Sadly, (though mostly due to my being a student until very recently), the longest I have consecutively worked anywhere is actually the downtown Minneapolis bar at which
I was a bouncer for six months before leaving for Chicago. No closing-down/lay-offs here - I've found the alcohol industry does just as well during recession as it does in boom times. Funny how certain job markets are not really affected by economic swings - one of the other guys I did door with was a mortician by day and a bar employee by night - talk about economic invulnerability.
Anyway, what follows are some of my tales from my bouncing days. There's nothing quite like spending every Friday and Saturday night dealing with ass-drunk people while stone sober yourself. Kind of reminds me of high school. Consider this like a journal - if I had kept a journal. I was usually too busy checking IDs or carrying drunk people out of the bar.
Friday, July 19th - My first day of work. I was trained for 15 minutes and then thrown out the door to check IDs. Like I have any idea what I'm doing. So I look at birthdays and expiration dates and then just let everyone into the bar. One guy handed me a post-it note with a smiley face on it and his name. That used to work at the Keg in Evanston, right?
Saturday, July 20th - My second day at work, and still not a single barroom brawl! What gives? I thought the bar business was supposed to be all getting hit with pool cues and having 18 year old girls trying to make out with you to get in. Oh well. The manager says our bar tends to have a fairly calm atmosphere with fewer fights than many of the other downtown bars. I guess that means more just-standing-around time, which I am obviously OK with. Good thing there are like 50 TVs to watch. God bless ESPN. Also one guy puked a waterfall of chunder down the stairs tonight, but I didn't have to clean it up. I just had to make sure he left.
Most of August - Nothing happened. Bars suck during the summer.
Friday, August 30th - Lesson to young-looking people trying to get into bars - I'm sorry, but even if you're 21, a credit card does not count as ID. People keep trying to come into the bar with this, and don't seem to understand when we don't let them in. We're bouncers, not ATMs. That card does not have your picture on it, unless you're extremely deformed and somehow look just like the VISA logo. One guy laughed and said it was a bribe, and I asked him if it looked like I had a cash swipe down the middle of my chest. I think the joke missed him though - he stared blankly at me for a while and then shuffled off down the street to get rejected by other bars.
Saturday, September 14th - A night of firsts. I took my first ID tonight (after three months, yeah, I know, sad), this atrocious disgrace to fake IDs everywhere, and the poor girl just made a sad face and walked away. I also had friends come in for the first time tonight… good timing since I also carried my first person out of the bar the hard way. So I had a cheering section as I came lugging this guy up the stairs in a headlock. We weren't going to throw him down the stairs, but when we got outside he got a hand loose and sort of punched one of the other bouncers. So obviously he took a tumble after that. He tried to grab my shirt on the way down so I have a little stretched spot on my door shirt collar now. Yay, a battle scar!
Friday, September 27th - The child psychologist Jean Piaget once found that children under the age of two don't remember things if you take them out of their sight. Drunk people are the same way. They are also very stubborn - a bad combination when you're trying to get them to exit the bar at closing time. Their favorite is to tell you they're walking out the door right now, then continue to drink and talk as you're standing right there watching them.
ME: Sorry sir, I need you to go upstairs now. You can take your drink as far as the door if you like.
GUY: Yeah yeah, I'm going right now.
(A moment. The guy resumes talking to his friends)
ME: Sir? I thought you said you were leaving.
GUY: I am! See? I'm leaving.
(He just stands there. Then he completely forgets about me and returns to talking to his friends)
ME: Uh… clearly you're not. Clearly you're just standing there.
GUY: What? Fine, now I'm leaving. (He just stands there. To his friends) Man, what an asshole.
ME: Um, I'm standing right here.
Saturday, September 28th - More dumb people trying to get in without ID. Conversation (or lack thereof) went something like this:
ME: I'm sorry sir, I can't let you in without proper ID.
GUY: But it has my picture on it!
ME: It's a Bally's card. It needs to be official State-issued identification.
(He hands over something else)
ME: And this is a bus pass. It doesn't even have your name on it.
(He hands over something else)
ME: And this is a playing card.
Saturday, October 12th - Tonight some guy missed the toilet in the men's bathroom… but not with puke. Yeah, it was much, much worse. And he didn't just miss the toilet - the stall looked like this guy had lost a feces snowball fight. It was all over the wall, there was even some on the ceiling. The bouncers all decided we would quit if someone tried to make us clean it up, but fortunately, that god-forsaken duty fell to the guy running the pool tables that night. It took 25 minutes, but the GM paid him 50 dollars for doing it. It's hard to say whether or not it was worth the emotional scarring.
Saturday, October 26th - Watched a crack addict beat the hell out of a guy about twenty feet down the street from the entrance of our bar, though we didn't do anything about because of our slogan "not our property, not our problem". We have enough stupid people to deal with within the premises, thank you very much. For some reason the other guy didn't try to fight back - I think he was a yuppie - but he sure did take a beating. Finally I guess he got sick of being punched in the face and came over to us so we called the cops for him. The cops were there in about three seconds, took one look at the crack addict guy, and put him in the back of the squad car. Guess they recognized him.
Friday, November 8th - Usually I'm able to stay pretty neutral about all the dumb people I have to deal with in the course of the night, but one guy I threw out tonight really pissed me off. Partly because he wouldn't leave, but mostly because he tried to grab my crotch as I escorted him out. Who does that? He was extremely hammered and swearing at me all the way up the stairs from the basement, which is fine, but there's a short list of things you can do to really make a bouncer upset with you. Hitting on his girlfriend, fighting back… but trying to grab crotch is right at the top. Needless to say I opened the door with this guy's head and he won't be coming back any time soon.
Saturday, November 23rd - Some guy tried the old "distract the bouncer, run into the bar" trick tonight. I don't think I've ever heard of this working, but you've got to give the guy credit for trying. Except then he tried to argue with me when I dragged him out, which was annoying. It was the classic "I'll wait here, my buddy has to go get my ID" line, until we got real busy, and I saw him inching further and further away into the bar out of the corner of my eye. Then he was gone, but I caught up to him running down the stairs, not at all amused.
ME: Alright, you're out of here.
GUY: What! Whatever do you mean?
ME: You just snuck in! We all saw you.
GUY: Now you're questioning my credibility!
ME: What credibility? You just tried to run down the stairs!
GUY: This is disrespectful!
ME: What are you talking about? You just tried to run down the stairs like a three-year-old.
GUY: You're questioning my credibility!
ME: No, I'm telling you to get shut the hell up and get out of my bar.
Thursday, December 5th - Since I now work at a bar, I figured it was only legitimate that I should go hang out there sometimes and reap the benefits being on the "ins" of the alcohol industry provides. So my friend Sean and I stopped in Monday night before a musical writing session to have a few beers. And by "a few", I mean like two - unfortunately working downtown means you have to actually drive to the bar, kind of limiting the damage two people (one of which had given blood that day) can do. It was a nice surprise though when the bill came and read "Seven dollars plus three dollars minus seven dollars equals three dollars." That's my kind of math. Needless to say we left a nice tip. Hurrah for bar benefits.
Monday, December 9th - Since I now work at a bar, I figured it was only legitimate that I should also go there for my birthday, which it almost was today. Unfortunately, despite my later intense drunkenness, I was only granted one drink on the house the whole night. Boo for bar benefits.
Tuesday, December 31st - Had to work New Year's Eve, a fate worse than death. It was ridiculous crowded - I threw more people out for one reason another than I think I ever have before. Took one guy's terrible ID, which I kind of felt bad about since it was New Year's, but it really was an awful ID. And then I left at 1 and got hammered in a hot-tub until 6am, so the best was made of it.
Friday, January 3rd - Having now accepted a job in Chicago, tonight was my last night at the bar. Amazing how dealing with dumb drunk people every weekend for six months has a way of making you more surly. I was just looking for asses to kick tonight, unfortunately the crowd was very docile. I threw one guy out just for wandering into the back room by accident, which I almost reconsidered until he started calling me names, at which point his night was definitely over. Anyway it was actually kind of sad leaving my fellow bouncers - they're good guys and we went out for a drink afterwards… at which point my car was towed for 225 dollars, basically negating any bouncing money I'd made in the past month. Oh well. At least I had no qualms with finding the guy who called my car in and absolutely ripping him a new one. It was quite cathartic. Perhaps being surly is good for something.
