131 Woes

A comment about my last post made me stop and think about what I wrote and why I wrote it. I thought and thought about the best way to phrase it without pissing anyone off, and then I realized that would only be going against the fundamental reason why I write this blog annonymously in the first place.

First, drunk people do stupid shit. It's true. I've outlined it extensively on this blog, and I don't think anyone is arguing that fact. But how we, as bar employees, react to the aforementioned "stupid shit" has everything to do with whether we end up in the news the next day.

The bar I work at has never had a guy hitting a girl with a beer bottle or one kid slashing anothers throat over bullshit. This is because we, as doorguys, do our job and we do it well. We're picky at the door. We're in constant communication. Our tolerance for bullshit antics and misbehaving is set to a very low level. We don't drink at work. We have a great ownership and management team who have our backs when things happen.

Don't get me wrong, we're not the downtown utopia of bars, but I think things are pretty damn close to great. You should know if you read this blog that shit does happen where I work, and sometimes it can get extremely violent, but that's part of the reason we're here - to stop those things from escalating to a point to where people are getting seriously injured. And to that I say that we do a fucking stand up job. I work with a great staff and they deserve all the credit for it.

That being said, I've been to Level a few times to check it out. I don't personally know any employees there, however, I've done this for some time and I've certainly eyed their floor and door staff the few times I've walked through the front door. They caught my attention, and not in a positive way. If you remember awhile back when Level opened, I said that they would have their hands full when they opened an 18+ spot in the old location of Insomnia. I think I was right in my predictions.

But I'm not blaming the door/floor staff for their problems. I'm not blaming management or ownership, either. I'm not even blaming their under 21 customers. The truth is, I don't know who's fucking up over there, but somebody definitely is. If things like that are happening so much in that club, then maybe it's time to get a metal detector wand like I saw at The Library recently. I don't know about you, but I don't want to go into a club where I need to be patted down and scanned with a wand. What the fuck is downtown turning into?

Drunk people do stupid shit, but it's up to the staff to determine what stupid shit is acceptable: screaming drunk sorority girls or slashing customers with knives and bottles.

News

Level 131 continues to make the news. First a slashed throat, and now a guy bashing a girl over the head with a beer bottle. What's going on over there?

Adventures with Idiots

So there's a guy who recently was thrown out of our bar. Twice, actually. This particular gentleman thought that it was okay for him and his buddy to get incredibly drunk and yell in each others face in the middle of a rather crowded area of the bar that's like a gold mine, if your version of gold is fights.

It's a bottlenecked area where people are constantly bumping into other people, which inevitably leads to some jerk-off trying to prove how tough he is by fighting someone who accidentally shouldered him while trying to slip by, drink in hand.

But I digress.

After the second time he was asked to leave for trying to pick a fight with a former employee who happened to be there, the decision was made for him to be permanently banned. On the walk out the second time, he repeatedly called one of the employees tough guys and told him to fuck off. Being there in person for this part of the incident, I had had enough of this particular idiot and banned him.

Obviously, when informed of our decision, he wasn't happy. The conversation with his friend the next night was even worse.

"Yo...yo, you know I gots respect for you." He said as he offered me his hand. "You know me. But it's okay for him to come in now?"

"Um, no? I thought I just said he was banned," I said.

"I promise he'll behave. I promise!" he pleaded.

"I'm sorry dude, but the decision's been made. He can't come in anymore."

The guy looked a little disapointed for a minute, with his banned friend waiting across the sidewalk hoping for a change in the situation. When they realized it wasn't going to be changed, the banned friend was left out on the sidewalk while the rest of their crew of idiots went inside to drink for the night. Friends to the end, apparently.

A few minutes later, another employee came out to speak with me about the banned guy, and I told him I wasn't changing my mind. This wasn't an issue for my co-worker, who wasn't familiar with the situation. Apparently the friend was busy inside, trying to get his idiot buddy in, who was still waiting on the sidewalk, hoping for a change.

This didn't work in their favor.

I was dumb enough to believe this was the end of it, so I was rather suprised to notice idiots friend speaking with the owner, of all people, about the situation some time later in the night. The owner came up to me to speak about why he was banned, and it only took a moment to explain why and that was that.

Conversation with idiots friend shortly thereafter went something like this:

"Yo, dawg. It's cool he can't come in. I understand," he said, offering me his hand for the upteenth time.

"Really? Because if you understood then why'd you go to two seperate people besides me when I already told you my answer?"

"Nah man, you know I gots respect for you! I would never do nothin' to diss you, bro!"

"The thing is, man, you don't have any respect for anyone. You tried to go over my head to get my decision changed, and it didn't work. Now you can't come in either, retard."

"Awww...shit, man!"

I'm Back

I apologize for my unexpected and unannounced leave of absence recently. Cutting straight through my bullshit excuses and promises, I won't offer any halfassed explainations to why I haven't written on here lately, but suffice to say, the world of downtown and drunk frat boys still remains as strong as it ever was. I, unfortunately, continue to remain directly in the epicenter as we speak.

Our last parting left us around Twilight, where I spent the majority of my night running to fights and escorting out drunk people throughout the evening. Apparently, 12 hours of drinking doesn't agree with everyone (myself not included, thank you) and after your 18th or 19th jagerbomb, the need arises to fight anything within arms reach of you. I can compare that night to our recent Alabama game night where I spent the majority of my time and frustration hauling out goofballs that decided they'd rather wrestle around on the ground with a random guy than spend their time talking to the hot girls. Why? We may never know. It doesn't matter how hard you hit the other guy, we're there to toss you out and now nobody's going home with you at this point.

Since then, graduation has come and gone and the wonderful weekend that accompanied it was filled with the usual drunk graduates/parents combo, which is always a treat to watch. Parents trying to relive their college days and failing miserably, some of who ended up escorted out and - yes even this - tossed in the gutter. As doorguys, we don't discriminate. A 19 year old drunken shithead is just as bad as a 50 year old drunken shithead. They all go out in the same way, and if we needed to prove it to ourselves one last time, we did just that last Friday night.

Some other highlights of the weekend included me breaking a bottle in frustration behind the bar, screaming at our customers who the word "patience" did not exist in their vocabulary, cleaning up the mysterious "hidden vomit" that tends to place itself in between walls and furniture somehow, as well as a whole lot of binge drinking after work in order to relax a little bit and pretend that I didn't want to murder someone in front of our customers in order to make an example.

The high point, however, was my night - the exact one slips my mind, unfortunately - standing at the door alone in the rain for the duration.

And there you go. I've done some brainstorming recently for a few new posts, which seem to be harder and harder to come by as time goes on, but hopefully I'll have them up soon. No bullshit this time. I'm only saying soon. I hope.

Bullshit Update

I apologize for my recent absence and lack of anything notable on here lately. I could bullshit you and say I'm busy (which I always am) or say I've been drunk (which I have been), but the truth in the matter is that I just haven't had anything to write nor have I had any desire to try and write anything. Drunk people don't change and it's been the same story over and over that I've been writing about for a year and a half.

Regardless, I promise to have something new posted before the weekend is up.