STOP THE TRAFFIK

Monday, June 05, 2006

An Interesting Weekend

This past weekend was very interesting. On Thursday night I got a call from Fate, who now lives in Vegas, telling me that he was in town for a few days. I used to do Personal Security for Fate and his brother, Theorian (a.k.a. Disaster) when they lived in Utah. I was at work, at The Depot, when he called. It was a slow night so I asked if I could get off early. I left around 8:30, went home to change, and went to meet Fate at Cisero's in Park City for karaoke. After Cisero's we went to our friend Jeff's house. Jeff's friend Mandy, who has been working in Alaska recently, was in town so we got to see her too.

On Friday night, Fate was not planning on going out so I went to work at The Depot. Around 9:00 Sean called me down to the office. Scott was there too. They wrote me up and fired me. The 3 reasons they gave for firing me were:

  1. Last week, during the Warrant concert, a server was uncomfortable with the way that I let her know that we were cutting-off (no longer serving drinks to a customer because they had already had too much to drink) a customer. Last I checked, cutting people off is part of my job. I was not rude to the server, so I'm not sure what her problem was. I know that I did not mistreat her.
  2. At the Warrant concert Laurie, an aquaintance of mine from when I ran Security at Natalie's, got drunk and her sister got even more drunk and was throwing up. I asked Sean if I could give them a ride home. Sean and Scott saw this as a "liability". I saw it as showing concern for a customer.
  3. Last week after the One Self concert, I was in the dressing room showing Yarah Bravo how to set up a url for her My Space account. Scott said that I "crossed the line". If you read my post about Yarah, anyone could see that I was not bothering her and I was not asking her for anything. I was helping her and she was completly O.K. with me being in her dressing room with the other members of the band and some of their fans. Whenever fans are in the dressing room of an artist, I think that it is important for Security to be in there. Apparently Sean and Scott want me to secure the dressing room from outside even if the artist is O.K. with me being in there.

So basically I got fired for absolutely no reason at all. Nothing I did was worth getting written up for. It was definitely not worth getting fired for. I was very upset at first, but after talking to Fate, I realized that it was their loss and I was better off not working for them.

I went over to Fate's sister's house and then Fate and I went to Club Manhattan. After Manhattan, we went to the Denny's off of I-15 at 45th South. When we first got there, Fate was on the phone and it was very noisy inside so we went back outside. I called John and invited him to join us. While we were waiting for John, a big group of people from the Lazy Moon, a gay bar in S.L.C., showed up. I called Domani and let her know that I had been fired from The Depot. John showed up shortly after I got on the phone with Domani.

While I was on the phone with Domani, one of the ladies from the Lazy Moon group came outside and was yelling at someone inside. I told Domani that I had to go and ran inside to see what was going on. A biker dude was fighting the group from the Lazy Moon. I stepped up and told him to step outside. He did as he was told. Then the Lazy Moon group wanted to follow him out. I told them to stay inside. One of the ladies from that group said "My friend is out there" (it was the lady that I had first noticed). So then I went outside and seperated them. For about 5 minutes I physically prevented this group and the biker guy from attacking each other. I kept telling the biker to leave. Eventually he decided to leave and realized that he had left his keys inside. I escorted him inside and protected him from the rest of the Lazy Moon group. After going back outside I continued to keep them from fighting each other. The biker finally got on his bike with his girlfriend and left. Another biker couple that was with them also left. Then the cops showed up (the Denny's employees had called them). They caught the second biker couple, but since they had not been fighting, the cops let them go. I gave the cops my info and told them what happened.

Afterwards Fate, John, and I went inside to eat. Several ladies from the Lazy Moon group thanked me for helping keep the peace. A couple of other Denny's customers recognized me from the many Security jobs I've had (I get that a lot). Our server, Bill, who knew Fate and I from when we used to go there on a regular basis, thanked me and told me that our food was on the house. We got seated next to the group from the Lazy Moon. I overheard them talking about what had happened. According to them, the biker had made a remark about one of the ladies' thong showing. They got into an argument and then the biker sat down. Then he got up and started harassing one of the guys from their group for being a homosexual. That's what started the fight. A few more people from their group thanked me for keeping the peace. They left before we did. After they left Bill told us that they had covered our bill.

Saturday afternoon Fate performed (he sings R&B) with Lam (a rapper from Utah) for the youth group from Valley Assembly of God. Fate's sister, Tiasha, and her son, "Little Man", came with us. After that I took them back to Fate's mom's apartment. Then I went home, took a nap and got ready to go to the D.J. Quik concert at Harry O's in Park City. I picked Fate up a little after 9 and then we went to Harry O's. One of the owners of Harry O's let us in for free because he wants to book Fate to open up for some upcoming Hip Hop concerts at Harry O's. The concert was O.K. There weren't any fights. After the concert we went to our friend Sarah's house. Then we went to Jeff's house and hung out with Mandy and some of her friend's. We gave Mandy's friend, Tara, a ride back down to Salt Lake City. Fate went back to Vegas Sunday afternoon.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Yarah Bravo

On Tuesday night One Self performed at The Depot. This was definitely my favorite show at The Depot so far. I especially enjoyed seeing Yarah Bravo perform. In addition to being very beautiful and talented, she enjoys what she does and it shows! Before the show I showed her to her dressing room. Later on, before the doors opened, I asked her if she needed something to drink because she was on the stage working on her laptop. She said that she only drank juice and water so I took a break, went to Barnes & Noble next to The Depot, and bought her some Elliot's Amazing all natural juice. She really appreciated that. Before going on stage she told me that she really liked my vibes and said that I was different from other Security guys. She sang directly to me a couple of times during her performance (since I was securing the stage). She gave me a hug at the end of the night. I'm looking forward to seeing her again the next time they're on tour. It would be really cool if I was her bodyguard someday.

On Friday I saw
X-Men: The Last Stand with my boss from The Depot, Sean, and his wife. I give it a B-. It had some cool special effects and action scenes, but the story was not very good. According to some reviews that I've read on the internet, the writer of this movie strayed far from the comic book story line. Peaceful Warrior has a limited release in select theaters on Friday. Still no word on when it will be released in Salt Lake City. I'm looking forward to seeing District B13 on June 30th at the Broadway Centre Cinemas. District B13 is directed by Pierre Morel, who was the Director of Photography for Transporter 2 and Unleashed. This movie incorporates martial arts and Parkour for some awesome action scenes. Parkour is the art of moving through your environment using only your body and the surroundings to propel yourself. Check out the official Parkour site and the American Parkour site for more info. The Utah Parkour site is www.parkore.com/.

Barry Eisler's new book, The Last Assassin, hits bookstores today! I really enjoyed the other John Rain books - Rain Fall, Hard Rain, Rain Storm, and Killing Rain. After I finish reading the Peaceful Warrior series, I'll read The Last Assassin. I'm also looking forward to reading Richard Marcinko's new book, Holy Terror, which will be released on July 4th.