Clubbed to Death
6/22/04 (#32)
Every musician knows that in many clubs, the worst part of the gig is the club owner. While some bars are opened as legitimate concerns with an attention to customer satisfaction and a sound bottom line, the very nature of a drinking hole attracts a certain seedy version of the businessman, including various lushes and lotharios who see the bar as their way to be the life of the party every night. (Apparently unconcerned about the fact that they are purchasing that center of attention, like a man who hires prostitutes then brags that he's getting laid all the time.)
One such club in Maine featured a self-satisfied buffoon who, despite the fact that our band provided him 3 of his top 5 grossing nights in the preceding year (always helpful to have a bartender who tells you the truth about sales) tried, every time we booked a gig, to explain that he simply couldn't afford our fee. It was a local club, many of our fans liked to drink there, so every other month we would go through the rigmarole of justifying another one-night partnership, knowing that he was earning twice what he paid us in beer profits alone.
An illustration of his business acumen: He booked us for Friday, May 6th, excited that it was going to be a banner night for this reason: Every bar in town was having a Cinco de Mayo party on Thursday the 5th, so he was going to avoid the rush by having his Cinco de Mayo party on the 6th. (For those who speak only English, Cinco de Mayo is Spanish for, "Don't have your party on the 6th, dipshit.") We tried to get him to move our gig to the 13th, for obvious reasons: After a heavy drinking Thursday, many folks would be hungover, wallets drained, and swearing off margaritas and cerveza for the foreseeable future. But he knows his business---Seis de Mayo was going to illustrate his brilliance.
And that it did: The extra bartender brought in to handle the crowd spent most of the night watching us; She had no trouble finding a seat, as it was our smallest crowd ever at the venue; Even those folks who came out for the music nursed beers for an hour, or worse, lemonades for even longer. It was a dismal night for everyone, and it was not a surprise to us when he waddled over during tear-down and explained how this demonstrated how our band could no longer draw. Tired of these conversations, we agreed, took our check, and the next month began filling his competitor's bar a few blocks away.
When I tell this story to musicians, none are incredulous. In fact, most say, "That reminds me of the blockhead at..." and they proceed to tell a story that chronicles an even more ridiculous scenario. If their story manages to top mine (and they usually do), I can order one more round for each of us and tell them about The Beat Puppy.
Brian was co-owner of the bar, a fabulous space that inexplicably changed hands every year. Inexplicably up until Brian's involvement, then it was an inevitability. Brian could piss off a monk.
I'm not sure if Brian went to college (it strains credulousness to think so), but he could be the defacto national spokesperson for flunkie frat boys, the type who maintain a 0.6 GPA while bragging that they hold the house record for upside-down margaritas. ("And that was as an underclassman. I could have topped it if I could have come back as a Junior.") He married a woman with money, convinced her how much fun it would be to open a bar in a quiet resort community, and every night got sloshed while thinking he was hosting with the debonair and flair of Rick in Casablanca. Patrons, however, thought he was doing an impersonation from another movie, that being Porky from the movie Porky's.
The following facts are essential for the story that follows:
- In Maine, as it is elsewhere, it is a violation of a bar's liquor license for the bartender to drink.
- It is not legal to have house pets on the drinking premises, even if it's a very likeable Labrador retriever that wagged his tail with the velocity of a sock full of quarters.
- It is illegal to threaten customers with a deadly weapon.
Brian summarily ignored #1. After each gig, we would load our gear into the truck, then accompany Brian to his makeshift office ("Nice Corona posters, B") where we would hear either a litany of "constructive criticisms" from his beer-addled brain while he held our pay hostage, or manic exaltations of our great playing, the jubilant atmosphere of the bar, and efforts to book us for the next weekend despite another band clearly inked for those days on the calendar on his desk. It was a fabulous room to play, we always pulled a crowd, so these post-show visits were the price paid to the piper for the opportunity to play a good venue. One night, The Beat Puppy was rocking. Brian was slammed behind the bar (and slamming beers behind the bar), the band was smoking, the crowd was dancing, and if it was the goal of any patron to have fun that night, success was found in that room. The audience was full of friends and fans, and the atmosphere was electric.
We finished up our last set, 30 minutes before last call, had a drink with friends while the crowd ebbed, then eased into the packing of gear. As we started packing, a minor incident occurred at a table near the band: Brian's dog, gregariously visiting the various tables, knocked over the beer that belonged to our friend Mike.
Mike is a gentle sort. Not one to step down from a confrontation, but never one to initiate a hostile situation. The beer spilled on his clothes, but he was having a good time, so as they say in street ball, no harm, no foul. He went to the bar and said, "Your dog spilled my beer. Can I get a new one?"
Thus began the most surreal 4 minutes I have ever spent in a bar. Brian loudly accused Mike of being drunk, spilling the beer, and trying to blame the dog. A heated argument ensued, and as it did, other members of Mike's party came to his aid, having witnessed the spill themselves. Everyone involved in this conversation was drunk, and logic was not invited to join the discourse. (Had logic been allowed a few words, the words would have been "It's a three-dollar draft. Stop this nonsense now!") Brian was screaming that it was HIS bar, he made the rules, fuck you, get out of my bar, don't call my dog clumsy, you all suck. (It should be noted that behind the bar, there hung no blue ribbon for customer service.) The patrons were yelling that his dog WAS clumsy, that he was drunk, that they would report him to the state liquor commission, that he wasn't particularly trim of figure, and that his head was located inside one of his own orifices. The dog was also telling his side of the story, barking along with the yelling so that the room was filled with a chaotic din.
As the remaining crowd backed away from the bar, Brian reached below the register and pulled out a full-size fireman's ax and began to threaten menacingly. We could see from raised level of the stage that the customer team of arguers had taken a step back from the bar surface (out of ax reach) but continued to launch a blur of obscenities as Brian's face continued to redden to a shade that would make any tomato proud.
The bar was long and L shaped, the only exit being at the end opposite from where the altercation was taking place. Brian turned and ran past the waitress station toward the small space that allowed the bartender to get out into the main room. While I like to think that he merely wanted to continue the discussion face to face, his decision to bring the ax with him caused the remaining drinkers to clear the area so as not to be the accidental victim of the ax-wielding drunk. As we watched this new development, we quickly went stage right and opened up the band-only loading doors, making sure than anyone who wanted to escape would have no problem doing just that. To be honest, I had no idea how anyone was going to stop that sloshed idiot.
But Craig, one of the dog-spill entourage, had an ingenious method of ceasing Brian's forward progress: As Brian rounded the corner at the opposite end of the bar, Craig reached across the bar and with his forearm pushed all of the draft taps open. Beer was flowing freely, immediately engulfing the spill tray and pouring out onto parts of the bar that we could not see. To his credit, Brian was apparently more cheapskate than rage-aholic, so he turned around and ran back behind the bar. Satisfied that the deluge of beer that spilled over the bar exceeded the value of the beer that the dog had spilled on Mike, they raced for the exit while Brian cross-checked the taps with the ax handle, shutting them all off simultaneously. He stood there in the large puddle of beer, his face the color of a ripe red-delicious apple, clutching the axe like a B-movie villain whose method acting had so engrossed him that he couldn't hear the director yell cut.
He continued to hyperventilate behind the bar as the crowd said their goodbyes and quietly exited to the sidewalk. Through the still open loading door we could hear the patrons gathering at the side of the venue, exclaiming a dozen variations on, "Can you believe that shit?!"
Scott, the singer in my band, turned to me with a sigh and said, "Tonight, this is not going to be a fun visit to his office."
Of course, he was right.
©2004 wpreagan
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