WHO LET THE JERKS OUT? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO?

So yeah ... let's get caught up on Der Life o' Bob ...

Too far back. Can't remember much. Sorry.

Did this big party thing at the military base. Every six weeks we have a bunch of military guys from all over the world attend a six week-long training school here. So every six weeks we have this big party to welcome them here. I play the music.

So I'm playing the tunes and for a change, I have a packed dance floor. There's 450 people in here and roughly half of them are crowded on this ballroom floor. I'm having a blast and so are they.

This guy comes up. I never got his name. We'll just call him Timmy McAsshole.

Timmy wants to use my microphone to make an announcement.

Being the swell muthafucka that I am, I smile big and hand it to him.

"WHERE ALL MY DAWGS AT?!?" he screams into the microphone, practically blowing a woofer in the process.

("Blowing a woofer". That should be a sexual entrende if I ever heard one. Feel free to use that in your next diary entry, Chico.)

"Take it down a notch!" I grin at him, still trying to be a nice guy.

He glares at me.

"I SAID...WHERE ALL MY DAWWWWWWWGS AT?!?" he yells into the microphone.

A bunch of f'n jarheads start "WOOF! WOOF! WOOFING!" all over the dancefloor.

This pleases Timmy.

I reach for the microphone now that he has successfully located his "dawgs", but Timmy's not finished yet.

"YO, YO, YO ... WHERE ALL DA SHARKS AT?!?" he screams.

A bunch of guys put their hands on their heads to represent shark dorsels or whatever the hell you call those things on shark backs.

Fins?

Humps??

I dunno.

This shit goes on for about ten minutes.

And after the first 30 seconds, it was grating on my nerves.

But I'm Mr. Nice Guy. I'm getting paid $75 an hour to be nice. That's the way I look at it. Smile and rock the fizzucking hizzouse.

Lemme describe Timmy to you ... about 5'5" ... caucasian ... with a 20 lb. chip on his shoulder due to his height disadvantage.

Every time I say something to Timmy between his screaming, he glares at me.

Like "Don't mess with me, dude. I'm military. I may look like Pee Wee Herman could give me a decent thrashing, but I could snap your neck in ways you cannot possibly imagine."

Whatever Timmy.

So then, Timmy decides to end the party.

"Yo, we all gonna head over to (local nearby bar off base) now and party over there."

Wrong fucking move, Timmy.

You see ... moving to another bar at this juncture takes money out of my pocket.

Somewhere to the tune of $75/hour.

And $35/hour once this party ends and we move it over into the bar next door where I normally work.

That was the last straw for me and I shut off his microphone without him knowing it.

He started babbling again and realized nobody was listening to him.

"What happened?" he asked with a drunken crazed look on his face.

"You DON'T promote other bars on my microphone," I said sternly. "That's taking money out of my pocket."

"What do you care?" he said.

No apology.

No "Oh man, I wasn't thinking."

"What. Do. You. Care?"

I calmly explained to him that there was a military bar right next door that I am the head DJ of and that the goal here was to get them to frequent THAT bar and keep the military on the military base.

I realize that there are hotter women in the bars off the base. And that these women dress more provacatively and are able to get more wild in other bars off the base.

This fact is not lost on my semi-feeble brain.

But these 450 people don't need to be reminded of it when I have them in the palm of my hand.

So Timmy tells me to turn his mic back on.

No apology.

No "Oh Man ... I wasn't thinking."

"Turn. My. Mic. Back. On."

Hell.

Not even a "please".

I make Timmy promise that there will be no more talk about the other bar and he promises he won't say anything.

I let him prattle on the mic for about two more minutes and then he finally walks away.

Ugh, right?

So I keep that party going for five and a half hours ... a new record for these "mixers". Usually they last about two hours.

I finally have to stop the party with a full dance floor and explained to everyone that I HAD to get next door to the actual club because people were waiting on me in there.

These mixers start at 4:30 and like I said, they usually end about 6:30, letting me go through the door to the club on the other side of the wall and start playing there without missing a beat.

It was now 10:00 and we had close to 100 people in the club next door wanting a DJ.

While it practically cut my pay in half to do so, I had to do it.

I thanked everyone for having such a great time and invited them over to the club next door.

Out of about 100 people left in the mixer, maybe 20 came with me.

And of course, one of the 20 was Timmy.

I kept an eye on the drunk fucker while I played the music. He was currently hitting on a civilian woman at the bar.

(Civilians who work on the base in the various offices are allowed in the club. Civilian women usually take advantage of this fact because they find a roomful of young, drunk military guys attractive. Personally, I don't see it, but I'm not a civilian woman.)

So after about 30 minutes, I put on "Chinese Checkers" which is over 7 minutes long and go next door to start packing up my DJ equipment from the mixer.

It wasn't a minute before I heard a familiar voice on the microphone next door.

"WHERE ALL MY DAWGS AT?!?!?"

Jesus Horatio Christ Jr. and Sons.

There was no use fighting it.

I kept packing my stuff up while Timmy ran the party in the actual club.

Now ... I ask you people who have frequented night clubs in the past ... how many of you would notice the DJ stepping away from the DJ booth and would take this as a sign that you can just get up in there and start howling over the microphone at the customers?

Show of hands?

One of you, maybe?

Regardless, it's not something a normal person would do.

Hell ... not even a DRUNK person would do. Most people wouldn't go back in the kitchen at Outback and start grilling up steaks without being invited either.

Not Timmy.

Timmy McAsshole.

He marches to the beat of his own drummer, and if you don't like it, he'll kick your ass because he may be short but he's MEAN, dammit!

I pack up my stuff, check my watch, realize the seven minutes are about up and go back inside the club.

Timmy sees me and stops shouting into the mic.

"Just trying to have fun," he shrugs.

I felt like saying "Then go bomb some babies in Iraq" but didn't.

He left the booth without me having to ask him to and went and sat with his buds at the bar.

Later he came really close to getting into a fist fight with another guy in the bar which is a MAJOR no-no with the military. You do NOT get in barroom brawls on the base. Only one has happened in the last 20 years at this club.

I wish Timmy had taken a swing. I really do.

Because he'd be sitting in a military prison right now.

Bastard.

Saturday I did a party at the lake which I'll tell you about later. It was weird. Really weird.

Alright, I'll tell you now. But Godalmighty ... this entry's gonna be long.

I get there and these homes are gorgeous ... three story mansions whose back yards are on this beautiful lake we have here.

I ask the owner where he wants me to set up.

He points at the boat dock about a quarter mile from the house.

"Everyone will work their way down there eventually," he assures me.

I go down there, set up my stuff and crank the volume as loud as it will go so the people way up at the house on the hill will hear me.

I don't mind this really, because it cuts down on the amount of stupid requests that I have to take. When people have to walk half a mile to make a request ... the requests are going to be practically eliminated.

Anyway, this one drunk redneck comes down to the boat dock. I can tell he's a redneck because of his well-coiffed mullet, his inability to wear a shirt or shoes and his talent for being able to drink a beer while smoking a cigarette at the same time.

Guess what he wants to hear?

He's got two requests ... c'mon ... guess.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Sweet Home Alabama". That's a given. It's the redneck national anthem. Hell, I had it cued up before he even reached me.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

...aaaaaaand ....

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Strokin".

Goddammit do I ever hate that song. I've written about it before, but I'll say it again. I hate hate hate hate hate hate double hate that song.

But the rich owner of the house is paying me to smile and be nice to his guests.

I'm hired help, dammit.

So I smile at Cletus O'Shirtless and play his songs while he does that drunken redneck dance by himself that drunken rednecks like to do.

It's the dance where they shuffle while they preen the feathers of imaginary baby chickens (I would have just said "chicks" but you'd think I meant "women" because I'm misogynic like that) very carefully.

I hate that dance too.

So Cletus decides that since he made the journey down here to the DJ booth and since everyone at the party can buy and sell his shirtless ass ten times over, he's gonna hang with me for the rest of the night.

He tells me how on the previous night he got kicked out of a bar for dancing with another guy's woman.

Actually, the other guy punched him in the mouth for doing this, knocking his front tooth loose (which he demonstrated by flapping his tongue at it, wiggling the shit out of that loose tooth).

And then when he punched him back, they threw CLETUS out! The nerve! Nevermind that he didn't even START the fight ... he was the one that got thrown out.

I'm guessing everywhere Cletus goes, people are itching to get rid of him as soon as possible. I know I was ready to shove him into the lake the first chance I got.

Anyway, he proceeds to tell me that the club he got kicked out of was the SAME club that I used to deejay at.

The one that I DJed at from 1985-91.

The one that closed in '92.

Yeah ... that one. It's now a Chinese restaurant.

And Cletus got in a fight in there the previous night.

That's the point where I thought to myself "This guy is a fucking psycho" and didn't really care who was paying me ... there wasn't enough money in the checking accounts of everyone at the party to keep me entertaining this freak.

So I just started ignoring him and pretending I was really busy so he'd eventually walk away.

He ended up jumping in the lake, coming back up on land, shaking the water out of his mullet, grabbing his beer and still-ignited cigarette and walking back to the party.

Bye Cletus.

You fucking psycho, you.

I had a few more stories to tell you ... but I've got stuff that needs to be attended to around here.

Daycare's closed, Susie's working and it's another Daddy and Andrew day around here.

I've got trains that need to be played with.

Until tomorrow, this is your cranky ol' Uncle Bob saying ... well ... bye.