I was asked what happens between the hours of Saturday Evening and that time after Saturday Night but before Sunday Morning. I’ll tell you what happens: Lessons are Learned. Sometimes these are profound discoveries like your ability to convince a large bartender that even though you are dressed up as a pirate you truly were looking for the washroom as you ran through the kitchen and not, as he so forcefully tries to make you believe, ‘causing trouble slash mischief’; sometimes they are survival skills such as don’t make eye-contact with that silent, pedophile-looking guy on the train, he is not your friend, even if he has candy; and on occasion they are life altering lessons that force you to re-evaluate your purpose and question your very existence; these are the open-bar Weddings… all of them. Most recently though, my brother and I added a few new gems to our Rule Book of Fun which highlight the shenanigans that are bound to happen when you leave your house on a Saturday Night.
I didn’t actually find brother-Neil until about 9:30. His story involves ‘Girls Hockey’, ‘Slow Service at Restaurants’, and ‘Not Enough Drinks’. (As an aside for those not familiar with the terminology: ‘Girls Hockey’ is much like ‘Hockey’, or ‘Normal Hockey’, but with a variety of strange alterations to the sport – no hitting, a female version of the Jock which may or may not be call the Jill, and very low scoring, sometimes no scoring at all, for several games - and girls play this the same way that boys and men play Normal Hockey). My story starts by missing a ride that was never offered to me until it was too late. There were tears, fingers were pointed, enemies, friends-off, and then on, and then off again, all kinds of new promises were made and a bunch of ‘I’m sorrys’ were tossed around, all of which have now been stuffed in a sac. I took the train. Someone once told me that taking the train by yourself is very Zen, an excellent opportunity to reflect on your life and quietly take a break from the fast pace of society. This person was an idiot. Taking the train by yourself is creepy and weird and terrible. So I was more than happy to distract myself from the 'character' of the Calgary LRT by responding to a text from friend-Will asking me where I was. ‘Training it down town to Melrose. Are you guys still heading to Amsterdam Rhino tonight?’ I had barely sent the text when my phone started to cry out with its Crank Ringtone that makes it sound like the cell is dying; it’s a fan favourite, it turns heads. It is Will.“Where on the train are you?” This is a level of creepy that I don’t expect to find on the train even when the pedophile-looking guy is having a staring contest with my youthful visage.
I do that thing that people do on TV when they think they are being watched, before dramatically asking Will if he can see me. Turns out that I am on the same train as Will and his droogs, but I’m two cars back. The train stops at the next station, I dart on to the platform, race passed the opened doors, dodge the crowds that hate the train as much as I do, and slip into the first car as the doors are closing (I assure you, it was a cool move, very athletic/super-spy). We talk about the things that we talk about, laugh and cackle at good stories, and then get into the abstract art of Saturday Night Planning where times are vague, locations are fluid, and nothing is ever certain. My stop comes; I almost miss it because I’m telling a story that involves re-enactments, hand gestures, impersonations and what-not. I try to appease they’re protests of me ‘bailing’ with a promise that I will catch up with Will and the droogs later. They don’t believe me, pretend to be mad, and forget that there was ever a problem before the train has pulled away. My current mission is a birthday.
I walk down 17th avenue, which takes about 15 minutes and reinforces 2 of my already favourite Rules: 1) it’s Calgary, wear a jacket, 2) if people look ‘strange and scary’ it’s cause they are, avoid them, always. Melrose is packed but it’s a good packed, it’s full of beautiful people drinking fabulous drinks while either pretending to be interested in what someone is saying while watching sports, or pretending to be interested in sports while watching what the beautiful people are saying. If you’re not pretending, you’re not trying hard enough. The birthday boy is working on the Trinity of Drunk: Not-Puking, Not-Falling, Not-Falling-in-Puke. So I buy him a drink. I mingle, I socialize, I pretend to be interested in a few people while watching people pretending to be interested in sports. I find my sister about the same time Neil arrives from his Girls-Hockey-Dinner-Out extravaganza. We spend more time together chatting at the bar than we have all week… we live together… it’s funny, kind of sad, and special all at the same time… a few people make the ‘awwwwww’ sound towards us. 10 o’clock rolls around, the birthday boy has already disappeared twice, and I have ordered myself a second pint. Neil and I discuss something that would later force us to create an important rule; we plan to leave Melrose and find Will and his droogs at Amsterdam Rhino. We don’t know it yet, but this is all kinds of bad-plan.
Neil and I walk six blocks off the High of people not wanting us to leave Melrose. We locate Rhino. I think I’m being funny by saying ‘Is it the place with the massive line-up? Haha hahaha ha ha haha’. Although the line-up isn’t more than ten feet passed the door we know we are in trouble. Line-ups are bad. Line-ups are like the night club equivalent of that progress-bar at the bottom of your internet page; sure the ‘progress’ looks good, but that last millimeter of unfinished download is going to eat away at your soul… this of course only ever happens when you are on your laptop in the stall of a public washroom… there, it’s okay, it’s a Toilet-Metaphor, it works. Stupid metaphors, now they’re showing up in my writing. Neil and I are optimistic, it’s 10:40ish (all times during a Saturday Night Out involve the ‘ish’ quality) and we’re ready to Combo-Up the night with our second ‘event’. Combo-Ups; More bad ideas.
Our fatal flaw is obvious. And if you are at all familiar with the ways of the Night Life you will know that we were doomed from the start. We, Neil and I, have no boobs. And no-boobs, is not even close to the number of boobs one needs to get into a ‘Hot Spot’ after 10pm on a Saturday. So keeping in mind the lack of boobage that Neil and I are trying to work with, we came up with two new favourites: 1) Where ever you are at 10pm on a Saturday Night Out is a good place to stay, and 2) Don’t be greedy, don’t try to Combo-Up on a Saturday Night Out.
We waited in line. We waited in line for a long time. Here’s the thing about ‘Waiting’, and it’s not just for Line-Waiting, it’s for all kinds of waiting, no one will ever compliment, reward, or compensate you for ‘Good Waiting’. Neil and I waited the hell out of that Line-up. We didn’t push-or-shove, we didn’t heckle randoms, we didn’t throw things, or pee on walls, we just stood in line, shot shit with other Line-Waiters, and dreamed of a time when we could be inside the bar and not outside the bar. No rewards.
When you stand in line for as long as Neil and I did you see things and learn things that you just can’t get your hands on anywhere else. For example: a twenty-something aspiring Darwin-Award winner hanging out of the window of a neighboring pub with a beer asking if he could join us in the line. It should be noted that a bouncer almost killed this individual. Another tid-bit of knowledge that I can share: Don’t be tall. In a line-up being tall is a bad thing, especially when happy drunk people start to sober up and add frustration and rowdiness to their toolbox of stupid. For some reason I was surrounded by short people who kept taunting cops and yelling at crazy-eyed bouncers and hating on brown people. Inevitably when the cops shone their flash lights, the bouncer enthusiastically geared up for a pummeling, and the non-white anyones looked to start stabbing, I was the lightening rod that everyone was drawn to. This is how good people, who want nothing but happiness, love, rainbows, and butterflies get there situation all screwed up. Don’t be tall.
Other guidelines to follow:
1) Bouncers hate their job, the world, and anyone who tries to convince them that someone should be let in. Don’t joke with them, smile near them, or look in their direction. In fact don’t look at them ever, ever, ever, ever… ever, Ever. (There are exceptions to this rule, but the consequence of misinterpreting an ‘exception’ and engaging with one of these physical beasts is a one-way ticket to Pain-Oh-the-Pain-I-hate-my-life-kind-of-PAIN.)
2) Only make fun of a girl if you are flirting with her, or if you want to compete with the Pain-Oh-the-Pain-I-hate-my-life-kind-of-PAIN option. Definitely don’t call them Fat, Drunk, Trashy, Whorish, or Fat – I wanted to emphasize that one.
3) If you fart blame it on the Line-Jackass (he who breaks all the Line Waiting Rules), no one will question this, they hate him as much as the train and the being-outside-a-club.
4) If you ‘Budge’, ‘Bud’, ‘Cut’, or are sneaky in anyway AND get caught, your Facebook Statues will read: Fucked! ‘So-and-so is Fucked!’ Or ‘So-and-so is totally Fucked!’ I’m not saying don’t, I’m just saying it’s a little more dangerous than steal home plate.
5) If you are with girls, stay with them. They are your Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Golden Ticket into anywhere and everywhere. If you are girl-less, find some girls, befriend them, and let their powers/boob-count get you in the club. Don’t be picky here, we’re not talking Marriage, or Relationships, or even bad-dance-floor decisions, this is all business so man up and cozy up to a Swamp Donkey if you have to.
6) Road Pops are good. Again you can’t be Mad Men about it and advertise your beverage, because not only will the Bouncers smile at you about the chance to unleash the ass-kicking they have been bottling up all night, but The Beverage is the most valuable thing in a Line-up Wait, aside from boobs of course.
Actually, I have polled the audience in several line-ups about the idea of selling drinks to the Line and the average outside-the-bar person would be willing to spend anywhere from $7 to $10 for a beer. I’m just the idiot who stood in line for an hour and a half to get into a dying party in an okay club for two drinks where a 6 tried what I can only assume was a sub-par pick-up attempt on me, but I think there is some serious un-tapped revenue waiting to be had by the first bar to liquor license a 10 foot line-shaped area just outside their door. Who knows though, I just stand in the line. I did feel bad about the 6. She gave it a go, and came at me with all kinds of confidence, and I really only rewarded her efforts with some pleasant convo and a little wit à-la-Jack. It should be noted that most people are not in the market for ‘pleasant convo’ and ‘wit’ when they are at a Night Club. They want something else, a ‘something else’ that is usually ‘ass’ related, or involves the verb ‘grind’, or ends with ‘digits’, ‘a bad decision’, and/or ‘regrets’.
Neil and I were 5 minutes from leaving the front of the line and going home. We had spent the last hour figuring that we were only 5 minutes from getting in. Queue the internet progress-bar and all the side-order of hate that comes with it. We couldn’t decide if a story that involved ‘waiting in line for 2 hours’ or one that ended with ‘…and even though we were at the front of the line, we left’ was more depressing. 3 and a half minutes later we were showing our IDs to a Bouncer we wouldn’t dream of making eye-contact with, and giving the rest of the line that ‘yeah, that’s right, we’re getting in’ stare.
We left Amsterdam Rhino forty minutes later, so that we could catch the last southbound train, and avoid the pricy disaster that is a Calgary Cab ride from down town to the So Cal Suburbs. We agreed that our precious Rhino 40 was well worth the wait; not because of the attention deficit DJ and his 20-30 second samplings that messed with your mind, or the over-priced domestic bottles, or the serious lack of CW-style beauty, or even the escape from the cold. The Rhino 40 was great because of the drunk middle aged man in a dress who slapped my ass not once but twice, and because of the glorious game that one of the droogs poured on a dance-floor hottie who had a boyfriend who couldn’t stop her from giving the droog her number, and because of the group of guys who thought they should dance shirtless on a stage (they shouldn’t and couldn’t, but did), and because it meant that Neil and I had defeated the Line, made the Combo-Up happen, and found our friends in time to be considered ‘Hard-Core’, ‘Committed’, ‘Troopers’, and many other badass titles that you can only really earn on a Saturday Night Out. When we left, nothing had changed with the outside-the-Bar scene; it was still Bouncers vs Line-Waiters vs the Chaos of the Uncertainties of the Night. Walking out it, and knowing that it was all a disaster that I no longer had to deal with… beautiful sight. But oddly enough, I already kind of missed that mess.
We trained it south, and with each stop a few more late night characters faded into their own tired darkness. Our stop came. Neil and I saluted Will and the droogs and committed to more future-mayhem. We walked home recapping the night’s highlight real and talked about what we had learned today. If you’re good, these Lessons and Rules become part of your subconscious, and you dominate the Saturday Night Out. If you’re bad, you are bound to litter your Saturday Night with cruel experiences of vomitous, the beat-down, tears and fears, encounters with Crazies, and a whole allotment of still to be discovered trouble. It's the uncertainty of the spontaneous that makes up more than half the adventure, and that is why I am always more than happy to wander out into the night with nothing more than a hunger for the unknown that lies between the hours of Saturday Evening and that time after Saturday Night but before Sunday Morning. And between the 'Good' and the 'Bad', I am definitely a Lesson Learner.
... and this past Saturday that was what I learned. What have you learned today?
Special thanks to the iPhone for it's conviently blurry action shots of Will, the droogs, brother-Neil, the sister, the birthday boy, and your Hero/Super-Spy...
