WFWF General Discussion 2015: Now 95% More Mannly

I've had some interesting experiences as a mod on other forums. Let's just say, some guy plagiarized a news article to put as his own and I supported it. Ahh, over-ambitious, 14-year-old me.

I'm not going to complain, I love the moderators and admins here. I just think the criteria is a bit odd to me.

So, when are we expecting results for this card? A week or so?

and on that note, I just wrote a diatribe for the show that I know for a fact would never "make air" because if it did, Trace, Horror, and whoever else involved with posting it would surely be demodded and possibly banned. In character stuff blends to out of character stuff when you're having a shitty day.

Guess I'll try again tomorrow.

Both should be funny stories. I have no preference of which one you choose to tell first.

Be hardcore, tell them both.

Goth it is.

So, I know I've been candid here before about the fact that I was a class act f*ck up in high school, and so I'm not afraid to say that when I was "accepted" into a community college a short distance from home to pursue, I sh*t you not, a degree in theater, I was, at the time, elated.

The funny thing about community colleges is that you tend to get a student body comprised of all the class act f*ck ups from the local high schools, some transplants like myself, and some older folk who genuinely are putting their axe to the stone to finally put their own class act f*ck up phase behind them, and true to form, there I was in the fall of 2003, a transplant do nothing surrounded by a bunch of do nothings from the nearest high school, as well as a local aggie (agricultural school).

I'd just come off of three straight years of dating the most devout Baptist in my high school (and the cause of the story not being told), and thus, I found myself on the prowl, so to speak. I'd like to say I had a certain prowess with the ladies, but then, we wouldn't have stories of me abandoning all sense of self in a shameless attempt to get laid, now would we?

Remember that theater degree? If nothing else, that stupid, knee jerk choice in major led to me managing to not go the entire semester and a half I spent skipping class at this school without some companionship. Theater kids, regardless of where you find 'em, always come with a certain degree of weird. In my high school, it just happened to be a bunch of punks for some reason, which suited me right to the core. In Merrimack County, Massachusetts, it was a gaggle of goths.

I should use this point in our story to say that as weird as I look back and find the subculture these days, by and large, the goths I knew weren't bad people. Promiscuous, questionably creative, and weird sometimes for the sake of being different, sure, but malicious intent was rare, at best. It was this general friendliness that led me to befriend a small group of them. Among them was a girl, as there always is in this kind of story, who I now refer to as Satan, but then, I had the hots for her right off the bat. It's important to know that now I understand just how vapid and hopeless this chick was, but call a spade a spade, she was easy on the eyes.

This whole group of gothy theater kids and I got real quality time together on the first Shakespearean production of the year, as rehearsals often went late into the night, and by now, I'd found myself couch surfing to avoid having to go home and fight with my folks. By then, Satan had decided to give the gangly (at the time) little punk kid a chance, and the lot of us were invited one night after a rehearsal got out unusually early to "the club".

"The Club" opened on Wednesday nights at 10pm, but if you got there at 9 with a flier, they'd wave the cover charge. "The Club" also had, I sh*t you not, a dress code. Goth or fetish wear was preferred. All black would suffice, so long as none of it was denim. Sneakers were right out. In the months that I spent going to "the club" on a weekly basis, I saw people in all sorts of states of dress and undress. There were two rooms - one room was a bit more modern looking, and played straight up industrial jams that Obo would probably dig the sh*t out of, but the hotspot was the main room, with a f*ckin' caged in stage to dance on, stripper poles, and a raised DJ booth that overlooked the dance floor that you had to go to a phone booth and pick up a phone to make a request to.

As Dean properly guessed, this was NOT my scene at all. At the time I was digging on Bad Religion and all about this dumb skater punk look, but Satan was letting me into bed at the time, and was super enthusiastic about the invite, and so I dug out my most wrinkled black button down, a pair of interview slacks and smart shoes, and this gaggle of goths herded into my 2001 Plymouth Neon for our first of many ventures to "the club".

If there's one thing you need to know, should you find yourself in a similar situation, it's that the die hards take this sh*t VERY seriously. Unlike a good street punk scene or metal or whatever, the goth scene is super, super fashion conscious. Our pack leader led us to a spot his crew liked to gather in, and we're immediately met by a dude who's done his face up to look like his eyes are gushing blood, and a chick whose top consisted of four pieces of conveniently placed and positioned electrical tape. Head first.

Around ten the place picks up steam and the DJ starts ripping all these guys favorite tracks. I'm a pretty open guy in regard to music, but there's only so much Cruxshadows, Peter Murphy, Tors of Dartmoor, and such that one man can take in such a short time. This ain't regular dancing either - this is straight up interpretive tai chi dancing. I'm not kidding - on any given night the dance floor would be PACKED with the vampiric masses mostly standing in place, writhing their upper bodies and arms to the music. It's so damn jarring to first see it, and I had to really put forth the effort to stifle a laugh - that is, until Satan convinced me we should totally have a go of it. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. At least "dancing", I could sort of hide in the anonymity that I was way out of my comfort zone in every way.

Probably my favorite experience of this whole six or seven month stretch of black garb, guy liner, and Red Bull spiked Shirley Temples was when I convinced a friend from back home to join in. This whole gig was totally his scene, and he wound up getting some great friends out of it, but the first night he came with, he beelined right up in the business of a piece that caught his eye in a halter top mini skirt and waaaay too much eyeliner, who all the rest of us regs by then knew to be one of the friendlier but not exactly going to tell you about it drag queens that frequented the joint. We had to tell him - eventually. It was the right thing to do, and he spent the rest of the night outside in the freezing cold puffing back his clove cigarettes.

I'd like to say that every time I head into town these days I shed a mascara stained tear when I pass by, but about a year or two after I finally came to my senses and started dressing at least a bit more like an adult, the blazed was dozed over in favor of some upscale apartments. That was good half a year I spent out of my element, trying to keep the favor of a chick who did nothing for me in the long run but embitter me and cheat on me. If you find yourself changing to that degree that you're dressing a certain way and pretending to like certain music just 'cause a girl lets you see her without her clothes on, run like the everloving dickens in the other direction before you start letting some chick dress you in fishnet shirts and paint clockwork orange guy lashes on you.

As a prologue, I'll share a fun fact with you all and tie us back into the e-fed scene. If you go back far enough, you'll find a David Brennan rp called "Why We Fight" that I wrote against Drakz, in which Brennan recalls the story of a club he watched burn to the ground in guilty pleasure during his days as a firefighter. Now you know the real story.

HAHAHA SYE you are an animal.

My goth club story is far shorter and less interesting. I went once. On magic mushrooms. My friend lost it in there and threw up all over the backs of 3 random goth kids. We left. Quickly.

I'm no longer holding up the results. My segment has been sent to Horror & Trace. And I didn't run down any companies that have their advertisements branded all over this website in the process, so that's probably a plus.

so I just got around to actually reading this and while it's an awesome read, this particular line struck a topical cord with me. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to? Story of my week right here.