You could say I had an interesting Saturday night. I’d say it was one for the ages.

warning: what you are about to read does get a little graphic.

So I was visiting a friend in Hamilton, a shit-smelly city situated about 45 minutes Southwest of Toronto. The night started out pretty dull, actually, consisting of us sitting around watching Saved by the Bell episodes, sometimes with the commentary on, and eating soggy homemade ravioli. I don’t think we could ever imagine how the night would end just a few hours later.

After briefly deliberating, then wisely declining the prospect of going to a cougar bar, we wandered around downtown Hamilton for a few minutes. On our way, I met a homeless man who was really interested in Winter Solstice conspiracy theories and loved yelling at taxi cabs parked in crosswalks. Eventually, one of my friends pointed out a nearby bar, “Doors” I think it was called. He said the bartender was named Tyler, to which I vaguely remember saying, “hey, that’s my name”.

Cool story bro, right?

Then he goes on to tell me that the bar is known for having some weird goings-on. That and it’s often blasting Scandinavian metal. Against my better judgement, I started running. I never run. I wish I hadn’t. Walking inside, I didn’t hear Scandinavian metal. No, instead I saw a guy and girl duo on the turntables and MPC, a scruffy tall white guy rapping and someone dancing pretty aggressively in a bear costume. Looking to my right, I saw a bottle of Faygo on the edge of the bar. It seems we’d somehow found ourselves at a Juggalo Christmas party.

I whispered to a friend standing to my left, “are these guys serious?” to which he replied, “extremely.”

“I’d better shut up then,” I replied.

The music carried on. The performers went by P.O.E, which a friend tells me stands for Politically Organized Entity. Against all odds, they weren’t bad. Kind of good, actually. The guy had one song about losing a poetry battle to a rape victim, with a line that went something like this, “I’m really sorry for what happened to you, but your poetry sucks.” I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea.

This is about the time things started to get weird. Out of nowhere, a short dude wearing an entirely leather outfit (other than the doo-rag he was inexplicably wearing under his leather cowboy hat) started dancing with the person in the bear suit. I went to the washroom and when I came back about a minute later, that same leather-clad short guy was now holding a sledgehammer. The bartender leaned over and told me, “just wait, he’s going to staple his balls to the wall later”.

“Juggalo Christmas,” I remember saying.

The short guy proceeded to walk to the second floor of the bar. Naturally my friends and I followed. We got up there to see that a small crowd had formed, encircling the short dude who was now shirtless. He called for our attention. This is when it started to get weird. He proceeded to tell us, all the while adjusting the doo-rag he was still inexplicably wearing, that he was going to do something unique for us all. He asked if anyone in the room had a $5 bill, saying that if they did, he’d let them staple it to his chest. 60 seconds later, Voodoo Ray—as we’d quickly learn to be his alias—had blue money draped on each side of his chest, staple-gunned in place by two willing onlookers of this increasingly weird fiasco.

I said it again. “Juggalo Christmas”.

Voodoo Ray proceed to dump a box full of broken glass and beer bottles on the ground. As chants of “Fucked up shit!” started to carry throughout the room, Voodoo Ray took his shoes off and began jumping on the shards. It wasn’t fake, I’ll tell you that much. There was blood everywhere.

Then he laid down on the broken glass. Someone proceeded to stand on him. More blood. And to make matters even weirder, Dream Theater’s “Dance of Eternity” was playing in the background. Downstairs, an empty bar was filled with the sounds of rapping clowns and the sight of an unopened bottle of Faygo Redpop. Upstairs, a short, shirtless white man in his 40s wearing a doo-rag peeled broken glass and staples out from his chest to one of the sillier keyboard solos I’ve heard.

Juggalo Christmas.

Then it was time for the grand finale. If the bartender was right, Voodoo Ray was about to staple his balls to the wall.

The bartender was wrong.

What I was about to see would prove much more traumatizing.

A night that started off watching the rise-and-fall of Zack Attack ended with Voodoo Ray asking a shockingly willing girl in the room to nail his foreskin to a piece of plywood. To make thing worse, once hammered in place he did a little spin and a pose. His mouth was bleeding for some reason. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his doo-rag was still tied nicely in place. And his dick was nailed to a piece of plywood.

There are some things you can never unsee.

Juggalo Christmas. Never, ever again.