PART
2
In
the first
part
of this series about my own personal experiences with The Masquerade
music venue in Atlanta I talked about my first time there and a few
of the memorable experiences that occurred on subsequent visits. Now
it’s time to talk about working there – the best job I have ever
had.
And
suddenly my brain has started working. One of my friends worked
there. Not a close friend, but a guy that I liked and had hung out
with. He told me to show up at a certain time on a certain day and
ask for Barbie.
The
name “Barbie” probably carries a lot of weight for anyone reading
this that worked at the club. Barbie was the manager while I was
there and she had/has quite a reputation. But she was always decent
to me. I can remember a couple of times where she lost her shit a
little bit and I know I ended up working in the parking lot a few
times when I had asked to work inside. And there was one time she
accused me of stealing money from the parking lot fares. Mostly she
was pleasant to me, though. And she’s the one that hired me, so
I’ll always be grateful for that.
I
don’t know the exact date I started, but I can narrow it down to
sometime between June 22nd
and July 19th
of 1996. I know this because Anthrax played there on the former date
and even though I didn’t love their time with John Bush, there’s
no way
I would have forgotten them playing at the place I freaking worked.
And I know I was working there during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
That’s actually crazy because apparently nine inch nails played
that September. I know I didn’t see that show, so I must have been
stuck working the parking lot. I almost have a vague memory of asking
to work inside and being told as the new guy I was stuck in the lot
(and rightly so).
The
hiring process was not exactly thorough. If I remember correctly, the
interview consisted of Barbie asking when I was available to work –
whenever – and telling me I had to buy a shirt. I think that I had
two shirts the whole time I worked there. An ex-girlfriend got one –
I’ll talk about her later – and I still have the other. And also
only having two shirts while working at that sweaty, smoky, dirty
place seems pretty gross to me now.
I
need to acknowledge the super-handy Setlist.fm
for filling in many of the blanks in my memory and to the amazing
Augusta
Chronicle
for taking care of the rest. As I write more and look at those sites,
things are starting to come back. There are certain shows and events
that are crystal clear in my memory, but others needed a little jolt.
After working there for around a year and seeing/working on/setting
up who knows how many shows, things tend to blur a bit.
Before
I get into specific experiences, I want to run down just what,
exactly, my job was.
For
minimum wage - $4.25 an hour – I was hired as security. I can’t
remember my actual job title, but quite frankly nobody making minimum
wage even deserves a job title. We always just referred to ourselves
as “security”. To the public eye our jobs involved walking around
the floors of the various parts of the club during open hours and
making sure there was no “trouble”. This was called “roaming”.
Security also worked the stage and backstage areas. These jobs
basically involved keeping the public away from the talent in various
ways. I’ll get more into that later.
“Trouble”
could be anything from underage drinking to use of illegal drugs to
fighting. I have to be honest and say that during the time I worked
at The Masquerade I saw very little “trouble”, but I’ll
certainly be telling you about the instances I did see or have to
deal with. For the most part the place was pretty chill. Every night
I went in expecting bad things to happen, and 99 out of 100 nights
nothing did.
Roaming
was part of the job, but there was so much more to it than just that.
As far as duties during hours of operation, we were also responsible
for the parking lot and “working the door”. The former involved
taking cash from patrons at the entrance to the parking lot that used
to be beside the venue – but not providing any sort of protection
for their cars, despite what people assumed. In the latter post you
would check patron’s IDs and issue wristbands that identified them
as old enough to drink.
The
parking lot mostly sucked and nobody really wanted to work it.
Granted, there were certain perks if one was of odious enough
character to take advantage of them, but for the most part you just
sat at the front of the lot all night, nowhere near music or partying
or any sort of entertainment. Remember – we didn’t have cell
phones in 1997. It’s not like we could sit out there looking at
Facebook all night.
As
I mentioned, most people assumed that we were watching over the cars.
We were not. If I hear a window break, no way am I risking my life
for some twat upstairs watching Three Doors Down. Sorry about your
Discman, Meredith. Here’s how totally not watched the parking lot
was – one of the guys at the club was a junkie(!). I was pals with
him and had made minor attempts to get him to stop. One night he was
jonesing pretty bad. Lots of things went on in that club, but
shooting up was pretty strictly verboten – we couldn’t even smoke
cigarettes on shift. At the time the area was rougher than it is now
and if he had gone out in an alley or something, who knows what would
have happened. He asked to use my car, but even I at the height of my
naiveté (which I was right around then) was smart enough to not give
a junkie my keys. So I went out to the car with him and let him shoot
up in there. He was going to do it one way or another, so I figured I
might as well give him a safe place and a second – and sober –
set of eyes. I didn’t want him to do it, but his life certainly
wasn’t going to get any better if he got busted. I watched as he
cooked and prepped and whatever, but he asked me not to look as he
actually shot up.
I’ve
always had a fear of pretty much any drugs other than marijuana. I
never even dropped acid or ate mushrooms. But looking back at my
buddy that night as he coasted off for
sure
reinforced the fact that I would never use heroin. Something about
his high just freaked me out. He was gone.
Loss of presence of mind is the thing that always bothered me about
drugs, and that was exactly what I saw in my passenger seat.
After
a few minutes he packed his kit back up and we went back inside.
He
left town a couple of months later. I think I heard at one point that
he had cleaned up. I hope so. I hope that guy is out there somewhere
leading a happy life and clean and sober.
I’ve
never seen anyone else shoot heroin and I hope I never do. Out of all
of the Masquerade memories I have, this one haunts me. I didn’t
really expect to share it here, but it’s a thing that happened and
– like so many of the events I’ll be talking about – it had a
big impact on me as a person.
I
think that’s it for today. Next time I’ll talk about working the
door and maybe even get into some band stories. Spoiler – some
bands are dicks.
I’ll tell the story of celebrating my twenty-first birthday at the
club at some point, as well.
Thanks
for reading. If you have your own Masquerade stories to share, do it
in the comments below, join the Needless Things Podcast Facebook Group,
or drop me a line at phantomtroublemaker@gmail.com.
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