Being Kicked Out of Bars: An Artform

Things That Have Gotten Me Kicked Out of Bars:

• Phil Collins

Phil and I don’t know each other personally, but I’m familiar with his work, as I suspect he is familiar with mine, but hopefully Phil doesn’t view my hilarious thoughts on drunk texting with the same ire and outright revulsion that I have for his thoughts on writing outrageously shitty drum machine-fuelled aerobics music and then using made-up words as lyrics.

Seriously though... WHAT THE FUCK!?

So Phil and I disagree on some fundamental issues, like what qualifies as 'music' and what is just mechanical, synthesized, horseshit smeared onto a CD. But that being said, lots and lots of people LOVE Phil Collins and his work, and unfortunately it was one of these misguided aficionados that approached me one night at the bar after I'd just chosen a few songs on the jukebox. He told me he had loved the songs I'd picked and that I must be really cool. Now, I am forced to agree that I am, by far, the coolest, but this guy was definitely using this approach as some kind of pickup line, and I usually respond to them with differing forms of roundhouse kicks. As a pickup line, however, that really wasn't the worst I'd ever seen... but I once saw a guy dip his dick into a girl's pint and then say 'whaddayathink?' before being beaten to within an inch of his life by her and her six friends... so...

So, the guy with awesome taste in me seemed earnest enough so I smiled politely and thanked him for the compliment and started turning away but then he grabbed my shoulder and leaned in close and whispered/slurred: "Sssso I played this ssssong jussst for youuu". I frowned and leaned back a bit, trying to hear his choice over the din of the bar, and guess what I fucking heard...

'Easy Lover' by Phil goddamn Collins. 

So I screamed: '...EASY-FUCKING-LOVER!?' at this guy while shoving him away, knocking him into a table and spilling approximately a hundred bucks worth of booze on ten different people. The Phil Collins fan went down with a shocked and innocently confused look on his face as I felt the bouncer's steely grip clamp down on my shoulders and was dragged outside while screaming 'FUCK PHIL COLLINSSSSSS!' at top volume while shaking my fists at the heavens.

Fuck Phil Collins.

• 'I'm the DJ Now!'     

This one is easier to understand as I imagine more than a few people have decided through the wonderful, happy fog of alcohol that they could do a way better job than whatever asshole is in the booth right now and have tried to take the reins. This story however, has a bit of a twist. When I sauntered up to the DJ booth that night, all I wanted was to request some sweet, sweet 'Humpty Dance', but it turned out that the tribe of dick-sniffers that were playing an endless loop of Skrillex were not taking requests. As I walked up, I noticed that while one guy was wearing the headphones and turning some dials that didn't seem to control anything, there was one seemingly also controlling nothing on a laptop, and one furiously pretending to 'scratch'. They were all wearing basketball jerseys, they all had long hair, and they all had on sweatbands. Two of them were wearing sunglasses... I don't want to judge anyone based on appearances, here, but the words 'douchebag, hipster, cocktards' springs immediately to mind. When I finally got the attention of one of them, and leaning in, voiced my desire to request a song, I was immediately waved off and told that "we don't play songs for ugly girls"...

'Well! That was rude! I'm leaving this bar immediately and writing a harshly worded letter to this establishment's management tomorrow upon sleeping off the effects of all this alcohol I've so recently consumed!' -never went through my booze-fried brain as I gathered up all the electrical cables sprouting from the DJ equipment and ripped them out, shutting off all the laser, disco ball, fog machine bullshit and plunging the club into darkened silence in one glorious, furious tug. I was grabbed almost immediately around the waist by a security guard, hoisted onto his shoulder and hauled outside, but not before screaming "I AM NOT AN UGLY GIRL!!!!" amidst a chorus of booing.

I am NOT an ugly girl.

• Tripping While Sober

I wear heels. I do! I wear them all the time, of varying heights, and I look great in them. BUT - fun fact, guys: it takes a lot of practice to get competent at wearing heels, I mean, like, months and months. And that is just to become comfortable standing and walking at a medium pace, it takes upwards of a year of consistently wearing heels to get any good at dancing or light jogging, and trust me, you'll need light jogging when it's three a.m in December in downtown Ottawa and the bars just let out and it's minus twenty five and you're outside a shwarma stand trying to catch a cab with eighty thousand other drunkards. 

I have never eaten one of these sober, but I hear they're delicious.

So, I'm now a pro at heels - I could do that army thing where you run through the old car tires while wearing five inch pumps - but obviously this wasn't always the case, and the night in question was one of my first ventures out in a brand new pair of ultra-high heels that I had bought to impress this guy I was dating at the time. It was only our third date and he was pretty sophisticated and fancy and so far I had tricked him into thinking that I was too. That night he had taken me out for oysters and wine that didn't come from a box or five gallon jug, and then we had met up with a group of his equally fancy friends and were heading to a club nearby for 'bottle service', which I understand is a rich person way of saying 'alcohol poisoning'.

So I'm dressed all fancy in my fancy dress, and fancy makeup, and fancy heels, but especially my fancy manners, which this guy is buying hook, line and sinker, and we walk up to this club and bypass the line and as I'm walking past the bouncer who is holding the velvet rope aside for me, I misjudge the height of the step and trip. I didn't faceplant, by any means, but I definitely went down, and if the bouncer hadn't grabbed my arm I would definitely have broken an ankle in my stupid, fucking, heels. I am very, very embarrassed, of course, and turn bright red as my date begins fussing over me and asking if I'm alright. I brush him off and turn to continue into the club when the bouncer snaps the velvet rope into place in front of me. He sees my confused look and quietly suggests that maybe I've had a bit too much to drink? I am dumbfounded. I have NEVER had too much, that is why I KEEP drinking - but not only that, I only had one glass of wine with dinner! I'm trying to be sophisticated! I'm fancy! I try and stay calm in front of my date and argue that I innocently tripped, but the bouncer is hearing none of it. Then my date tries to intercede and calmly explain our situation, but the red mist has descended over my eyes and I catch myself screaming: "LISTEN, you cocksucking, hobo-fucker-" before letting the rage take over. 

The fancy guy didn't call me again.   

Things That Have Mysteriously NOT Gotten Me Kicked Out of Bars: 

• Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen and I have a relationship. A deep, meaningful, passionate, entirely one-sided relationship. I am obsessed with him, and if he ever so much as even glanced at me I'd die. I'd JUST DIE!!! So any time there is a jukebox around I'm digging for quarters, and scanning the albums for that shaggy-headed, golden-voiced, second-coming of Christ. One night in particular however, I was feeling a stronger-than-usual hankering for some New Jersey rock, and through a fog of Labatt 50 and Jack Daniels, I spent five dollars at the jukebox playing 'Born to Run'. Let me explain, each song counts as 1 credit, and a dollar buys you 2 credits, and I spent 5 dollars, which equals 10 credits - so, 10 credits, 5 dollars... carry the 2... 

Fuck math- I played 'Born to Run' TEN TIMES on the jukebox. IN A ROW. 

I was loving it, obviously, but weirdly enough, apparently so was everybody else. Instead of behaving like a regular drunk, slightly aggressive bar crowd would and becoming furious once they realized what was happening, the patrons thought it was hilarious by the third time it played, then, singing along, treated it as a chance to really nail down all the lyrics they didn't already have memorized by the sixth time it played. By play number eight, miraculously the bar had essentially formed it's own airband with yours truly on vocals. 

Everybody hugged when it was over. 

My next article will be titled: "'Born To Run' = World Peace".

•  'I'm the Bartender Now!'

Bartenders are rockstars in my book, which means I was really living the dream when one night I drunkenly vaulted the bar and started taking orders. The power I felt immediately radiated through me as I started pouring drinks for the screaming masses. I realized I had no idea what any of the prices were so I just started yelling numbers - five shots of tequila? Seventy bucks. Two pints? Twenty eight. A rum and coke? Twelve, thirteen with a lime. I was a little wary at first but then I realized that people barely heard me - they just threw money at me and began slurping back the drinks I had made them. I was riding a high I had never experienced before. I was commanding a respect I will never experience again, until the real bartender saw me. 

I froze, my fight or flight instincts drunkenly brawling in my head, but the bartender just smiled at me, grabbed a bottle of Heineken from the fridge and handed it to me. I took it and he pointed to the swinging door at the end of the bar, leading back to the real world, and I immediately felt my powers fade away as I once again became a non-bartending nobody. 

• Tripping Whilst Breaths Away From Alcohol Poisoning     

This one requires little to no explanation. I was hammered. Like, 'eyes-can't-blink-at-the-same-time' hammered. I had just been dumped by some idiot who wore a thumb ring and I was feeling particularly vulnerable, so I decided to drink all the alcohol. I was out with a few friends and they were trying to cheer me up so they do what all well-intentioned girlfriends always do, they dragged me out to the dance floor. I am not the keenest dancer, because I once saw a video of myself doing it while soused at a wedding and I looked like a homeless woman trying to play the drums during an earthquake. Not pretty. But I was amazingly wasted and sad and dancing is fun, no matter how embarrassed you are afterwards, so I went for it. Big mistake. I was having trouble finding the beat and staying upright, when one of my friends decided, being drunk herself, that what I really needed was a good-old-fashioned bear hug. From behind. As soon as she wrapped her arms around me, my brain decided that that was just about enough for the night, and went lights out. I went back like a tree and smashed her, with me on top, into a table covered with drinks. My brain turned back on as I was being hauled upright by some good samaritans, and my friend was being towelled off. I immediately raised both fists to ready myself for the approaching bouncers but they never came - I was ushered back to our table by my friends, and the guys whose table I had nearly cracked in half sent over a round of shots... 

Some mysteries are better left unsolved. But I'll promise you here and now that my quest to find new and exciting ways to be kicked out of every alcohol-providing venue will never, ever end. 

  

             

  

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