Date: May 19, 2008 5:17:02 AM EDT
To: inyc@timeoutny.com
Subject: jobless, but i can dance.

I’m a broke NYU film student. I dance, I rave and I love the world HARD every weekend. I’ve always used your Clubs section to find solid electronic shows, and nothing makes me happier than exciting those around me. Is there any way I can turn these thrills into cash? I’m a handsome guy (I think), I talk to friends with ease and I want to get more people in touch with electronic music. How can I milk my situation?

David Ferino, East Village

When David, 21, wrote to TONY, he didn’t expect a reply—let alone a job. “I was broke and just wanted a fun way to make cash,” says the aspiring filmmaker and Peoria, Illinois, native. “I don’t care if you’re black, white, gay, straight, fat, skinny, rich, broke, whatever—if you’re dancing, you’re human enough to understand the beauty of letting go.” David talks a good game and he is handsome, but is nightlife really the life for him? We gave him three jobs to find out.

Gig No. 1: Shot boy
The first job we wrangle for David is at Happy Ending, where DJ Fucci, Glenn Marla and Sequinette, hosts of Wednesday’s avant-drag dance series Love Muscle, arrange for him to sell Espiritu-and-pineapple concoctions to partygoers; the tips are his to keep. David, clad in a rainbow-striped tank and captain’s hat (his staple accessory), arrives early to work the crowd. But after hustling for a bit, he starts to worry that some of the revelers are too flirtatious. “One Chilean dude started seriously dancing on me, but I stopped him,” he says. By night’s end, David has made $2 in tips—which comes as a disappointment: “I spent generously in the past week thinking I’d come out of this with at least $50.” DJ Fucci says David shouldn’t give up: “The industry is full of talented, experienced people who have been at it for a while—this was his first night! With some practice, he’d develop the flavor he needs to get paid.”

Gig No. 2: Go-go dancer
It’s Friday the 13th and David is scheduled to work as a go-go boy for the indie party Trash at 40 Ave C. He is visibly uncomfortable performing for the crowd, and when his bar-top moves fail to inspire tipping, he flips. “All day long I was having anxiety about this, dreading the idea of me in short shorts, dancing on top of a bar,” he says, adding that he’s already downed a fifth of a bottle of vodka. David disappears into the crowd and when we find him next, he’s lying facedown in someone else’s urine outside the bar. A few people try to help him to his feet, and he vomits everywhere. Party over.

Gig No. 3: Busker (sort of)
David was so freaked out by the Trash fiasco, he nixed round three, which involved dancing for change in front of Turntables on the Hudson. “You’re essentially saying, ‘Hey! I should be paid to look this good,’ ” he says, adding that dancing for tips feels too much like panhandling. “It’s desperate, and I don’t want to be desperate.” Though David is still committed to loving the club world hard every weekend, he’s positive he doesn’t want a job working in it. “The only thing that interests me now is videography,” he says. “Using a camera as a tool to ignite a party could be out-of-this-world fun.”

Got a problem? E-mail inyc@timeoutny.com and we might look into it.