Monday 14 March 2016

Clubbing 101

When the deadly duo of Wiggaz and Black Belt Jones weren't ripping up dingy clubs together on weekends, you could usually find our crew at a number of bars in the downtown Toronto area, and we were always rolling deep.

Between the four of us guys who lived together, we had quite the posse of friends. We each had our own friends, we each had some mutual friends, and we each had made new friends through our circle of people. Our house had become the hot spot on weekends where everyone would congregate to "pre-bash" as we used to call it...meaning we would partake in some drinking before heading out to the bars, in order to save money I suppose, although I'd easily spend $50 minimum every time we went to a bar or club. 

Generally when we were going to a club in the city, we'd have a convoy of cars leaving our house simultaneously. We'd also have other friends meet us at said clubs. It wasn't uncommon for us to have a group of 20-30 people at a time on any given night, which meant a nice secure feeling of friendship, safety, and loyalty.

Our bar(s) of choice were mainly The Bovine Sex Club and The Boom Boom Room, both of which were basically in spitting distance of each other. The bovine was cool, but it's a very small club, and when packed tight wth people it could easily make one highly claustrophobic. The Boom Boom Room was definitely the club of choice. It had a cool layout, go go dancers in cages, decent music, and they always had deals on drinks. 

We generally had fun without bringing any negativity to the table, after all we were there to have a good time, not to cause trouble. But of course trouble found us from time to time, which was generally bad news for "trouble".

One night I was grooving on the dance floor with some ladies and I noticed someone kept bumping me from behind. I tried my best to ignore it as I was having a great night, until I unexpectedly went slamming down to the ground. As quickly as I hit the floor I was back on my feet facing the assailant, who ended up being much bigger than myself. I asked him what his fucking problem was and he answered by wrapping one of his oversized mitts around my neck. Not one to be intimidated easily, I latched my grasp onto his Adam's apple and began to squeeze. His friends kept looking back and for between us to see who'd give first. 

What happened next seemed like an illusion. Somehow the big guy magically lifted off his feet and levitated about a foot in the air, then he went flying backwards and slammed into a wall. Through the cigarette smoke and flashing lights I realized it was my boys who had performed this magic trick. As the giant hit the wall and fell, all of his belongings when scattering about, which my friends eagerly retrieved. The bouncer saw the whole ordeal and threw him out, then apologized to me for the inconvenience. After all we were good customers who spent a lot of money there and we never caused trouble, we just ended it. I'll never forget driving home with Gerg that night, who had just so happened to pocket the big boys pager. Greg clipped it onto the sun visor in his car as a souvenir of the nights debauchery. We had laughs for weeks as the chump kept paging himself in an attempt to find his lost belongings. 

Once the clubs let out we would all head somewhere to eat, usually a roti or shawarma place. Although I usually headed to a small Jamaican place that was a hole in the wall, but they had the best damn curry chicken in the city. We'd generally see some ruckus in our journeys too considering there were so many clubs in that area which catered to different crowds. It wasn't uncommon to see fights in the street after the bars let out.

After months of hitting up the Boom Boom, there was an incident that put the kibosh on our fun. Mike C had gone to eat, or check out another club perhaps, and when he returned to the Boom Boom Room the bouncers wouldn't let him back in as he was clearly intoxicated. For some reason Mike decided it would be a good idea to bend over and charge the doormen headfirst like a wild bull. It was a valiant effort by Mike but he was denied entry.

The next weekend we decided to goto the Bovine as we figured Mike wouldn't be let in the Boom Boom, and wouldn't you know it the same bouncer worked at both clubs! As fate would have it he remembered Mike and denied us entry. We headed up to the Boom Boom and managed to get in, as different bouncers were working.

Each weekend now became a crap shoot because we never knew what bar we would go to. It was either one or the other depending on the bouncers, but said bouncer had now informed other bouncers of Mike's antics, which made it more and more difficult to get into a club as the weeks passed. 

One thing was apparent... It was time for us to find a new club...





 

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