My Thursday night Muay Thai class was cancelled this week due to my instructor being under the weather and Team Serra two alternates being unavailable. Normally, I most likely would have been extremely disappointed. However for the past few days a sinus cold has been kicking the crap out of me and Erin is going to be away for the weekend at her brother & sister-in-law’s house in Atlanta. So, I was glad to have a night at home to rest and spent a bit of extra time with the Mrs. before she left for her trip this morning. So, this how I ended up flipping channels on a Thursday night while eating a DiGiorno pizza with my wife. Oh, and by the way, if you can’t tell if it’s deliver or DiGiorno, you either have shitty taste in pizza or have never had real pizza, ever.
While flipping channels I stopped when I hit the IFC Channel as they were showing the documentary film Goth Cruise. Now I had remembered hearing about this documentary as a girl I knew from my clubbing days had posted on facebook that she and her husband were featured in the film. So, I left it on with more than the cursory interest that I might have normally had. As most of the people who would have any reason to read this would know, I was pretty damn immersed in the NYC/LI Goth scene for a number of years. Hell, Erin and I met at a show my brother’s old band was playing at a Goth club. We sat there watching it, while munching on our store bought pizza, commenting here and there about this song or this outfit. Erin laughed when Amanda, the aforementioned acquaintance, appeared on screen wearing the same I, Synthesist t-shirt that I frequently wear. I, Synthesist is a band fronted by an acquaintance of my brother. I must admit, while I do dig a few of their songs, I mostly wear the shirt because I like the way it fits on me! However I did remember that Amanda was a big fan of theirs.
Our watching of this little documentary lead to my questioning my wife if she liked it better when I dressed more Goth or the way that I dress now. She told me that she prefers my current wardrobe which usually consists of t-shirts and jeans, the occasional hooded sweat shirt or button down with Doc Marten shoes or my limited edition Alkaline Trio Nikes. She prefers when then t-shirts have shorter sleeves that reveal more tattoo and biceps and have a logo or design of some sort. A favorite is the shirt I picked up at the Dead Man’s Bones concert.
This combined with the fantastic book I am currently reading, How Soon Is Never by Marc Spitz, reminded me how much the type of music we listen to often affects how we dress and how we define ourselves. If someone asked me in Junior High or the first year or so of High School, what are you? My response probably would have been I’m a Metal Head. And with my wardrobe consisting mostly of Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer t-shirts worn with tight black or blue jeans and combat boots most likely would have lead you to believe me. And in my High School, that really was how you defined yourself, metal heads listened to metal, hoodies listened to hip hop or rap, guidos listened to TKA. That’s just the way it was.
By the time I was in college the uniform and music had changed. The wardrobe was now dominated by Depeche Mode, Smiths, Cure, and Morrissey shirts or black button downs, but still with boots and tight jeans! And most nights were spent at Goth clubs swirling around the dance floor with similarly dressed boys and girls in corsets with my black eyeliner, lip stick, and nail polish topping it all off. As I got more into the Goth subculture my wardrobe expanded to include shiny vinyl pants, velvet skirts, mesh shirts, bondage pants and even more impressive knee high, steel toed combat boots. And I frequently dressed that way whether I was at a club or not. Working at Tower Records afforded me the kind of freedom of dress that a lot of other jobs don’t. In college it seemed that this still had an impact on how you defined yourself, were you Goth, a Punk, a hard core kid, or an indie rocker? Maybe you were in a fraternity or sorority and were just one of the Greeks?
As I got older, I just seemed to stop dressing that way. I have not stopped listening to the music, and hell, I’m listening to Tomorrow by Morrissey as I type this. I have over 7,000 songs on my iPod and I own over 1,000 CDs. The genres of music stretch from Classic Rock, to Heavy Metal, to Hip Hop, to Rap, to Disco, to Industrial, to Punk, to New Wave, to Industrial, to Alternative, to Ska and on and on. What I listen to no longer dictates how I dress, I wear what I feel comfortable in and what I think looks good. Sure, I still wear t-shirts of bands that I like, but I also wear a lot of Straight Edge and Serra Jiu-Jitsu shirts. And if someone said, what are you? I certainly would not use the contents of my iPod or wardrobe to define who I am.
First of all, what I am listening to can be so different on a day to day basis that I can no longer see myself saying, I’m Goth or I’m a Punk or an Indie Rocker. I mean people obviously still do this, hence the Goth Cruise flick. And I know people still call themselves Hipsters and Punks and the like. I’m just not one of them. I don’t know when or how this happened and I don’t know why. It just did. I still love music more than most people love their pets but I don’t let it dictate who or what I am. Hell, I don’t let my job do that.
The clearest definition of who I am is probably right here on this very blog, in the little blurb to the right: Married, father, writer, musician, straight edge, beginning BJJ practitioner. This is how I choose to define myself. And I think it fits even better than my I, Synthesist t-shirt. Until next time, take care.
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