Last night Jim B. and I ventured into the dark and angry, yet strangely erotic heart of Goth. Bauhaus! A brief quote from the Portland Mercury provides a succinct summation: "Ordinarily I make fun of goths, but Bauhaus is not to be fucked with."

Bauhaus ruled with a black velvet fist. Peter Murphy posed ala "Heroes", grabbed at the lights and screamed at us while Daniel Ashe paced and tortured his guitar strings. Everything was in black. Instruments, audience. The stage was black, except when it was blood red, or when piercing white lights were aimed at us.

Jim's favorite audience member was a guy naked from the waist up, save for a backless rubber bib-shirt attached via dog collar. He freaked out wildly, occasionally stopping to apologize to members of the audience he accidently hit. I couldn't pin a favorite, really. I loved everybody. The old guy wearing his velvet smoking jacket and ruffled chemise, the young kids in their t-shirts and kitty-ears, the neu-ros and the holdouts, the cyber darkwave kids and all the people like Jim and me, somewhere... where? In the middle? On the fringe, maybe. Too close to normal.

I kludged a costume together as best I could out of Columbia jackets, spooky-looking museum t-shirts and a pair of Paul Frank pants(!), stopping short of the eyeliner. Jim actually re-pierced his ears for the occasion.

Bauhaus didn't disappoint in any respect. Swing the Heartache bombed us with a bass-line that threatened to shatter my sternum. Silent Hedges I was excited to hear. Some songs I didn't recognize. The final encore of Ziggy followed by the obligatory Bela should have been trite, but instead the songs were delivered with a real (dare I say it) joy, and appreciation for the audience. Murphy even smiled.

In quieter moments, during the Hollow Hills maybe, my mind would drift back to high school days, and all the weird and stupid shit that happened around this music, around the Theater and Debate kids, between the art classes, at the parties. In all these places I was an outsider.

I never had the ability to commit to any group. I don't think I ever really decided on who I was. Not goth. Not art kid. Not hippie. Somewhere in the middle, on the fringe maybe.

Now I'm happy here, but sometimes I feel this weird yearning for some outside identity. Goth. Punk. Designer. Outdoor-guy. Sometimes I want some group to lay claim to, to classify myself by, but I can't honestly. Even if I had the wardrobe, I wouldn't fit the clothes. But I guess it's like Mr. Murphy says: "I dare you to be real."