This is a story in an occasional series examining the impact of war on the Tristate.

By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It's a little after 10 p.m. on a Wednesday - early, in Warehouse time - and the regulars are starting to trickle in.

A haven for Goth rock kids for more than a decade, The Warehouse Nightclub in Over-the-Rhine sits just a few blocks from the Main Street entertainment district. But it's really one of the furthest points off Cincinnati's mainstream path.

The people here are mostly in their 20s, although anyone over 18 can get in. Many are clad in black leather, but there are a number of turned baseball caps and plaid schoolgirl dresses. Some of both sexes wear lipstick, fingernail polish and eyeliner (usually black) in heavy doses.

The war isn't playing here.

Not on TV. Not in conversations.

Above the front bar, one television plays a looped tape with a weird collage of what appears to be videos of underground rock bands. Two other TVs play cartoons. "Samurai Jack" is waging a war of his own, covered by the Cartoon Network.

No one is watching that war, either.

Music on the mind, not war

Jason Fry knows everybody here.

Wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, shorts and heavy black boots, Fry has been a bouncer at the Warehouse for five years, and has been coming here since the place opened in 1992. He hears very little talk about the war, which on this night was still grinding slowly through sand storms some 50 miles outside of Baghdad.

"It's not even on their minds," the 33-year-old says.

Fry himself prefers to talk about the state of small businesses in Over-the-Rhine rather than the state of war with Iraq.

"I think the city could treat their small businessmen a lot better," Fry said with a tone of disgust. "But I guess they have to take care of the corporations on Main Street. We were hit worse than anyone after the riots, and didn't get anything." Unlike the neighborhood outside, Fry says there is very little violence inside the club.

Left of the bar, Brad Vogelpohl is playing pool. Scratches don't count. The game goes on. And on.

Vogelpohl, a 22-year-old Burlington, Ky, resident, says he gets war news mostly from word-of-mouth, from friends. He says watching the war on television somehow makes it seem less real.

"It looks like a movie," he said.

A little further inside, Kim Gaskins and Billy Stewart are checking out the handmade medieval jewelry and armor for sale. A used chain mail, to cover head and neck and guaranteed to protect against "slashing and cutting," is 50 bucks. It's $120 new.

Stewart doesn't think it would do much against a Scud missile.

Both watched some of the war on television early on, but are trying to tune out now.

"The TV tries to eat your brain," Stewart said.

DJ doubts U.S. motives

The music being pumped onto the main dance floor in the back room by a DJ is thunderous: Loud guitars and screaming singers. Many of the 20 or so people on the floor are thrashing, and they literally have the floor thumping.

Only Joshua Thompson is moving in slow motion.

Thompson, 19, wears black eyeliner and lipstick and nail polish, similar to many others in the club. But his impossibly slow swaying dance to the blistering rock makes him stand out.

Thompson starts walking back to the front room after the song ends. Tonight is his first spinning records for the front dance floor, and his break is over.

It's nearly 2 a.m. as Thompson loads a 15-year-old Cure album into the disc player. No one has danced on his floor all night, but that doesn't bother him. "Everyone has said they really like my stuff," he says.

Thompson isn't very interested in the war, and doesn't believe we are really fighting over weapons of mass destruction. He thinks it has more to do with oil.

"And that makes me think that a lot of people are dying needlessly."

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com