Sitting in a Corner in the Dark: a Goth tale part 2

So the stage was set. My friend, and flatmate, Dan thought that a Goth night sounded like fun. Then the word got out and a couple other's decided to join in.

My first step was to prepare my Goth outfit. These vary more than you would think. You have the ones that are dressed like Victorian vampires, those that look like something from a Cure concert, and the cyber-Goths with their matrix-meets-a-rave look... and there are many more. But they all have some things in common: mostly, black, hair gel, and makeup.
Now, I had quite a bit of black, but it was mostly of the formal variety: dress shirts, jackets and slacks. So I decided to go for the more "I just came from a funeral and I wasn't exactly a guest" look.

Of course, I didn't have any makeup so I walked down the street to the nearest makeup store (there has got to be another name for those places) and checked it out. Now, the first thing I noticed is that I don't know the vaguest thing about makeup. Brands, kinds, their uses, etc... I am lost. I was surprised when I couldn't find any white face paint or black lipstick, probably because I am the kind of idiot that expects any place that sells makeup to sell the Goth variety. So I walked up and down looking for black eyeliner and the likes when I started to feel conspicuous as the only dude in the store. After watching me for a while, a shopgirl came up to me and asked me if I needed any help. I panicked. Somewhere deep inside me, past layers of modern culture and liberal ideologies, the macho inside me couldn't bring himself to say "I need some eyeliner." Before I knew what I was saying I told the lady "we are putting on a play, and we need some makeup. It needs to be dark to outline facial gestures. Preferably eyeliner and lipstick." She looked at me, and I looked back at her in silence for a second or two. Then she gave me a sympathetic smile and directed me over to some sticks of eyeliner with the kind of gentleness that you would expect from a woman that thinks she is helping an embarrassed lad come out of the closet. After leaving red-faced, I went to a costume shop for the white face paint.

My friends had not thought this process through as much as I had, and most of them had only really thought as far as "I will wear black." Actually, one friend hadn't even thought that far and came over to my house in a white t-shirt and jeans. He later changed into a black jacket which helped.
Anyway, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here we go (click for bigger versions):



Here we are getting all tarted up, so to speak. Due to our inexperience with makeup, some of the girlfriends and sisters at our house that weekend decided to help. I ended up doing my own though. I couldn't bear the feeling of someone else putting an eyeliner stick in my eyeball.



Dan and I, looking somber, like we were supposed to. Nico, is also there, but not as visible.



And here is the whole goth crew of the night. Myself, Nico, Dan and Paco. Notice that some of them had a bit of trouble with "splotchy whiteness". Admittedly, I have an advantage at playing the Goth over the darker skinned people of the world.



In the end, the Goth club was kinda crappy, though I must say, Madrid is probably the least Gothic European capital there is. Also, I think it was a pretty bad club too. I later found out about a couple better places. But basically a Goth club was what you'd expect from a place that caters to a subculture revolving around dark moping. Spiderwebs, dark ambiance, white lights, monochrome and the droning melancholy music that spawned the movement. As to the people there, there were all sorts. Though most of them simply stood around. The dance floor remained fairly empty. Goth dancing apparently can be put into two categories: the "I'm too jaded to dance" sway, and the "stomp on social conformism"... stomp. Paco and I "danced"a bit, but spent most of the time trying not to fall asleep. Dan, despite our encouragements, refused to move from a black couch, defending his actions by saying that "he was being more goth than we were". Though perhaps Nico was the most Goth of all, because he stood around looking uncomfortable with his surroundings, which is basically what being Goth seems to be all about.