Outsiders (San Diego Clubs 3/3/01)

Sometimes people don't seem to fit. The guy in baggies at Club Bombay, the brown-haired girl in the blue and white print dress at Sabbat or Gucci-wearers at Elements. Or the overweight middle-aged white guy with the camera at The Dragon Lounge.

Awhile back on a Goth mailing list there was a food fight about a guy about my age who shows up at the clubs in faux-islander tribal grass skirt, body paint and a skeleton, with whom (or which) he proceeds to erotically dance (the word in the debate was "hump") around the fringes of the dansefloors. One foodfightfaction said in effect that he was too different and shouldn't be allowed in the Goth domains, while the other side said that Gothdom was about freedom of expression and tolerance of differences. (This second side then offered to start marketing "Goth kits" which would assure all buyers that they would be in politically correct Goth costuming - sarcasm regrettably lost on the first faction.) Subject deviant, shown here without grass skirt, was completely unaware of the dispute and told me he couldn't care less what people had to say. He is just doing what he does.

Curvy girls among the techno-slyphs, industrial boys dancing house, tourists in Hawaiian shirts everywhere and me - the overweight middle-aged white guy with a camera.

There are pretty well-defined atmospheres at our clubs. There are expectations in dress and demeanor. Exceptions to those expectations threaten changes to the atmosphere, threatening loss of customer base, thus loss of business. And clubs are after all, businesses.

As I've hinted strongly, I'm one of the outsiders. When I started photographing clubs it was as an adjunct to my fashion photography. I was looking for more dynamics and was also trolling for models of the fetishy sort. It started when I posted on one of the mail lists showing some of my dark photography and got invited to shoot Therapy (which remains my favorite club). First results were wonderful, but to get them I had to first intrude onto the dansefloor, sometimes sitting down in the middle of it. Goths are an interesting sort. They like to be seen, but don't really want to meet anyone. Maybe. For certain, they relish their mystery, and that in itself is attractive. After Therapy I was asked to shoot a private fetish party at Sanctuary which yielded some interesting results. In a nominal effort to fit in I found myself spanking a blonde girl in a fishnet bodysuit - but that's another story...

At some point I was hired by a media website to cover all genres of clubs and recently photographed Rich's where a few pretty boys dragged fingertips down my arm (though probably not motivated by my rugged good looks or sterling physique). At none of the clubs that I've photographed have I ever "fit in."

But I've enjoyed almost all of them. I enjoy the clubs for the music, lights, beautiful women, and for being surrounded by youth, vitality and life. And like that guy up there, I don't too much care what others at the club think, this is what I do - and I enjoy it.

-Don