Sunday, May 04, 2003

NY... or somewhere near it.

So I made it safe and sound... more on the crazy train later.
Here's some pics for now.








Monday, April 28, 2003

A few things to update...

If all goes well, I will be heading up to the Great Green North this Wednesday, April 30th. The plan is to update while I'm away, and to take emails. So keep 'em comin'.

For now, things to amuse yourself with, my column went live at Legion Studios!! Check out the new online in-thing of LIVE NUDE GOTH. Everyone's doing it, you should, too.

Also, be sure to visit your dark buddies of Das Ubergoth! in Episode 2: Fictional Characters in which Blur Boi falls in love... with hilarious results.

Sidenote: I'm going to be updating Ubergoth every Monday. If you like what you see, please contribute to the site and help us stay up and running by buying something from the Merchandise Page.

Monday, April 21, 2003

SGP UPDATE:

It is done... well. Sort of.
At any rate, the site update is going along smoothly, and more creations have leapt straight out of my skull like Athena out of Zeus.
So check out the new comic filled with humor so dark it's worthy of a goth. Hence the name.
Das UberGoth! Episode 1: The Ring is now live. The image quality is sketchy.. heh. I made a pun. But it's the pilot episode, you could say. Next week's episode: Fictional Characters, will be much better image quality and planned to go live Monday, April 28th. So stay tuned.

The trip that was planned for the Great White North has been rescheduled to me departing on April 30th, but I will be checking email while I'm up there, and hopefully updating regularly with pics and road journal entries.

Saturday, April 12, 2003


4/12/03
1:51pm

Sitting here listening to And One's "Panzer Mensch", and bouncing along to the electronic beat.... industrial pop if ever there was a thing. Oh who am I kidding?? STUPID AMTRAK!!!

Instead of my awesome Orlando to Newark Viewliner seating, stuck in the privacy of my own little closet with bed, they saw fit to make my ticket go *poof* and turn from the handsome prince it was into a small Coach toad. Sitting in the station I already felt like I was watching immigration's worst nightmare. I think the guys at the counter and a grand total of three people besides me and Dante actually spoke English. The rest were twittering and gawking (did they never see a white girl or something?? OK, maybe not one so pale as I, in the middle of Orlando, FL).

All my peachy plans have come to naught. Gone, all gone! No fun journal recounting of the ride, no pictures, no turkey sandwiches, no turkey salad,-- sorry... Christmas Story flashbacks. Hmm... I could go for a roast turkey right about now, and some stuffing....

So anyway, trip is postponed until the end of this month, and then HOPEFULLY they can see it in their hearts to book the RIGHT reservation for me. Grrr....

They don't seem to understand that I like people much better when I don't have to be near them...

The plans I had had to update, etc, are going forward early instead later. There will be some new writing on the site, and due to popular demand, I'm going to be keeping the artsy writing side of the site open, while also highlighting the more professional aspects of the site.
We're open to submissions as well, so get them in ASAP so we can post them.

For now, must... get... coffeee.....
4/12/03
MIDNIGHT

I start my journey by train today, taking off at 12:21pm, arriving tomorrow in NJ around the afternoon. For 24 hours I will have a chance to do a whole lot of things, of which I will most likely do none.

The journey will be documented through pictures and both written and electronic journals. There will be a full report of New York City and if the rumors of army personnel in the streets are true, or just more urban myth.

The return is planned for being back in town on the 21st, so any non-pressing issues can be dealt with at that time. For emergencies, write directly to me at the site, suzi@smilinggoth.com, or contact Dante Caligari. Any web design contracts in the works WILL be updated before I leave.

Keep checking back as I make my way across the country once more, for a lovely return to my old haunting grounds. There will be pics.

That's all for now.

Suzi
http://www.SmilingGoth.com

Monday, April 07, 2003

FIVE DAYS AND COUNTING....

Just an info note: I will be going on a lil trip to the Great White North, leaving here on the 12th, arriving there on the 13th, and staying with my buddy at Spellbound. Get thee hither and yon and buy mine book!!

Tickets are on their way here, keeping my fingers crossed that the mail system doesn't feel a need to destroy my package in the process.
Hoping to stay at least a week, possibly more. We'll see how things go.

Wish me luck!

If anyone would like to help a sister out with her finances.....










Thank you in advance. I trust you. :)

Saturday, March 29, 2003

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND

Apparently the post I made about the EVIL Amici Salon and Spa has topped the search engine charts, much to my amazement and, well, let's be honest, GLEE, so back by popular demand, the contact information for Dante (who was a victim of the evil at Amici -- side note, did anyone know that 'amici' means 'friends'? oh, sweet irony...).

Anyone looking for Dante (yes, that wonderfully BRILLIANT colorist and cutter extraordinaire) can now find him at AltaModa Salon & Spa on Central Blvd. in sunny downtown Orlando. Visit the AltaModa website for contact info and driving directions.

And now... without further ado, the story of Dante's not-so-divine Comedy, from Inferno to Limbo, to Paradiso. Who says there is no karma? :)

Originally posted 1/19/03:

Well... Seems Dante is going to be having problems getting money from Amici Salon and Spa owner, Marcus Michels, aka one of the many Senior Vice Presidents of Orlando's Morgan Stanley.

In their conversation tonight, Marcus told Dante "Good luck trying to prove it in court."

But let me start from the beginning. Dante started working at Amici Salon and Spa of Winter Springs last year. He was doing managerial duties, which included inventory, lighting changes, and being the lackey if anyone needed labor done around the salon, along with doing his duties as a hair dresser. He had to sign a No Compete agreement AFTER he was already working there, which would consitute duress, since he was given the paper to sign on a weekend and told that if he didn't sign it, he would lose his job.

So while he was there, he created a training manual for the assistants of the salon. He was assured by the salon manager that he would be compensated for his work, and even the salon manual states that any work above and beyond the call of duty will be rewarded.

Well.... long story short, the salon manager left, and left Dante hanging. The salon owner stepped in and appointed Dante one of the new managers of the salon (in all there were four), and told him he would be compensated for the work he was to do. Needless to say, when things started to look not-so-rosy, Dante covered his ass and looked for a new job, and got one at Alta Moda salon on Central Blvd. He did the polite and professional thing, and gave his two weeks notice, along with an invoice for the work he had done. As soon as the one manager, Rebecca, the harlot ex-Rachel's dancer, found out about the two week's notice, she fired him.

Dante had been assured by Marcus Michels (the salon owner) that his new information would be given out to the clients that asked for him, which it turns out, was one of the many many many lies this Morgan Stanley Senior VP has told. Dante has even had people call the salon and ask for him to see what they were saying, and as it turns out, those chipper front desk assholes have been telling his clients that he left them high and dry, when, in fact, he was fired unceremoniously and with no good reason.

Which brings us to tonight. Dante called up Marcus, and said that it had been two weeks since he had left another copy of the invoice with him, and what was going on. Marcus told Dante that he wasn't going to pay him and hung up.

Dante called back, and kept his cool rather well, considering the rudeness of this so-called "professional". He told Marcus that Marcus owed him that money, and that he still owed him a power strip that the salon managers April and Rebecca, have refused to give him. In fact, they shorted him on his last paycheck, which I thought was pretty gross, since April hit on Dante so much and claimed to be his friend, you would think she would have had some balls to stand up to her skanky partner in crime.

All Dante asked of Marcus was to be paid for the work he had done as a manager and for the training manual, and to have his power strip returned to him. That's when Marcus claimed he didn't owe Dante a damn thing, and that he had no contract with him, so therefore, Dante was S.O.L.

And that's when I come to this forum, and I shout my rage at the injustice of it all. Dante's clients have no idea that he now works at Alta Moda, (phone number to contact him at: 407-481-8883) and that he was dicked over for doing the honorable thing, while this corporate fuck-nut "financial advisor" screws over all the little guys to make a profit. What a great guy. Marcus also told Dante that the clients will have to call his (Marcus's) house, because he is NOT going to hand out Dante's information, no matter what. Kind of funny, since two weeks before he assured Dante that he WOULD be more than happy to hand out Dante's info to anyone who asked for it.

Seems to me at the very least there's a small claims case here. Since we're talking about a bill for over $3,000, along with what Dante is owed for his managerial duties, not to mention this new development of blocking his income by not telling his clients where he is now, when they have the info, -- oh, yeah, and SLANDER when the front desk wenches tell his clients he left them high and dry and what a terrible person he is (after he had been fired by Rebecca and April)-- I'd tack on a nice $10,000 pricetag.

So I ask again.... Anyone know a good lawyer?

* PARADISO *

Dante is beyond happy at where he works now, and the clients who followed him to AltaModa and experienced the new place are even happier. On a sidenote, the owners of AltaModa Salon & Spa have done some famous hair, from Lou Perlman, Christina Aguillera, and O-Town to the Backstreet Boys. And did I mention the salon is having a community-type event this Monday (March 31st, 2003) for the wives of soldiers in the war? Amazing what happens when good people care about the community.

Even more amazing that when you type in Amici Salon and Spa in a search engine... THIS POST comes up on top.... MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/03
12:43am

So.... format change on my site... I'm going into web design as a fulltime thing. And I have to say, the new front page rocks my face off.
Go here and check it out.

There will be more updates as I have the time, so the site is far from complete (especially since client sites come first!).
I'm debating going the alchemist symbol motif, or Tarot Cards... not sure yet. I'm still washing all those symbols off my hand as it is before my parents think I went totally crazy in FLA-la land.

I will also be planning a two week trip back north sometime in April. More on that as info comes up.

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

2/18/03
11:04pm


PASSING OF THE DINOSAUR, AND OTHER FUN MOODSWINGS OF THE MANIC DEPRESSIVE


God, I love being bi-polar. Manic-depressive... whatever the hell PC term they'll tag on it this week.

Only when you're manic-depressed can you go from being on top of the world in a whirlwind of action one minute to an Eyore-esque cave-dweller the next. Guess who became the donkey from Winnie the Pooh?

I try to laugh it off, but it's times like this that I'm my own worst critic, times like this that countless numbers of stories and pieces of art have been sacrificed to the pent-up frustration inside me. Destruction in hopes of creation and renewal. Prayers for rain in Dali's desert. I feel like a nuisance when I'm in this mood. I feel like the relatively simple questions I ask friends are unwanted and annoying to them, when all I was trying to say was I needed their help. A direction. SOMETHING. I hate feeling like this. I held the mouse over the Empty Trash for too long this time, damn close to deleting my entire life's work and saying 'Fuck it' while signing the resignation letter of Smiling Goth Productions. Commiting a form of creative suicide, I guess. I might have regretted it after the fact. Maybe. I blame it on being tired.

I've been plagued with stranger and stranger dreams lately, not necessarily nightmares by my standards, more like aggravating subconscious sitcoms. Last night featured giant geckos, a poisonous snake, a midget black goat that turned into a small black kitten and then into a silver kitten, and on into a gray and black striped kitten. My little brother was in the dream, and he drove his Mustang through my apartment somehow before morphing into my friend Ann from high school. Needless to say, I didn't feel very rested after a night like that.

Also during the night Pants went on a cabinet-opening rampage, kicking everything in the cabinets out onto the floor. More often than not, I will wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling of someone staring at me, and there will be the Pants, watching me sleep. When I acknowledge that she's there, she attacks me. What restful nights I have.

Monday, February 10, 2003

2/10/02
10:59pm


Q'ed UP, FED UP, AND THE WORLD IS DEAD TO ME


Ooooh... I guess I better change that before someone takes it as a threat. Jesus. Have we really become so soft? What happened to the 80's mentality of me-me-me and screw the rest?

But seriously. I caught whatever everyone else down here on the Good Ole Wang of USA has been spreading, like some weird symbolic STD. Some 14 year old kid died of Bacterial Meningitus (did I even spell that right? I can't see straight, forgive spelling errors). So here I am, hopped up on Funky NQ and Quilling. Q'ed up. Praying with the Other Green Fairy. Hanging with Ogre in a headphone.

Tybalt and Dante are jamming in the background, and I can hear the groove like background to the songs in my earphones. My throat wants to shout. My heart wants to shout. I stare at a screen blankly. I wait for the morphing words to tell me what to write. My short moments of sanity spreading into sentences of eavesdropped thoughts.

Scary when I don't even know what's coming out of my own head, and my left brain doesn't know what the right brain is doing. Should they be paranoid? I think so. My thoughts have become a string of obsessed babble, working a message across a hazy medium, until what comes out of me looks almost like an impressionist painting.

Picking daisies, with a mantra of 'she loves me, she loves me not.'
So late, too late, wondering just when the world stuck its head up its own ass, and just how far it did before I realized it had done that. Not some of my better works, but hell, the night is young and I'm not tired.

Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for something better to read than the filth they plague us with in everyday life. Demand more for your almighty dollar.

Sunday, January 19, 2003

ANYONE KNOW A GOOD LAWYER?

* addition to post: Dante is alive and well, and still doing hair in downtown Orlando, at AltaModa Salon & Spa. For anyone looking for him, click the link for the site. To set the record straight, he was unceremoniously fired from Amici Salon and Spa after he had handed in his two weeks' notice. No good deed goes unpunished. Read on below for the ghastly tale of bad management, bad salon tactics, and an overall bad taste in the mouth. *

Well... Seems Dante is going to be having problems getting money from Amici Salon and Spa owner, Marcus Michels, aka one of the many Senior Vice Presidents of Orlando's Morgan Stanley.

In their conversation tonight, Marcus told Dante "Good luck trying to prove it in court."

But let me start from the beginning. Dante started working at Amici Salon and Spa of Winter Springs last year. He was doing managerial duties, which included inventory, lighting changes, and being the lackey if anyone needed labor done around the salon, along with doing his duties as a hair dresser. He had to sign a No Compete agreement AFTER he was already working there, which would consitute duress, since he was given the paper to sign on a weekend and told that if he didn't sign it, he would lose his job.

So while he was there, he created a training manual for the assistants of the salon. He was assured by the salon manager that he would be compensated for his work, and even the salon manual states that any work above and beyond the call of duty will be rewarded.

Well.... long story short, the salon manager left, and left Dante hanging. The salon owner stepped in and appointed Dante one of the new managers of the salon (in all there were four), and told him he would be compensated for the work he was to do. Needless to say, when things started to look not-so-rosy, Dante covered his ass and looked for a new job, and got one at Alta Moda salon on Central Blvd. He did the polite and professional thing, and gave his two weeks notice, along with an invoice for the work he had done. As soon as the one manager, Rebecca, the harlot ex-Rachel's dancer, found out about the two week's notice, she fired him.

Dante had been assured by Marcus Michels (the salon owner) that his new information would be given out to the clients that asked for him, which it turns out, was one of the many many many lies this Morgan Stanley Senior VP has told. Dante has even had people call the salon and ask for him to see what they were saying, and as it turns out, those chipper front desk assholes have been telling his clients that he left them high and dry, when, in fact, he was fired unceremoniously and with no good reason.

Which brings us to tonight. Dante called up Marcus, and said that it had been two weeks since he had left another copy of the invoice with him, and what was going on. Marcus told Dante that he wasn't going to pay him and hung up.

Dante called back, and kept his cool rather well, considering the rudeness of this so-called "professional". He told Marcus that Marcus owed him that money, and that he still owed him a power strip that the salon managers April and Rebecca, have refused to give him. In fact, they shorted him on his last paycheck, which I thought was pretty gross, since April hit on Dante so much and claimed to be his friend, you would think she would have had some balls to stand up to her skanky partner in crime.

All Dante asked of Marcus was to be paid for the work he had done as a manager and for the training manual, and to have his power strip returned to him. That's when Marcus claimed he didn't owe Chuck a damn thing, and that he had no contract with him, so therefore, Dante was S.O.L.

And that's when I come to this forum, and I shout my rage at the injustice of it all. Dante's clients have no idea that he now works at Alta Moda, (phone number to contact him at: 407-481-8883) and that he was dicked over for doing the honorable thing, while this corporate fuck-nut "financial advisor" screws over all the little guys to make a profit. What a great guy. Marcus also told Dante that the clients will have to call his (Marcus's) house, because he is NOT going to hand out Dante's information, no matter what. Kind of funny, since two weeks ago he assured Dante that he WOULD be more than happy to hand out Dante's info to anyone who asked for it.

Seems to me at the very least there's a small claims case here. Since we're talking about a bill for over $3,000, along with what Dante is owed for his managerial duties, not to mention this new development of blocking his income by not telling his clients where he is now, when they have the info, -- oh, yeah, and SLANDER when the front desk wenches tell his clients he left them high and dry and what a terrible person he is (after he had been fired by Rebecca and April)-- I'd tack on a nice $10,000 pricetag.

So I ask again.... Anyone know a good lawyer?

Saturday, January 11, 2003

PS

If anyone has ANY love of SmilingGoth.com you might REALLY want to start buying something.
I'm jobless, and it's costing me money I don't have to keep the site up and running. If you've enjoyed the show, then donate or buy something, please.

Click on the donations/tip button on the bottom of any of the site pages, or you can go get something for your money by clicking HERE.
DREAMING FORBIDDEN COLORS...


Woke with the itch of broken crystal in my palms, burning like stigmata. After a few minutes of pushing myself to remember the dream I had had, I saw an image of a woman screaming on a bed. Her legs had been torn off and eaten, and her belly was ripped open and hollowed out, her insides also eaten. And still she screamed.

Another fragment of dream: broken crystal goblets. I was trying to fix them, and the broken crystal stuck into my palms like a partial crucifixion. I heard someone talking behind me, and I turned to see Nemesis lying naked on a huge bed. He was laughing at me for trying to fix everything that was broken, telling me that I was too caring, too forgiving.

"Humans were made for sacrifice," he says. He struggles with the chains that hold him to the bed. I tell him that he's just saying that so I'll release him.

Other people enter the room and stare at Nemesis, applauding me for catching and imprisoning him. I feel protective of him, and I want the people to go away, to stop staring at my creation. I realize that Nemesis is right, I DO try to fix everything, and I AM too caring and too forgiving, because the reason I have him chained to the bed is so I can fix him, heal him, and save the world from him at the same time... and to some extent, save HIM from the world.

The rest of the dream is just broken beyond repair. I remember only that I saw Andrew Eldritch (yes, from the Sisters of Mercy) singing "For Her Light" by the Fields of the Nephilim.

Watch now as I fling poetry at you:

And what becomes of the old factory senses?
Our old factory sense of smell
Mildewed and rotting in the basement of the subconscious
Talking Heads don't make much sense
Words of my thoughts written over my face
Words of feeling scrawling over my breasts and stomach like so many roaches

Once there was an artist
Swallowed by the works they'd created
Hands eaten by the mouths it fed
Swirling thoughts suspended in the smokey haze of Nag Champa and cool night of the air.

Happy Birthday, Tybalt.

Friday, January 03, 2003

1/03/03
12:16am


GOD'S ON NITROUS

Which explains all my unanswered prayers....

Apparently God likes to attend fetish parties wearing vinyl. Go figure. Vinyl should be worn by all, because God wears vinyl... and makeup. There, I've gone and said another blasphemous thing... but think about it: the only way God could have made us in His image is if He's a transvestite. Think about that one. God's a goth. Wooo-ha!

While basking in The Light of my Shirley McClain plane, I can say such things as: I am the lovechild incarnate of Anais Nin and the Marquis de Sade.

And you know Anais would SO have been all over the Marquis, she was a masochist at heart otherwise she wouldn't have hung out so much with Henry Miller.

So at any rate, new year discoveries: God in an alcove doing nitrous, The Pants is actually an alien hybrid, and not a cat at all, and the final discovery: I like egg nog.

Helping Chuck create his own journal, thanks to Anna for the help. She really loves her hair... :)

Now I'm curious to see what Chuck's writing....
Hope everyone had a happy friggin' new year.

'Til the next God sighting, keep on truckin'.