Goth night at Bennigan's, or Republicans after dark
By Todd Foltz

Like color coordinating an ensemble, it's not hard to discern what things go well with each other in this world. Ice cream and apple pie? Amen. Plaid shirts and the trash can? Every time, baby. Pizza and beer? Heck, yeah.

But Bennigan's and goth night? The idea makes the Dole/Kemp combination look as natural as peanut butter and jelly.

But that's exactly what one of the chain's locations in St. Petersburg, Fl., is advertising this summer. Every Tuesday night the bar is inviting black-clad gothic rockers to come in and cut loose to their favorite morose tunes. Free subscriptions to Funeral Attire magazine come with each paid cover!

Like Applebee's, TGIFriday's and Ruby Tuesday's, Bennigan's is one of those restaurant chains that appeals to middle class Americans who think the trickle-down economic system works and that Michael Bolton sings the blues. Indeed, the night before I decided to check out goth night in Bennigan's bar, After Dark, the local chapter of the Young Republicans held a rally there.

It's safe to say there were no goths among those attending.

So it was hard to picture the denizens of the night creeping into the restaurant of the religious right to dance to bands like the Sisters of Mercy, Switchblade Symphony and Big Electric Cat. Could a Bennigan's DJ have even heard of those bands? Visions of dance remixes of Rick Astley covering "The Wreck of the Emma Fitzgerald" popped unbidden into my head.

But I had to go, nonetheless. Who knows where one's prince or princess awaits? Being the only goth among my friends, I led the group into Bennigan's After Dark the next Tuesday. My black eyeliner and nail polish in place and my black, crushed velvet stretch pants hugging my pale legs like a terrified kitten, I was ready to emote and dance. Apparently, the DJ wasn't ready for me. He was playing a U2 song, which scared us so much we almost turned around and left. The spectre of Rick Astley returned, nearly doubling the number of people in the bar.

But we paid our $2 apiece at the door to two giggling goth girls who may have been all of 18, but it was their job to check our IDs, not the other way around. Counting my three friends and me, there were nine people there: the doorkeepers, two bartenders in tan slacks and red polos and the DJ, who looked more like a Jane's Addiction fan than a goth.

This was going to call for beer, and lots of it. But it was Bennigan's, after all, and the closest thing to an import was our footprints, where we had tracked in some Bass after stepping on a broken bottle in the parking lot. And that just wouldn't do.

So we sat in the corner, beerless, with our heads in our hands, watching baseball, the Olympics, baseball and baseball on four different swiveling color televisions. Nothing says gothic like a30-year-old man adjusting his cup and spitting tobacco.

An hour later, the coven arrived. All 15 card-carrying members. They all knew each other and the DJ and weren't happy to see four interlopers in their territory. But if my only gothic outlet were Bennigan's, I wouldn't want anybody to see me, either.

This was the shortest, happiest group of goths I have ever seen. In fact, I felt the weight of my troubles relax significantly as I took in the vision of this group of Goth Lites. One girl with dyed-red hair pulled back into a bushy ponytail was so perky she could have stepped out of a '50s beach movie. Gidget Goes Goth. You know, maybe they were members of the Young Republicans.

But these guys knew how to dance just like regulation goths. In other words, like they were playing charades at a wake or auditioning for Karate Kid Part 4. They waved their arms and dipped their legs and generally looked to be in elegant misery.

And that's good for them, since they were being filmed that night, probably by someone who saw the recent episode of Sex Bytes on HBO that featured a segment on the ritualism and mysticism of gothic sexuality. And all this time I considered myself lucky just to get a phone number! Is there a manual on this somewhere?

When 11:30 came and no one else showed, we decided to slip away. We had seen the Royals highlights on Sportscenter (they won), and it was evident that I wasn't going to find my dark princess. But I had learned my lesson. Turning to a yuppie establishment for underground music is like shopping at Wal-Mart for bondage gear: your chances of finding it are slim, and you probably won't want it if you do find it. I still have nightmares of Bob Dole in fishnets swaying to "Bela Lugosi's Dead".

Todd Foltz gave up on a safe and happy life when he moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., a couple months ago. He's still looking for the ultimate goth maven.

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