The don of the Fruit Loop

"C'mere, bitch."

Watch what you ask for when inquiring after the whereabouts of Johnny Bacon, the promotions and marketing guru for Piranha nightclub. Tonight's a rare night: Bacon is actually partying inside the club he normally avoids during operating hours (unless he's running the numbers). But it's his 25th birthday. And you can glean he's been celebrating for quite awhile as he yanks your shirt and pulls you up the stairs toward his VIP room.

One feels hazed -- like Bacon is initiating you into his gay mafia -- once he ushers you into his corner suite, where about 10 people passing around various liquor bottles. Birthday boy loudly introduces the newcomer, and instructs his drunken guests to make the guest feel at home and "grab his dick." A fellow directly to my right does just that, and when I look at him incredulously, his hand retreats and he apologizes, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar -- only to latch onto my shellshocked cock yet again, this time with all the earnestness of the world's most thorough urologist.

This must be the secret handshake. Counter this with the only other times this reporter has dealt with Bacon: once over the phone, where he railed breathlessly against the main competitor of his venues -- he also promotes the attached 8 1/2 Ultralounge, as well as veteran gay club Gipsy across the street. Then, another time a month later back at an empty Piranha, during a break from filming a reality TV show, where Bacon sounded like a genuine businessman, diplomatically substituting the name "Krave" for the words "the club where I used to work."

Make no mistake: There's no love lost between Piranha/8 1/2/Gipsy trifecta (owned by Paul San Filipo) and the Strip-side Krave at Planet Hollywood's Miracle Mile Shops, a rivalry made even touchier given that Bacon used to promote for the latter entity. He left Krave to start his own business and later signed on with Piranha as an independent contractor shortly after its rocky opening in summer of 2006. Once at the new homo dance space, he flexed his marketing muscle and reached out to his vast Plaxo network of clubbers, associates and VIPs.

For Bacon's the sort of hyperfocused, tech-savvy promoter that seeks out the broadest clientele possible through the simplest of pitches, while also targeting underserved or even disenfranchised revelers to beef up a club's weekly schedule -- which has a boon for his clubs; Strip-adverse gay suburbanites pack 8 1/2 and Piranha throughout the week. "We just like to keep things very real and unpretentious," says Bacon. This doesn't mean he ignores tourists and VIPs. When a relative of one of the Maroon 5 guys was in town and seeking out a gay club, Bacon was called to take care of him. Concierge desks and even promoters of straight-identified clubs know him as a gay go-to guy.

And he still checks the numbers, be it attendance or drink special profits, all imperative to his marketing strategies. Piranha's top brass seemed reluctant to sign him on at first, but Bacon promised the goods. "I'm definitely a results-driven person," he says. "I will show you results. Don't even pay me for a month -- let me show you the results." Sure enough, the 8 1/2/Piranha complex had lines out the door once Bacon was aboard.

He then got ballsy. Bacon instituted a $20 cover for tourists to help make up for the dual venue's multimillion-dollar cost. He set up texts blasts not only for general clubbers, but for niche groups such as lesbians and Latinos to notify them of parties that catered specifically to them. This also plays into why he ensured that each dance space had its own unique genre focus each night of operation. House, for instance, is almost a constant at Piranha; hip-hop and top 40 reigns at 8 1/2.

Of late, Bacon is hoping to work his mojo on Gipsy, compensating for the fact the enduring danceteria is overdue for a renovation now that its sister venues are on their feet. Lesbians -- who have criminally never enjoyed a home bar of their own -- have benefitted; Saturday's promotion properly competes with Krave's "Candybar." Outside promoter IndieKrush has kickstarted the Fruit Loop's first indie/electro party, "Oh Snap!"; Bacon, who once lived in the hipster haven of Brooklyn, is eager to see this party blossom given his love for left-of-center dance/rock music. "Feeding culture to a city that could use a little more is a really cool thing." he says.

His ascendency in the gay scene is a no-brainer. He knows the region, having grown up here and in his native Arizona - his family has roots in Hollywood as well -- and his testing ground was New York City, fresh out of high school. Bacon camps and vamps it up, as witnessed above, but he can impressively revert back to networking mode with minimal slurrage after a couple rounds of shots. And, he can lure straight celebrities to his gay club. Britney Spears, Janet Jackson, Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee have all partied under-the-radar at Piranha.

Ambition abounds with Bacon beyond the Fruit Loop. He's launched www.gayvegas.com, which already draws Googling tourists and will be further tailored for the queer Vegas community, in sore need of a local online HQ. A multi-pronged nightlife promotional arm aimed at the hetero crowd, Make Me VIP, is gestating. Oh, and the reality show: A&E is currently filming a pilot centered around little people, and Bacon's pal Terra Jole -- aka Mini-Britney -- reprises a famous performance at Piranha.

And if he ever lost motivation, Bacon just recalls a chance meeting with a psychic back during his Krave days, who merely recommended he keep doing what he'd been doing, and good would surely come. "So every now and then, when I'd get down in the dumps, I'd remember that," he says. "I'm not crazy; I'm a skeptic. But there was something about her energy and I believe in energy ... it's gotten better and better every month, every day."