Sunday, September 8, 2002. Just before 1500, having spent slightly more time than I planned writing a rambling, I made hasty preparations and departed the Castle Lair.

I journied to the south, where I met with $mentor[0]. We journied into the mountains, and hiked. This would be my second hike of the weekend. Two hikes in two days. This is a Good Thing.

Many topics were discussed during the hike, which will not be elaborated upon at this time. (Not that I'm necessarily keeping secrets, but... Assuming I could remember it all, many pages could be filled. I need to sleep at some point.)

After taking a shorter-than-usual 1.5 hour hike, we returned to $mentor[0]'s residence, where we ate salad and eggplant, and viewed Pump Up the Volume, a collectively chosen DVD selection of the week from the Bitscape Collection.

I won't add an entry to my movielog for this particular viewing, since I have already logged it in the past. I will, however, again state briefly that this movie never fails to enthrall and inspire me every time I watch it. $mentor[0] was also impressed.

Shortly after 21:00, I departed $mentor[0]'s residence, and headed to my next destination for the evening. This, of course, was Club Onyx, where I would attend the advertised release party for Deep Red's latest release, and of course, get a dose of regularly scheduled Sunday Goth night.

I got to the club much later than I had hoped. The first cause for this was that I had left $mentor[0]'s place slightly later than planned, due to the movie being over slightly later than initial plans, due to getting back from the hike slightly later, etc etc. You know how that goes.

As I made my first approach to look for parking, I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to get cash from an ATM, and my wallet was empty. Doh! Although there was no cover tonight, I wanted to have a little money to buy a drink or two, support the place, yadda yadda.

So I altered my course to search for a Wells Fargo, because I really dislike paying foreign ATM fees if at all possible. Since I'm still not terribly familiar with the area of downtown Denver, this resulted in a nice long goose chase, which eventually did result in me successfully locating a Wells Fargo ATM.

I arrived at the club after 22:30. Oh well. So much for being among the early batch to show up.

My nerves and patience had pretty much been turned to goo. I blamed this on the obsessively annoying stoplight patterns of downtown Denver. I swear, they always turn red right when you're about to get near the intersection.

I bought a beer, and attempted to dance, but I didn't truly become one with the music for a long while. Sometimes, the spirit is elusive. (Or maybe we should say Elusis, one of those who occupied the DJ booth during the evening. Just for the record, I happened to be one of those five people who was dancing. Queen of the Damned sucked the first time I saw it. I didn't need to see it again. But I did enjoy a few scenes from Stigmata, which was being featured while I wandered through.)

As advertised, they did play some songs from Deep Red, and gave away cds and posters. I got one of each. (This time, they didn't even require people to answer trivia questions or anything. Just "The first 3 people up to the booth get a cd." And when there's only 5 people in the room, none of whom appear to be terribly motivated... Well, it ain't that hard to net a new Deep Red disc. Schweet. :)

The club was not crowded at all. The word "dead" wouldn't have been too far off during some portions. Well, Sunday night. I guess some people do have jobs. Funny them.

"We're taking Fight Club up a notch."

Make that... Fetish Club. Taking Fetish Club up a notch. Starting next Saturday night, and every week thereafter. Quoting from the flyer...

"Fetish Underground. Hedonism @play. Ultra-sexy performances. Naughty fashion shows. Interactive consentual play. Contests, giveaways & more. Fetish dress code strictly enforced."

They've even got a special web site setup for it. No kiddin.

I gotta say I am curious. I may even attend, just to see what the hell is going on. The one pitfall I see at this point is that I don't actually own any "fetish" clothes, nor do I currently have money budgeted for such luxuries. (Unless you define my smelly underwear. But no... let's not go there. It's gotta be "sexy" remember?)

Yes, that's what the rules say. Ya gotta be sexy. And we always follow the rules. Yes. Rules are important.

Yeep. This is taking things up a notch, isn't it?

Anyway... getting back to my narrative.

I was discussing this (significant) alteration in the Saturday night format with another regular there. He said that they would be moving the Saturday night 80s retro stuff to Sunday. (The web site confirms this.)

So my question: "So what are they going to do with Goth Night?"

[Here comes the punch line...]

"Dude, haven't you noticed? Every night around here might as well be called 'Goth' night. Just look around at the people, any night of the week. Wednesday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. See? Goth night."

THAT was the side splitter of the evening. lol.

As the evening went on, my music did eventually begin to permeate my spirit. High point: Nine Inch Nails. Reptile. That song just ripped me up, in a good way. It hit the spot perfectly. That was when I was in. Every vibration being blasted from the dozen surrounding speakers was familiar; my soul soaked it up, as my lips mimicked the words. Dig that feeling.

I'll say it for the Nth time. Trent is a genius. End of story.

For the few of us who were dancing, it pretty much became a dance until you drop marathon.

At what must have been nearly 0200, they turned on the house lights, but continued to play more music. Loudly. Rage Against The Machine. Killing in The Name. [of...]

Myself and one of the other guys who was there totally got into that. So much so, and under full lights, that we almost started cracking up, though not losing the intensity of the music. Sing it with a smile!

Who wants to be Zack De La Rocha today? "I do, I do!"

Well, it was nearly 2 in the morning, and some alcohol might have been consumed on the premises. Not that this matters. :)

After that, they played some more music with the house lights up. The staff started bringing in mops and brooms. They didn't explicitly ask the 4 loyal customers to leave, but we pretty much got the hint.

Outside the club, as I was walking back to my car, I talked with a guy I've seen a few times before. Seems like a cool. Totally into the music.

Before we parted ways, he showed me the tattoo on his arm, and invited me visit the church he and some of his friends attend, if I'm ever interested. He was Christian. The church, using his words, is a "Punk Christian" church. He described his faith one of strong devotion to Jesus and only Jesus (his personal belief signified by the crucifix tattooed to his arm), without throwing in "all that other garbage".

"You know some of those churches out there say that dancing is evil? But we're not like that at all."

For some reason, I found this greatly amusing. "Uh huh. Yeah, I've heard a little about those 'dancing is evil' churches."

I told him that it sounded like a cool church, and his sounded like a great faith, but I don't consider myself a Christian, and probably won't anytime soon. At that, he simply smiled, said it would be great to hang out again. We parted ways.

Actually, though. I almost would be interested to see one of their services. I've been to a lot of church services at Christian churches during the course of my life. I have never been to a "Punk Christian" church service. If I see him again, I may actually try taking up the offer. Just to see. Curious is me.

Now, I think I will go to bed, so I can wake up early in the morning and write some more code for Build Me A Site. Yes, it will be a very early morning.

I've also been advised that it might be a good idea to get my resume up to date. (What an odd notion!) It may be necessary to change my tactics in job hunting. We'll see.

In any case, sleep first. All of that, a little later. I better lie down soon, or it's gonna be daylight before I get unconscious. That would be most disturbing.

As for the Big Religion Debate in the Content Collective goes, I've read more of the tiles, and find their content most enjoyable. I will get around to adding a few more thoughts.... sometime soon.

I seem to be thinking of myself as a nonstop content-producing machine. This machine needs to shutdown for system maintenance.

Over and out.