One of the hottest parties in the city, Spunk, takes place at The Monster on Thursday nights and Pieces on Sunday nights. From speaking to Luis Gomez, the promoter and creator of this special celebration each week, I’ve decided this night just has to be a blast.
When, where and how do I find Spunk?
We have two parties. We have one on Thursday nights, which is at The Monster. The dance floor opens at 10 p.m. and stays busy until 4 a.m. The DJ is Johnny Mack, and the hostess is Honey Davenport. It’s a more structured show. It’s not like the usual lap dance, go-go party in town. It’s actually a structured event. We have got duel poles—there’s pole dancing on the sides. At 12 we do what’s known as the “Tiny Towel Contest.” So we put the dancers in the smallest towel we can possibly get away with. At 2 a.m. we move to what started out as the “Best Ab” contest and turned into the “Best Asset” contest. Basically the hostess picks four or five, up to seven dancers, and they show off their best feature, whatever that is. Whether they’re a pole dancer, whether they dance, they get about 30 seconds to show off, and the audience votes for a winner, and that winner takes home 50 bucks every week. It’s hosted. It’s not just a room full of go-go boys dancing. It’s fast-paced, it’s a fast night, and more of a show. There is also the lap dancing in the back, and that’s always very busy. Every week we feature between 30 and 40 dancers, and we rotate through an inventory. We pull from a pool of close to 80 guys who work in the city.
Where do you get your dancers from?
Well, originally I used to be a dancer. I worked for Adonis. We have a good relationship with Tim from the Adonis Lounge. We share dancers, so if Tim brings in someone from LA, he’ll let us know—or Miami or wherever. He’ll call us and ask us if we want him for Thursday. I used to be a dancer, so I met a lot of people. The party is so successful, and it’s really a lot of word of mouth. We also have a Sunday night party now too, which is only about six months old. At our Sunday show, Holly Dae is the hostess and the DJ is Xavier Mazara. It’s around the corner at Pieces. We follow the same format with the dancers. We have the tiny towel show. There’s only one pole, and there’s lap dancers in the back. We have 12 to 15 dancers. It’s a smaller version of the Thursday night show.
Is it Latin based?
Well, I am Latino. There are a lot of Latino dancers, but we have a pretty well-rounded amount of dancers.
Tell me about the dancers, since you were one.
Well, the boys, we have a little of everything. We have Latino, American, we have from Spain, from Italy. We have some white boys. I didn’t want to make the party all about Latinos. We have everything. Even this week we’re going to have, for the first time, an Asian. He looks just like a porn star; he’s very nice. We don’t have a favorite. We have everything.
Tell me about when you used to dance.
I used to dance for Adonis in Brooklyn, then we moved to Greenpoint, then we moved to the Upper East Side. Then in 2012 I decided to have my own show, my own crowd. My idea was to have a show. I wanted to find a way to keep the energy high. It was good for the bar, because people spend money at the bar. We do have a show, and the drag queen is very, very important; that’s what I think. For example, we’ve had Sherry Vine—she’s amazing—and Coco DuBois. My goal is to have a Friday or Saturday. That is my goal. Thursday is good, Sunday is hard, but if I had a Friday…it would be like, OMG!
I hope that you get one soon.
Yeah, I hope so. So far I have Thursdays. It’s getting closer to the weekend!
