My date, Lydia, had been goth (hence the fake name I've given her), and while her hair is brown now with red streaks, and she wore embroidered blue jeans on our date instead of black leather, she was still very much a product of her past. She use to model fetish clothing and owned a collection of custom made leather corsets (some costing almost $1K each), but she has been selling off her goth and fetish attire on Ebay and becoming a bit more mainstream. I couldn't help thinking about Natalie Portman in Clones wearing a leather corset. I may get to play Anakin yet.;)

She celebrated her 30th birthday last month, and like most people at that time of their lives, she was examining herself and had a desire to expand her horizons. I can't think of anyone better suited to be a guide in that area, as my worldview makes Imax look small screen. So, instead of taking her to an industrial dance club, or something similar to what she was used to, I planned on mixing music styles for the night.

First up was the Boardwalk. Tommy Lee was headlining. He is touring to promote his CD Never A Dull Moment. Though it probably goes against popular opinion, I like his music more as a solo artist than from his days with Motley Crue. Being an ex-drummer myself, I love the rhythm in Tommy's music. I think he is really under-appreciated right now. The Boardwalk is a relatively small club, so seeing Tommy there was very different than at a stadium show with his flying drum set (didn't every rock drummer have one of those in the 80's?).

Lydia was excited. She said that her old goth buddies in San Diego would freak if they heard she was seeing Tommy Lee, but she wanted to try new things. I'm not sure how new Tommy is, but he was very different (for her).

We walked into the club just as the house lights went down and Tommy and his band took the stage (I actually was hoping to miss the opening acts). A white spotlight lit him up and he asked the crowd something to the effect of "are you ready to rock?", but phrased differently and with some version of "f*ck" literally being every other word. In fact, "f*ck" was used as his primary noun, verb and adjective all night.

As the club was small and his equipment was really designed for a much larger space (no pun intended), the sound was deafening. The place was packed with bodies of all ages and rock fan styles. It was getting hot in there, but Tommy was the only one taking his clothes off (which Lydia loved, because she likes tattoos and Tommy is a human billboard (or work of art, if you prefer)). We made our way to about mid crowd from the stage, but next to the bar so that we could drink and sweat off the heat.