New Lease

Last weekend, I had two whole days off, so we sent the mancub off to the grandparents and spent the evening (and late night and wee morning hours) at a place I used to frequent quite a bit in my younger days. It's a gothic/industrial club that takes up the second floor of an old hotel in one of Detroit's seedier areas and I practically lived there in the late 80s and early 90s. I hadn't been there in about a decade, but the place hadn't changed a bit, as if it'd been waiting to welcome me home. You go in through an unmarked door in the side of the hotel and ascend a flight of stairs painted with oh-so-spooky imagery until you come to another unmarked door. Stepping through, you enter another world. Black walls covered in greyscale murals, nearly nonexistent lighting, and the thick cloying aroma of clove cigarettes envelope you and draw you deeper into the club. To your left, a respectable bar, television overhead playing some crappy black and white horror movie. To your right, the restrooms that would give any health inspector the cold shakes. Further on, tables, benches, and couches - accommodations for a motley assortment of goths, freaks, fetishists, and others who have come to appreciate the darker side of life. Through an archway into a small antechamber, then on to the cavernous dance hall.

We danced, met some nice folks, talked, danced some more, drank beer, and went back to dancing. The vibe at this place is wonderful (well, not in the restrooms). After all that dancing and drinking, I should have been exhausted come four in the morning, but I felt so jazzed. I still feel jazzed. I'm finding my creativity coming back from its long hibernation and I feel like I'm connecting back to the world. In another month when I get another day off, I'm so going back. I can't believe I stayed away so long.