By Andrea Menzies
It is not the Holiday Season without the cutest picture ever of Gizmo. This inspires me to learn more keyboard, and music in general.
Category: Podcast News
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Death Hotel
By Andrea Menzies
I spent the night in a Maryland death hotel. I am moving to Maryland in the next couple of years, and was staying in a Days Inn hotel in Laurel, MD while seeing tourist sites, music band nights, and working on the moving paperwork. Recently Baltimore Soundstage had the Sisters of Mercy play so I like the area’s incredible music scene. (I have seen many other great bands there, this one just made it clearly the best music scene.) Currently Maryland hotels require a hundred dollars in deposit money BEFORE you even pay for the nightly fees. Many webpages on Expedia and other booking sites mentioned NOTHING about the fees making check-in hours longer and more of a hassle than I had expected. This is very dangerous as some exhausted travelers may not be able to pay fees, and may fall asleep at the wheel. Then as I went to my room the hallway was covered in crime scene tape! I heard gun shots in the night! Then the lobby was covered in fire trucks, cops, and ambulances in the morning for check out. Another murder had happened in the night where a husband killed the wife as she was staying with another man! Here is your community service message from Captain Obvious: “Dear men getting dumped: killing the female only destroys your life more!” If the bullets hit bystanders it is a worse problem. You were dating you don’t own her like a car. What the heck is happening at Maryland hotels that they are charging huge deposits, and are covered in murder tape non-stop? I wanted a holiday adventure, but not a disaster. Fortunately I was not hit by bullets, but I did not sleep great. However the room was pretty cutely decorated in my review I give it three stars because it truly tries not to be a murder nightmare. Sadly Virginia has been an even more disgusting horrifying nightmare than the murder hotel so I still liked Maryland better as Baltimore Soundstage recently had an amazing Sister’s of Mercy show, constantly books other great shows, and Virginia had nothing at all.
Murder crime scene tape 1. 
Murder crime scene tape 2. 
Me before getting dressed up after the road trip. 
Nice decorations in the room even as it was murder-central.
Many jackets on for the cold. 
All hotels in the USA have this Bible due to constant demon attacks. Just joking… Maybe.
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Travel Social
By Andrea Menzies
I am going out of town to be social on Christmas and New Year’s and hear bands. I am also completely single, and hopefully will meet someone to date. I do plan to move away. I tried going out in Virginia many times years ago, and just because I was making the best of a bad situation does NOT mean it wasn’t horrible, agonizing, and a bad situation.
Train for travel. 
My new video game avatar.
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Dystopian Holiday
By Andrea Menzies
Every year the silly jokes from dystopian science fiction shows I liked as a kid seem more like normal reality. Black Friday advertisements on TV looked like something from a space show. I upgraded to steaming apps with no advertisements because I am starting to really hate how corporate America is passively hinting we can only be happy or pretty if we buy high fashion everything, medicate into oblivion, and pay huge cash to do it. They can not make money off of you if you have high self esteem, and so it is in their money-making self interest to make you think you are bad and need to buy things to fix it.
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Anne In Austin
By Andrea Menzies
My mom Anne is in the Austin, TX area this week. My family used to live there, and she is going to Thanksgiving dinner there. One of my relatives named Patrick is sick, and she is visiting them in the hospital. I wanted to go visit Austin this year, but she forced me stay at her house in Virginia watching her dogs instead of seeing my family and school friends that I have missed desperately for years in Austin. One of the reasons I am taking classes in night school for my master’s degree is so I can get a better job, and not deal with constantly being put in a forgotten place by my family. My sister Lily in contrast was invited to Austin as she was given 11 Nintendo Gameboy devices for Christmas as a child, and I begged for one and was never given a single one. She is having fun on the vacation I was carefully not invited to go on. I am posting this as people seeing Anne and Lily in my old neighborhood in Austin are sending messages to me thinking she must have taken me with her yet that never happened. Stop inviting me to holiday parties I can not go to as I am not in Texas.
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Happy Thanksgiving
By Andrea Menzies
Happy Thanksgiving to all! Yes I had pumpkin pie with my family today.
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Phone Back
By Andrea Menzies
My phone is back on, but I have switched services and numbers. My old service gave me bad issues with replacement and technical support. My old number is still active for now yet I am switching over the 2 factor authentication on all my devices soon. If you have my old number you will need the new one soon. My e-mail remains the same so people can contact me there if they need to reach me.
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Trip Canceled
By Andrea Menzies
I had to cancel my trip to Maryland this weekend. I had tickets to see a big reunion concert, DJ night, and was meeting friends. Yet my Google Pixel phone broke, I could NOT replace it quickly, and everything was connected to that phone’s two factor authentication. The travel tickets were on the phone’s apps. My concert ticket was on the phone apps. Then how do you get around after you get anywhere if Uber and Lyft are apps for the phone, and your cheap replacement flip phone can’t use apps? Buses don’t even have paper schedules to read most of the time, and most bus, subway, and train schedules are on the phone apps. Many cab companies that use the phone numbers don’t even take cash most of the time as they are now super expensive. Thanks to my old phone being garbage that broke my trip plans were destroyed. I was really looking forward to that show and seeing Maryland friends. Oh well, I will never forget how much better Maryland music was compared to Virginia music, and I can make new plans after I get a new phone. I can’t have a broken phone EVERY day of the year as I use it daily for transportation to work. Not having a phone is like not having one of your hands in modern day.
Modern phone irony jokes. Getting transportation, cab use, and phone use is harder in modern day.
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Flip Phone
By Andrea Menzies
I have a flip phone now, and managed to get my phone number on there and working. I have traveled back in time to flip phone days. Everything on the Internet uses two-factor authentication, and so you can’t do anything without your number. I don’t know what made my old phone break. It was not wet, it did not drop, and it had been working great that morning. By night it barely switched on. I am shopping for a new brand of phone to use now, and got something basic until I know what new thing will work for me. They really need to stop programing phones to break. Instead of inspiring an upgrade it has inspired me to switch companies. I use Google maps to get to work, and a million other job calls are sent to my phone. It is a bad money blow for sure.
Hand drawn cute outline illustration of retro cell flip mobile phone. Flat vector old mobile telephone with buttons sticker in line art doodle style. Call device icon or print. Isolated on background. -
Closed Goat
By Andrea Menzies
They also had many types of music nights from rock to rave there. I went to many shows at it. Music places open and close every 2 seconds in New Orleans. Trying to pretend there is one club that plays wild music in New Orleans is like trying to say one tree in the forest has leaves on it. NOLA.com just reported The Goat club has closed in New Orleans. I used to love to visit school friends that lived at that place.
New Orleans Goth bar and music venue The Goat has closed after nearly a decade
Decorated with cobwebs, the venue on St. Bernard Avenue hosted both live bands and DJs
- BY KEITH SPERA | Staff writer
- Nov 6, 2025
- 1 min to read
The Goat, a New Orleans neighborhood Goth bar and music venue, has closed.
Owner Matthew Checki announced recently on social media that he had sold the bar at 1301 St. Bernard Avenue. Tuesday was its final night as the Goat
“For nearly a decade, I have had the privilege of owning and operating my own bar in New Orleans,” Checki wrote. “The experience was immense to say the least. Through every single moment of success and challenge alike I truly loved it. Now it is time for new adventures in life both professionally and personally.”
Checki opened The Goat in 2017. The studded chains, horned skull and bat painted on the Goat’s otherwise plain gray exterior only hinted at the venue’s dramatic interior décor. A tangle of cobwebs on the ceiling concealed an assortment of skeletons suspended above a chandelier. A pentagram decorated the stage floor.
The Goat featured punk, metal and other underground bands as well as deejays. For the recurring “Attrition” night, DJs such as Evil Rudy and Sneauxball cranked Goth, industrial and synth music. The Goat also hosted such recurring “rituals” as “Dark Electric,” “Splatterday Night” and “Sacrifice: The Fetish Party.”
“Eclectic in focus but united in darkness, our Rituals constitute a central component to the musical and aesthetic identity of The Goat,” said a post on The Goat’s web site. “Come worship.”
The cover photo of New Orleans surf/punk rock band the Unnaturals’ 2024 album “Sleazy Listening” was taken at the bar of the Goat.
Beyond the music, the Goat served as a gathering place and de facto clubhouse for the New Orleans Goth community.
“There are too many bands to list but thank you so much to all the incredible acts that rocked our stage,” Checki wrote. “Thank you so much to everyone who came over the years in support of our events.
“The accomplishments of the experience that was The Goat were gauged by the talent and clientele we shared our nights with. I think it’s safe to say that makes it a successful story…
“It was the experience of a lifetime.”
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