in preparing for fleet week SF 2002, i am reminded of my first exposure to the blue angles. it was november 2, 1996, my junior year at tulane. in celebration of all saints day (the day before), my roommates and i invited our closest friends to join us for a keg, or two. the night started innocently enough, i decided to go as a goth. im sure there is a better term, i dont know what it is. in new orleans, there are lots of goths, so i had a lot of material to work with. i bought a nice shiny black slip, a tube top (black), some sort of sheer thing to go over the tube top, and the doc boots (for some reason) I already owned. to top it off, i picked up some trusty vampire red manic panic.

i was a hit. im not sure exactly who invited the band the junkie necro-pediphiles, but when they saw me, i fit right in. (side note, i am afraid to search on google for the band, working for the ‘ment and all. i trust that they are no longer together) i didn’t hang out with them much, i felt they were cramping my style. instead i worked the party as a completely different person. now, be reminded, this was essentially a halloween party, so there were a lot of people in constume. yet, somehow, most everyone i talked to thought i really was a goth. and, I tell you, i loved it. i tried to do all sorts of things goths do. i don’t know what that is, but I had fun throwing m-60’s off the balcony. (don’t goths blow stuff up?) while i wasn’t much help in calming our neighbor being strangled by the front-man junkie necro-pedophile, and while i did some damage to my friendship with amjad, my one friend from my classes, i’ve always looked back with fond memories of that night. the next morning, i wasn’t even upset to find the band name of my new friends scrawled in black permanent marker across the kitchen stove, refrigerator, and counter-top, and since i couldn’t pry off the clamp-on nose ring and the manic panic had a few more days to go, i had my last remnants of goth to bring with me to the blue angels. i was the only goth there, and you know what? they are missing out. even goths would like the blue angles.