little glossy ticket to give to the doorman. Drinks are on special for $2. It's unclear precisely the nature of the special, but it seems to cover your standard-issue highball family of vodka tonics and rum and Cokes native to translucent Solo cups.

There's a bit of a demographic spread throughout the club, which is saying something for Pittsburgh. At Matrix, it's very difficult to pick out a "type" -- especially in terms of age. There seem to be a fair-sized contingent of folks in their mid-30s, a cluster of business types of some description, strings of single college clubbers and, of course, a great deal of we mid-to-late twentysomethings.

One of the presumably unanticipated consequences of having separate and individually themed dance spaces is that you get a nice, gradual crowd flow from one to the next. Where in most clubs you have to circulate yourself, here much of the crowd circulates itself.

It also makes the time pass quickly. In general, your time at a club is split up into beats, determined by how often you return to the bar or the dance floor. With three dance floors to choose from, it's less likely that you will find yourself driven from dancing by song selections that rub you the wrong way and more likely that you'll meander around, dancing here and there, watching a snippet of movie projected against the back wall or admiring the enormous photo portraits of Jen Aniston and her fabulous ilk. The time did pass admirably.

Then it was off to the last act of the evening, the "I Heart Pittsburgh" party at AVA in East Liberty. Yes, that's the way it was spelled in the invitation. All the way out. Why substituting "love" for the unavailable symbol wouldn't have worked is between the DJ and the sponsor, apparently.

AVA is next to and, in fact, connected to the Shadow Lounge. Just off of South Highland, the clubs occupy the odd crescent on the edge of East Liberty, like the Red Room or Whole Foods, part of a trim vanguard of Shadyside pushing northeast.

The party was hosted by the Coro Fellows in Public Affairs, that foundation's workaholic policy fellows who, with 567 people on the invite list, either have killer connections or are patently optimistic.

AVA itself defines tiny. You could be somewhere way out on the Green Line in Boston at an underground club, you could be on the Lower East Side, you could be at a family reunion at your aunt's house, you could be anywhere in the world, in fact, so long as it is tiny and people are dancing, and it would be much like this. Magically, there is yet room to dance, since many people are just milling about, making their way from the bar in AVA to the bar over at Shadow.

To go back and forth, one navigates a short hallway, fluorescent, pristine and oddly scholastic, as if the hall (and only the hall) has been lifted intact from a suburban middle school. The water fountains are brilliant.

On either side, the bars seem backed up all night. Not that there are clamoring multitudes, but rather that most of the people who are milling about also seem to consider themselves "in line," in some way, though they're not paying much actual attention to the line. This slows progress.

But it was very promising, especially if the two clubs plan to remain open to one another. Between a live band playing at Shadow, a DJ playing at AVA and people lounging around (in the glow of a muted and unidentifiable film projection) in the lounge area attached to Shadow, the whole makes for a destination-worthy package.

You always need someplace to go on a Thursday.

Going out on Thursday nights is a proud tradition likely stretching back to whatever forgotten and groundbreaking theorist proposed going out on Wednesday nights in college. Or maybe the lady who invented happy hour. Or Jell-O shots. There are even Web sites devoted to "Thirsty Thursdays." Quite a few of them actually. In Britain, even.

The advantages to going out on a Thursday are twofold. One: Crowds are smaller. Two: Most things are cheaper. The former is true because, well, it's Thursday night and the latter because bars and clubs so often run drink specials and promotions that cut costs that night.

Appropriately enough, Bash nightclub in the Strip delivered on both counts.

I usually get to a club just after 10, if I plan on spending most of the night there. The Thursday-night promotion at Bash has drinks for just $2 until 11 o'clock and a cover charge of $5 -- if you're a guy. If you're a girl (or a lady, woman, or otherwise female), it's free. Free drinks. No cover.

There were a lot of females there.

Or, at least, early on there were. More guys showed up as the night progressed, which is odd, considering the drink special/cover charge situation, but predictable if you frequent clubs: The rush is often right after the conclusion of a promotion. People tend to run late when it comes to their evenings out.

Bash is, as dance clubs go, just under medium-sized. You can see most of it as soon as you come in the front door. Off to the right is the mechanical bull (just roll with it) and, beyond it, the smaller of the two bars. On the same side of the club, which is off of the main dance floor, there are the stairs up to the restrooms and a small overlooking balcony and the coat check, when it's open.

The coat check wasn't open on this particular Thursday, but the gentleman attending to the restroom quickly picked up on my concern and volunteered his coat-keeping services for the reasonable price of $2.

WAMO was spinning, and, true to form, there was an impressive brand of live DJ-ing going on. There were routinely mixes of three songs (the bassline from one song, plus singing from another and rapping from yet a third) and the turntablists were involved with the crowd and vocal throughout.

The level of crowd response was genial, accommodating, though in a couple of cases (is that actually a full floral body stocking and yellow -- as opposed to blond -- extensions?) the fashion gods were surely hurling bolts from on high in protest. The best thing about the club was the crowd, though. Even later in the evening, when the post-drink-special crowd arrived and the dance floor was edging nearer to capacity, the crowd parted (ever so slightly) to allow passage to the main bar. When necessary, one could jump on the dance floor without a thicket of elbows and glowering dance partners (to say nothing of the uncoordinated and rhythmically challenged) springing up to meet you or out to trip you up.

That same welcoming air put me in something of a bad position when Busta Rhymes' "Touch It" came on. I had been lured by Sean Paul's "Temperature" -- and who isn't lured to the floor by dance-hall reggae? It's a music form designed to make you look good dancing (with beats so generously spaced you could land a mid-nineties Missy Elliott between them), whether you're just swaying back and forth on the floor, or you're capable of channeling Beyonce herself in the form of routines showcasing over 150 bdpm.

That's booty-drops-per-minute for those in the back row. Which we're getting to.

As I was saying, a couple of hours into the evening I am out to dance to a little Sean Paul, and, as the song ends and Busta comes on, someone catches my eye on the dance floor -- or the reverse, you never really can tell precisely who's pulling who, given how socially acceptable it is for people to give you the "Are you available to go?" look while you're dancing. So this individual backs up to me, still dancing, and matching me, in the beginning, as I'm dancing on the quarter note.

But as the song progresses (the hook is much slower than the rest of the song), the rhythm changes occasionally, so she starts to routinely turn it up to dancing on the eighth notes (in theory, you can dance on every eighth beat, fourth beat, every other, or every beat, though I suppose technically that wouldn't be "dancing" so much as "vibrating"), and by the time I can get recalibrated to a faster tempo, she's upgraded again to the 16th notes.

If you have a firm grasp of arithmetic, feel free to hazard a guess as to how bad this could get.

My partner also belonged to the "It's hot, so I'm dropping it" school of dance, so chasing the fastest element of the beat had to be accomplished while simultaneously dropping my body from upright to fully crouched in time to my partner's moves -- which is a fairly telepathic challenge. By the time she cranked up the bdpm, I was having flashbacks to my college track coach and our plyometric workouts. So take care when picking a dance partner, Pittsburgh -- we're all older than we used to be.

Also: Feel free to "hold on to it" every now and again when something is "hot" and it seems in want of "dropping."

Just to keep things lively.

Do you remember high school?

If I face the question squarely, I come away with something like: "maybe." Which, I think, makes me about average.

But if I'm honest with myself ... that's pretty sad. I graduated from high school under a decade ago (I know this not because of my sterling powers of subtraction, but because I would have remembered something as awkward as a 10th reunion . I certainly remember the fifth).

Well, Friday night, it all came flooding back.

A story assignment took me to Club Zoo in the Strip District. "Zoo" is what is called an "under-21" club; similar venues are also called "all-ages" or "over-18" clubs. While some of the fine points may differ, ultimately it's a club where they don't serve alcohol and you don't have to be 21 to get in.

Although, in Zoo's case, you do have to be under-21 to get in. Really. They check.

But, since I was going to interview the manager for the story, he met me and let me in.

The place is huge, with walkways and gangplanks and stairs. The main banks of the light rig are suspended on pivoting hydraulics and can be swung in lower over the floor; there lights are embedded in the floor here and there. There's a VIP section up on the third deck, and TVs lofted over the dance space play vibrating symmetrical patterns, evoking ... Windows Media Player.

In any case, I couldn't help but be surprised at how normal it all looked, from the lights to the music -- I think they were playing Kevin Lytle's "Turn Me Up" when I came in.

Did the kids look young? Sure, but at the same time they didn't. The biggest difference were the shoes (trust me, it'll make sense ) and the prevailing attitude on the dance floor.

When you're at a "21-or-older" club, there is a sort of self-selection involved. I don't wear the same thing to Deja Vu as I would to Bash, for instance; but here, all the kids who would (and will, in a few years, one imagines) split themselves into different club scenes are all hanging out at the same places. So there are some fashion compromises. On the guys' side (and I have to say I admire this), instead of finishing off their striped button-ups and DKNY jeans with a pair of Kenneth Cole oxfords, they throw on a pair of Adidas shelltoes or Air Maxes. On the girls' side -- if they've even bothered to go to the length of wearing a traditional club outfit (I guess it's easier to pull off "cute" in a tank top and velour track pants when you're in high school), they still finish it off, more often than not, with sneakers.

This really throws me in a time warp. I feel like that look -- the sort of denim skirt and V-neck tee with tiny open jacket and Keds look -- is reserved for stroller-pushing mothers in the adult world. Too often, when I'm out, that dead space two or three people back from the bar is awash with nearly identically accoutered women who are "done-up" as much as possible, from the hair to the make-up to the slightly vacant (but undeniably fashionable) look of disdain on their faces. The guys, too, minus the make-up.

There is overly manifest intent in the way we dress as over-21-year-olds. These kids are natural. I'm not saying we look bad. I'm just saying we look like we're trying too hard.

Also, the caliber of dancing was generally higher, and I'm really serious about that. Yes, there were a couple of unrhythmic, lurching though sober folks, but altogether it was impressive. When a reggae tune played, the girls knew how to "wind" and work their knees. When dirty South hip-hop played, everybody leaned and rocked.

I'm convinced that either kids grow up dancing more now, even in these few years since I left high school, or (and perhaps this is more likely) when we get older we expect a lot out of our club experience -- and if that leads us to over-formal attire, faux snobbishness and inhibited dancing, so be it.

At least, we figure, we look good.

There was also a much more welcoming dance atmosphere. I guess, after all, the kids are there to dance. They can hardly while the night away at the bar, can they?

I don't mean that it was either empty or packed on the floor. I just mean it was friendly. While I did not dance (I am not that guy) it was easy to see that people were making friends on the dance floor, making room for each other and actually laughing . Admittedly there were your standard clusters of guys who refused to dance and there were some tighter-knit clusters that wouldn't seem to be welcoming any new additions.

However, given the choice between the carefree Zoo and the, let's say, tensely opportunistic atmosphere at most of the places I visit -- I'm going to go with the former.

But then, looking back on high school -- being perpetually drunk on hormones, living with my Dad and being forced to care what so many people (whom I barely knew) thought about me -- doesn't exactly get it done for me, either.

So when I was done, I walked to Deja Vu.

This is going to be an odd entry, the likes of which will not be repeated -- at least until next year. I should say that I, like everyone else in the 'Burgh, had a magnificent weekend. It is terribly hard to complain -- but then, I am a professional.

The plan was:

On Super Bowl weekend, it would have been a mistake to go out on Saturday night -- to a mega-club in the Strip, a hole-in-the-wall basement or loft dance hall in Oakland -- and turn in an account of what goes on any and all Saturday nights. It would have been a weak decision and disrespectful in at least two ways: On the one hand it would be like pretending this weekend was like any other. (Which it was not.) And on the other hand such a hesitance to commit to writing about a Steelers victory night out shows a decided lack of faith in the black and gold.

I should explain, I'm one of those guys who can't stand criticism -- constructive or otherwise -- of the home team during games. Casual comments noting the most obvious of failings are routinely met with sneering frowns and the accusation: "You're not from around here, are you?"

Do not harsh my karma.

So, it was decided. I'd sit tight on Saturday and go out Sunday night, maybe find a club, maybe just a bar with a dance floor (de facto or otherwise), taking my place not only as documenter, but as another vibrant (read: palsied w/excitement) cell in the mighty heart of Steeler Nation.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

I want to go on record saying I never lost faith. My Terrible Towel arm was well warmed up, juiced on the benefits of hundreds of clockwise whirls during the game.

Yet, somehow, in contrast to every other Pittsburgher out on Sunday, I was still not up to the endurance exercise of waving the towel, while driving through wind and snow, while hanging out of the window. Someone else had to drive.

I knew it would be difficult getting to where we were going, given the roadblocks, revelry and peculiar traffic patterns.

Wait. Where were we going?

Either the Strip or Station Square seemed a good bet. I knew there were organized Super Bowl parties at a couple of spots in the Strip, but Station Square's proximity to East Carson Street promised maximum bodies per sidewalk square.

Station Square it was.

It took a little bit of doing, but about a half-hour after the game, we landed perfectly acceptable and probably legal parking just off of Smithfield Street. A short trot from Smithfield across that same-named bridge put me right at the feet of Margarita Mama's and Saddle Ridge, and I prepared to ... apparently do nothing.

Both of them were closed. And the Hooters betwixt them was desolate. Unwelcome news.

A jaunt over to the Station Square corridor running from Grand Concourse to the Amphitheater revealed hundreds of people in the streets, skipping in pairs past the satellite news truck in front of the Red Star bar, whipping each other with yellow scraps of "official Myron" and running joyously alongside slow-riding automobiles. There were hundreds of lodgers at the Sheraton transfixed before the monolithic television showing the post-game.

How was I supposed to write about a post-Super Bowl-win club night without a club? Where would I find the dancing masses, the drunken honesty, the purely social and perhaps only minimally disingenuous flesh press, the maestro DJ marshalling the multitudes?

If you substitute the Pittsburgh City Police for the DJ (feel free to dispute the analogy, if not the purpose of either party), Carson Street provided three out of four. Which, as they say, ain't bad at all.

Moving east on East Carson Street was a) a dangerous proposition for anyone wearing neither ice skates nor mountaineering crampons; b) an environment matched in exuberance only by championship locker rooms and front porches welcoming Ed McMahon; c) an odd sort of alternate dimension where deliriously happy crowds were met by mid-century Muscovite storm troopers; d) all of the above?

You guessed it. It's always D.

Carson Street itself, after 10 o'clock, resembles a continuous parade -- overwhelmingly eastbound -- of slow-moving members of a convoy returning from a deployment, during which they saved the world.

That's how happy everyone is.

As I slipped/shuffled/strode eastward and the blocks ticked upwards, the crowd became denser, more jubilant and even more prone to indiscriminate high-fiving (I honestly thought that nothing would match the rampant anonymous-party-to-anonymous-party high-fiving that carried the day after the Broncos' defeat; I am occasionally a very stupid man) until ultimately, around 10th Street, everything changed.

I should say right from the beginning that the cops must have done a remarkable job with the crowd, as I've heard that not a single person was seriously injured. But, truth be told, the ice was endangering far more people than the crowd itself. Note the use of "crowd" instead of "riot." I have seen riots. This was not a riot.

True enough, there were innumerable bodies on the street. Bodies in the bars, some packed in tightly enough that you wondered if the patrons were actually packed in like sardines, bracing themselves directly against the bar front windows. There were pick-up games of aluminum can hockey, public displays of affection (perhaps even lasciviousness!) and people hanging out of their car and apartment windows.

Isn't that a Mitsubishi Eclipse with a guy hanging out of the car holding a 4-foot placard reading "Just Steelers!"? Yes, it is. It's also a convertible. Still snowing? Yes. Yet, that was the first of four convertibles. Though none of that explains what "Just Steelers!" actually means.

There were vanity plates aplenty. The best? "86WARD86" (or some variation) on a Virginia set of plates. A guy fell on the ice and a stranger behind him, holding a 16-ounce can in his left hand and some terrible terry in the other, offers the towel for the man to pull himself up. The first guy stammers some thanks, and the second guy swings his towel and shouts: "That's what it does, baby! It lifts you up."

It was beautiful.

All of this, though, I suppose, wasn't in the interest of public safety. Or something. Because every three blocks or so after 10th Street, officers barred not only the street, but the sidewalk, to strolling revelers. You had to go up to Sarah Street, or down to Bouquet, to continue east.

Intoxicated with victory and alcohol though it was, it didn't take long for the crowd to start thinking that if the streets had been cordoned off from traffic to keep pedestrians safe, it didn't make very much sense for them to be barred from it. This logistic inconsistency seemed to upset them. They gathered around the clumps of officers, trying to figure out what was going on.

I'll offer this impression: Perhaps mixed signals go over better in Seattle.

In any case, after closing off direct passage down Carson for cars and people, the police proceeded to roam (and there's really no other way to describe it) in a sort of biker (but extremely dignified) fashion up and down Carson Street. There were maybe 16 motor police on those three-wheeled motorcycles, plus a half dozen mounted officers on horses. The cycle groups stayed together sweeping as one up the street, and the mounted officers did much the same.

The barricades were set up at maybe 12th, 15th, 18th, and 21st streets. I can't be sure. In each case you had to go around them. It didn't, as I've mentioned, make very much sense, but they tell me there was a fight before I got down there. Go figure. Sixteen motorcycle cops and six mounted officers respond to a fight by clearing the entire area.

At least most of the officers were polite when you asked them where one might be permitted to walk.

Thus, after a number of aborted attempts to get into bars or otherwise locate the locus of fun, I retreated into a coffee shop for a bagel pizza and waited.

By 1 in the morning, pretty much nothing had changed, so I hoofed it back Downtown. It was cold, and my legs hurt from balancing on the ice, but it was a great night. Maybe the best bash I'll write about all year.

There's nothing like partying (and perhaps memorizing the Riot Act) with a few thousand of your closest friends. Thank you all.

Organized club and bar crawls too often have the uber-undergraduate feel of a last-minute Greek Week activity -- the venues are old hat, with the thought being that stringing together visits to five or more places everyone's sick of is just as good as seeking out someplace that's actually new and exciting. Then that feeling seeps into the fabric of the experience somehow, so party-goers skip from one bar or club to the next, look around for a few minutes, then give in to the pressure to move on, again and again, thinking the evening is bound to get better if they just visit one more bar, cram one more leg into their evening-long run for the fun border.

Needless to say, such excursions are draining as often as they are invigorating, as much dizzyingly frenetic as they are free-wheeling and liberating -- to say nothing of troublingly expensive, with each new venue necessitating a fresh tab and someone picking up another first round.

For these reasons and many more (which we shall get to presently), the Cultural Trust's near annual Gallery Crawl is a refined distillation of most of the best things about a successful "crawl."

Held in 12 venues throughout Downtown's Cultural District, the Crawl combines an art-conscious (or, at least, appreciative), mostly young professional/collegiate crowd, food and drink, eclectic venues and, of course, a sprinkle of the random, which Downtown Pittsburgh so singularly supplies.

It seemed as though most of the crowd began the evening at SPACE gallery on Liberty Avenue. Perhaps the largest venue, the gallery displayed video art presentations, some with interactive soundworks, some more in the vein of experimental film, which favored the mill-and-meet atmosphere of the crowd. Artist T. Foley calls the exhibition "License," and the gallery curator writes in the artist statement that it "blends the genres of documentary, autobiography and fiction [to] explore issues of sexual and racial identity, self-representation, authorship and narrative device." In practice, that translated to a very large group of younger "Cole Haan is my wingman"-type professionals having quite a merry time taking in the complimentary white (Pinot Grigio?), along with the cinema-verite-ish footage of a man driving a car, the artist washing and dressing a blow-up doll and a flashing projection of various emoticons narrated by that voice from the Macintosh OS.

And there was a mariachi trio in the corner of the gallery. In full costume.

Right next door, in the brightly lit front kitchens at the Pittsburgh Culinary Institute, chefs in training are laying out steaming ladlefuls of chicken paprikash and vegetarian chile for a dollar a pop and showcasing photographs of their gold-medal winners from confection competitions.

Penn Avenue, though, housed the majority of the action, with many smaller galleries, grouped rather closely together and an ebbing ingress/egress loop of crawlers choosing among the night's offerings and clustering together in impromptu smokers' circles.

Urban Space displayed "You've Got Mail," an exhibition of prison art including drawings, painting and poems, while Watercolor Gallery opened its doors to the public (albeit a seemingly suddenly much older audience -- is that a baby stroller?), offering not only their full gallery for perusal but a smooth musical accompaniment provided by boomer band Jade Road.

Back on the south side of Penn at MCG, ceramics artist David Deily's brooding, shiny yet somehow delicate work drew a steady crowd with a busking guitarist in the antechamber and the promise of $20 (and markedly unique) coffee mugs. The Cabaret at Theater Square was open as well, adding mellow classical ensemble G-Strings to an already refined backdrop.

Rightly anticipating lingering crowds, the 5-to-9 event had two after-parties, one revolving around an installation art set-up at the Wood Street gallery, featuring a DJ (and robotic, romance-addled and cursive writing wheelchairs), and the other around a band performance below the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery at 937 Liberty Ave.

The Wood Street experience was as mellow, laid back and contemplative as the Liberty Avenue affair was crowded and energetic. The front room of the space -- which most often serves as a theater -- was devoted to an idling crowd, seemingly ever-poised to chain smoke, queuing up in ragged bunches to contribute $2 for the beer before diving back into the rear to sway-mosh (all of the crowd vibe with none of the violence!) with the nodding and unwashed masses.

The group, performing soundly crowd-pleasing and bass-heavy thrumming alt-rock, is listed as The Meisha-Whitetail Experience, Centipede E'est and The Pittsburgh Sound, though it doesn't seem clear to many in the crowd which is which is which. Projections of patterned characters and fragmented scientific diagrams of centipedes arcing over the crowd's outstretched limbs play over the stage's backdrop.

This year's Gallery Crawl again demonstrated the fun that is sometimes inherent to variety, the arts scene so many take for granted in Pittsburgh and the wonderful impromptu camaraderie occasionally bred by things subtly educational and mostly free.

To get myself back on track after last week's foray into NYC club life, I resolved to go someplace uniquely Pittsburgh, and rather than assume that means going to The Boardwalk, elected to return to one of Pittsburgh's oft-overlooked club venues -- Cozumel Restaurante Mexicano on Shadyside's Walnut Street.

First off, nothing about Cozumel makes any sense.

It is a really, honestly a restaurant, a full-out Mexican joint with all the trappings, the oversized margarita goblets, the Negro Modelo/Corona yin-yang of south of the border cerveza, the latino barstaff's authentically liltingly accented spoken cadence, the oversized cheese-smothered and flour wrapped foodstuffs.

During normal business hours, that is.

After hours, though, for at least the past three years, Cozumel has carved a unique niche -- that of the Near East End Nightclub -- only matched, or even remotely paralleled, by one other venue, Club Havana on Ellsworth Avenue. They've accomplished this by bringing in a wide array of guest DJ's spinning hip-hop, salsa, reggae and pretty much any thing rump-shake-worthy, as well as by capitalizing on the nearby Carnegie Mellon and Pitt student communities (who would, quite logically, rather not have to make the journey to the South Side, Strip District or Station Square just to find a place to dance.)

So as to not lose out on the underage crowd, everyone is carded at the door and those over 21 are given fluorescent yellow wristbands. Plus, the entire bar area is cordoned off on both sides with two employees stationed on each side to keep the young-uns away from the alcohol and we old-timers from lurching out onto the dance floor with our margaritas.

Which reminds me. I'm 25, and I'm just about the oldest person in the entire place. The crowd feel is somewhere between the bygone days of Fat Cat's in the Strip and an AKA sorority party -- Pelle Pelle button-ups, SouthPole jeans and, for some unknown reason, flat-brimmed (most with size stickers still on them) Boston Red Sox caps in every color imaginable, including solid orange and mountain camouflage. There's a lot of distressed denim and open-backed, shiny tie-up blouses on the female side of the aisle, plus novelty T-shirts from apparent "Seinfeld" and Paris Hilton fans: "They're real and they're spectacular," reads one, and "That's hot!" is emblazoned on another.

And, of course, another offering from the folks at "Stop Snitching" Inc., this one designed like a Do Not Enter sign. No throwback jerseys, as they are considered pretty tired at this point.

Large groups of late-teenage girls revolve in hermetically sealed rings of dance exclusivity -- you know what I'm talking about: no one's getting in and no one's getting out -- underneath the cute (which is to say tiny) 14-inch disco ball. If only I hadn't been so enraptured by the jumbo-sized one I'd seen in New York last week.

There are at least four sections to the danceable portion of the club. The main floor under the disco ball, a stepped portion at the back with rows of chairs (where guys alternately observe the crowd and receive impromptu lap-dancy overtures from the occasional girl). Then there's another raised section, where one of the worst games of pool I've ever witnessed is being conducted, and finally a large side section off the main dance floor, where those who refuse to dance (mostly guys -- why do we so often play to stereotype?) stand and scowl.

Margaritas back in the roped off bar aisle are $5 a pop and come in 12-ounce Solo cups. I see strawberry and lime -- no weird novelty mango or guava variations -- go out, and pair after pair of sloe gin-spiked Corona, which glow rosily in the dim light. The bartenders, though there are only two of them, deal deftly with the crush of patrons and (get this) blending every margarita individually in an Oster blender. Very impressive.

The cover was $7, and the place was pretty packed from 11 on. The DJ did a pretty good job of mixing up old school and more recent hip-hop and the crowd was appreciative and knowledgeable.

Extremely knowledgeable.

For instance, there were two dance-floor rushes during the evening, for "There's Some Hos in This House," and Cajmere's "It's Time for the Percolator." It should be said that there is hardly a person in the crowd who was even in middle school when either of these songs first ramped up a club crowd, but it does speak to the musical education of the average Cozumel dancer's hip-hop pedigree. They even knew the words to most of the songs -- everything from 2 Live Crew's "(Hey) We Want Some...," (and yes, the girls sung along as well) which dates to 1986, through the timeless "Big Poppa" (1995) and Lil' Wayne's "Fireman" from just last year. That's 30 years of hip-hop.

Hats off to the DJ. Hats off to the crowd. I'll be back.

For reasons beyond my control (though, I'm not at all complaining) this particular Saturday night finds me in Manhattan. While not at all the stated purpose of my trip, I would be more than slightly remiss (as someone who's job it is, to visit clubs) if I did not avail myself of the opportunity to stay out until an obscene hour and do my best to, if not personally engage in some brand of excessive foolishness, to at the very least witness something along that line. But I had to see the football game first. This was accomplished at the Park Avenue Country Club, which, while sounding like some Westchester WASP-tastic watering hole, is actually a huge and ever-so-slightly swank sports bar.

I can now say that there is perhaps no better way to start an evening than watching the Pats lose. To the Broncos, no less. After indulging in a one-man -- and some would say, entirely unnecessary -- "Here We Go Steelers" rendition upon watching our too-often silver-bullet adversaries go down in flames, I and this friend-of-a-friend-style group of girls (most of whom, in the bridge-and-tunnel tradition, actually turned out to be from New Jersey) plus others met in the bar. We then elected to continue the evening at a nearby (in the New York City sense, which means we hoofed it from 27th to 22nd) club called Rock Candy at E. 21st between Broadway and Park.

Now a brief and general note on clubbing in New York City:

Presumably due to the proximity of a potentially limitless clientele, New York clubs, in sharp contrast to Pittsburgh clubs, are all about population management. It is not too few customers that will lead to a club's death, but rather, too many. Instead of ushering in more and more people with radio-DJ tie-ins, "College Nights" "Ladies' Nights" and so forth, New York clubs, far more often, conspire to be hidden from the bulk of the population. They leak news of their existence to select demographics and tie entry (and I can't emphasize this enough) to who you know and what list you can get on, to say nothing of elaborate velvet rope barricading and burly Eastern European/West African bouncers. An over-popular club quickly develops a reputation for being "popular" which, remember, in NYC is a very bad thing, and also is impossible to get into because everybody's trying to get in every night.

So the story was supposed to be that one of the girls had a handful of "plus-one" guest spaces reserved on a private party list. This is the whole reason I elected to join them. You spend enough nights standing in the freezing cold actually hoping (and failing) to give some guy 20 bucks so you can hang out in an environment best described as a party hosted by the president's fraternity at Yale with a DJ imported from Queens thrown into the mix, and well ... you won't want to do it again.

We were in line for 45 minutes.

The bouncers in these situations are always the problem and maybe at some point in the future I'll examine why that is so often the case. But suffice it to say that between the birthday girl (that's whose list we were supposed to be on) coming out to vouch for us, neckless gentlemen elbowing their way in front of us, and the bouncers letting people (read: extremely attractive women) in in increasingly clumsy attempts to get in their good graces, we were lucky to get in at all.

I feel even worse for the guys who spent the first half-hour right behind us in the line. One of the bouncers just came out and said, "No single guys are getting in tonight. None. We can't do it."

I felt at the same time lucky there were only two guys in our group of seven and oddly oppressed, as if my gender was seen as cheap, overplentiful and generally unwanted.

The cover was supposed to be $10 (though I hardly believe it) but since they found us on a list we just got hand-stamped and strolled in.

The place isn't huge, about 50 yards deep and 40 wide with a raised VIP section off to the left side, a huge disco ball with automatically swiveling lights focusing on it and spinning away in rhythm, and three bars -- one by the entrance, one at the back and one in the VIP.

The disco ball really stands out, and a tighter cluster of revelers, fancying themselves worthy of partying like rock stars, gathers underneath. At the main bar by the entrance, two lemon drops and a single gin and tonic for my companions sets me back $29, while the minimum credit card tab is $50 -- a fantastically shady but I imagine inestimably lucrative bit of business practice. The high price of drinks forces one to use a credit card and the card minimum forces (after sticker shock resuscitation) the purchase of a second round.

But the good news is that the DJ is fantastic. He lights through '90s reggae dance hall hits, like "Everyone Falls In Love" and "Champion" throwing in rap bangers like "Lean Back," "Bring 'Em Out," "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," even at one point reaching back through some sort of temporal rift in time for "It Takes Two."

But his (I shouldn't assume; maybe her) real genius is that no more then 45 seconds of the most well-known portion of the song, whether hook or verse, is ever played. It keeps the whole crowd dynamic, engaged and guessing -- hardly ever, in fact, leaving the dance floor. Which is good, considering how much a repeat trip to the bar could cost you.

Time flew, I lost about 3 pounds in salt water on the floor and didn't end up leaving until 10 to 4 in the morning. I dropped the girls off somewhere in Midtown and ended the night listening to the cabbie chew them out in absentia over his shorted tip.

I ended up covering it for him (and them). It's bad karma to wrong a late-night cabbie.

The year begins at Sanctuary ...

I wasn't expecting much, to tell you the truth.

If you believe "Auld Lange Syne" about New Year's Eve, the entire event is supposed to focus around spending quality time with your friends and reminiscing about the good times -- neither of which are particularly likely in a club.

But Sanctuary has been a popular Pittsburgh spot for years, and if they're throwing one last "we're-going-out-of-business" shindig, I figure it's sure to be an event.

Or that was my thinking when I first decided to go.

When I got to the doors and told them my name, the two doormen and the two gentlemen checking "the list" found my name after a couple of minutes of what seemed to be fairly legitimate frustration. As I passed them going through the doors, one chided the other about how long finding my name had taken.

"I don't even care, tonight; we're going out of business, man," said the second, to the first.

Yet an hour later on the dance floor, the DJ demands more of the crowd (is the club DJ never satisfied?), reminding dancers that Sanctuary will be closed for renovation and that he "needs to hear more noise than that."

So, maybe it was just a "we're-closing-for-renovations" event -- although the club's Web site, www.sanctuarypittsburgh.com, says this was goodbye. I certainly hope the doorman figured that out before his indifference gave way to poor service.

Not that any of that mattered very much in the end. If you're familiar with Sanctuary's layout, there are three levels: the first, where the main bar and dance floor are; the upstairs, where the "Last Supper's" V.I.P. section (only 50 bucks to drink all night!) was; and the basement, where another bar, bathrooms, lounge seating and a couple of TV's (Giants/Raiders, anyone?) dominate.

Most of the first floor is visible from either the main stairs or the upstairs balcony. The dance floor runs right up next to the bar on on side of the first floor, and a row of small standing tables behind the columns that support the balcony on the other side.

New Year's Eve hats and horns were set out on the tables and the bar. 93.7 K-Rock co-sponsored the event and supplied the DJ. The party kicked off at 8, so I showed up at 9.

For the first hour and a half it seemed like my low expectations were in order, though there were slightly more women than men from the very beginning, which is always good news. Too high a ratio of guys to girls stalls a club in a way too many women never can, and I don't mean by lowering the chances any one particular straight male will meet a receptive female. I mean it leads to an overabundance of testosterone, which some would say leads to a more hostile environment ... and everyone would say leads to an empty dance floor.

When's the last time you saw a dance floor dominated by single straight men dancing among themselves? I don't care how many times you play "Golddigger," you're not going to see it.

So that was a good sign. Also, hats off to Sanctuary for managing to keep a fairly diverse clientele for these years. It's never been a pure college club, yuppie's haunt, hip-hop club or cougar/codger convention.

Also, this club has always been, as far as its fashion sense, a place that's fairly untucked-oxford-with-designer jeans and polishable shoes, (hair gel is not optional, but required) for the guys and halter-blouse-with-"sorority-slacks" (tattoo at base of spine also is not optional) for the girls. Sorority slacks, if you're wondering, only come in black, though spandex is generally added to taste. They are often paired with a pair of high-heeled black leather boots, which enjoy an even less appropriate nickname.

Shortly after the dance floor had reached critical mass (a young woman just behind me turned to her companion and threatened, "I will go out there and dance by myself"), the naked woman showed up.

Admittedly she wasn't "slap-her-and-put-her-in-an-incubator" naked; but instead, sort of "Eve" naked, wearing at least three strategically placed leaves (pasted?) on her body. Maybe four. Plus the snake.

Yes. There's that. She was holding what looked like a 3-year-old ball python in her right hand, rocking her hips smoothly as she stood on the top of the main bar.

It didn't have the effect one might have expected.

At first it was a sort of polarizing effect on the dance floor. Every guy rotated himself between 40 and 200 degrees to get a better look. Then nothing. No crowd of guys at the bar. Not a single arm extended to point or exclaim.

In fact, over an hour later when Eve actually lost a leaf and became legitimately "half-naked," there was still no noticeable effect. It was as if some particularly spirited party-goer had taken it upon herself to take off her clothes and dance on the bar, and everyone in the club was just trying to be polite.

Actually, the only consistently troubling aspect of the party was the DJ. Now there was nothing wrong with the DJ. But that only occurred to me after sitting here and thinking about it for a bit.

The dance floor is necessarily small at Sanctuary. There's just not a lot of real estate to work with, and the bar is right out there as well. So what you get is a crush of people 1-to-4 deep all along the dance floor, trying to get to the bar, and all of the "dance-floor-undecideds" backing up right behind them, trying to watch the floor.

Now, if a consistent sort of music played, some of the undecideds would move off, realizing that they are never going to dance, thus clearing some space for more people to dance.

But the DJ can't let that happen.

The DJ has to please everybody. So Usher's "Yeah" goes on just before Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Livin' on a Prayer" leads "In Da Club."

As one might imagine, this has a mixed effect on party-goers. First, the dance floor clears a bit, because the people who can dance realize they can't dance to hair metal. The people who can't dance just sort of sway in place for a bit, then, everyone starts singing along. So as a DJ, you have the choice between maximum audience participation and maximum dancing. Two very different things.

At some point, Pittsburgh DJs will have to decide.

In spite of that, "Last Supper" was a more than worthwhile club experience. Everyone I spoke to seemed to be having a good time (the $50 V.I.P. tickets seemed to be popular), and even though it was quite crowded from 11-12:15, things cleared up shortly thereafter.

Here's hoping renovations lead to an even better club.