St. Regis

We got to the St. Regis early, around four o’clock. Between Valentine’s Day and President’s Day weekend, it was always going to be impossible to even sit down, but this was our one night of drinking during an otherwise wholesome trip to my friend’s house in Snowmass. Snowmass is a beautiful ski mountain paired with a golf course where old people have condos, and Aspen is the single douchiest ski destination in the world. Within Aspen, the St. Regis hotel is the center of the scene. An offshoot of a club in the Hamptons hosts an “apres-ski party” outside filled with people who did not come to Aspen to ski, and a beer costs twenty-five dollars. If Hunter S. Thompson could see Aspen now, he’d blow his brains out a second time. Every time I visit, I have fun.

I was there with my friend John, whose preferred scene is decidedly less douchey, our respective wives, and a slightly younger friend Roman. Everyone calls him Ro, which he quietly dislikes. Ro coined the term “semi,” which is short for a semi-professional: a girl who doesn’t literally have sex for money, but flies to high-end locations on trips that are paid for by wealthy men, and inevitably ends up sleeping with them. Ro is also European, which was invaluable in convincing the Dutch waiter to let us sit down near the fireplace ahead of a ten party waitlist. All it took was the spirit of European brotherhood and sixty dollars.

Even with the Dutch connection, the three men had consumed a solid six beers each before we sat down with our cowboy hat-wearing wives to eat. Every girl in the entire hotel is beautiful, wearing a cowboy hat and western themed attire like a costume party, while the preponderance of guys look like schlubs. The average girl is probably about my age or younger, and the average guy is about fifteen years older. I was wearing my one article of clothing that I really like, a dark green coat lined with black shearling. It is enormously heavy and makes me feel like I’m walking around inside a Tiger tank. When I took it off, Ro put it on over his brown hoodie with SUNDANCE printed on the front. “Now I feel like I can pull a semi,” he half-joked. It suited his slender frame, beefed him up a little.

Pizzas and champagne arrive, and we briefly discussed alternate life career tracks. Ro said he would’ve studied jurisprudence if not for ending up at a hedge fund like myself and John. “Jurisprudence is the study of the foundation for the laws we have, rather than the laws themselves,” he explained. I know what jurisprudence is because I have a philosophy degree. Everyone knows what jurisprudence is. I mention this to Ro, which results in him explaining the meaning of increasingly simple terms to me for the rest of the night.

Our dinner was punctuated by Ro circling around and introducing himself to the hat-topped semis throughout the dining room. This approach had two problems. One, he is in his mid twenties, which made him the youngest man at the St. Regis excluding the staff. Two, the semis were, ultimately, semis, who were there with the men footing the bill for their vacation. This dynamic reached a fever pitch when he approached a six-foot-tall girl with the smallest waist I’d ever seen, dressed in a skin-tight black western-themed bodysuit and a Kemosabe cowboy hat. A “twelve out of ten.” No one was more impressed than our wives. She was getting along well with Ro for a couple sentences, but a bald man wearing a blue ski jacket who looked like he lived through World War I beckoned her over with a look of vague annoyance, and she scampered off. Heartbreaking.

Altogether, the scene is nauseating, like a David Yarrow photo come to life. It’s maximalist and unapologetic, filled people who act without self reflection. I think part of the reason rich douchebaggery gets such a bad reputation is the expectation that members of the establishment in a society ought hold themselves back a little, while those who represent minority splinter groups are expected to lean into that identity as much as possible. The mainstream is gauche, and there is no more mainstream desire than conspicuous consumption, so it feels off-putting when overindulged. A shitty DJ sets up shop in the lobby level above the restaurant, and everyone is drunk and having fun. I generally dislike loud noises and dancing, but we’re only coming here once, so might as well make the most of it. My beautiful wife is dancing with John’s, wearing white and black cowboy hats respectively. They are not semis, intelligent career girls, but with high emotional intelligence. I always thought I’d end up marrying one of the five quiet, unattractive girls who took advanced classes in high school. Fuck that shit. Life is good and I feel lucky.

At around eleven, the St. Regis winds down for the night, because the guests are not cool people who want to stay up particularly late. I know I’m not. The ladies have gotten tired and want to go home. There is no Uber in Aspen so they have to call some local taxi company to whisk them back to Snowmass.

The St. Regis is a haven of severed threads. Everyone is in fancy ski clothes, but most of the crowd didn’t ski that day. The semis are showered in expensive food, alcohol, and gifts, but end up with no money of their own. The wealth created by St. Regis patrons is divorced from talent and work; we met a stablecoin scam artist, a CEO’s entourage, a low-level website owner, no one who had done anything valuable or even interesting. Sex appeal is everywhere, but without any reproductive drive—the other men have a certain divorced feel to them, and while skiing is a family activity, the St. Regis is no place for children.

Ro, John, and I walk out into the twenty degree night. I take Ro’s coat as a continuation of the bit, since he’s still engulfed in mine. Now thoroughly inebriated, Ro is dying for a vape, which is unsurprising for a European Gen Z. Sadly, the gentleman at the dispensary informs him that Pitkin County has banned vape cartridges, and he’ll have to drive to neighboring Basalt for that. We enter Silver City, Aspen’s dive bar, and Ro is disappointed at the lack of semis—too many normal-looking people, not everyone is wearing a cowboy hat, drinks are only a medium rip-off rather than a comical absurdity.

We order beers and Ro explains the Law of Large Numbers to me. Fuck you Ro, but the bit is still funny. “We should start a hedge fund. You trade commodities, and I trade equities, and John can do, I don’t know, HR or something.” Back Office John is coined, idiotic humor but you need that once in a while, which is a reason to have younger friends. Then Ro turns around to see a beautiful mid from Denver. As they fall deeply in conversation, John and I shift to the other side of the bar, sitting on two big leather saddles. What seemed like an hour, but was surely less than thirty minutes, passes, and Ro returns glowing. Ashleigh, some seven years his senior, had criticized every aspect of his life—thinning hair, “fake job,” red face, too young. He loved it and scored a kiss on the cheek. Gen Z guys and millennial women are in some ways perfect for each other.

We get home to reheated Taster’s pizza, which is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. It’s only twelve-thirty, but for the two adults of the group, that’s late. Ro’s phone lights up, with a message from Aspen Ash. “You’re staying in Snowmass? I never go to Snowmass. Ever.”