the rocky horror picture show [1975]

that's right, i remember doing the time warp too, however, i first recall this pic when it was first released i think around halloween in 1975. back then sac was full of one-screen cinemas as well as drive-ins and if you wanted to see a particular flick it was probably playing only at one or two theaters and you had to get there fast to see it before it disappeared from sight.

halloween in my memory is always warm and smudgy. the local rice farmers could burn their fields rather indiscriminately and the city would become utterly drenched in thick, acrid smoke. it was on such a warm, smudgy day in october that my family and i were driving past a one-screen theater located in a fairly rough part of town called then and now, the heights. and there was a long queue for this pic that sounded real scary. the marquee read simply the rocky horror picture show.

well, i was just a pup and didn't see the movie. but i remember that long line of people and the way the marquee literally screamed the title of the movie. perfect for halloween. later, i don't remember if it was the same year or a couple of years on, my family and i were at waldenbooks and i found a coffee-table book with a lot of photos from the movie. looked real weird to me. very new wave and punk, terms i wouldn't learn until the late '70s. all i knew was that the movie appeared strange and was populated with a cast of weirdos.

which of course was confirmed later still when i was 15 years old and a screaming punk. my friends and i just caught the only showing - again at a long defunct one-screen cinema [the building still stands and the basic structure of the cinema, marquee and all, remains virtually unchanged, but now it is a convenience/liquor store] - of penelope spheeris' documentary on the hardcore l.a. scene decline of western civilization. the late singer of the germs, darby crash, featured prominently in the docu and we were nuts about the idiot savant. so then afterward we emerge from the theater to the street all snarls and shit-talking, wearing our wrist spikes and biker boots, hair super-short, dyed unnatural hues, jeans ripped and written on with a magic marker the symbols for anarchy and names and logos of bands. we were freaky-looking ourselves back then and we exit the theater and see a line of people waiting for the midnight movie. the first person i see is a huge man with pancake make-up, very red lipstick, and wearing fishnet stockings with garters. the movie they were waiting for was the rocky horror picture show. each differing camp of movie patron gave the other side this look then moved on. i thought they looked weird, but i can imagine that the guy in drag saying to his buddies,' hey get a load of those freaks'!

the life moved at the pace of the living and i forgot about the movie. until i was working as a dishwasher and the busboy who became a buddy asked if i wanted to see a midnight movie after our shift. sure, i said, why not. i was, um, 20 going on 21, and it was the first time i watched the rocky horror picture show. i learned to do the time warp that night. the movie became a favorite and i believe i saw it nearly 20 times week after week. i think i've watched the film at least over a hundred times by now. the film is so much part of its time, the swinging 1970s, yet its libidinous energy and campy attitude is i think ageless. it is fun, goofy and sweet-natured. and it rocks. there are no more midnight movies and you can watch this flick on tv now. yet, every now and again i fish out my fishnets, turn this flick to 11 and do the time warp again.