Perhaps its similar enough to this- but the trend of downward mobility, and people finding their tribe on “discord”, I think now its really made itself more mainstream. Contrary to this, I can remember in the late 2000s and early 2010s, similar scenes emerging. Vaporwave was like this, Witch house was like this, SlimpPunk, SeaPunk, DungeonSynth, whatever you want. If you look at “Diner Goth”, many of the “prepackaged” aesthetics were really present within Witch House itself, and for one who once saw and partook in that scene as it was emerging, if you look at bands like Salem- they wern’t going to the big city, they had trucker hats, long hair, oversized hoodies and combat boots in a throwback to industrial. Contrary to this though, the cultural landscape and beat was to the tune of the rust belt, a forgotten midwest, mythologizing it into something more. Now, thats the mainstream, everyone is online, noone can afford the big city, and we’re seeing it manifest in the norm even further.
Bloody Kisses was one of my first albums. I got to see them live a decade after listening to it. Celtic Frost was opening. I couldn’t have asked for more.
Wicked. Never saw them live, (full disclosure, I'm an X'r) - but did see Pantera (just before Dimebag got shot), the Cult, Pink Floyd, Sabbath, Maiden, and Sepultura (Chaos A.D. tour) to name a few. No regrets, but Peter Steele and the guys are legendary. WOLF MOON is a go-to track 'round here;). Congrats and ROCK ON!!!!
Saw Panteta before Dimebag got shot too. Must have been 15. Black Sabbath for Ozzfest maybe a year later. Jealous you got to see Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd. I just listened to The Wall obsessively, like any normal Diner Goth. Others knew. It wasn’t just me. It was the great us.
I had had the "Life is Killing Me" album on replay for one of the most intense transitions of my life and it was part of what got me through. Had the one and only panic attack of my life (couldn't breathe for a minute or two(?)) on a Jumbo 747 waiting for takeoff at YVR en route to Salalah, Oman to teach English at the College of Applied Sciences there (I believe Iran just bombed their desalination plant - pity those people - no drinking water is an inhumane trip) - it was the first time I flew into a new country in the Middle East where I didn't know anyone and had only a few contacts and a teaching contract. It all worked out, but it was a very intense fly by night experience!!
Your article takes me back to that time I eloped and married a Wiccan Goth witch on Long Beach, Van.Isle in 93 with Natural Born Killers and Janes Addiction "Ritual de lo Habitual" as integral backdrop. The 90s were F*ckin WILD. PEACE, Love, and great writing.
In Cincinnati there used to be a goth club called The Warehouse, which had a gay night every Thursday. Meanwhile, a gay night club called The Dock had its goth night every Thursday. So once each week the regular patrons of the two clubs simply switched places. This relationship carried on for 10-15 years. It was something you could count on. Then The Warehouse shut down around 2005, but The Dock remained until about 2016 AND kept the Thursday goth night until the bitter end. When I was an Uber driver, I drove a carload of goths to one of the last goth nights. It reminded me of how the ancient Egyptian gods were still worshiped in Sudan until 650AD. Those last goths were like the last worshipers of Ra.
I think class realization is a bit of a reality check for anyone with dreams of "making it". Films don't raise money through filmmakers, they raise money by making promises to rich people who couldn't give a rat's ass. (Apply to any cultural project: albums, video games, etc.) There's a little devil on your shoulder snickering that it's all the delusions of weirdos, some of whom get lucky... all art is quite useless.
There's a sad realization that maybe "it" is never coming back, that the forms you wished for are in decline and wouldn't have you in your current state (read: Hollywood does not like chuds and doesn't have a clue on how to survive the tiktok singularity anyhow).
But maybe it's more bittersweet -- the sort of deformed weirdos who hang out on discord and obscure web forums aren't the kind of guys I would seek out, anyhow... though I often feel torn between my old romance of the web-lurker and the apparent squalor of its reality -- nobody wants to be a 4chan kid when they're 30.
Dude, I SO wanted to go to SCAD, and I couldn't afford it or get a scholarship because my art is just a hair above "mid." So jelly.
But fr there was a huge dose of this cultural milieu you describe, the DinerGoth, at Florida State. FSU has a "prestigious fine arts" reputation, and yet, Tallahassee is the butt of so many jokes in the wider culture. I mean, it *is* "the big city" for about a 3 or 5 county radius at least. But srsly, Tallahassee wishes it was as "big city" of a feel as *Jacksonville.* Have you seen Jacksonville FL's NFL record? It's dismal! They barely qualify for a franchise! Jacksonville wishes it was Orlando, NOW you're talking! And yet, Tally has this two-tier removed pretentiousness about it, with its tattoo and piercing salons, and "arts districts" and micro-breweries, that it's really, REALLY trying so hard to be... I mean let's be real, it also kind of wishes it was Portland, OR, but it also knows that at best, it can only realistically hope to be as hipster and alternative culture as... *Jacksonville.*
And this is exactly it, you nailed it, every fat, gender-ambiguous, hair cut by a lawn mower, septum and eye brow pierced faggot in this town, is hustling at one of the three places you can get a burger with a fried egg on it, thinking they're SO ahead of the wave, and their persona is so sophisticated x y z, but... Dude, you're a freak with a Discord presence, I get it. Please do not vote. Your civic life is a counter-productive furry LARP, take a walk around Lake Ella and enjoy a snow cone, you can feed the ducks all day and save the environment or whatever, as long as your opinion doesn't matter in my governance, plz.
The post is about how I partially spent my time there looking to get out so I could focus on business. The town of Savannah was too limiting for us weird kids. Diners were the only place we had to go. I just wish I would have been born in a city.
You replied before I edited my post to add like 3-4 paragraphs, I think we actually are singing the same song. Refresh. The local hipsters have such huge dreams, and this town supports them culturally, but doesn't have the economic scaffolding to let their opinions matter worth a shit. But they still strive on the cultural channel, and it's just as cringey to watch the striving.
I see it and now you’re making me laugh. I didn’t even get into my Florida upbringing because it was so depressing. Yet when I came back and got stuck in Jacksonville, I have a terrifying memory of getting my hair done there. The women at the salon were like these rejects out of a Jane Austen novel who looked like characters out of a John Waters film. At this point just stop trying to get invited to weddings and start a gang, or at least a radio station.
I still tried to adapt to their way of life. I could learn to be simple too, I thought. I mean we may vote the same way so everything is a-ok, yay?
OMG ok I am LOVING this idea of the double filter, of "First you didn't pass Jane Austen. Second, You BARELY qualified for JOHN FUCKING WATERS," that is SO good! hahaha
At this point it’s just sad. I hate the way the lower class is classist toward itself. I want to be mean with you but I’m too humble and prestigious, I suppose.
Ok wait, WAIT, for context. I was only partially through this article, like only a quarter, when I made all these replies (and I'm drunk and impulsive and had to say something while it was on my mind). And I am only JUST NOW getting to this line:
"Jacksonville is a town in Florida that makes Savannah seem like Los Angeles."
HOLY SHIT is that accurate, and doesn't it just reflect exactly what I said in my previous comment? Put that into context, I said those Jacksonville comments *not knowing* this line was coming.
Thank you. Reality Bites, though I must have been around 13. I do remember loving Winona Ryder in it. The big ones for me were The Craft and Empire Records.
What a mood. This was such a great genre, yet viewed as nihilistic and cynical to anyone who wasn’t around for it. Not sure we’ll ever have cinema in America like this again. There was a distinct yet surprising innocence to it.
"There were very few genuinely alternative people left in cities that could afford to be genuinely alternative. The ones who remained either had roommates stacked deep in Bushwick or family money they didn’t talk about. Perhaps they made it into the mainstream economy that slowly removed the edges that made them 'alternative.'"
I saw this in NYC, when I moved there in 2007. I had left the enlisted army, was a CCNY student, and lived in Wash Heights... but I dated CU girls and had enough rich friends to thoroughly apprehend that slice of the culture. I was struck by how empty, shallow, PERFORMATIVE everything seemed. I was partly drawn there by a youth of reading Kerouac and Burroughs. I was thoroughly disappointed. I was disappointed by hood culture as well, although not as much and in different ways.
My point is that our elites seem to be bled of all vitality and authenticity. And I sense that, on some level, they understand this.
Yep end of the fifties I college dropped out & hitchhiked from Gainesville (Halfway between Jacksonville and nowhere back then.) to NYC, basement apartmented in East Village, monotoned my (Cough) deathless freeverse coffeehousing. remember party meeting listening to a guy with a a guitar and a mouthharp thinkin' he just might amount to something someday and the Five Spot near Cooper Union where any and every name in Jazz from Harlem through Broadway would swing by after hours, point and counterpoint for hours. Lots and lots of lots and lots.
Four years and then cheers, on the road to the tip top very end of the road, Fairbanks, Alaska, far more than our fair share of crazies as they'd get here, one road in and out of town, so the only place they could go from here was back there. Hobo Jim; young he guitared bars throughout the state, usually breaking a string early on and played and sang around it through the rest of the set. Mark Trail; not his real name but I called him that as he often wore a safari jacket, ran Pioneer Park and the zoo therein. I'd swing by after the park closed for the day, folks all gone. He'd leash the bear and he & I would take him out of his compound for a walk around the park, something all three of us quite enjoyed!
The point I'm aiming but not hitting; crazies. lazies, contents, discontents, makers, shakers, breakers you look you'll find them be you at 7th street & Avenue B, NYC or in downtown Sitka on the western sea (I used to rag on beautiful downtown Sitka back in the day; it had one of every thing, one bar, one PI, one private detective, one published novelist, one goth girl, 3.7 latter day hippies, and 6 churches of course.), alternative cultures are still here , there, everywhere around the next corner no matter what the ('nother cough) influencers nay say.
You can’t get more American than this. You can travel through every class and lose it all, your creativity and soul still fully intact. Did you ever write about these experiences in long form? It sounds like a book in the making. There are few genuine American Bohemian voices left in the publishing industry. I want to buy your book.
Thanks for the kind words Rachel. No, no plans to book it (Still busy doing even if a lot slower, & slower, & slooower! Grin.) but some's over at my substack, feel free to see of course.
Didn’t the subcultures of the 70’s–90’s go all fascist-totalitarian in the new century? In other words, they no longer wanted to occupy a niche, they wanted to be recognized for how special and virtuous they were, and everyone’s face had to be pushed down into it. In other words, they became the Progressive Left and kept the facial piercings, weird hair, and gender-theater.
My 70s version of Diner Goth was hanging out with assorted aesthetic misfits, eating pie at a diner overlooking the Susquehanna River in a depressed, post-industrial city, and if you know the Susquehanna River, you know the sort of city. Tuition at the state university was so affordable and rents were so cheap that it was possible to be an eternal student. Time seemed to teeter on the brink, going nowhere. Those were the days.
There's certainly something to the thought that the having a place for the nightwalker lifestyle enables some of the subculture. There was a period - perhaps the late nineties and early oughts - when you could find a lot of places open twenty-four hours, not just Dennys but even Home Depot and the like; the thought that the "city that never sleeps" wasn't just a New York or Tokyo vibe but a buzz of (post)modern life was somehow exhilarating. And then somehow that all reversed and everything started closing early again, whether because the economic boom wore off or because the nannies took over or just nobody but Walter White's crowd actually wanted to buy power tools at 3 AM. It's very cyclical - a few years later, it was hard to find a 24-hour pharmacy or even grocery store without driving halfway across the city, and your local 7-11 might close the same time as the local bar. Now it seems to be opening up for later night again, and we have 24-hour fitness clubs and some 24-hour restaurants. I haven't exactly mapped out the demographics of who attends at what hours - and I'm sure that's going to be at least as regionally dependent (and age-bracket-dependent), but the colorful adornments from hair to jewelry to other body art have definitely mainstreamed.
I mean, to be fair, the last time I was in Home Depot late hours was to buy a bolt cutter at 2am hoping the cashier didn't ask my drunk ass what it was for, much less for my drunk ass to admit that it was because I parked my car in the wrong spot and it was impounded.
Funny related story: I recall one of my friends coming up to me in a dance club near closing asking "Do you still have those bolt cutters in the trunk of your car" for what I was certain was exactly that same reason - I don't think it was his car that was impounded because he didn't have one in that state at the time, but rather than ask if it was for the chick he was swooning over I said "I assume this is because you can't get out of your chastity belt or something and surely not because you're about to engage in any late night liberation shenanigans, right?" His look told me all I need; I gave him the bolt cutters and said "Keep them, I'll buy myself a new pair." I bought three pairs that year.
That dude got more action than anyone except maybe Wilt Chamberlain, he didn't exactly need my help! But it was a hell of a non sequitur conversation amidst the dance club lights.
Diners and subcultures go hand in hand , hence the infamous "Rock 'n' Roll Denny's", Canters and Ben Frank's. All were go-to spots after whatever club you were at closed.
Great writing! Hung out at suburban Dennys and 50s diner after hours with the theater kids, ska lovers, goth girls and swing enthusiasts—late 90s was a wild time.
This is such a good article; Austin is a great example of this phenomena. The city collected all the misfits from the region and developed a unique scene, something that is impossible here now. And no small city can replicate those network effects.
This is a great little piece of cultural observation/ethnography. Maybe it’s an auto-ethnography but still. It does evoke a time, a place, and a (sub)culture.
Being from a big city I never ran into this, probably showing the lack of artistry in my soul. Neurodivergence, sure, but I went into the sciences instead. Oh well.
And, of course:
They don’t have access to the cities where a career in a creative field is possible, where the feedback loops exist, and where you can network your way to social capital. The townie suspicion of the cultural organizer is class-correct. They know you’re practicing on them. They know this city is your experiment and not your home. They’ve seen it all before and they’ll see it all again. They hate you.
No fucking shit.
I also liked your linked goth culture article for Evie—yeah, it really does inherit from a cultural tradition going back to the 19th century, with Byron and the Shelleys and so on.
I have to say septum piercings and pronouns bother me less than casual references to Maoism. That shit killed like 30 million Chinese. I have my doubts our New Atlantis writer is as superior as he thinks; the way our literati treat Marxism’s sins while endlessly complaining about capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, etc. always bothered me. All those things have their own history of giant crimes but somehow the one with the biggest death toll of all gets a pass?
Though the line about the toybag made me laugh—I had a woman buy me one as a romantic gift a while ago.
Perhaps its similar enough to this- but the trend of downward mobility, and people finding their tribe on “discord”, I think now its really made itself more mainstream. Contrary to this, I can remember in the late 2000s and early 2010s, similar scenes emerging. Vaporwave was like this, Witch house was like this, SlimpPunk, SeaPunk, DungeonSynth, whatever you want. If you look at “Diner Goth”, many of the “prepackaged” aesthetics were really present within Witch House itself, and for one who once saw and partook in that scene as it was emerging, if you look at bands like Salem- they wern’t going to the big city, they had trucker hats, long hair, oversized hoodies and combat boots in a throwback to industrial. Contrary to this though, the cultural landscape and beat was to the tune of the rust belt, a forgotten midwest, mythologizing it into something more. Now, thats the mainstream, everyone is online, noone can afford the big city, and we’re seeing it manifest in the norm even further.
Type-O-Negative forever.
Bloody Kisses was one of my first albums. I got to see them live a decade after listening to it. Celtic Frost was opening. I couldn’t have asked for more.
Wicked. Never saw them live, (full disclosure, I'm an X'r) - but did see Pantera (just before Dimebag got shot), the Cult, Pink Floyd, Sabbath, Maiden, and Sepultura (Chaos A.D. tour) to name a few. No regrets, but Peter Steele and the guys are legendary. WOLF MOON is a go-to track 'round here;). Congrats and ROCK ON!!!!
Saw Panteta before Dimebag got shot too. Must have been 15. Black Sabbath for Ozzfest maybe a year later. Jealous you got to see Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd. I just listened to The Wall obsessively, like any normal Diner Goth. Others knew. It wasn’t just me. It was the great us.
I had had the "Life is Killing Me" album on replay for one of the most intense transitions of my life and it was part of what got me through. Had the one and only panic attack of my life (couldn't breathe for a minute or two(?)) on a Jumbo 747 waiting for takeoff at YVR en route to Salalah, Oman to teach English at the College of Applied Sciences there (I believe Iran just bombed their desalination plant - pity those people - no drinking water is an inhumane trip) - it was the first time I flew into a new country in the Middle East where I didn't know anyone and had only a few contacts and a teaching contract. It all worked out, but it was a very intense fly by night experience!!
Your article takes me back to that time I eloped and married a Wiccan Goth witch on Long Beach, Van.Isle in 93 with Natural Born Killers and Janes Addiction "Ritual de lo Habitual" as integral backdrop. The 90s were F*ckin WILD. PEACE, Love, and great writing.
https://graysonthehack.substack.com/p/salalah-midnight-run?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=nnwak
Ps. The Goth witch was my naive and adorable high school sweetheart, not some rando stranger!! It's a totally different world now socially...
In Cincinnati there used to be a goth club called The Warehouse, which had a gay night every Thursday. Meanwhile, a gay night club called The Dock had its goth night every Thursday. So once each week the regular patrons of the two clubs simply switched places. This relationship carried on for 10-15 years. It was something you could count on. Then The Warehouse shut down around 2005, but The Dock remained until about 2016 AND kept the Thursday goth night until the bitter end. When I was an Uber driver, I drove a carload of goths to one of the last goth nights. It reminded me of how the ancient Egyptian gods were still worshiped in Sudan until 650AD. Those last goths were like the last worshipers of Ra.
I think class realization is a bit of a reality check for anyone with dreams of "making it". Films don't raise money through filmmakers, they raise money by making promises to rich people who couldn't give a rat's ass. (Apply to any cultural project: albums, video games, etc.) There's a little devil on your shoulder snickering that it's all the delusions of weirdos, some of whom get lucky... all art is quite useless.
There's a sad realization that maybe "it" is never coming back, that the forms you wished for are in decline and wouldn't have you in your current state (read: Hollywood does not like chuds and doesn't have a clue on how to survive the tiktok singularity anyhow).
But maybe it's more bittersweet -- the sort of deformed weirdos who hang out on discord and obscure web forums aren't the kind of guys I would seek out, anyhow... though I often feel torn between my old romance of the web-lurker and the apparent squalor of its reality -- nobody wants to be a 4chan kid when they're 30.
I think walking on both sides of the aisle begets an identity crisis: too weird to live (normally), too conservative to die (willingly, in a gutter)
Dude, I SO wanted to go to SCAD, and I couldn't afford it or get a scholarship because my art is just a hair above "mid." So jelly.
But fr there was a huge dose of this cultural milieu you describe, the DinerGoth, at Florida State. FSU has a "prestigious fine arts" reputation, and yet, Tallahassee is the butt of so many jokes in the wider culture. I mean, it *is* "the big city" for about a 3 or 5 county radius at least. But srsly, Tallahassee wishes it was as "big city" of a feel as *Jacksonville.* Have you seen Jacksonville FL's NFL record? It's dismal! They barely qualify for a franchise! Jacksonville wishes it was Orlando, NOW you're talking! And yet, Tally has this two-tier removed pretentiousness about it, with its tattoo and piercing salons, and "arts districts" and micro-breweries, that it's really, REALLY trying so hard to be... I mean let's be real, it also kind of wishes it was Portland, OR, but it also knows that at best, it can only realistically hope to be as hipster and alternative culture as... *Jacksonville.*
And this is exactly it, you nailed it, every fat, gender-ambiguous, hair cut by a lawn mower, septum and eye brow pierced faggot in this town, is hustling at one of the three places you can get a burger with a fried egg on it, thinking they're SO ahead of the wave, and their persona is so sophisticated x y z, but... Dude, you're a freak with a Discord presence, I get it. Please do not vote. Your civic life is a counter-productive furry LARP, take a walk around Lake Ella and enjoy a snow cone, you can feed the ducks all day and save the environment or whatever, as long as your opinion doesn't matter in my governance, plz.
The post is about how I partially spent my time there looking to get out so I could focus on business. The town of Savannah was too limiting for us weird kids. Diners were the only place we had to go. I just wish I would have been born in a city.
You replied before I edited my post to add like 3-4 paragraphs, I think we actually are singing the same song. Refresh. The local hipsters have such huge dreams, and this town supports them culturally, but doesn't have the economic scaffolding to let their opinions matter worth a shit. But they still strive on the cultural channel, and it's just as cringey to watch the striving.
I see it and now you’re making me laugh. I didn’t even get into my Florida upbringing because it was so depressing. Yet when I came back and got stuck in Jacksonville, I have a terrifying memory of getting my hair done there. The women at the salon were like these rejects out of a Jane Austen novel who looked like characters out of a John Waters film. At this point just stop trying to get invited to weddings and start a gang, or at least a radio station.
I still tried to adapt to their way of life. I could learn to be simple too, I thought. I mean we may vote the same way so everything is a-ok, yay?
OMG ok I am LOVING this idea of the double filter, of "First you didn't pass Jane Austen. Second, You BARELY qualified for JOHN FUCKING WATERS," that is SO good! hahaha
At this point it’s just sad. I hate the way the lower class is classist toward itself. I want to be mean with you but I’m too humble and prestigious, I suppose.
Ok wait, WAIT, for context. I was only partially through this article, like only a quarter, when I made all these replies (and I'm drunk and impulsive and had to say something while it was on my mind). And I am only JUST NOW getting to this line:
"Jacksonville is a town in Florida that makes Savannah seem like Los Angeles."
HOLY SHIT is that accurate, and doesn't it just reflect exactly what I said in my previous comment? Put that into context, I said those Jacksonville comments *not knowing* this line was coming.
Have you seen Reality Bites or My Own Private Idaho? You captured the early 90s vibe.
Thank you. Reality Bites, though I must have been around 13. I do remember loving Winona Ryder in it. The big ones for me were The Craft and Empire Records.
Also https://youtu.be/uo-km-qfJe8?si=kWmQ_2U0ScV5wKY6
https://youtu.be/t2Xnv2nV0lI?si=Chr7L7ywywc0xm10
What a mood. This was such a great genre, yet viewed as nihilistic and cynical to anyone who wasn’t around for it. Not sure we’ll ever have cinema in America like this again. There was a distinct yet surprising innocence to it.
https://youtu.be/aJj5lw_H9x8?si=cHUaE6PlMBqCUiFI
Yes. Love it. I don't remember seeing this one. Adding it to my Prime watchlist. Might watch it tonight :)
Outstanding, Rachel.
Thank you!
"There were very few genuinely alternative people left in cities that could afford to be genuinely alternative. The ones who remained either had roommates stacked deep in Bushwick or family money they didn’t talk about. Perhaps they made it into the mainstream economy that slowly removed the edges that made them 'alternative.'"
I saw this in NYC, when I moved there in 2007. I had left the enlisted army, was a CCNY student, and lived in Wash Heights... but I dated CU girls and had enough rich friends to thoroughly apprehend that slice of the culture. I was struck by how empty, shallow, PERFORMATIVE everything seemed. I was partly drawn there by a youth of reading Kerouac and Burroughs. I was thoroughly disappointed. I was disappointed by hood culture as well, although not as much and in different ways.
My point is that our elites seem to be bled of all vitality and authenticity. And I sense that, on some level, they understand this.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/our-ruling-class
Diner goth? Way way before I was.
Yep end of the fifties I college dropped out & hitchhiked from Gainesville (Halfway between Jacksonville and nowhere back then.) to NYC, basement apartmented in East Village, monotoned my (Cough) deathless freeverse coffeehousing. remember party meeting listening to a guy with a a guitar and a mouthharp thinkin' he just might amount to something someday and the Five Spot near Cooper Union where any and every name in Jazz from Harlem through Broadway would swing by after hours, point and counterpoint for hours. Lots and lots of lots and lots.
Four years and then cheers, on the road to the tip top very end of the road, Fairbanks, Alaska, far more than our fair share of crazies as they'd get here, one road in and out of town, so the only place they could go from here was back there. Hobo Jim; young he guitared bars throughout the state, usually breaking a string early on and played and sang around it through the rest of the set. Mark Trail; not his real name but I called him that as he often wore a safari jacket, ran Pioneer Park and the zoo therein. I'd swing by after the park closed for the day, folks all gone. He'd leash the bear and he & I would take him out of his compound for a walk around the park, something all three of us quite enjoyed!
The point I'm aiming but not hitting; crazies. lazies, contents, discontents, makers, shakers, breakers you look you'll find them be you at 7th street & Avenue B, NYC or in downtown Sitka on the western sea (I used to rag on beautiful downtown Sitka back in the day; it had one of every thing, one bar, one PI, one private detective, one published novelist, one goth girl, 3.7 latter day hippies, and 6 churches of course.), alternative cultures are still here , there, everywhere around the next corner no matter what the ('nother cough) influencers nay say.
You can’t get more American than this. You can travel through every class and lose it all, your creativity and soul still fully intact. Did you ever write about these experiences in long form? It sounds like a book in the making. There are few genuine American Bohemian voices left in the publishing industry. I want to buy your book.
Thanks for the kind words Rachel. No, no plans to book it (Still busy doing even if a lot slower, & slower, & slooower! Grin.) but some's over at my substack, feel free to see of course.
Keep on truckin' !
Didn’t the subcultures of the 70’s–90’s go all fascist-totalitarian in the new century? In other words, they no longer wanted to occupy a niche, they wanted to be recognized for how special and virtuous they were, and everyone’s face had to be pushed down into it. In other words, they became the Progressive Left and kept the facial piercings, weird hair, and gender-theater.
My 70s version of Diner Goth was hanging out with assorted aesthetic misfits, eating pie at a diner overlooking the Susquehanna River in a depressed, post-industrial city, and if you know the Susquehanna River, you know the sort of city. Tuition at the state university was so affordable and rents were so cheap that it was possible to be an eternal student. Time seemed to teeter on the brink, going nowhere. Those were the days.
There's certainly something to the thought that the having a place for the nightwalker lifestyle enables some of the subculture. There was a period - perhaps the late nineties and early oughts - when you could find a lot of places open twenty-four hours, not just Dennys but even Home Depot and the like; the thought that the "city that never sleeps" wasn't just a New York or Tokyo vibe but a buzz of (post)modern life was somehow exhilarating. And then somehow that all reversed and everything started closing early again, whether because the economic boom wore off or because the nannies took over or just nobody but Walter White's crowd actually wanted to buy power tools at 3 AM. It's very cyclical - a few years later, it was hard to find a 24-hour pharmacy or even grocery store without driving halfway across the city, and your local 7-11 might close the same time as the local bar. Now it seems to be opening up for later night again, and we have 24-hour fitness clubs and some 24-hour restaurants. I haven't exactly mapped out the demographics of who attends at what hours - and I'm sure that's going to be at least as regionally dependent (and age-bracket-dependent), but the colorful adornments from hair to jewelry to other body art have definitely mainstreamed.
I mean, to be fair, the last time I was in Home Depot late hours was to buy a bolt cutter at 2am hoping the cashier didn't ask my drunk ass what it was for, much less for my drunk ass to admit that it was because I parked my car in the wrong spot and it was impounded.
Funny related story: I recall one of my friends coming up to me in a dance club near closing asking "Do you still have those bolt cutters in the trunk of your car" for what I was certain was exactly that same reason - I don't think it was his car that was impounded because he didn't have one in that state at the time, but rather than ask if it was for the chick he was swooning over I said "I assume this is because you can't get out of your chastity belt or something and surely not because you're about to engage in any late night liberation shenanigans, right?" His look told me all I need; I gave him the bolt cutters and said "Keep them, I'll buy myself a new pair." I bought three pairs that year.
HAH! Let the playa play! (Or the scrub fake it 'till he makes it, anyway.)
That dude got more action than anyone except maybe Wilt Chamberlain, he didn't exactly need my help! But it was a hell of a non sequitur conversation amidst the dance club lights.
Diners and subcultures go hand in hand , hence the infamous "Rock 'n' Roll Denny's", Canters and Ben Frank's. All were go-to spots after whatever club you were at closed.
Now I’m remembering the jukeboxes.
You're sure that wasn't "Rock and Roll McDonald's?"
https://www.instagram.com/p/CWZ6ybTIW05/
https://youtu.be/KwYGI8OjXvo?si=RxjFKzMCTZDuFZKf
You uncultured swine. :P
Guilty as charged. (LOL)
Another goth, Jacksonville escapee, I knew you were a kindred spirit.
Now I’m wondering if we’ve met. 😂
Did you ever go to Rain Dogs?
Oh weird I almost certainly crossed paths with you.
Did you ever got to any of the big warehouse shows or OwlBeeMoths house shows?
No, that must have been after my time, I left in the late aughts, immediately after the State of Florida finished paying for my college degree. 😂
We probably had similar Facebook friends though. Were Josh H or Jose V still around?
Great writing! Hung out at suburban Dennys and 50s diner after hours with the theater kids, ska lovers, goth girls and swing enthusiasts—late 90s was a wild time.
It was such a fun time too. That's really what mattered to us, you know? Having fun. Glad you enjoyed this.
This is such a good article; Austin is a great example of this phenomena. The city collected all the misfits from the region and developed a unique scene, something that is impossible here now. And no small city can replicate those network effects.
This is a great little piece of cultural observation/ethnography. Maybe it’s an auto-ethnography but still. It does evoke a time, a place, and a (sub)culture.
Being from a big city I never ran into this, probably showing the lack of artistry in my soul. Neurodivergence, sure, but I went into the sciences instead. Oh well.
And, of course:
They don’t have access to the cities where a career in a creative field is possible, where the feedback loops exist, and where you can network your way to social capital. The townie suspicion of the cultural organizer is class-correct. They know you’re practicing on them. They know this city is your experiment and not your home. They’ve seen it all before and they’ll see it all again. They hate you.
No fucking shit.
I also liked your linked goth culture article for Evie—yeah, it really does inherit from a cultural tradition going back to the 19th century, with Byron and the Shelleys and so on.
I have to say septum piercings and pronouns bother me less than casual references to Maoism. That shit killed like 30 million Chinese. I have my doubts our New Atlantis writer is as superior as he thinks; the way our literati treat Marxism’s sins while endlessly complaining about capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, etc. always bothered me. All those things have their own history of giant crimes but somehow the one with the biggest death toll of all gets a pass?
Though the line about the toybag made me laugh—I had a woman buy me one as a romantic gift a while ago.