Okay, I'm not really a goth. I think this has something to do with the fact that I enjoy listening to The Cranberries. But I did "hang" with a bunch'a net.goths from Pittsburg at the Savage Garden the other week, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I have a love of costume and pagentry that makes me a kinda goth-wannabe.
Blame Siobhán. She started me down the path to blackness.
One of the first times we ever got together, she was giving me a ride to a mutual friend's cottage. Siobhán likes to listen to music while she's driving (it keeps her awake), and she asked me to pick a tape from the pile sitting on the floor in front of the passenger seat. I looked through the collection, and remarked that I didn't even recognize any of the bands. She played me some of her favourite music, and I hated it. I discovered that I enjoy odd things in music: rhythm, beat, tonality. Stuff like that.
Some time later, I played her some of my favourite music: pop bands, 60s bands, sappy romantic stuff. She hated it.
One weekend, we went away with a bunch of friends to a ski chalet in Collingwood where we locked ourselves in, watched videos, and talked about the idea that we had come there to write. When the videos ran out, we tried to listen to music. Finally, in desperation, Siobhán put on The Sisters of Mercy, and I didn't hate it. Actually, I kinda liked it.
She decided then and there to recreate me as a goth. Well, maybe nothing so dramatic as that. But some months later, she took me out to see the Cocteau Twins in concert at the Masonic Temple, and I took the opportunity to dress the part -- black tights, lipstick and nail polish. I enjoyed myself enormously.
Copyright © 1997 by B.C. Holmes. Last updated April 8th, 1997
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