ROCKTALK : Bruise Brothers : Elbows, and Sometimes Tear Gas, Are Among the Hazards in ‘The Pit’ : At many punk venues, as the music has gotten harsher, so has the dancing.

This initial Rock Squawk is the first in an occasional series about rock rituals. Future topics include: $21 for a six-pack of bar Budweisers; the endless encore; the $23 T-shirt; bouncers as space aliens; starting late, and bad music between sets.

Today: the mosh pit.

“Here, hold my glasses, Mr. Bill,” said my pal, doubling his fists and heading for the Thelonious Monster-inspired melee on the dance floor.

“No, wait, man, they’re dancing,” said I.

It’s not a brawl on Psycho Night at Wrestlemania--it just looks like one. The dance floor as “the pit” has been around for about 15 years now, so by rock ‘n’ roll standards, that’s positively ancient and nearly as long as the guitar solos at a Grateful Dead concert.

According to legend, the pit began in the late ‘70s when some jocks from Huntington Beach invaded the punk scene to do what jocks do, namely, bust some innocent heads. This instantly converted the relatively harmless pogo (jump up and down) into the human pinball game of slam dancing (jump into someone else) in the pit.

OK, so Dick Clark may not have changed much, but dancing has, especially in the pit.

Remember when guys and girls used to dance with each other? Forget it. No more Biff and Buffy twisting to oblivion in Philadelphia. As the music has gotten harsher, so has the dancing. Now it’s mostly guys out there with testosterone levels so high they’d register on the Richter scale, bouncing blissfully off one another at least until they fight, which will be during any song now.

The dance floor has become the pit, the slam pit, the mosh pit. Even the name pit conjures up images of, well, pain. And if you end up on the business end of an elbow, it’s really the pits.

Ill Repute, an Oxnard punk band with a decade of experience, has zero tolerance for aggressive slammers. “If there’s ever any trouble at our gigs, we just quit playing,” guitarist Tony Cortez said. “One time there was this confrontation between two guys at Mogz, so we just stopped and got the whole crowd against these two guys, who ended up leaving.”

Raging Arb & the Redheads, the local soundtrack for beer consumption and another band with a decade of experience, likes the kiddie crowd, which would probably even slam to Joni Mitchell.

“I think the all-ages shows are a killer,” said Toby Emery, the guitarist. “They don’t need alcohol; they just have the energy and they just go off. It’s fun playing those kinds of gigs. We feed off their energy on stage and give more. The kids need to go somewhere to get their aggressions out, and that’s good. I can see the adrenaline rush. It’s just a modern way to do it.”

The venerable Ventura Theatre is about the only all-ages venue to have such shows on a semi-regular basis. There are other venues in the county, but none with a dance floor the size of the theater’s. While it may look like Beirut on Saturday night once the pit gets going, there are certain rules, according to theater manager Tom Welton.

“We warn them at the front door beforehand, but most of the kids go, ‘I know, I know.’ Once the pit gets going, the security guys will warn you once if you go too far, then ask you to leave the second time. Obviously, we don’t want anyone to get hurt, for insurance reasons.”

Guy Coombs, ex-manager of Mogz in Ventura and the Beach Shack in Santa Barbara and currently managing the Metro Bay Club in Ventura, also is no fan of the lawsuit, but concludes that there is a kindler, gentler pit.

“We put you in the penalty box if you go too far,” he said. “But you can’t have your staff beating people up. One of my security guys at Mogz quit one night because I wouldn’t let him beat up one particularly obnoxious punk. So he quit and chased this guy down the street (but) never caught him.

“Sometimes at the Beach Shack, bouncers would get their friends to take care of somebody, but I don’t want to talk about that. But there are some bands that have a nice pit. In a friendly pit, people keep their elbows down and, if you fall, they’ll help you up.”

OK, but what about the girls? They’re mostly squished like bugs against the wall, praying for their lives.

“Quite often, girls would go into the pit, but they’d just go in and out again real fast,” Coombs said.

Christie Harris, a student at Ventura College, has survived many a punk show, including a memorable night a few years ago in Long Beach when the pit became a pile.

“I was standing at the edge of the pit when suddenly everyone came crashing into me,” she said. “It was like a total wall of people just dog-piling on top of me. I chipped my front tooth.”

Personal foul, 15 yards. Even such violent sports as hockey and football have penalties for going too far. And in the pit, oftentimes, someone goes too far. Alcohol is often the culprit as the evening wears on. The last set is always an adventure.

“People get pissed when you go the wrong way,” said Coombs, alluding to that ubiquitous big dude who looks like Lurch and insists on going counterclockwise in the human hurricane.

“Well, when you get elbowed in the face, that’s no good,” Emery said.

Ah, it’s not so bad as all that, according to Brandon Cruz, who has been in punk bands since 1978 and whose watch stopped a year or two later.

“Well, you can’t stab people or elbow them in the throat or in the face,” he said. “It’s violent-looking, and you may get pushed around or bruised, but the pit is not there to hurt people.”

Then again, there are those who have no sense of humor. A few months ago, RKL (Rich Kids on LSD) was playing an all-ages venue at Buster’s in Goleta when owner Larry Dart, much like Popeye, had all he could stands and he could stands no more.

Country line dancing, this ain’t. Twisting by the pool, this ain’t. Sweating to the oldies, this ain’t. Gnarly, this is. Fun, too. Anyway, grab those combat boots, put on that flak jacket and an unhappy face, and I’ll see ya in the pit. I’ll be the guy with the smile button on my leather coat, and a roll of quarters in my pocket with your name on it.