The Jungle Animated
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The Jungle In Animation Experience
The Jungle
I heard people whispering at the bar that night, “he is going to the jungle”
Early that day I had met Sully in his office – he gave me 10K in cash which at the time was a lot/a big deal – boy did I was naïve then
Later that night I was on the bar at Rick’s which would come my go to strip club in NYC not that I didn’t try them all including spending a Tuesday afternoon handing w/ Howard Stern
I woke up in Brooklyn – missed my flight
Figure out how to get to Chicago
Called my girlfriend and had her wire the money I was missing from the night before
Proceeded to check on construction, hiring and all the things that go into opening a bar – I had “opening checklists” but that seemed to be new to this crew
By 5 we were buying the whole bar shots
Dinner at Hugo’s Frog Bar – the original
Handing w/ Eddie Vedder and Jon Cusak at Tavern on Rush
And then once again on a strip club bar passing out 100 bills
Then singing at 4 in the morning on the stage of Kingston Mines w/ a woman w/ one leg and using a chair to support herself after having a Heineken w/ Buddy Guy at Buddy Guy’s
I spent the next 3 months doing pretty much the same thing every night
My expense report should have been 20K but I took the edge off and only made it 15 because I was new and didn’t want to get in trouble
By the time we finally opened, the line was a far as the eye could see
Someone said to me – your opening next to the oldest irish bars in Chicago – PJ Clarke’s – aren’t you worried – not in the slightest I said – they should be and I was right
They stood in line past bars that were free to get into w/ cheaper drinks just to get into ours
And we had paid extra for an after –hours license so like normal bars we were open from 5-2 but then we could stay open until 4 on every night except Saturday when we could stay open until 5 so we had an unfair advantage
Also not only would the traveling public do there so would all the other bartenders, servers, strippers, hookers pimps drug dealer etc b/c everything else shut down expect us
We were doing so much business out of a relatively tiny bar it was crazy
Neighbors would be going to church w/ their kids from multimillion dollar homes on the “lake”
Then the cops started coming around w/ their hands out, the union ,the mob, the politicians, you name it everyone had their hand out
I lived in Ambassador east, I had the penthouse suite…if/when the bar finally closed, we went there…
I learned first hand what “The Jungle” meant – it was wild and only the strong survived and I not only survived, I thrived – I was king of the jungle.
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