Dru B. Bing changed his name from Drew, from Andrew, from Andreu, to escape being the victim of bullying and own it. As much as you can own a name. Put together, the name obviously spells out ironic inflection. Dru Bing still finds himself on the receiving end of many blows, to his ego, to his face, to his ribs. Naturally this leads all toward a job as a bouncer.
Modestly, it's work that stands at the gates of hell. A literal backwash of humanity as the strobe lights compete with the person loading up CDs behind a wall of electronics, drowning out the conversations with the zinzulations of Lynx body spray and glitter. All that damn glitter. Someone punched the anus of a rainbow and now they're covered in sparkle that won't wash off for weeks.
This led to the policy that all costumes entering the nightclub cannot be more than upper torso only.
To Bing, and to the patrons eager to walk into a bed of disused condoms and sugar-infused alcoholic drinks, his charge at the velvet rope is akin to a pantocrator. But without any kind of allusions or conceit. Lord of the universe of a sea of people tanned enough to show up under the black lights inside. (The blacklighting, contrary to popular belief is not to show where all the body fluids end up. That's just the commissioned artwork.) As the head of the line, as its judge, he controls the opening and closing of the velvet rope. For in his hands and eyes will he be the Noah to The Ark.
Practically he has to turn away those who haven't pushed their leathery hides closer to skin cancer because the paleness that comes from their veins showing through induces more headaches than the spiked drinks.
Quotidian, rote, banal. The many splendours of comparing fake IDs and wondering how many are going to be pregnant, how many are going home with vomit down their undies and how many are going to be showing up at the hospital looking for booster shots and antibiotics for the newest STI.
Dru wanted to escape the pummelling and dish out some of his own. Standing at the head of the line, humanity knows how to deliver a one-two punch every single night. You can never outrun if you never try to hide.
Written on Sunday, 26 May 2013