nostalgicIf you ever want to make absolutely sure a movie lives up to the hype, make sure you show it to a group of twelve-year-olds after they've spent the entire afternoon gorging themselves on pizza and sugar. Seriously. Every line was poetry, every song was the music of the spheres, and every fishnet-covered body part was a revelation (I hadn't even known you could put fishnets on some of those body parts). I walked away obsessed with all things Rocky. I acquired the photo "novelization" of the movie, a book on the history of Rocky Horror, and a copy of the score. I begged until my grandmother bought me the soundtrack from the stage show. I developed a real fondness for fishnets.
As the years stacked up and I plummeted into my teens, I began going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show almost every Saturday night at the UC Theater in Berkeley, where Indecent Exposure was the standing cast. I dutifully learned all the call-backs and dance routines. I bought cast T-shirts and learned to put on pancake makeup. I even started making my own sequined applique patterns, and designed my own Transylvanian costume* from scratch. I pan-handled for quarters to pay my admission. I dragged my friends. I sat up all night in IHOP, talking about this movie which was a shared experience and a shared community for all of us.
If you've never been a Rocky fan, it was sort of like being a Browncoat, only sluttier and with more sing-alongs.
I'm older now than I was then; I no longer have the time to devote three nights a week to being part of a specific fandom. But I miss it. I really do. I miss the feeling of community, the in-jokes that we were happy to explain to anyone who said they wanted to join, the ticket stubs and the smell of damp velvet and the after-movie donuts at the cheapo donut stand down the block. I miss sewing canvas backing into my lingerie and calling it "outerwear." But most of all, I miss the moment when the whole theater would be chanting "LIPS! LIPS! LIPS! LIPS!" and the lights would go down, and for two sweet hours, the world would start making sense.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change ready. This moment of nostalgia brought to you by tonight's Rocky-themed episode of Glee, which will be watched by twelve-year-olds, and which brings my world full-circle.
Let's do the Time Warp again.
(*My hand-sequined tuxedo coat was one of the things I lost when we lost our entire storage unit the year I turned seventeen. I scoured yard sales and flea markets for years, hoping it would show up. It had a sequined applique of a teddy bear dressed as a Transylvanian on one sleeve, and one of a doll whose hair matched the way I always styled mine on the other, and it was battered and odd and I loved it. I still miss that jacket, even if I don't do Rocky anymore.)
October 28 2010, 18:23:10 UTC 6 years ago
I didn't actually wind up at a show until I was fifteen and I went with a bunch of friends from theater camp. My date wound up being picked out of the audience to be Rocky, because the floor show didn't have one, so he ran around in his underwear for the whole night. Did I mention it was our first date?
I wound up calling every lingerie store on Long Island trying to find a pair of men's gold lame underwear to give him as a present.
In college I was an alternate for the original 8th Street cast in NYC, but never performed, because I was there irregularly. I generally did get up and dance the Time Warp, so I would sometimes come in a Tranny costume for that purpose .
I did make friends with some of the cast members, including the infamous Madman Mike. Generally, I alternated dressing as Magenta or Columbia. I found an exactly-right Magenta dress at Le Chateau circa 1995. I also had a not-quite-right Columbia jacket that I found and I made the shorts, and the bustier. I am literally still finding the sequins, lo these many years later. I combed the city looking for top hats, but eventually my mother bought me a gold top hat that was just right. She also got me the script at a movie script vendor. God bless my mother for enabling my habit.
One of my best bonding moments at a filk convention was discovering I knew Once In a While in common with two other filkers, and singing it extemporaneously in circle.
October 28 2010, 18:24:53 UTC 6 years ago
Rocky = love.
October 30 2010, 22:47:20 UTC 6 years ago