He’s! Going! All! The! Way!

We heart Dante Hall, and after meeting him at the Empire Room, well … he can X our factor anytime.

Now, we’re not normally jock sniffers. Nor are we really fans of anything that might remotely reek of trendoid clubness. However, we had heard that the Empire Room’s Monday-night Blo party (so called, the ad says, “because Mondays don’t have to suck”) was drawing quite the crowd — especially for its monthly theme shindigs. We do love the theme party — along with Blo’s $5 cover and $1 drinks — so we headed over for the July bash, which was deemed “A Midsummer’s Night Dream.”

Upon our arrival with Research Assistants Cece, Laura and Erik, we discovered that most of the patrons had interpreted the theme rather broadly; instead of dressing as characters from the play, they had seized upon the word dream and had come dressed in pajamas. Some of the guys wore wife beaters and pajama bottoms; a few added bathrobes. One couple dressed in white dress shirts and underpants. And, of course, many of the chicks were rocking the scanty negligee-and-angel-wings look (very Victoria’s Secret 2002). The bar was also theme-decorated; the walls were covered with white-wood lattice panels woven through with ivy, and swags of white fabric hung from the ceiling. A small fountain gurgled, and a platform with a stripper pole (which is brought out only on Mondays) stood on the dance floor, ready for some leg and crotch action.

We were most fascinated by the crowd, though, because of the plethora of sleek, glossy types in attendance. Leggy women in their ruffled Paris Hilton skirts were giving their guys lap dances in the front room, and the stripper pole was well-used in the back. The place wasn’t as packed as previous months, for some reason; one would have thought that the chance to don a camisole top would be hard for some chickies to pass up, but apparently it was. The rampant display of flesh and the wantonness of some of the patrons still offended some, though, such as Mackela, 24, and Sara, 27, who watched the lap dances from couches in the front room.

“I’m not coming back,” Sara, a paralegal, said. “It seems like you have to be on some sort of drug to be here. It’s too raveish.” Even though she was wearing a low-cut tank top, she disapproved of the scantier outfits, such as one woman’s white tank top and white boy-cut panties.

“Like, who leaves the house wearing something like that? She’s got the wrong intentions. Or low self-esteem,” she continued. (Which made us laugh, because that brought to mind Arrested Development‘s spoof of the Girls Gone Wild series: Girls With Low Self-Esteem.)

We soon met someone with no such problems: Teresa, 37, a cool blonde wearing a revealing white tank top. “I’m in a slutty shirt. That’s my normal funwear for Blo,” she said. She told us she’s a wholesale executive. “I’m actually a professional. Don’t let the slutwear fool you.”

We asked what the guy reaction had been to her clothing options.

“Guys are tools,” she said. “I chew ’em up and spit ’em out.” Emboldened by her frankness, we asked about her breasts.

“It’s about $4,200 worth. It’s supposed to be a small D, but it’s now double D’s,” she said. (That interview was brought to you by the letter D.)

Afterward, we went in search of another D — Mr. Hall, whom we heard was on the premises.

He was standing by the back bar, surrounded by women and drinking Grand Marnier on the rocks. We kept an eye on him, and when the women dispersed a bit, we made our way up to him. Sadly, he was not dressed as a wood sprite; instead, he was wearing a black hat and sunglasses. A pearl necklace (fake beads were strewn on the tables) hung around his neck. (Insert your own pearl necklace joke here.)

“Um, hi. I write for the Pitch. Can I interview you?” asked the Night Ranger.

Dante politely refused, saying he was at a club and didn’t want to be interviewed. Fair enough. The NR apologized for bothering him and was turning to leave when she felt a hand squeezing her shoulder.

“You’re real nice,” Dante said. Then he agreed to talk. In honor of the theme of the night, we asked him to describe the best dream he’s ever had.

Much like his performance on the field, he was quick with an answer. “I scored a touchdown and won the Super Bowl for the Chiefs. It was a defensive game. The kicker punted the ball to me, and I ran it for a touchdown. Of course, that was just a dream, since we haven’t made it to the Super Bowl.”

“Well, next year!” the NR drunkenly chirped.

“This year,” he gently corrected.

“What’s the worst pickup line you’ve gotten?” we asked.

“‘My little brother loves you. Can I have your autograph?'” he replied. “Then the person doesn’t even have a little brother!” Yeah, that’s lame, all right — talk about Dante’s hell. We thanked him for chatting with us, then wandered around some more. Later in the evening, as we passed near him again, he was all friendly-like (in that “Hey, I know you!” sort of way) and even started dancing with the Night Ranger. He stood fairly close and had one arm up near her shoulder. Of course, the NR excitedly told her co-workers the next morning that he grinded on her, but after piecing together the night with the RAs (yeah, multiple whiskey and Cokes made us a bit loopy), we determined that we had somehow dreamed up that incident. There was no groin contact; in fact, we couldn’t even flag him for illegal use of the hands.

Who’s lame now? Yeah, that’d be us. So we decided to do a bump and run, and we went home to dream about our own fantasy leagues.