back in the day

My life as a bouncer had its share of downs as well as it’s perks. Some nights life was one huge roller coaster and some others, shit turned into a huge train wreak. Take some of the rock shows for instance. White Zombie, Fight, Biohazard, it didn’t matter. It was all about dealin with six hundred screaming fucked up muthafucker’s who were trying their best to get past you to the band. As some of you muthafucker’s might remember the LoneStar was built for breakage. We had a huge stage and in front of it sat this nice big ass dance floor surrounded by railings and tables and shit like that. When a touring band played we usually had two cats standing stage right and stage left, plus four cats including yours truly placed across the front of the stage on the dance floor. And in front of us stood the crowd. We were there mainly to insure that the asshole quotient stayed to a minimum and that the crowd stayed the hell off our stage. At any given time we had anywhere from four to six bouncers, not counting the cats working the front door. You compare that to a club like the Hurricane who staff up on a busy night with no less then ten. What we lacked in numbers we made up in quality. One of the best things about working rock shows were the girls standing in front of you. The crowd was so thick that everybody was pressed up against everybody else. And it wasn’t nothing to feel some chick’s hand trying to snake their way into your pants. And when you’d look down all you’d see were sweaty faces staring up at the band but the hands were still there. It was just part of the gig unless the hands had hair on em, then it was time to break that shit up.


The main group that most folks saw consisted of myself, Darrel, Dave and Jim and later on Billy. We called ourselves the Zombie Squad and had t-shirts made depicting one of us stickin our hands down some cat’s throat and yanking his skeleton out. Very cool and very graphic. Between us we had around a hundred years of bouncing experience and we all could count in the thousands the number of fights we’d all been in. And yes, I’ll be the first to admit we weren’t right in the head, hell, if we were why would we be there doin what we did? I know for myself after doin that kind of gig for so many years you got swept up in the lifestyle real easy. And it did things to you that weren’t very healthy. Take Dave for instance, if it was a quiet or slow night he’d actually go into anger withdrawals and shit. Muthafucker have to hit something or he’d go crazy, so sometimes we’d just bang on each other to relieve the boredom. But with it being the LoneStar that didn’t happen very often. On any given night we’d average five to six fights and for some reason Thursday nights were always the worst, and we’d just stop counting on a full moon night. I fuckin loved that shit, it gave me bad insomnia cause it’ll take me hours to wind down after I’ve been punched pulled and pummeled more then a red headed stepchild with a bed wetting problem, but I dug it. It was the strangest shit; I’d always walk in two to three hours before my shift started. I’d find a corner off to my self and have some coffee then at ten my whole demeanor would change. When the clock struck ten my adrenaline would start pumping and the pain would go away and I could see clearer, hear better and felt like I beat Jesus arm wrestling. I always wore black and I’d go to the back of the club near the stage and the DJ booth where it was real dark and just watch, this was my house and if you were gonna fuck up you better check with me first. Most times a cat never saw me coming till I came out of the dark and grabbed em and dragged their punk asses to the front door. But most times I was real polite with my shit cause hell, why fuck over people. Just do what I say and we’ll get thru it and I’d be glad to see your ass the next night. Matter of fact most of my best and favorite customer’s I met in a fight. I can’t say that for the other cats I worked with but I always believed in being square with a cat.

There were times when someone in the crowd would do some shit that’ll make a muthafucker stand back and go “tha fuck”!? Like the night this couple came in dressed to the nines. The guy was a regular longhair I’d seen before but the chick he was with was new. She had to be hitting six feet and built like a shithouse. She was dressed in this pure white lacy dress and had the big hair all going on and shit. They sat at a table near the stage and I turned my attention elsewhere. But soon I spotted this drunk chick staggering thru the crowd with two cups of beer in her hands. And sure as shit as she passes the chick in the white dress she bumps into her and beer spills all over the chick’s nice white dress. The chick in white stands up and grabs the drunk chick by the back of the neck, and starts wanging her fuckin head on the shittin table. It was some fucked up shit to see. She was banging the chick’s head so hard that the drunk chick’s feet were coming off the ground. Me and another bouncer made it to the table at the same time and I grabbed the chick in the white dress while my partner and another cat started pickin the drunk chick off of the floor where the other chick had dropped her. The chick in white’s boyfriend was almost pissing his pants cause he thought we were gonna go off on the both of em but I was laughing so hard all I could say was would you please get this big bitch out’a here before she breaks someone else? Which brings up another point. I would never kick a woman out. I’d always get another bouncer to do it. It just wasn’t in me to get all bitch on a chick, especially if it was chicks fighting each other. You ever seen a good old school cat fight? Women would start fighting and just get all tangled up and hooked together and shit. It like that breed of dog that once it bits something it won’t let go until either it chews through it or dies. The best way to deal with a catfight was to wait till you could safely grab a foot, then you just drag the whole stinkin mess of fighting spitting womanflesh to the front door and down the steps. You try to break em up the traditional way and you’re asking to loose a ball or worse. Ah, memory’s.

"and the monkey flipped the switch"