FRESH
YARN presents: The
Snuggery By
Eric Gilliland
The day after I graduated from college, I started a new, exciting grown-up type
job. I call it a grown-up job, because it was the first job I had that paid me
a weekly salary and didn't involve a hat. I had just finished four years at Northwestern
University, grappling with "The Cherry Orchard," and "Julius Caesar"
and - the quarter I really excelled in - "Star Spangled Girl." A few
weeks earlier, a friend of mine who had graduated the year before and who had
been in my acting class approached me to see if I wanted to work for him. He was
making good money, was having a blast, and thought I'd be perfect for this job.
The kicker was that it would incorporate many acting exercises we had learned
in the last four years, emphasizing group dynamics and such, and, well, I should
meet his bosses. Imagine my surprise to learn that there was a well-paying job
out there, where the interview would include the executives falling back with
their eyes shut trusting that I would catch them and/or spine work.
My
friend, Thad
well, the name says it. Thad shook hands firmly, grinned exuberantly
and constantly, and had the Rhett Butler mustache/one-eyebrow-up-one-eyebrow-down
combination with the quarter-moon eye squint - and it was always "real good
to see [me]." He was exactly a Good Guy. The high school football star who
knew there was "more" to life than throwing a perfect spiral - he was
an econ major who took acting class, for crying out loud. ("Econ," by
the way. When was the last time you said "Econ"?) He was the car salesman
who watched PBS and made sure everyone knew it. "I even pledged my support.
Look at my bumper sticker!" Thad
worked for what was, in the mid-eighties, the most happening, hippest, partying-est
nightclub chain in Chicago, where only the sexiest could get past the velvet rope
to revel in the most magnificent music and most spectacular light show in the
city: The Snuggery. "The Snuggery?" Yes. The Snuggery. Hot. Now,
I was never really a nightclub guy. I liked dive bars with old jukeboxes that
scratchily played Sinatra and "Dock of the Bay." Evidently, as a 20
year old, I lived the exact life of a 59-year old divorcee. But Thad wanted to
make The Snuggery something different than the average nightclub, and that's why
he hired me "against type." His goal was to make The Snuggery an artistically-inspired,
beautifully-realized, loftily-essenced, fuck den. Thad believed that if the employees
all worked together, less as a "team," but more as a "troupe,"
that that wonderful intangible magic that is associated with theater and the theater-going
experience would similarly disseminate through the club and into the hearts and
souls of the incredibly coked-up crowd. My
interview took place in an office that can only be described as "early holy-shit-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into."
The walls were actually padded, with huge room-hugging floor to ceiling cushions
that were covered in designer burlap with bold brown and orange stripes cutting
across them. Lots of ski chalet/recording studio wood paneling covered the rest
of the huge room. It just reeked of illicit, icky, 80's-type behavior, none of
which I'd ever had access to in the ridiculously white cul-de-sac I grew up selling
lemonade and playing lawn darts and suppressing my true self in. This room was
uncomfortably cool and evil. And in the corner - I'm not kidding - a hot tub.
Thad thought this was the ultimate sign of having "made it." I thought
this was an office you'd associate with bad guys on "Baretta"... whose
interior designer was heavily influenced by Rhoda's apartment. I
don't remember much of the interview besides meeting one of the managers and thinking
he was creepily slimy and really really thin. Like runner thin. Of course, now
that I look back on it, I don't think he was much of a runner. Looking back, I
think his veins would have collapsed if he dialed a number that included the extra
three digits of a different area code. But back then I thought: Hm. Svelte. I
somehow won them over with a quality that I still have, that, back then, was called
"boyish charm" and now is called "cloying" and "sad."
Next week I would become a college graduate and was to start my training in my
new position as
Dynamics Manager for the Morton Grove Snuggery. What a horrible
collection of proper nouns. A
Dynamics Manager was basically in charge of "fun." My job, every night,
was to throw the most exciting party in town. But in order to throw this astounding
party, I had to wrangle many elements. First and foremost, I had to take a ragtag
group of waitresses and bartenders and doormen and unite them as a team - no,
a troupe - and through their excitement and commitment, every one who came through
those doors would be certain to have, unequivocally, The Best Night Of Their Lives.
We were the folks who would make people's dreams come true, fulfill their wishes,
make this night so special that they find it worthy of drinking until they puke
in a urinal and then get back to the bar in time for the sixth round of Goldschlagers.
Because that would then be The Best Night Of Their Lives. And how does this disparate
group of strangers bond together as a united force, committed to providing meaning
to the wonderful people of this northwest suburb of Chicago? Well, naturally,
theater games. The
following Saturday, Thad had assembled all the new employees, including me, because
it was a requirement that anyone who worked at The Snuggery had to go through
what he called Snug Training. (Oh, you'll see the word "Snug" used as
an adjective a lot in the next few minutes.) For two unpaid hours, Thad made everybody,
bouncers and bar backs alike, pretend they were, say, an animal. Yes, that's right,
Tony, you're a bear! A big grizzly bear! What do you sound like? How do you walk?
What do you think of Cynthia over there, who's a
what were you again, Cynthia?
Right, a woodchuck. What do think of Cynthia the Woodchuck, Tony the Bear? Well,
it was all just horribly embarrassing to see what people will go through just
to get a job. Now that I've worked in television for fifteen years, this, of course,
is routine for me to witness. But back then it was shocking. See,
the Tonys and Cynthias of Morton Grove had never been anything more than Tonys
or Cynthias. They weren't comfortable being animals or closing their eyes and
picturing themselves walking on a beach or throwing imaginary balls to each other
that would, according to Thad's shouted orders, suddenly be "Heavy!"
or "Light!" They just wanted to serve drinks, beat up a drunk line crasher
or two, have some employee-discounted potato skins, and go home via the White
Hen Pantry to grab a twelve-pack of Hamms or maybe Blatz, drink it in the church
parking lot, if it was snowing, do a few doughnuts and maybe skitch a little,
zig zag back to their parents' house, stumble in the front door, tip over the
aquarium, shout "fuck," get in a fight with their mom about how much
they drink, pass out in the family room watching some movie with Dom Deluise,
probably the one where he's trying to kill himself but Burt Reynolds won't let
him, wait, Burt wanted to kill himself and Dom Deluise won't let him, wake up
to the sound of their father consoling their mother as she cries because she didn't
know her kid says "fuck," say sorry, heat up a waffle, and then go out
with Mitch to fix his truck. They didn't want to pretend they were all different
mechanical parts of a clock. I
made up my mind then and there that when I became a full-fledged Dynamics Manager,
I wasn't going to humiliate my troupe. Which
was going to be hard. Eventually,
I had to take charge of the club. The rule was that every twenty minutes, something
Big had to happen at The Snuggery. An event. A happening. Part of my job was to
schedule these events like, say, the Wacky Dance contest or the Free Drink Ticket
Hunt. And then I got to hold the portable spotlight for the break dancers, the
fire eaters, the jugglers, the professional lip synchers. Lip synchers
that
were professional. But
the party didn't die in between these events. Throughout the night, the deejay
was instructed to play certain songs that were cues for all the employees to do
somewhat choreographed, "fun" moves that would really get the crowd
going. For instance, that was the summer of both The Pointer Sisters' and Van
Halen's songs, "Jump." Whenever either of them sang "jump"
in the song, each and every employee in the place had to stop whatever he was
doing and jump up in place. "Jump!" Jump. "Jump!" Jump. Horrible.
Or, say, when the song "Freezeframe" came on, whenever the word "Freezeframe"
was sung, everyone had to freeze in place. "Freeze frame!" Hold it
move. "Freeze frame!" Hold it
move. It was particularly sad to
watch Tovar, the Armenian bus boy, participate in all of this. These special songs
were called Snug Tunes. And I had to make sure everyone who worked there performed
them. I was doomed. And
to add to the horror, I did all this wearing the official Snug Outfit: Tuxedo
shirt, unbuttoned at the top but still wearing a wrap-around bow tie, and slick,
water-repellant, multi-zipper pocketed parachute pants. At
first, things went along fine. I did my job well and actually believed I liked
doing it. And what's not to like? I could get anyone I wanted in to the club,
drinks were free, food was free, I'd get free tickets to the big summer "SnugFest"
with live bands and big name comedians. I was at the white-hot center of all things
hip and exciting in the world of Chicago nightlife. The problem was, I don't like
most things hip and exciting. That's a big something to realize when you're twenty-one.
And, then, evidently, re-learn every three years or so for the rest of your life.
Most of the alluring shiny objects that this job - and many later jobs - dangled
in front of me are things that most people really want. That's why they're there.
That's why they're offered. But over time, I inevitably realize that these things
repel me. And I never should have been there in the first place.
In high school,
I joked and cavorted my way into hanging with the cool kids, only to realize,
holy crap. The cool kids are idiots and, in ten or fifteen years, are
going to become sad drunks and, in many cases, incredibly fat, especially
Doug Gurtner. The same happened a few years ago when, after attaining
my goal to write for television and trying to emulate the people who inspired
me, the Carl Reiners and the James Brookses, I looked around and realized,
yeah, I used to do some cool stuff, but yikes, I've spent the last five
months writing jokes for Ashton Kutcher. (Who's a very nice young man
and I wish him well in his life and career.) So when your heart checks
out, so does your brain. And I started to really, really suck at my job.
Because my job was dumb, the people I worked for were dumb, the customers
were dumb, and I wasted a good five minutes every day just trying to figure
out which zippered pocket I put my car keys in.
I
told my troupe that they only had to do the damn SnugTune routines if any of the
track-marked management crew happened to be in the bar, the doormen being my lookouts.
My troupe loved me for my lax dynamic managing, and I took pride in giving them
some of their pride back. No, Mr. Six-Foot-Seven Bouncer Man, you don't have to
wear the rubber Conehead thing while the poor barmaid plays ring toss on you.
Have a tiny piece of dignity this summer. But, soon enough, I knew word got back
that I was slacking off, because all of a sudden, when I got to work, I could
feel something had shifted. Something was in the air. That heavy sense of impending
unemployment. And once you get that stink on you, all your former buddies who
thanked you for "being cool" with all those forced antics quickly turn
away and shun you, making you, suddenly, persona Snug grata. The
last straw, as I recall, was when I mis-scheduled either the Pajama Party Night
or the Love Connection Theme Night. Whichever it was, it didn't sit well with
Scarface and the rest of the drug cartel up in the hot tub. That night, Thad took
me aside, out into the alley behind the kitchen. He looked at me, eyebrows akimbo,
and said
"Ah
Eric
" "I'm
fired, aren't I?" I beat him to the punch. No one should have to go through
the agony of firing a friend. We both knew it was going to happen. I shouldn't
be here. I don't fit in. And I was absolutely fine with that. Sorta.
True, I was released from an astoundingly soul-sucking job, but then again, the
upshot is I failed. People paid me to do something, I didn't do it well, and I
got fired. And getting fired doesn't feel good. What's more humiliating: Being
forced to wear my SnugOutfit, or being forced to not wear my SnugOutfit? I wasn't
going to miss the place, and yet I didn't feel great leaving. The rest of that
summer, I prepared to leave home for Hollywood, and spent my nights in dingy dive
bars, listening to Sinatra and "Dock of the Bay."
©All
material is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without permission |