That’s A Rather Tender Subject

Last Saturday I took the girlfriend to see the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” – I hadn’t been to a showing in an actual theater in almost a decade.

Needless to say it was an eye opener.

I first saw “Rocky” when I was 16 years old – back then it seemed like a rite of passage for a teenage geek. Nearly everyone in my small clique of friends had already seen it and to hear them talk of it, it was like being initiated into the Knights Templar – a spiritually transforming process that left them enlightened and connected to a deeper community. Or at least that that’s what I kept getting from them telling me how much I’d “love” seeing it. Friend after friend would regale me with stories of bawling insults at the movie screen, throwing toast, and men in fishnet stockings. There was nothing our teenaged heads had for a frame of reference at the time – this was in the days before the internet, so we couldn’t exactly scour Reddit and 4chan for bizarre means of entertaining and titillating our adolescent minds.

So finally, under the pretenses that I was going to be spending the night at a friend’s house, we made the trek to the Clinton Street Theater – who has been showing the movie almost continually since it debuted in 1975. Originally opened in 1915 as one of the first cinemas in the Portland area, it now plays mostly second-run and art-house fare. “Rocky” has always been on the Clinton’s marquee – and on more than a few occasions it was the theater’s bread and butter. There was an enormous crowd at the entrance – or at enormous for the size of the venue (nearly 50 people!) I remember being surrounded by disaffected teens and 20-year olds wearing black pants and t-shirts from goth concerts with a snarky button pinned to them. And a lot of cigarette smoke.

But – as with all good things – there was a catch.

While “Rocky” would offer me the possibility of seeing a cabaret performer’s nipple slip out of her bodice, there would be a human cost for watching the longest running glam rock musical since “The Phantom of the Paradise”. For those who haven’t been to a showing of “Rocky” in a theater, most venues that show it regularly have a ceremonial “de-virginization” where the uninitiated are processed into the cult of the Midnite Movie. Among the many stories that my friends would tell me of their “Rocky” experiences would be the ceremonial humiliation of the “Rocky virgin” – like being auctioned off to the lowest bidder, faking an orgasm in public, and the “dancing tampon”. But the form of abasement that I worried about was an “ass judging contest.” If you were to ask me, I’d say it was because I was insecure about my appearance – combined with the idea that I might have to actually drop trou and bare my posterior to a laughing audience. So while I socialized before the doors opened, my friends would occasionally nudge me and go “ass judging contest” to me to make me blush.

And then the doors opened and we filed into the cinema. I had always seen the old theaters in movies from the 1940’s and 1950’s – and while it wasn’t the Radio City Music Hall, it felt like I was being taken back a few decades. My friends and I took our seats and waited for the show to start. The MC came onto the stage, welcomed us all to another showing, and introduced the pre-show cabaret acts – where a man dressed in Adam Ant’s cast-offs would lip synch to Oingo Boingo’s “Little Girls”. But then came the dreaded baptism into “Rocky” culture – as my friends drug me up on stage with the rest of the “virgins” to lose what little dignity I had left.

A woman (who also played a role in the Rocky Cabaret) came out and started doling out random, but minor, degradations to select groups on stage. Don’t ask me what they were, I was so anxious about the possibility of having to show my buttocks in public, I wasn’t even paying attention to what has happening around me. Finally I was left with three other guys who were also waiting with nervous anticipation to participate in the “Gong Show” style antics that awaited us. Our hostess paced down the line and stopped at me, saying “Don’t worry about the ass judging contest, you already won.”

I can’t describe the mixture of relief and exhilaration I felt at that moment. Not only did I not have to worry about exposing myself, but I had received the first complement about my physical appearance in my teenage years. (Yes, others would soon follow, but I had no way of knowing that.) Having put aside my fears, I knew that whatever task I was going to perform in front of the gallery, I would give it my all.

After a few minutes of deliberation, she finally said, “I want you gentlemen to perform for us, ‘I’m A Little Teapot.'”

My fellow initiates were perplexed – they had either never heard of the rhyme, or for some reason it was beneath them. So I started without them, hoping to spur them into joining me. It became apparent that I was going to be the only person performing this little ditty, however, as my fellow participants started to shy away from me. Now emboldened by not having to bare myself, I said the refrain again – in the style of one of the “Gumby’s” from “Monty Python”. Needless to say, there was raucous applause, I was greatly relieved, and I got a pass to a free movie at the theater that wasn’t “Rocky”. (I never used it, having kept it hung up on my corkboard as a trophy throughout high school.)

Then the lights dimmed, the movie came on, and I fell in love. I loved the music (“Science Fiction Double Feature” is my favorite number from the show), and screaming excoriating remarks at the movie allowed me to fulfill all of my Mystery Science Theater 3000 fantasies. But more than anything that stuck out was the fact I didn’t feel like an outcast.

The problem with being a geek in high school is how quickly you get ostracized. I eschewed team sports for role playing games, I paid more attention to computers than academia, and most of my friends were in either band or drama (two of the bigger geek magnets high school has to offer). With the exception of a few close chums, most of the people I went to school with had difficulty finding common ground with me. Let’s face it, you get lonely enough just being a teenager without the added stigma of being labeled a freak as well. “Rocky” was one of the few social circles where I no longer felt like I was the weirdo because I didn’t have a professional sports team on my shirt. In fact, I was encouraged to be as different and unique as I wanted to be – something about a movie starring a omnisexual transvestite tends to bring an air of tolerance. Throughout my high school years and well into my 20’s, I would return back to the Clinton for another viewing of “Rocky”. A lot of the time I didn’t even watch the movie, I just hung around outside and socialized with my fellow deviants, basking in the warmth of acceptance. I even joined the cabaret when I was 23 for a year – and I had a ball.

Fast forward to last weekend.

One thing I have been finding more and more after I turned 35 is how the years have been giving me perspective – whether I want it or not. I looked at my fellow theater-goers and I realized that I was at least a decade senior to most of them. Many of them were still in high school and I couldn’t help but look at them with bemused detachment. I saw the conversations they were having and while the words had changed, the meaning was still there – these were people still looking forward to this showing of “Rocky” because it was an excuse to get their freak on. Not in a sexual sense, but rather to connect with people who didn’t use the word “weird” as an insult.

We went in and sat down and I watched the social groups chatting amongst each other. Oingo Boingo had now been replaced by “Gangnam Style” – and most of the geekism were contemporary (there was a man dressed like Matt Smith’s incarnation of Doctor Who). In fact, when the movie played, the script of insults I was used to had now been updated and included more topical references than I was familiar with.

While most people would get mired in depression about being out of date and no longer au curant, I realized that “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was really made for the young. It’s a perfect venue for one to express parts of yourself that you don’t always have opportunity to show around your peers – which is something that a lot of people need in their teens and 20’s. The entire 10 year span from 15 to 25 is one long session of “Who The Fuck Am I?” And though a lot of people are able to muck their way through it having already been accepted by default from family and friends – there are those of us (geeks) that need some outlet, some group or venue, where being obscure and witty is the norm and welcomed.

And I thank the fates in charge that places like that still exist.