So, some of you might be asking yourself who this MisterMephisto guy is - wondering aloud who this amazing and awe-inspiring person is that brought you the infinite wonder that is SFGothic.net.

If you're one of those people, you should quickly check your temperature and get yourself to a hospital or sanitarium as soon as is reasonably possible. I'm not sure what you've got, but it's clearly no good.

As for the rest of you, you're going to hear about me anyway.

Some specifics -

1. I wasn't born locally. I moved to the Bay Area in 1995. But I have lived in California all of my life.
   
2. I don't actually live in San Francisco at the time of this writing. No, I'm not going to tell you where. I prefer my stalkers be dedicated enough to earn the right to stalk me properly.
   
3. I'm entirely over-educated. I've got a Master's Degree. No I'm not going to tell you in-what or from-where. Suffice it to say, though, that it is in something other than Bullshit. Does this make me smarter than you? Not really. I'm smarter than you for entirely different reasons. This just makes me likely to be more educated while still being paid less.
   
4. I am excruciatingly handsome. I know this because people fall to the ground screaming "The PAIN!!!" (a la Kyle MacLachlan in Dune) whenever they look at me. If you don't believe me, look at my pic on the front page before clawing your own eyes out.
5. I consider disarming self-deprecation to be a social art-form.
   
6. I have a significant other that we shall refer to simply as "L" in any future reference on SFGothic.net. We have been together for over a decade. She is often forced to wear goggles, due to my aforementioned pain-inducing man-beauty.
   
7. I am a Neo-Pagan. Particularly a Wiccan, with a very strong Thelemic slant. I am also what I refer to as a practical and philosophical multitheist. (This is a topic that could show up in future blog posts.)
   
8. I am polyamorous. That means that, despite my decade-long relationship with my primary life-mate (whom I love very much), I also have other romantic relationships with other people. Yes, she knows. I daresay she actively supports it, since it means she gets to have other romantic relationships as well. (This, too, is a subject that could show up in future blog posts.)
9. I play lots of Role-Playing Games. Specifically of the Pen and Paper and, usually, Dice variety, though I've been known to play a CRPG or MMORPG in my day. For the record, I radically dislike D&D 4e and Shadowrun 4e, but I'm willing to try just about everything else. (This is likely to come up in the future, as well.)
   
10. Yes. I'm a geek. I also like Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, the Buffyverse, and Doctor Who (Tom Baker is my favorite Doctor). And yes, I'm watching the new Game of Thrones show. Tyrion is my favorite character in the novels and the actor playing him seems pretty awesome so far. (This might come up in the future. But not as likely as the other stuff.)
    
11. I fall very strongly on the liberal side of the political spectrum. I stand vehemently against racism, homophobia, anti-Same Sex Marriage, misogyny, religious intolerance, fat-hate, and any other bigotry - whether that bigotry expresses itself systemically, institutionally, openly, or covertly. I radically disagree with and even actively despise Libertarian and Republican philosophy, for both the lies they continually promulgate and the hypocrisy they inherently engender. Consider yourself warned. (And this will almost certainly come up again in some future post, though most of my ranting takes place over at Alas, A Blog.)

So, consider me introduced.

If you have further questions, feel free to put them in the comments or contact me via my email or through the contact form. I reserve the right to not answer, of course. But it's nice to know that you wanted to know.

-- Mr. M.

So, hopefully, the site will soon be up and running and people will be seeing this first blogpost before too much time elapses.

Hooray!

Some of you (especially the cybers) are probably asking: "Weebly? Really, dude?" Yeah. But it was easy, fast, fairly functional, and, most importantly at this juncture, free. If I manage to keep this up for any length of time, maybe I'll move on to a "real" webserver. But for now, Weebly will be the home of SFGothic.net. And you little gothlings will learn to like it.

Now, onto old news... specifically the news that made me want to start this site in the first place.

About a month ago, Death Guild, San Francisco's oldest goth night (at the ever-saucy DNA Lounge, no less) had it's 18th birthday (Awww... How sweet? Now she's old enough to date without going to jail!). Now, I missed the first night of celebrations unfortunately. And I couldn't make it to the club on Monday night either.

But on Tuesday night, March the 15th. Holy hell. On Tuesday night, I made time.

So, first up that evening was Panic Lift. Never heard their name before, but these boys from Jersey might be something to look out for in the future. Good energy, awesome performance, solid beat. My only complaint might be their front-man's over-reliance on voice distortion. I went ahead and picked up their album, Witness to Our Collapse, anyway. All around, they seem to hit all the Industrial notes solidly. They're not blazing any trails yet, but they're still a good listen.

Next up was the real reason I was there. You see, that same week was my 12th anniversary with my fiance. And she loves herself some Ayria (I'm rather fond of her myself). To say that the illustrious Ms. Parkin was awesome that evening would be an understatement of nigh epic proportion. She was beautiful. She was fashionable. She was high energy. She gave lots of love to the crowd.

And the most awesome part? Even though I shot her an email less than 36 hours before the show, she still managed to dedicate a song to my girl at my request (Blue Alice, in case you're wondering... Yes, we're weird). And to top it off? She totally let us go fan-monkey on her - she signed our copy of her Hearts For Bullets album, let us take lame phone-photos with her, and even wished us a happy 12th.

Now that's a lady with some class and love for her fans. I hope to see a lot more of her out on this side of the world in the future. If you read this, Ms. Parkin, thank you yet again for making that night super special!

Down at the bottom are some pics from her performance. See how awesome they look in their ridiculous blurriness? Now, imagine how cool it looked in real life!!!

You can't, huh? Well, I'm pretty sure that lack of imagination is a failing of you as a human being, evidenced by you not having been there in the first place. We'll have to discuss that another time, though.

Finally, to close the night out, we got hit with Imperative Reaction.

Now, I'd heard these guys a couple times on DigitalGunfire.com and liked what I'd heard. But, I'll be honest; when a bunch of pretty-faced goth-bois (Yes, I hate men that are prettier than me. No, I don't feel the need to explain why.) got on the stage, I was expecting the rest of the night to be a buzzkill.

Holy fuck was I wrong.

Despite their almost too pretty look, these gents played hard, heavy, and intense. With their guitar-heavy electro-industrial sound and some solid showmanship skills, they kept the energy in the DNA Lounge burning hot. If I hadn't already been so impressed by Ayria (and still slightly starstruck by her sheer coolness), I'd have been completely blown away by their performance. That said, I bought a couple of their albums on the spot and have added the remainder of their catalog to my wishlist for future acquisition.

Hard to argue against that sort of endorsement, really.

-- Mr. M.