An excerpt from the ohronniewhereartthou? book.
Rocky Horror Picture Show on stage in Zurich.
Aaahhh yes... The Rocky Horror Show, live on stage in Zurich, and Sandra and I warmed up two seats in the ninth row. I was surprised and excited to see huge posters about the last tour of the London Rocky Horror Show, glued to any flat surface in the city. I definitely needed to have this event included in my year-long extravaganza of indulgence. Ticket price was no concern, I just wanted to be close enough to be pelted with rice, toilet paper rolls, stale toast and soaked with fake rain water squirted from plastic water pistols. I have always been fascinated with this sex musical, ever since I would watch my older sisters and their hot girlfriends prepare themselves before going to the theatre for a night of transsexual mania. In the late seventies, I used to listen to the vinyl album over and over, looking at the strange sexual images on the worn sleeve, wondering what the hell it was all about. Singing along with all the odd lyrics and thinking to myself, what does ‘heavy-petting’ and ‘seat-wetting’ mean, and what the hell is a transvestite, and why can’t I find Transylvania in my Junior School Atlas? Dressed up in garters and skimpy outfits, their faces white, black and red, my sisters and her friends ventured out into the night with their bag of props to throw back and forth at the rest of the cult theatre crowd.
ROCKY HORROR PARTY
I had my first Rocky Horror Hallowe'en party many years ago, and it was also my first experience wearing fish-net stockings, garters, PVC, and little leather underwear. Oooohh, I felt damn sexy. I attempted the high-heels, but opted for the contrast of ominous black motorcycle boots to help tip the scales back towards masculinity. I think it worked. I felt so sexy, dainty, and experienced an aura of beautifully feminine softness while still able to crush skulls under my dirty black knee-high death boots. My hair was dyed black, thick makeup was caked on my face and a full martini glass placed gently into my moisturized and manicured satin-gloved hands. I was ready to be it, not dream it. I wrapped my eight-foot long feather boa around my bare shoulders and I practiced my bored lipstick sneer in front of the mirror for when my guests would arrive. Of course I was Frank’n’furter – I was the party host, I had to be him.
At the end of the evening, my castle from Transsexual was trashed. There was broken glass everywhere, cigarette burns deep in the hardwood flooring, candle wax coating the walls, and my friend Lori crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs with a broken wrist and lacerated knees. She had tripped on her four-inch heels and noisily bounced down a flight of stairs behind me as I was kicking everyone out at four in the morning. I had holes in my stockings, abrasions on my hips from the tight leather underwear, and had eaten at least a pound of red lipstick that was constantly in need of re-application. I was sure some of my family members and friends will never look at me the same way again. It was a good time and I couldn’t wait for the next time.
At the Zurich theatre, Sandra and I found our seats and I began to explain the twisted plot of the play to her. I thought again, about how she took me to the beautiful things in Switzerland, like the amazing Cirque Du Soleil a few nights before, and I subject her to the weird, depraved and demented shit that my warped mind loves.
The lights dimmed and the story narrator was suddenly visible, suffused by a spotlight. He introduced the story speaking German and the musical brouhaha began. During the wedding scene we were showered upon by handfuls of rice for about three minutes. I had forgotten to mention to Sandra about the use of projectiles in the show, so it came as quite a shock when the first fistful of hard rice was flung into our faces from the rows in front of us. Then the rain came. Water pistols and cannons sprayed water from every direction, soaking us while they sang “Over at the Frankenstein Place” up on the stage. That was all fine with Sandra, even getting wet was OK, but she wasn’t too happy with the toilet paper rolls bouncing off the side of her head during the unravelling of Rocky. I started throwing the rolls around myself, grabbing them up from the floor beneath me and releasing them with all my might. Toilet paper was crisscrossing all the theatre seats, we were all weaved into a messy web of lavatory absorbency. For the rest of the performance, we swam the warm waters of sins of the flesh and then took the bus home in the cold rain of reality.
