Raver Greg

Greg was never much of a dancer. Nirvana and Placebo didn't rate disco rave madness all that highly and so, in turn, never did he. However, tonight, there is this 15 year old guy on the dance floor in Recess giving it absolute hell. All alone, there in the center of the room, at 03:00am and dancing as if the floor was electrocuting him. This guy who looked, dressed and drank just like Greg…

My Dad brought me my Nissan 280ZX just before my 16th birthday. Unlike some other countries the legal driving age here is 18. The idea was not for me to intentionally break the law but to give us 2 years of father son bonding as we worked on the ZX together. However, I fell in love with this car and like most hot lust-driven love stories I had done the deed and completed the work well before the intended time frame. It is August 2001, I have just turned 16 and the work to my ZX was already completed. My parents went away for a long weekend to Where-ever-fontein and left me at home. House party? Naa – we did that already and they are still asking questions about the roof tiles…Road trip?

Sitting around trying to figure out what we could do with my new found freedom when Greg pops up and says “Turns out Recess are having a buy-one-get-one-free beer night tonight as well as the beers are on special for R5”. Recess was the epicenter of dance music right on the main street at the Pretoria University. So we are doing this? Oh dear.

Dodgy Doug’s Getting into Jail Free Card

1. Get your stories straight. One of you has to have parents that are out of town. Preferably out of contact. Your team will build their stories on those absent parents.

2. Team member 1 asks team member 2 to stay over at his place for some TV and PlayStation. Team member 2 parents agree in the assumption that Team Member 1 parents are at home. 

3. Repeat step 2 to each team member in the crew. Be vague, don’t go home at all and avoid saying anything about home-alone.

      4. Right you got your team. Now get transport.

      5. Study where you are going to party – don’t just randomly select a club from the glitzy fliers you saw. Look out for clubs that are busy, loud and without a staircase leading up to the front door.

      6. Why? Because the bouncer will spot your fake ID easier when he standing over you and because rolling backwards down a flight of stairs sucks balls.

      7. Eye contact with the bouncer. Smile, give him a gym-buddy style smack on the shoulder as you hand him your ID. Confidence is everything. If you are confident enough they won’t even ask.

      8. Once you are in walk up the oldest guy in the vicinity and greet him – just pretend you know him. No small talk: Just a quick “Hey long time mate are you well?”, left arm on his shoulder and right arm extended for the hand shake and keep going.

      9. Head for the bar. They saw you coming in and let’s face it – you don’t look 18. However the bouncers did let you past and you do know one of their other patrons already so…maybe you just got a baby face?

      10. Don’t huddle together like a bunch of girls at a Barbie convention. Spread out.

      11. Buy a straight forward, simple, easy to hear and even easier to serve first round. Once they have served you once they are in for the night.

      12. Tip well. Seriously well.

      13. Do not flirt with the female bartender – always go for the dude. Service is better, rounds are cheaper and he will remember you because you are the guy who is so mature that a pair of bouncy boobs doesn't distract you from achieving your goal of receiving a beer.

      14. Drink beer. Not brandy, not cane and nothing loaded with sugar. Those drinks will make you lose your mind and you will be kicked out on your arse. Perhaps even get served a small beating which, by the way, you deserve for lying. Try explaining the collection of bruises to the parents the next day.

     

Right so, We will need ID’s.  A mate of mine at the time, Nick, got his older brother to scan and print out our fake student cards for the University of Pretoria. Check.

Greg, Brendan and I jump into the ZX with a head full of ideas and wreck full of nerves as we head off to Pretoria. It’s a 100km journey down the highway. We hit Pretoria in 32 minutes and even had the time for Greg to pull a legendary 200km/h out of the window brown-eye. We picked up Ryan who was already there with his parents and headed off to Recess with Greg’s older brother – Bob.

R5 for two beers. You couldn't fit any more beers on the table. In fact there was hardly enough space to slide shooter glasses in between the beers and we pummeled our way through the pints like camels at an oasis. Bob bailed out around midnight and left us there to ensure the rest of the beer (in the universe) got sorted out.

Then something really odd happened. I was on the floor for about an hour giving it stick when I, along with most of the crowd, were pulling off the dance floor from exhaustion and thirst this guy…this guy that was wearing Greg’s meat suit strolled onto the dance floor and freaked the eff out. He jolted and jived like a string puppet on an electric cord. Head banging and pulsated as he just lost his mind while all of us in the club just stood back and watched.

Nobody came near us for the rest of this night.