A Mad Hatter's Ball

The Mad Hatter's Ball (featuring members of Edmonton's Imperial Sovereign Court) -- an apropos metaphor for my weekend! 

Had a rather busy weekend working Thursday, Friday and Sunday nights at Buddy's doing Security (which will now be the shifts I regularly work at the bar until I head back to NYC) and then on Saturday I went and shot the Pride Centre's MAD HATTER'S BALL for Outlooks. I was also going to shoot two other events over the weekend but since we had major snow storms on both Friday and Saturday, the attendance at each of these was so pathetic there was virtually no one for me to photograph.

The highlights of the weekend have to go to the drunk people I encountered while working at the bar. Thursday, a guy, out of breath and grinding his teeth as if there was no tomorrow (hello can everyone say "cocaine"), came flying in the doors to announce to me that his car had just been jacked (stolen). At that point he found it quite amusing and proceeded to tell me that he met some other gay guy who was travelling with a woman out in the parking lot and since it was cold he invited them to get into his car to stay warm (he didn't say it but I could tell he was interested in the guy -- typical male letting his pants do the thinking). They then proceeded to do some drugs (why he was telling me -- Security -- this, I'll never know) and when the driver said he had to jump out to go pee, he thought it was ok to leave the car running with the keys in the ignition. Well ... needless to say, when he came back from around the building the car and his two new friends were gone. Still laughing about the unreality of it, I suggested that perhaps he call the police. This brought his mood crashing down. Then trying to be the eternal optimist he said "Well at least I have insurance" and then a second later, "Oh man, I don't know if I'm covered for theft, the insurance isn't in my name". Then to compound the matter, he realized he didn't even know his license plate number. But that wasn't the worst of it, his attitude took the ultimate dive when he realized that he was down to his last cigarette and the new pack he had just bought was in the console of his car. At this point, he finally did call the police. Over the course of the evening, I would be told this very same story about a dozen times more, sometimes not directly to me but I somehow always managed to be within earshot. As you can imagine, the police gave this guy a really hard time -- it was so completely obvious he was high -- he replied to the police officers "Judge on, judge on" but by the end of the night the cops had recovered his vehicle. Seems the gay guy's woman jumped into the driver's seat when the opportunity afforded itself and when the chick finally pulled over the guy called the cops because he didn't want anything to do with the theft. So the bad girl was charged and the oh-so-intelligent owner of the vehicle was later heard happily announcing that he and the car thief's gay friend were going on a date the next night. Isn't it lovely how things work out!

That was Thursday, Friday was St. Patrick's Day! So you can well imagine the completely drunk idiots I dealt with that night. And on top of being liquored, it was a betting crowd as well:
"I bet you get sick of some of these really stupid people."
"I bet you get tired of drunks."
"I bet you get hit on a lot."
and my personal fave, "I bet you've seen just about everything working here." to which I replied, "No, not really, you guys aren't all that interesting." (evil smirk) Do I sound jaded or what!
Also on Friday, some drunk asshole purposely tried to burn my face with a cigarette when I wouldn't let him back into the bar after kicking him out for passing out on the table. Needless to say he's now banned.

My weekend ended Sunday night, with a maximum of about 30 people that braved the elements to come see the Drag Show that night. Of those 20 some odd (and I don't use the term lightly) patrons, we had to cut off 8 of them from drinking because they were too far gone. That sort of tells you what kind of night it was.

I so much prefer being a photographer. Ha ha. But then again being a bouncer does provide me with a perspective of how very, very good my personal life really is compared to these people (and it does give me the occasional humorous anecdote).