blogwaffe

It being the birthday yesterday of a friend who will remain nameless, but whose gothic tendencies are at a solid “black is the new black, jackoff” level, Michelle, Bryan, Bonnie and I joined the birthday goth, spouse and sibling at Bar Sinister in Hollywood.

On the abstract level, dressing up to go out to a club in LA sounds really lame. But in practice, Bar Sinister was a wholly unlame experience in part because the dress is themed and not just ‘typical LA trendy’ but mostly because the venue is just plain awesome.

The evening started with the nails. Michelle kindly offered to paint mine black, so there they were. Black fingernails. I still have them painted right now, and, let me tell you, they’re pretty distracting as I type. Little scarabs dancing around my keyboard. I then donned all my black non-t-shirt clothing (sans the trench coat and cum the dragon shirt of Paul.za’s (I’ll totally wash it, Paul.za, before you get back)), slicked back my hair with a pint of gel and at least an acre foot of hairspray, pulled it back into a pony tail (which Michelle and I dubbed “the Westley”) and stepped out into the bleak and Stygian night, lady in hand.

I considered wearing the red High-Life hat, but figured my first gothic bar experience should be as “traditional” as possible. Maybe next time.

After meeting up with our fellow night crawlers, we drove to the club, payed our blood dues and walked in. The inside was divided into four main sections. You enter into the stage area. There were a couple bands of good quality playing, though not receiving too much energy from the crowd. Perhaps that’s what it is to be playing at a goth bar: wailing away while the crowd amorally considers some fathomless eschaton, watches the original Nosferatu being projected above the stage, and drinks Newcastle of all things.

As you enter deeper into the club, you encounter the main bar and the dance floor (complete with hired dancing girls on platforms). The decor is exactly what you’d expect: dark, riddled with iconography and polka dotted with stone fountains, fog-machined, candle lit (even real ones in places). It is also quite pleasant. Cushy red benches and good ambiance lighting that manages to be quite subtle relative to the physical decorations.

All the people with whom I interacted were highly accepting and most downright nice (don’t tell anyone though, it might damage their image). The music, being spun from a balcony above, was rave-ish and loud (I am incredibly ignorant about different styles of techno and its otherwise electronica brethren). I found it fun to listen to, but difficult to dance to for the first half of the evening. Whether my eventual change of heart was due to a DJ change or my white boy self finally loosening up a bit as the night crept on, I don’t know.

Speaking of dancing, I managed to get a little freaky with the club-goer-of-honor (don’t tell Michelle). I mean, a birthday’s a birthday.

The final area of the club is the infamous and, to some, lascivious upstairs. From incomplete descriptions, I had expected to see various acts of oral sex and bondage with a healthy mix of heroin shootings once I ventured upstairs. And maybe some kinky, post-industrial futuristic themed twister. Wanting to see just how weird of an experience it would be, I walked upstairs but encountered a very different atmosphere than the one I had hypothesized: no oral sex, no drugs. No genitals or illegal activities at all, in fact. And the closest thing to goth twister was a kinky video along the lines of a powers of ten style view of some hot girls.

There was some bondage, though; thank goodness. I was beginning to think there wasn’t anything kinky enough to make the trip upstairs truly unique.

A happy dominatrix strapped in a willing “victim” to some sort of wooden S&M contraption and started whipping her with a leather, multi-tailed flogger. Afterwards they laughed and hugged and continued their respective evenings: the victim to the pleasures of the night, the dominatrix to the next client. Oh, and there was a pleasant transsexual couple engaged in some pretty intense spanking exercise.

Our party declined to participate directly, but we watched and filed the experience away under the “something to tell your grandkids” heading. Of course, to our grandkids the story may well seem staid and prudish.

All and all, Bar Sinister was a pretty happening place. I’d definitely go back.