Proximity

One of the fucked up things about being a bouncer is the sheer volume of people streaming past me into the club on any given night. There are so many people coming in, and since I'm a jaded asshole who's been doing this shit way too long, I don't even look at their faces anymore.

Go. Go. Go. Get the fuck away from me. Go. Go. Go.

The thing I don't stop to think about very often is whether I know any of them. Whether, in this great, big giant throng of idiots, there could be someone I know in there. Someone I've slept with. Someone who doesn't know I work at this club. Who doesn't know what the past five years have been like, or that I've had to resort to being a damned bouncer in the first place.

Fuck, I've been doing this blog for two-and-a-half years now. This site gets a lot of hits. I've probably checked a lot of your IDs, and you haven't even known it.

I spoke to an ex-girlfriend the other day. She wanted to know where I worked.

"I went there!"

"You did?"

"Yeah!" she said. "On the night (Performer) was there! Were you there that night?"

"Yeah, I was there. I was with (Performer) most of the time, though. I was part of the crew that was walking him around."

"I thought you said you were at the door."

"I usually am," I said, "but when they have a big act, they usually call me in to help walk them around because I'm pretty good at that shit."

"I don't know if I would have come up to you if I'd seen you."

"Yeah you would."

"I would?" she asked. "How do you know that?"

"Because I had long hair back then."

"You did?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I grew it out for a while."

"What happened?"

"I looked like a retard, so I shaved it all off again."

"I wish I would've seen that. I've never seen you with hair."

"You don't want to," I said.

"Probably not."

"Damn. I can't believe we were in the same place at the same time like that. I wonder how often that happens in real life. You ever wonder about that?"

"Not when I'm in a club," she said.

"Figures. You're probably too busy slutting it up."

"Jesus. No wonder we broke up."

Go figure (bear with me)

Having grown up in New York and played tons of basketball in my life -- believe it or not, I was a point guard on my high school team -- I've always been a big fan of the team at St. John's University. Back in the day everyone around here followed St. John's because it was legitimately exciting to see a local commuter school with a team comprised of kids from the boroughs compete, and occasionally beat, the best teams in the country. Some of the best times I can remember as a kid were trips to the Garden with my father to see Xaverian's Chris Mullin and Bishop Loughlin's Mark Jackson take on Patrick Ewing and the rest of Georgetown's "evil empire" back in the eighties.

The program, unfortunately, has gone through a rough stretch for the past decade or so. With the exception of a few solid years under Fran Fraschilla and Mike Jarvis -- both of whom left the school in disgrace, by the way -- the Johnnies have pretty much sucked ass since Lou Carnesecca retired in the early nineties. I never thought much of Looie as a coach, quite frankly, but he ran a clean program, recruited the shit out of the city, won games, and went deep into the NCAA tournament just about every year.

Even though SJU has been off the map for several years now -- a decline that pretty much coincides with my waning interest in basketball -- I still maintain my custom of keeping track of how they're doing. I've been doing this for years, even during periods where I wasn't living in New York. Tonight, St. John's played Long Island University at Carnesecca Arena -- which I still have to consciously stop myself from calling Alumni Hall -- and I came home earlier looking for a score.

I couldn't find the result of the game anywhere online -- SJU won, 64-46, but for some reason it wasn't listed in the Big East section of ESPN.com's scoreboard -- so I checked the St. John's message board at scout.com, which has forums for just about every major college program in the country. If you went to a school with big-time sports, and you want to read what all your team's misanthropic shut-in fans are thinking, this is your site.

In any case, I looked around this board for a little while and found this gem of a thread. It starts out discussing another St. John's basketball forum, but veers off track a wee bit toward the bottom of the first page and on succeeding pages. Enjoy.

Jamaica

Our policy at the door is simple:

If a guy says he's going to his car -- or anywhere else -- to get a gun, he gets the shit kicked out of him before he can even take a step in that direction. The exchange will often sound something like this...

"Yo! I'm a git my gat, an..." BAM!!!

This is the sort of social commentary you'll get when I have no time. Thank you.

Next Update

I still have some work to do, so the blog will continue to be rather dead for a few days. In the meantime, has anyone noticed the preponderance of people wearing this shit around New York lately?

Can anyone explain to me why these jackets have become so popular?

As promised

Here you go. More people to hate.

***Fucking Gawker beat me to this one. Someone from this site sends me these links, and if they're as asinine as this one, I usually post them right away. I guess Gawker is "monitoring" this shit now, though. Oh, well.

Update

This site is going to be as dead as a doornail until Monday, November 27th. I'm up against a major deadline for the book, and I'm not going to have time to post anything of "note" here until then. Keep checking in, I guess, because I might throw up some quick shit during the day -- if anyone's even interested -- or I'll post some interesting links (Code.tv-type shit, like I've been putting up) if anything good comes my way.

In the words of my amazingly patient editor, I'll be "cranking it out" until then, so don't expect anything earthshattering here for another week or so. Just to keep people updated, the book was delayed for a few months because of some personal issues -- I'll be keeping those to myself, thank you -- but everything is back on track for a March 2007 publication date.

Now leave me the fuck alone so I can turn the damned thing into something you'll actually want to buy.

Overheard at work

Guido #1: "Your brother's the only guy I know who got a penile implant...up his ass."

Guido #2: "He got another one in his mouth, too."

My fault (pointless)

If you ask most of the people I've ever met, they'll tell you I'm lucky to get from the bed to the bathroom when I wake up. That without significant helpings of their guidance, I'd be living under a bridge somewhere, with my right hand around a fifth of blackberry brandy and my left down my pants somewhere. They'll happily let you know that it's a goddamned motherfucking mystery how I even manage to remember to breathe without them around to remind me of the human body's need for oxygen.

How it works when you do something on your own is, you'll get the thing ninety-eight percent of the way done and then everyone will come out of the woodwork to tell you how to finish it. Most times, the people offering all these pearls of wisdom won't know shit about shit, and it's your own fault for providing them with the platform of pontification. I'm not just talking about writing a book here, either. It's everything. Nobody's around to tell you how to start, but they're damned sure all gonna be there to tell you how to end things "right." The world loves to hear itself speak. It loves to hear itself giving advice. You don't even have to take this damned advice, just as long as the world can sit around and listen to itself offering it to you.

There's too much the world doesn't take into consideration, though. Too much they don't know. There are too many variables involved for the world to constantly tell you how you should be spending your time. Sometimes you wish these dumb motherfuckers would just leave it all to you.

"How about Rob?" asked Johnny. "He'd love to get a shot at that."

"Yeah?" said the Random Guy I Wasn't Introduced To, turning to me. "Can you drive something thirty-five feet long?"

"Uh...I got a CDL Class B, if that means anything. Depends on the weight."

"Gimme your number."

"Uh...I'm...uh...getting a new phone tomorrow, so you can get it from Johnny, I guess."

"I hope," he said, walking away, "you got a clean license."

"What the fuck?" I asked Johnny. "Why the fuck would you possibly tell that guy I was interested in driving a fucking cement truck?"

"How can you turn that down?"

"I can turn it down because I don't wanna fucking do it, that's how."

"What?" he asked. "You don't wanna make money? That could be at least a buck a day, and all you gotta make it in is Saturday mornings. It's all house jobs. The only people who need concrete on Saturdays are guys pourin' driveways and sidewalks."

"It's not about that. I don't wanna drive a fucking truck again. I have absolutely zero interest in driving a damned truck for some guy I met in a restaurant. You give that guy my number, I'm gonna slash your fucking tires."

"Why? You can afford to turn down tit jobs all the sudden?"

"No," I replied, "but I can turn down jobs I don't wanna do."

"How can you afford that?"

"What are you, my fucking accountant now? I got this fucking jerkoff smirking at me, asking me if I can drive something thirty-five feet long, and now I gotta make some shit up 'cause I don't want some guy having my number?"

"I thought you liked driving," he said. "I never seen you turn down work before."

"It's not about turning down work. I wanna work. I wanna work a lot, but I got this thing about people telling me what's good for me all the time."

"Who's tellin' you what's good for you? Who the fuck turns down work? You can't afford to blow jobs off like that. That could lead somewhere."

"Oh, man," I said. "You gotta be shittin' me. Listen, I wanna enjoy my weekends for once. Saturday's my day off. I don't want to have to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday, work all fucking day doing that shit, then go bounce at night. That's not something I'm looking to do."

"Why you gettin' so pissed about it? I was trying to help you out."

"You don't know the half of it, John. You really don't."

My biggest failing in life is that I'll lend a stranger an ear and tell a friend to go to hell.

More of the same

These people keep sending me shit, so I'll keep posting it -- although this isn't the clip they sent me. All I have to say about this is the following: Some people are what they are for good reason. Pay close attention to the noise this person makes approximately fifty-three seconds into the video, then imagine that noise during sex.

Enjoy.

Or don't. I certainly didn't.

Temporarily Van-glorious

When I was a freshman in high school, my parents had three cars between them. One of the three was a Volkswagen Rabbit with a diesel engine that my father bought during the gas crisis in the late seventies. This was a very good idea, because he didn't ever have to wait in line for gas. For whatever reason, he held onto the fucking thing until 1994, but that's him, and that's the sort of thing he did. His other vehicle was a Ford Econoline van. He drove the Rabbit to work every day in the Bronx, and used the van for hauling shit back and forth to his other job out on Long Island.

He later bought a Cadillac Eldorado and bragged about having "climate control." This is now known as "air conditioning."

My mother drove a Mercury Marquis station wagon. I loved that station wagon. It was, as she said, "like riding on a cloud." Both my parents worked, and my father would keep the van in the garage when he wasn't home because we lived in a neighborhood where people without important jobs like his might think about stealing his crappy crown moldings and plywood when he wasn't around. When my mother had the station wagon in the garage -- it made unloading groceries easier on her -- he'd back the van into the driveway so its rear doors were flush against the front of the garage. You couldn't get them open that way.

One day during freshman year, while my parents were still at work, I decided to take the van for a drive. This was a great deal of fun, so I started doing it every day. I was fourteen.

When taking the van for joyrides wasn't enough for me, I started driving it to school and soliciting hot girls to allow me to drive them home. Some girls are more stupid than others -- this remains the case well into adulthood -- and nobody ever expressed any curiosity as to why a fourteen-year-old was driving a 1978 Econoline van around a public school. Word spread that it was possible to make it home with me behind the wheel, and I soon had a rather attractive clientele. I was deeply in love with them all. The highlight of this was the afternoon I managed to coerce a senior girl named Stephanie into the back of the van for ten minutes of awkward tongue-jamming excitement.

On the way home from one of these chauffeuring expeditions, I saw the Rabbit parked in the driveway. This meant my father was home. I left the van around the block and walked back to the house, hoping he'd think I was just getting in from school. I turned to Jesus and asked Him to keep my father out of the garage. When I opened the front door, he was sitting in the kitchen waiting for me.

"Go get the fucking van."

And then I got the shit kicked out of me.

---------------------------------------------------

Thanksgiving is coming.

I feel dirty

Spend as much time as I do in clubs, and you'll eventually start worrying about hygiene. Not yours, of course, but that of the assorted pieces of shit who insist upon touching you in various vaguely offensive ways over the course of a typical shift. I'm talking about every pseudo-mobster that needs a kiss on the cheek when he walks in the door. I'm referring to every Guido who tries to draw semen from your hand with these absurd forms of digital masturbation that pass for handshakes in the twenty-first century.

When you're in my position, and you get sick, you'll wonder where the fuck the bug came from, and the possibilities you'll turn over in your mind are fucking disgusting. The people we're dealing with are nasty sons-of-bitches, and when you find yourself "infected," you'll feel as dirty as a motherfucker. Like I do right now.

See, I have what's known as a stye. In my eye. It's big, and it's swollen, and it's painful, and I don't even want to know where the fuck I got it. That's the problem here. I can deal with the discomfort, and the redness, and the bloodshot eye, but it's in thinking about how I contracted this fucking thing that I'm giving myself a major case of the douche chills today. I feel as though I've been corrupted somehow. That I've been fouled. That I need for my mother to cleanse my system with another inexplicable enema -- which, in a typical burst of revisionist maternal history, she denies ever doing -- like she did when I was a little kid.

This is why I don't dip my toe in the "club whore" pool. It's why I don't share water bottles. It's why I open bathroom doors with paper towels before I throw them out. It's why I wash my hands thirty-five times a day. To avoid this kind of thing, that's why.

And now I have a big, red, painful fucking eye, courtesy of Joey Fucking Guido, and I want to take a Brillo pad to my entire face.

Three things

1. This is an article describing something I've been writing about for a long time.

2. This article makes no sense whatsoever. This guy was homeless for thirteen days. I've met people who've been homeless for thirteen years. And if you suddenly find yourself homeless and living in Logan Airport, why the fuck would you quit your job?

3. This is just really, really irritating.

Meatheads

I'd like to thank my friend Joe DeFranco for his hospitality during a recent visit I made to his amazing facility in Wyckoff, New Jersey. If you're any kind of high level athlete, Joe is one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world, and I'd strongly advise you to look him up if you want him to make you a lot of money or help you get a free education. You can look at his website here.

Additionally, there is only one place that will ever get my business when it comes to lifting and training, and it's Elite Fitness Systems. I've been a customer of Dave Tate's for several years now, and I intend for that relationship to continue until I stop training -- which will likely coincide with the point in time where I'm very cold, and very deep under the ground. I have never, ever in my life experienced customer service that's anywhere even close to what I've gotten at EFS, and if you ever need to purchase anything fitness-related -- or are simply looking for advice and information from the absolute best in the business -- this is the place to go.

This is not advertising. These people are my friends. Joe and Dave have been hooking me up with advice and free shit for years -- a process that started long before I ever had a forum from which to sing their praises. If you want to know how to train properly, read the articles on both of these sites and you'll never need a personal trainer again.

You can read an article I've written about both places here.

Click here and look at the second question on the page for an explanation of the "hammer curl" joke in my article.

Random shit from an uneducated moron

I don't comment on politics much, but in light of it being the day after the day after Election Day and all, I figured I'd ask the question I kept asking in the weeks leading up to the big flip-flop:

Where the fuck do incumbents get off campaigning on a platform of "change" or "reform"?

I mean, I understand the deal with this shit this year, because by "change," they're referring to the transfer of power in the House and the Senate. Still, though, it sounds like a total crock of shit to me coming from people who've already been in office for years. Especially here in New York, where we saw more campaign commercials for the New Jersey elections than we did for our own state.

Yeah, we get it: Bob Menendez is a crook, and a vote for Tom Kean, Jr. was a vote for President Bush, but did anyone notice, when watching the news, that Menendez acts like a fucking space alien on a repeating loop?

Reporter (as Menendez was exiting a voting booth): "Senator, did you vote for yourself?"

Menendez: "I voted for change, and the people of New Jersey will show today that they want change!"

Another Reporter: "Senator, do you think Tom Kean ran a clean campaign?"

Menendez: "I'm here today to vote for change, and I think the people of New Jersey agree with me that change is what we need!"

Another Reporter: "Senator, did you take a shit today?"

Menendez: "I sat down on the toilet today to show that the people of New Jersey want change!" Thumbs up!

I couldn't bring myself to vote for someone who speaks to me as if I'm a fucking maroon. You'd think politicians would have learned that much by observing the public's response to Al Gore, who should, by all rights, have won the election in 2000 by a landslide, but didn't. Why not? Because, I believe, people didn't like the way he spoke to them. Al Gore didn't speak or act like a guy I trusted to be the President of the United States. George W. Bush wasn't much better, but Gore simply didn't seem normal to me. Call me superficial, or even stupid, but that's the way it was. I needed my President to sound like a human being.

Even better was Alan Hevesi winning the race for State Comptroller. It's telling that the people of New York State would rather have the national symbol of everything that's wrong with politics serve in Albany than a Republican. Dude, the guy didn't address the problem, apologize or try to remunerate the state for the money he owed until he was completely and utterly disgraced on a national stage...and he still won in a landslide.

And I can't stand Hillary Clinton. I really can't stand Hillary Clinton, but I'll make a concession here, which for me is a giant leap: I think she actually pays attention to her job. Whether I agree with her politics or not -- I'm not saying, incidentally -- or like her personally (I don't), I have to admit she probably works harder at being good at her job than any politician I've ever seen in New York State, and that, strangely enough, inspires a certain degree of confidence. Despite the fact that she nauseates me most of the time, at least there's some serious thought involved in what she does -- even if it's in her own self-interest at least 99.9% of the time. That's more than you can say for most of the people in office around here. And it kills me to compliment a Clinton, even if it's backhanded.

"Who are you voting for in the gubernatorial election?"

"Spitzer."

"Why?"

"Because he took on Wall Street, and he beat those bastards!"

"What did he do, exactly?"

"I dunno, but I like him. He's tough!"

And can we figure out what the fuck to do about Iraq and Afghanistan before anyone asks me to care about same-sex marriages or parental consent for abortions?

That's it. I will never speak of politics again. And no, I am not a registered Republican. I just kind of sound like one today.

Update

Sorry for the lack of new material here lately, but there's been a lot of shit going on. I'll start posting regularly again within the next day or two.

Cloudy Skies Above (7/28/04)

I kind of don't remember this one the way it's written here, but it's possible I missed a few steps in the dialogue. I normally don't get "tough" with people until they take things a few steps past what apparently happened here. Also, apropos to nothing in this post, the drink is called a "Car Bomb." It's not called an "Irish Car Bomb." If you walk into an Irish bar and ask for an "Irish Car Bomb," they'll know you're a pretender. Thank you.

The vast majority of bouncers frankly couldn't care less how you behave in a club. Not personally, anyway. Usually, as I'm standing there on my platform watching the crowd, I'm thinking about everything but the sea of humanity in front of me. I'm working through financial scenarios in my head, planning the next day, and just generally pondering other stuff. Daydreaming, even. As far as I'm concerned, you people can do whatever the hell it is you want.

I don't own the club, and I have no financial or legal stake in it if the customers do the wrong thing. Sure, if I don't do anything about it, I'll lose my job, but that's not really a problem because there are a plethora of bouncing jobs to be had around here that will pay me exactly the same amount of money, and, if fired, I could secure another one before the weekend. My point is that there are no genuine personal feelings involved for most bouncers when shit goes down. Granted, there are some psychotic assholes who take the job way too seriously, but I'm decidedly not one of those.

So why do bouncers, myself included, become so seemingly indignant when situations arise? Well, speaking for myself, I generally keep my emotions separate from what I'm taking care of until things become personal. At what point do they become personal? When customers turn something into a challenge. Let me explain.

Bouncers, on the whole, tend, obviously, to be testosterone-fueled Type-A personality guys. As I've written previously, you have lots of cops, ex-military guys, fighters, and college athletes on this job. People who tend to live their lives by breaking things down into a series of personal challenges. I come at things from the perspective of someone who played football for nearly sixteen years. Ask any football player who has competed at a high level, and they'll tell you that a football game is, essentially, a fight. It's a challenge. When you're asked to execute a play during a game, there's someone out there whose very presence on the field is making a statement that they believe they can stop you from doing your job.

Bouncing involves the same concepts sometimes. Hell, most of the time. It happened to me last night at the Club, where things were painfully slow due to a torrential rainfall here in New York. The bouncing staff was cut in half because of the weather, and I was posted, of all places, behind the bar in the VIP room. The club was hosting a fashion show for a company who produces 'pasties.' More about that in a moment. The models and their managers were in the VIP room rehearsing for their turn on the stage, and my responsibility entailed staying behind the bar, making sure nobody touched any liquor after their open bar privileges were cut off at midnight.

Once midnight came, the VIP people, despite knowing their free ride had come to an end, continued coming up for drinks, only to be told, by me, that the bar had been closed. One European gentleman, who appeared to be in charge of the group, approached and asked me for a Grey Goose and tonic. I apologized and told him that all drinks would now have to be ordered at one of the bars downstairs. The following conversation ensued:

"But I'll pay for it."

"I really can't, man. The bar is closed. My boss gave the order ten minutes ago."

"Come on, just one drink. I'm the president of the company."

"Listen, there's nothing I can do. If I serve any more drinks, I'll get fired, and that's not happening."

And this is where the 'personal challenge' concept came into play.

"Do you know how much money I spent up here? Up here, I'm your boss."

Oh, shit, dude. You poked the Rottweiler.

"Oh yeah? Why don't you come around the bar, then. If you can get through me, you can have your fucking drink. Better yet, how about I come out there and throw your fat ass over the balcony? How 'bout that?"

"I'm going to talk to Phil about you."

"Go ahead, you fucking pussy. Be my guest."

Of course, Phil found this all amusing, and, in fact, upbraided me for not following through on my threat and depriving him of some much deserved entertainment value on such a gloomy, unrewarding night. Following my eventful stint behind the bar, I was posted in front of the doors to the VIP area, as the fashion show was playing itself out on stage. The VIP room was now closed, and Phil told me that I was not, under any circumstances, to permit anyone to enter the building.

A few minutes after Phil left me alone with my responsibilities, one of the models, accompanied by a 'manager,' asked me if she could go back into the VIP room to change into another outfit. I told her that she was not permitted to re-enter the room, but that I would call Phil and ask him if I could make an exception. This process, unimpeded, would have taken approximately ten seconds, but these two jackasses chose to prolong it by arguing with me before I even raised Phil on the radio.

"Hey, how about this? How about I don't even call Phil, and the two of you don't go in there at all?"

This managed to quiet them down, and Phil gave his permission for the indignant model to go upstairs and change. I told the 'manager' to take a walk.

After she changed, the model marched back downstairs on a mission. With an angry look on her face, she pranced in front of me, opened up her blouse, and flashed me. Oh God, how shocking. Trouble was, she wasn't looking where she was going, and strutted face first into a post. The impact knocked her off balance, and with her stiletto heels, she wasn't able to recover, falling on her ass with a dull thud. She looked up, awaiting my reaction.

"Damn, you sure showed me, honey."

Wholesome Entertainment (5/5/05)

Here's one of the "ones that started it all," whatever the fuck "it" is. Note the little blurb Gawker gives me about "working (my) way through graduate school." I used to go with that rap back when I was trying to throw everyone off the scent. Anyone who knows me knows I'm decidedly not working my way through grad school, nor have I ever been. They're right about one thing, though: I did, and do, have a "REAL LIFE beyond gatekeeping," but it sure as hell isn't that. Not even close.

Gawker Link

I'm from New York. I'm a local. Got the accent and everything. Got credentials. Although I wasn't exactly reared as a hustler on the teeming streets of the naked city, I did spend my formative years in a part of New York where the bullshit meter was always running -- a working class enclave where most of my family's neighbors were cops, firemen, and guys who swung hammers for a living. My neighborhood wasn't buying anyone's dream.

I pride myself on not seeing my hometown the way the tourists do. On my way to work, I don't meander down 7th Avenue staring up at the buildings. I've never had my pocket picked. I've never lost a dime at a three card monte table. I've never paid $10 for a "Rovex" and walked away thinking I've gotten over. New York is my home, and nothing that goes on around here is going to walk up and bite me in the ass, because I'll see it coming a mile away. My eyes are wide open, and I've seen all this shit a thousand-and-one times before. Sometimes, however, at the club, I experience things which help me understand what it must feel like to get out of a cab on 34th Street after debarking a plane from Topeka.

I've written repeatedly about how the entire club experience is a sham -- a show put on for you, by us, for the sole purpose of separating you from your money as expeditiously and efficiently as we can suck it out of your pockets. Trust me, you're not cool. We're all so thoroughly jaded by this business that we legitimately dislike you as soon as you strut through our doors. You prance past in your silk shirt, give me your ultracool handshake and slip me a twenty, and you won't get five paces into the VIP room before I'm rolling my eyes at Johnny and shaking my head in disgust. We're selling you a dream, albeit an unhealthy, distorted, delusional one bereft of any redeeming value whatsoever, rotting from the inside out. The bouncers don't like you, those gorgeous female bartenders think you're a tool, and we all want 4 AM to come around as quickly and painlessly as possible so we can get our little envelopes full of cash and go the fuck home.

This artificiality extends a surprisingly far distance past the act put on by the staff. Beneath our disingenuous little veneer of trendy coolness, far removed from the club's visible commerce -- the buying of drinks, shot and rose girls plying their wares, and the culture of tipping -- a sizable black market exists out there on the floor. There are people doing business -- making money -- who aren't employed by the club. Suffice it to say that as a customer, one can never be certain as to whom one is dealing with at a nightclub in New York.

Sure, she's hot. And that outfit is un-fucking-believeable. She moves on the dance floor like nothing you've ever seen, and she's actually listening to all the bullshit you're laying on her about what an important fucking guy you are at work. And the body language -- everybody sees it. She wants you, my brother. You're gonna take this one back to the hotel and throw her one like she's not even gonna believe.

It'll cost you, though. Whether it's straight-up cash, or a bag of coke, or some pills, or whatever, she's not in this for the scintillating conversation you've been providing. This is a straightforward business transaction, and with those, in clubs like mine, the time eventually comes where one must watch one's ass.

Call me naive, but I was completely ignorant of the presence of actual, no-shit, working prostitutes in the club until last week. Evidently, I've been innocent enough, all this time, to have dimly watched all the people filing into the club, mistakenly believing they're all just there simply to dance, drink and have fun. I suppose I'm a bouncer-idealist. No guy is there to deal drugs -- they just want to get out on the dance floor and meet women, don't they? No woman is there to solicit -- they're there because it's fun to get all dolled up and unwind from a difficult week on the job, right?

Even my jaded sense of class envy -- "She won't even look at you unless she sees a roll of hundreds" -- hadn't yet made the valiant leap to what now, in retrospect, seems the perfectly logical assumption that prostitutes would frequent New York nightclubs. On Saturday, however, outside the parking garage, all that changed:

"You motherfucker!" she screamed, climbing out the passenger side of a late model Lexus. "You fuck me in a motherfuckin' car and now I gots to take a fuckin' cab home?!?"

"Yo! Stop hittin' my fuckin' car, bitch!"

"Fuck you, Anthony, you half a fuckin' man! I'm tellin' your motherfuckin' wife, you motherfucker!!!"

"Yeah?!? You fuckin' cunt...."

"Yo, guys!" shouted JD, "Take this somewhere else. I can't have this in front of the club."

"I'm tryin' to leave," said Anthony. "This crazy bitch keeps hittin' my car!"

"Miss, is he your ride?"

"Not no more!"

"Then I suggest you either get in a cab, or start walking away, because you're not going to do this in front of the club."

JD wheeled around to tell Anthony to get going, but he had already taken his cue and stepped on the gas, speeding off into the New York night.

"I knew it," said JD.

"Knew what?"

"You seen her in here before?"

"A couple of times," I replied. "Those two came in together. They were sittin' in the VIP. Came in pretty early."

"Fuckin' whore."

"Fuckin' around with a married guy in his car? Yeah, that's pretty bad."

"No, dude. She's a real whore. A prostitute."

"A hooker?"

"Yup."

"No shit."

"And I think he might be her fuckin' pimp."

Flicked (5/24/05)

I wrote this one shortly after the blog became "popular." I like it because it delves into the concept of "rotting from the inside out," as introduced to me by "Big John." You meet a lot of people who are "rotting from the inside out" in the club business. I've met several outside the club business over the past year-and-change, too. Some things never change, regardless of where you meet people.

Sure, she may look good, but...

I've never wanted to reach a point, on this blog, where I feel compelled to begin a post by stating, "Many people have asked..." It sounds excessively pompous and delusional, even for me, and my discomfort in using of this sort of introduction is manifesting itself here, before your very eyes, in these first two sentences. In this case, however, these words ring true. Today's post was inspired by several emails I've received requesting that I address a certain topic, and like the lounge chair I am, I'm perpetually ready and willing to fold to popular demand. So...

Many people have emailed inquiring as to whether I've ever dated a fellow employee at any of the clubs at which I've bounced. The answer, of course, is a resounding yes, and the experience, predictably, was fraught with enough 'wacky hijinks' and 'crazy misadventures' to fill exactly one blog post, give or take. This relationship -- if it even met the criteria to be termed one -- took place during my first incarnation as a bouncer several years ago, and still resounds sufficiently today, in the form of a cautionary tale, to prevent me from ever again seriously considering dating anyone who works at a nightclub.

"What the fuck, dude? Something just hit me in the fuckin' head!"

"Look over at the bar," said Marty, the bouncer standing with me at the front door. "What's her name? The one with the big tits. She just threw ice at you."

I quickly made my way to the bar, assuming there was a problem of some sort. Bartenders generally don't carry radios, so if they need to get a bouncer's attention when his back is turned, they'll throw stuff at us -- fruit, wadded-up napkins or, irritatingly enough, ice. The source of this particular torrent was a tall, thin, attractive brunette with enormous breasts. Tremendous breasts. Gargantuan breasts. Elephantine breasts. They were looking at me.

"You need something?"

"Yeah, I do," she said. "I need to see what you look like when you smile, because you've sat there all night and you haven't smiled once."

"Not much to smile about over there, sittin' next to Marty all night, watchin' these retards come in."

"Hey, I'm running around like crazy back here, and I'm smiling."

"That's 'cause you're making money," I replied.

"Hey, do you want to come to the diner with me after work?"

And so it began. She seemed a reasonable object for my attentions, at least initially -- had been to college for a while, claimed she was saving to go back eventually. She proved capable of holding up her end of a conversation, and I liked that she had strong, passionate opinions -- convictions, even -- about a number of serious subjects. I was digging the speed of her metabolism, as well. We'd go out to dinner, and she'd eat like a horse, and wouldn't gain a pound. Could drink with me, too.

"Where'd you guys eat?" asked John the Bouncer, the following week.

"Taco Bell."

"Fuckin' Taco Bell?"

"Si."

"What'd she get?"

"Why?" I asked.

"'Cause I'll tell you if she's a pig or not."

"From Taco Bell?"

"Yeah."

"I think she got a Mexican pizza."

"Dude, she's rotting from the inside out. Just watch."

The next couple of weeks, I spent more time lingering around the central bar area than I normally would during the course of a shift. Being the front door bouncer, I had no real excuse for being inside the club every half hour, and the rest of the staff eventually took bemused notice of my sudden interest in cranberry juice.

"Hey, you wanna come down to the other place I work?"

"You've got another job?"

"Yeah," she replied.

"I didn't know that. Where?"

"The Extended Banana on Eighth Avenue."

"You're a stripper?!?"

"No, silly. I'm a bartender there."

"Do you..."

"No," she interrupted. "I don't take my clothes off. It's just like any other bartending job. You'll see."

Desirous of avoiding the appearance of complete loser -- a task which, for me, often requires a significant degree of effort -- I enlisted the aid of my friend "Clint," requesting his company on my historic excursion to the Extended Banana. He dismounted his latest conquest -- quite the lothario was Clint, back then -- and agreed to come along.

"Hey," she said. "You're wanted in the Champagne Room."

"Huh?"

"Your friend bought you a lap dance with one of the girls. 'Charity,' I think her name is."

"How appropriate. Is that okay? He's kind of a dick that way."

"It's okay. He asked me first. Have fun!"

I descended a set of stairs into the Champagne Room, where I caught a glimpse of Clint already in the process of receiving his end of the deal -- a two-for-one special the DJ had announced while I was in the bathroom. I sat down on a couch and 'Charity' went about her work, while I remained in the awkward 'guy-at-a-strip-club' position, my back ramrod straight and my hands set flat against the cushions. The entire situation seemed bizarre -- receiving a lap dance with a girl I had just started dating in the next room -- and conspiracy theories swirled around my head:

"Dude," I thought to myself, "this fucking stripper's doing recon for the bartender chick. Fuck. She's gonna go back and tell her how small your penis is. Shift position. SHIFT POSITION."

The dance proceeded quite uncomfortably after that, until 'Charity' finally unveiled her dramatic signature move. Sitting astride my left leg, she leaned back, and, right breast in hand, proceeded to flick my left nostril with her nipple as if she were attempting to pick something out.

"That's a new one on me," said Clint, as we sat back down at the bar.

"What?" asked the bartender.

"She picked his nose with her nipple."

"Ugh," she replied, grimacing. "These girls don't know what they're doing. Stick around after we close, and I'll show you some pole tricks."

"Pole tricks?"

"Yeah. That's what we call the moves the dancers make on the pole."

"You know how to do that?" I asked.

"Yeah. I practice them every night after we close."

"Why?"

"Because," she replied, "eventually when I get good enough at it, which I already am -- you can ask anyone -- Joey's gonna let me be a dancer."

"Kinda like a promotion, so to speak," added Clint.

"Yeah. They make great money."

My little foray into this netherworld of club-based relationships ended a few weeks later, when she attempted to rationalize her use of cocaine as an aid to her productivity.

"I only do a little bump now and then. You know, to stay awake. I need to be up during the day in order to get anything done."

"No," I said, "I actually don't know. That's fucking absurd."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Nor would I."