Punching Day: Saloon Samurai Bouncer's Guide to Barroom Survival

The creative process for a garbage archaeologist can be a struggle. Sometimes you're 100 pages into a Mormon dating book or 70 minutes into a Burt Ward sex comedy before you realize it's nothing. But some days the creative process looks like this.

I was reading a late '90s karate magazine, my capitalism-weary eyes automatically skipping over the ads for paratrooper class and death touch VHS tapes, when I saw him. My world shattered and the stars fell. Dear god, computer, fucking enhance.

The words Saloon Samurai Video Training Series for the Professional Bouncer shone like a beacon despite being partially blocked by a little guy in high heels trying to rearrange 55 years of poor health and haircut decisions into a menacing shape. He's glorious, and he calls himself Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell, 5th Degree Black Belt, as if that could ever be anything other than hilarious. As if a single living person wouldn't say, "Perfect weapon against what? Endless shrimp?"

As far as I can tell, "Dr. The Perfect Weapon, Black Belt, Black Belt, Black Belt, Black Belt, Black Belt," made these three $49.95 VHS tapes about bouncer fighting and then disappeared. Even when you include "the perfect weapon" in a Jim Tidwell google search, you still only get car dealers and electricians with that name. So there is no twist later where I discover he also hunts prehistoric birds or generates AI novels about a doorman secret agent. All I know about Jim is contained on these three tapes. Volume One is about bouncing, like as a basic concept for anyone new to Earth who got hired as bar security in some shapeshifting mixup. Volume Two mainly focuses on where you're legally allowed to touch drunk ladies (fewer places than Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell would prefer), and Volume Three is about what to do when bar diplomacy has failed and the only option left is bar karate. There's a warning, though: it is "Not for beginners, sissies, or the squeamish."

Your panties quiver knowing what I'm about to say next. I say it anyway. "We're watching Volume Three." Your panties are so off it's as if they never existed. Through time they fly until ten thousand years in the past Sir Isaac Newton is slapped in the head with a wet thing he decides must be a hat. That's how off your panties are.

I have never been less disappointed. Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell fights like a grandmother describing a Steven Seagal movie to her most treasured of dolls. And he has the broadcast skills you'd expect from a 5th degree black belt who doesn't know how to do karate. He struggles to strut in and then struggles to explain that we are not here to learn de-escalation tactics or make friends. We are here to kick ass. He's wrong about all three things.

The first scenario Jim puts himself in is one where "a customer simply won't take no for an answer from a young lady." Solving this is simple. Suspiciously simple. You turn him toward the door and carry him outside by his neck. That's all of it, and I worry I'm making it sound too complicated. Jim's exact words are, "He spins around, you simply spin him around." And I think we all knew this tape wasn't going to be a world-class martial artist teaching us advanced footwork and standing control techniques, but it might be impossible to be less educational than this. Hoping a sex pest lets you put him in a sleeper hold is most of a good idea. It's not a move. And yet Jim plays the slow-motion replay of it over, and over, saying less each time. I'm not saying this is proof he's lying about being a fifth dan perfect weapon, but if a white belt narrated footage of himself drinking eight milkshakes, you'd swear they were the same video.

The next skit is about a drunk idiot trying to convince some guy to buy him a drink. Not on Jim's watch. He steps in, and the very drunk man throws an even drunker punch. Jim's answer to the punch is turning him around and carrying him outside by the neck which means it's only the second move and Jim is already repeating moves.

It's a childlike display of fight choreography divorced from reality, ending in The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase's finishing move. It only gets more embarrassing after the first slow-motion replay. And then the second. Somewhere during the third slow-motion replay, Jim throws in some aspirational thoughts on how this choke will put a man to sleep in seconds because of neck science. Then he plays a second angle and marvels at the speed of his scene partner's punch– the sad punch everyone can see. I don't know where Jim got his fifth degree black belt, but this punch is winning the Golden Globe for Daintiest Performance by a Sex Toy. I had plenty of time to write that in my notes when Jim replayed the footage from the first angle followed by the first angle again in slow-motion. "That punch looks like someone disappointing their water aerobics coach" I typed as he played the slow-motion replay again. "No fucking way is The Perfect Weapon showing us this footage a 58th time," I typed while he fucking was.

The next skit is about two awesome guys having a flipper battle. You already know how Jim handles it. He grabs the dominant one and pulls him outside by his neck, disrupting the mating instincts of the female elephant seals watching.

With this, I think we've mastered the neck, so let's move on to some advanced shoves.

In this skit, a drunk guy starts following a lady and Jim narrates, "We got a guy here who's got great taste in women, but… [MOIST GIGGLES DROWNED OUT BY THE OTHERWORLDLY MOANS OF SLOW-MOTION FOOTAGE WITH THE VOLUME STILL TURNED UP]." I can't tell you the punchline because Jim is a master of neck, not audio engineering. The move doesn't really require a complicated explanation, though. You take two hands and slap the horny, bitch-kneed fuck into the floor. I'm starting to see the key element of bouncer martial arts is waiting until your opponent is already 90% defeated by alcoholism.

I'm concerned I wasn't clear about how insane Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell gets with the replays. This man turned 180 seconds of neck grab footage into 47 minutes of VHS tape and zero pieces of advice. Here, I'll play an entire scenario for you at 10x speed:

The whole video is like this. As you can see, another creep is messing with a woman, so Jim jumps onto the man and rides him out of the bar by his neck, then again, then again, then again, then again, then again, and then again. While doing the voiceover, Jim never discusses a single aspect of martial science like leverage or what to do with a handful of a dead man's throat. The closest he comes is during the fourth replay when he suggests, "You know he's gonna punch you, beat him to it." It's probably the best advice you can give to anyone violent, stupid, and paranoid enough to see Saloon Samurai and then purchase it.

The next skit is about two guys at closing time who decide they don't have to leave the bar. See if you can guess how Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell handles that.

You were right!

I love this video. I love that being a bouncer is nothing more than pulling helpless assholes outside by their necks. And after all these examples, Jim still hasn't shared any teachable advice. If there's a right or wrong way to strangle an alcoholic, Jim doesn't know. This video is precisely what a chimpanzee would film if you asked it the best way to accidentally kill a kitten.

As a rookie bouncer, Jim wants to train us for every scenario we will face, including the one he encounters the most: when everybody in the bar starts to make fun of the bouncer.

I'll talk you through the skit, because it's amazing. Two men, Sinbad Pants and Blazer, greet each other. Sinbad Pants looks at Jim and says, "Jerk wad. Let's piss him off."

Blazer springs into action, telling Jim, "Hkk. You look like my fuckin' ex-wife's boyfriend."

Jim says, "Oh, come on, man."

Furious, Blazer stammers, "Fffh y-you fhh you look like my ex-wife!!"

"She was that good-lookin'?" Jim says, failing to hide how much it hurt him.

"Yeah, FUCK YOU!" Blazer screams, because this video rules.

Jim doesn't have an angle on any throats yet, so he says, "Hey, come on. That's tonight, that's enough of that stuff. Hey, I don't need this kind of stuff."

Blazer says again, "FUCK YOU."

Jim says, "Damn it, fuck!" and disables them both by swatting Sinbad Pants in the dick. How? Do all jerks share a hive groin? This feels like an elegant screenwriter trying to wrap up an Avengers porn parody. And I'm not sure I'm being silly enough because in the voiceover Jim literally says, "Hammer fist to the groin, other guy goes down, you collar 'em both." As absurd as it sounds, Jim might think slapping a man's dick deals AOE damag– Anal of Ultron! Sorry, I couldn't think of an Avengers porn parody title until just now.

In this skit, Jim asks two drunk ladies to keep it down and they get very sexually aggressive with him. Not every situation calls for neck attacks, so Jim leaves with them both. Sometimes the best move a bouncer can make is to have cool sex with hot babes. I'm being serious when I say this happened, that Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell wrote a scenario in his bouncer self-defense video where two women desperately try to fuck him and he does. And he does a slow-motion replay! Of that! Like it's a karate move! Again and again we get to watch this awkward footage of Jim dragging a drunk woman off to what he thinks sex might be. There has never been anything like Saloon Samurai; I'll never love a video this way again.

In this scenario, Jim rescues a customer from a horny woman by picking her up and humping her outside. He says, "Always be cautious when removing a combative female patron. You have to watch at all times where you put your hands." And maybe this is nothing, but I don't like how he never had any advice on punches, chokes, shoves, or groins, yet now that he's talking about manhandling women, he speaks with authority and expertise. For instance, he never tells you to slap her in one of the titties to disable her entire bachelorette party.

Things are getting serious. Blazer is back and he has a knife. He screams, "I can't let you throw me outta' the fuckin' bar, asshole! Come on, you fuckhead!" He lunges at an area near Jim with his knife, and Jim counters with a move most fifth degree black belts would call a "cut! I fucked that up, let's take it again." Not Jim. Jim is all over him, snapping his spine in half with the fury of a kindergarten's least picked kickball player. Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell kicks like an elderly dog having one last dream. He looks like he's trying to dry his toenail polish before the big meatball look-alike contest.

During one of the many increasingly funny slow-motion replays, Jim narrates, "Side step the knife and break his arm if you can. Then you kick, punch, or bite at this stage." It's not quite bad advice, but it's like saying, "Do some sweet karate shit if they have a weapon. Not like this, obviously, but whatever. You'll figure something out, it's only a dumb knife."

This one starts with another true-to-life scenario. Summer Camp Shirt tells Goalie Hair, "Look, asshole, I'm tired of you hittin' on my wife!"

Goalie Hair replies, "Maybe what she needs is a real man, huh?"

Summer Camp Shirt pulls a knife and says, "Maybe I oughta stick you, huh!?"

Jim's seen enough. He rescues Hockey Hair by grabbing the knife mid-stab, then takes him out anyway with his free hand using an elbow nudge, hog slap, neck-breaker combo. I don't have any little jokes about it; this kicks ass. You can't even come up with an idea like this unless you're rad as fuck.

Things are getting serious. An expert pickup artist approaches three women, selects one, and yanks her out of her stool. Cockblocking Jim's keen bouncer sense tells him this is headed toward trouble. The Perfect Weapon points the sex criminal toward the door, but he has one last life hack up his sleeve. He pulls a gun and shouts, "I'll go the other way, BUT I'M TAKIN' YOU WITH ME!!!"

It's the last thing he'll ever do. Jim disarms him using a technique developed by a baby giving up on a juice box, then thwaps the man's tummy to death with the butt of his own gun. He killed this man like a toy sneaking to life to repair your shoes. And keep that wonder in your heart, because the next scenario is truly magical.

There's no skit for this one. Jim just tears through the bar until there's no one left to destroy, then stares right into the camera as if we're next. I have no thinkable way to describe it. It looks like a koala bear in a Christian music video suddenly realizing God is a lie. It looks like Ron Jeremy forgetting his lines in the middle of an Anal of Ultron fight scene. "You'll never be able to explain this, no one will believe this is real" I type to myself after the fifth slow-motion replay of the entire battle.

Magnificent. Give him the Nobel Face Prize.

If you work at a bar with a dress code, this next scenario demonstrates how to deal with a customer who refuses to go home and put on a shirt with sleeves.

This one isn't super funny, but out of respect for Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell's five degrees of black belt, I wanted to include one showcasing actual expert-level martial arts. Look at that arm chop, look at that neck slap. If Jim hit you with this, your wife couldn't identify your remains. They'd unzip your body bag and she'd say, "Wow, you coroners must really love cubed ham!"

Jim has given up creating stories to justify his karate. He walks up to these three men for no reason and they attack him for no reason. Why? To what end? To teach what to whom? This looks like the Make-A-Wish Foundation fulfilled a sick girl's dream of failing a stage fighting class.

Fuck every other video ever made. Look at this. Look at Jim "The Perfect Weapon" Tidwell clear this dance floor with his lethal hands and feet. Bystander, helper, no neck escapes his tornado of slaps! It's the fucking best, I'm going to watch it 700 more times. End of article.

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