Then some dude smashed a pint glass in his face.
Whuzah? Such hostility doesn't fit with East Colfax's prime spot for good vibes and hippie stink. "We don't even really have fights in our bar," says manager Don Glenn, who was bartending that night. "The worst we ever have to do is kick somebody out for being too drunk." Situated just one porn store away from sibling Sancho's Broken Arrow, Dulcinea's is part of the Bianchi brothers' Grateful Dead-inspired empire, which also includes Quixote's True Blue and Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom. This is a scene Billy's quite immersed in, one where he has friends, friends, friends!
So how did he make an enemy of Some Dude? That night, Billy was searching for his missing, absolute favorite piece of outerwear -- "It's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jacket," he explains. "It's green" -- and had circled the room several times to question other patrons, utilizing his distinctly spastic charisma. "I'm a very loud, hyper person," he admits. "That's just how my body actions are. I'm always bouncing around."
While Billy was at the front chatting with T.J., the doorman, some dude started hating on his style and told him, "You dance like a gay Karate Kid," Billy reported to the cops.
Billy laughed, said "That's hilarious," and began to boogie like a sissified martial artist. And then Some Dude bashed the pint glass into the right side of the happy dancer's face, Billy told police. ("It was completely full, too," Billy told Off Limits. "I think it was a Crown and ginger ale.") While Some Dude took off on foot, Billy was restrained by friends -- much to his dismay. "You gotta cover your eye up, man!" they pleaded.
"Fuck you guys," he shouted, his face bleeding like a broken pipe. "You let him get away!" Glenn offered to call the police and an ambulance, but Billy refused. Several buddies took him to Denver Medical Center, where he got more than thirty stitches. Three days later, his eye finally opened enough to peer through; he is scheduled to have plastic surgery in the coming months to repair the damage. "It was just another random Denver violence thing," he shrugs.
Random? Well, Billy-san, not everyone sees it that way.
When owner Jay Bianchi and Glenn describe Billy, they use phrases like "easily excited" or "sort of spun" or "loud and annoying" or "clueless." They both also bring up "karma" -- that all-important Hindu concept that was bastardized by Western spiritualists to essentially mean what goes around comes around -- as they note that Billy had been booted out of the bar on previous occasions for being too hyperactive. "It is unfortunate that it was so bloody and messy," Bianchi says, "but he does have a tendency to get on people's nerves in a totally aggressive way as he takes things to the brink of disaster."
The Karate Kid comment actually came from the doorman, Glenn says. No matter who said it, everyone agrees that Billy responded by shouting "Yeah, I'm a KUNG-FU MASTER!" and letting loose a flurry of fake air chops. Some Dude, another regular who's "normally pretty laid-back," Glenn says, may have "felt threatened by Billy's karate moves and, for whatever reason, freaked out and did what he did, which was totally uncalled for."
At this point, Some Dude is "permanently 86ed," Glenn promises, and his name and other information have been passed on to police. Billy's antics at Dulcinea's may also be at an end. "The problem is that he has provoked people many times," says Bianchi. "We have 86ed him before for those reasons, so I think it would probably be smarter for us to avoid future incidents. It sucks that he's a victim this time, but I think if we had not been so nice about not letting people back in after we'd booted them, we probably could have avoided this whole thing."
We can only hope the ladies don't feel the same way about Billy's unchecked zeal. Hey, maybe they dig guys with scars.
Two nights after Billy got clocked, a female reveler at Lipgloss -- the Friday night funfest at La Rumba -- was smacked on the head with a bottle. "It was actually kind of shocking," reports clubowner Jesse Morreale. "I'm used to it from concerts, but not at La Rumba. It was an odd occurrence."
The Lipgloss guys handled it well, he adds, stopping the music and ordering the culprit out of the club. "It seems like a really weird way to pick up a girl," he concludes. Particularly when she may press charges against the perp.
Another bottle battle broke out just last Saturday at Serengeti, two blocks away from La Rumba. According to the police report, a 27-year-old female was arguing with another woman near the crowded dance floor when she was struck in the face by either a beer bottle or a glass mug -- it was dark, so she couldn't tell which. Her forehead severely lacerated and bleeding, the victim began swinging in the direction of the perpetrator -- or in the direction of the person she thought was the perpetrator -- only to be forced outside by club security. When neither the cops nor an ambulance were called, the bleeding club-goer walked with her sister more than nine blocks to St. Joseph Hospital, where she received sixteen stitches.
Dancing can be so dangerous.
Making tracks: One of our most trusty Off Limits operatives has been getting the runaround, and he's peeved. Miffed, even. Because while the East High Angels are ha-lo-lo, ha-lo-lo-haying their way around the school's new pimped-out track -- not to mention the school's new football, baseball and softball fields -- nobody else is. The dozens of joggers who used to make tracks at East's public course watched eagerly as the shoddy dirt track was torn up and replaced --a remarkably efficient job that took place over the summer courtesy of a $310 million general obligation bond approved by Denver voters in 2003 -- only to find the resurrected track off limits. A stern sign now proclaims the land "private property" where "no trespassing" is allowed. Violators are subject to arrest.
"I know that some people do enjoy running on a track, and I appreciate that," says Denver Public Schools spokesman Mark Stevens, who points out that four other DPS high schools received facility plastic surgery over the summer. "But the mission of the district is improving student achievement and providing education. The main point is that these facilities are part of the school district, and an investment by the community in the school is for a better overall educational experience." Read: This one's for the kiddies.
DPS will maintain a relationship with league teams that go through a permitting process to gain access to district fields when not in use by students, Stevens says. But the individual jogger wishing to wax Carl Lewis on the track? Forget about it.
On the bright side, though, maybe now East will actually win some football games.
