Once again I was victim to Darin’s sex-addiction.

The plan was simple. Drive to Austin. Go to the Chase Bank building. Tell the security guard that I was looking for Darin Davila at his place of employment. Go in. Leave with Darin. Go cause trouble. A simple plan if there ever was one. Yet the simplicity of a plan goes straight to hell when one of the participants sneaks down the street to get his pipes cleaned by his chick-of-the-week.

Darin had me waiting there for ten minutes. The whole time I was trying to convince the security guard that I wasn’t some corporate terrorist with plans to level the bank with all the C-4 I had cleverly disguised as candle wax and rune stones. By the time the man-whore finally showed his face the guard had his hand on his gun and was accusing me of being a spy for Mexico. Darin told him, “He’s a spy alright, but he’s one of ours. Now stand down.” The guard quickly apologized and headed back to the security desk.

“Where the hell were you?! That rent-a-cop was going to shoot me and arrest me for corporate espionage.”

“I thought you’d be longer, so I ran down the street to get some. I was busy.”

“Was she good?”

“Yeah. Now let’s go.”

Austin, Texas. It was here that I started my professional life in the club scene. It was here that I became something more than I was, at least for a few hours a night. Austin had to be my first stop, as I couldn’t work until I returned to the source of this mad life I lead.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s backtrack a bit.

I’ve been in the Goth scene for almost 12 years and I’ve been a fortuneteller for about half of that. I read rune stones, a Norse oracle, and I’m very good at it. I’ve lived and worked in Austin, Seattle, and up until about two months ago, Los Angeles.

It was about a month previously that I hopped a bus out of Hollywood. I’d been living there for almost two years and I was working most of the Goth clubs there. While I’d been working almost every night of the week, something was happening to me.

It started a few months ago when I began losing concentration during the night. Then I began talking myself into taking a night off. Then two. Then three. Before I knew it I was taking half the week off and even on the nights I did work, my readings were becoming more and more inaccurate. This of course affected my financial situation and I was about to be evicted from my apartment. After a few days of deliberation and some urging from a particular lady-friend of mine, I decided to go on a little trip. After settling up some debts and finally receiving my tax return, I packed up, stashed my meager belongings with some friends, and headed out on what I was hoping to be a great adventure.

The plan was to go from city to city, club to club, working wherever I could and write about it. While I’d been trying to write a book for the last several months, I thought I’d give that a break and get some practice writing about the trip itself. And the first stop on my trip, after visiting my folks in San Antonio, would have to be good old Austin, Texas.

It was strange being back at the old club. It used to be called The Atomic Café and it was the only real Goth club in Austin. It had it’s ups and downs like most clubs that play Goth and Industrial, but Atomic was always haunted with a stigma that I felt was unfairly placed by some of the more elitist of the scene. Either way, with the exception of the lack of A/C during the summer, Atomic was a great venue. It’s a shame that the owner couldn’t take enough comfort in that before he left us.

Randal Goodwin took his own life about a year before I left. The place was kept going by his parents, but it was never really the same. I was both surprised and glad when I heard that Atomic was bought by an old regular of the scene. John sunk some money into the place and, thankfully, renamed it as Elysium. He has done some great things with Elysium. Hell, I even got over accidentally calling it “Atomic” after a week. The club looks great and he’s done a hell of a job making it financially viable while still keeping it “real”.

So, the day after Halloween DJ Void and I headed out to the club and for the first time in three year I went to work at the exact spot I started reading runes. Somehow I felt that I had come home, despite changes made. The joint was cleaner and business was better than I remembered. I saw a lot of old friends I hadn’t seen in years and danced to songs I hadn’t even realized I missed since moving to Hollywood. Unfortunately these improvements did couldn’t totally offset one of the main reasons I left Austin in the first place:

Austin needs women.

Or at least Shovel Chicas. See, the difference in genders in Austin over all isn’t all that bad, but within the pool of available women only a few of these of Goths or Rivets and those few know that they’re at a premium, so they eat it up. That leaves all the guys fighting over the same small group of women. Yeah, there are more than a few non-Goth and Goth friendly women in town, but that means we have to stomach dating people we don’t really have that much in common with. It’s a big mess. A mess that I was glad to leave behind. After all, my love life may have been shitty back in Hollywood, but at least I had one.

On the upside, the scene is bigger than when I left. Gone are the Party Goths that drew half the women away. They’ve either gotten so old that they no longer have any pull or they’ve simply gotten married and retired from club life.

But this is neither here nor there.

The rest of the week was spent running around town and hooking up with another old friends, one of which the infamous Donna Jean. Donna’s exploits were known far and wide in the Austin scene, like the time she and her then-boyfriend Cory got into in when she was living with me. Darin and I were hiding from the chaos in his room when we heard...

...to list just one.

I worked most nights that I could at Elysium. The Wednesday and Thursday night crowds were pretty thin but still fun. It gave me a chance to just shoot the shit. It was Saturday and Sunday nights that I worked my ass off. At least until the end of the night.

I think I’m starting to develop some Mysterious-Guy Mojo on this trip because I don’t think I’ve ever met as many women in such a short amount of time as I have in Austin. From evolutionary biologists that also play in the local Roller Derby league to college chicks to one of the few untaken Goth women in the scene, I was getting my groove on left and right. I didn’t actually do anything with most of them, but it was still fun. Of course this only serves as another reason why God hates me. How come I can’t get this sort of action when I’m at home? Oh yeah, the Mysterious-Guy Mojo. Or maybe it was just the booze.

There are certain things that I’ve chosen to do, or not do, since becoming a fortuneteller. The booze was the first thing to go. Granted, I was never a heavy drinker so it wasn’t even close to a problem, but I would still have a drink maybe once or twice a year. Why I thought I should change that is beyond me.

Now, you have to understand, booze is very Yin, just like sweet fruit or sugar or even tomatoes. One, of course, should maintain a balance between Yin and Yang in their lives. Now, I knew that I would have to counteract the booze with more Yang food, but I think since I rarely drink, my body did not understand what the fuck was happening and thus I got buzzed after only one Jack-and-Coke.

So was it Mysterious Guy Mojo or was it the booze? I’m not sure which, but I do know that whatever it was, it helped a lot one Sunday at Elysium. I met a lovely woman that night. She was smart, cute, and had a very respectable rack. So we went out to breakfast and had some laughs. I had fun, but I couldn’t help regretting not meeting someone like her back home. And if this is just the first stop, I have this feeling I’m going to be meeting a lot of regrets in the coming months.

The last week in Austin was the roughest. Not only because I was miserably ill (I think it was the flu) but also because I realized that I was truly done with Austin. I had just gotten back from dinner with Donna Jean and Darin when it all hit me. It still amazes me how much both of them, in fact how all of my friends, had grown as people. Both have evolved beyond my expectations, and I am thankful to the Spirits for this. I am filled with both joy and misery as I prepared to leave Austin once again. I had missed them and all of my friends, but I know now what I knew when I first rolled in; there is nothing here for me anymore. I belong elsewhere. Maybe back in Hollywood, maybe somewhere else. I just knew I couldn’t stay any longer.

I almost worked at Elysium that last night, but I thought better of it. I didn’t feel the Juju and I didn’t want to do any bunk readings, so Darin and I just went to drink and hang out. I said goodbye to all my old friend and my new ones, danced a bit, grinded with a little hottie, and that was that. There was a hollow in my heart , the same hollowness I felt before I left Hollywood. But that was irrelevant. It was time to move along.

I’m spending the next few weeks with my parents in San Antonio for my brother’ graduation from the Police academy. Right now I’m finishing up the plans for Atlanta, buying the bus ticket, checking hostels, and finishing this piece. I think of what lies ahead and I feel more than a little scared. After all, this is far from a vacation I’ve set out on and there is no guarantee that I won’t come limping home if things don’t work out. But it’s too late for that. The boats have been burned so to speak and I know in my heart that I’m doing this for all the right reasons. What those reason are still elude me, but I’ll figure it out. I always do.