stop the madness

There was this ridiculous part of me, a silly, ridiculous part of me, that wanted to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at a theatre, with an audience that loved the movie too, so we all could be stupid together and call Janet a slut in tandem. Last night that silly, ridiculous part of me was maimed, blugeoned, and killed, in a truly horrible fashion.

I recently got in touch with an old friend from high school, JB. We hung out for the entire summer prior to my junior year - my boyfriend, his girlfriend, JB and I. Then after I broke up with my boyfriend at some point in that summer, JB's girlfriend's cousin M joined us, and we were four once again. Lots of fun, lots of illegal substances, the Red Hot Chili Pepper's 'Blood Sugar Sex Magic,' the soundtrack to Rocky Horror, and driving about in JB's girlfriend's VW.

So I never actually saw Rocky Horror on the big screen. Sure I had seen the movie, and I knew the lyrics to all the stupid songs, and I could even do the Time Warp. But as far as actually seeing it on the big screen with lots of like-minded freaks such as myself, no. Never got to do it.

It all came down to this weekend. Plans with G. He left the plan-making in my hands. I perused what movies were showing, even though I wasn't thinking movies so much. But I looked anyway. There was a theatre showing Ghostbusters. Hmm. Interesting. Possibililty. I found one showing Grease. No. Not in a Grease mood. And then...I saw it. Rocky Horror at midnight, funky theatre in West LA. This led to immediate thoughts of funky proximate bar followed by the movie. No-brainer, right?

Something I'm learning somewhat painfully slowly about living in LA. Arrive early and prepare to stand in line. There will be a fraction of the 9 million + people competing for your spot. So, you know, get there. So we got there and got a good spot. And then they started to arrive.

As if from a science fiction novel, They descended, in their go-go boots, ripped fishnet stockings, lacy panties as outerwear, and other-worldly colored hair.

Now I had my time. My freak time. It was in high school. I rebelled, I wore weird shit, or I wanted to wear weird shit, or I hung out with people that wore weird shit and admired them for it. Why? Because they weren't status-quo. They were considering their place in society, making up their own rules, and rejecting the status quo, rather than accepting and acquiescing to it because it was what everyone else was doing...conforming without questioning. But at some point I grew up a little and realized that my looks didn't define who I was; no matter how hard you try to be different, someone else out there is already fucking doing it. Some other fraction of 9 million + people is doing it, and you're not original at all. All you have is you, and it doesn't include the green hair, or the perfectly highlighted salon hair either. It's you.

So last night, in a word, was a Freakfest. The employees, the security, had been doing this show for over a decade. Every Sat night before midnight, they stand in front of the Nuart Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd., carry a whip in their hands, swat young things on their asses wearing only their panties who are probably just pretending to enjoy it, and tell all of us to stand against the wall...the show consisted of a live cast, so as the movie is playing, there are these "actors" on stage acting out the scenes you're already watching the real actors doing on film. And then the employees of the theatre are relentlessly walking up and down the aisles, yelling out things that the audience didn't even get a chance to yell out, which sucks, because that is the whole point of seeing Rocky Horror with an audience: the AUDIENCE participates. But not over these assholes. It's like they had built-in megaphones in their damn throats. Think my ears are still ringing.

Are audiences so dull now that they have to have professionals yell out their shit during an audience-participating movie? Is this what the world has come to? That we have to have people do it for us?

G told him I so owed him for that experience. I reminded him that he drug me to The Standard, a hideous club and type of place that I hate beyond all reason, earlier in the year and I owed him absolutely nothing. The Standard has two locations: one on the Strip and one downtown atop a skyscraper with an amazing view. The one downtown was where I ended up, sadly. I dislike those people more than I dislike the freakfest people. By those people I mean the ones that spend gobs of money on over-priced, watered-down and trendy drinks wearing designer jeans and designer heels and spend $100 on a haircut and wait tables during the day all in hopes of spotting some celebrity, thereby making their lives more meaningful, and who never gave one iota of thought toward the idea of maybe trying not to conform...

Sometimes I feel like I don't belong in any city, country, or square foot of dirt on this entire planet.

Anyone else ever feel this way?

As far as Brad and Janet and the Sweet Transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania, who knows how they ended up last night. Poor things couldn't get a word in edge-wise. G and I escaped the theatre with our sanity in check, but I'd really like to know how many times we said "fucked-up" "surreal" and "bizarre" in the time it took us to get back to Hollywood and then scarf down breakfast at Denny's at 4 a.m.