The Drink Tank 295 (2011).pdf

Let’s talk about TAFF. There’s a TAFF race going on right now. It’s pretty awesome! There are three really

good candidates, but one goes over and beyond what a TAFF delegate should be.

That man is Mr. Warren Buff!

The other nominees are Jacq. Monahan, a Las Vegas fan who you can read in a lot of the Vegas zines. Her

nominators include John Purcell (who nominated me once!), former TAFF winner Steve Green, The Lord of All

Things Awesome Nic Farey, Curt Phillips, and Sandra Bond. She also edited Alan White’s new eBook The Zombie

Effect. I have to remember to look into that one!

Kim Kofmel, who I usually refer to as Kim Komfel, is a Canadian living in Texas. She’s good people who is

helping out seriously biggly with the London in 2014 bid. I believe she helps run ApolloCon, which is one of the

ones I’ve wanted to get out to over the years. She’s got Brad W. Foster, who has an art piece in this issue!, Jeanne

Gomol (who I believe has won TAFF herself), Flick, Pat Virzi and Alice Lawson.

And then there’s Warren Buff. Warren runs cons, including the 2010 NASFiC that was so much fun. He’s

worked on tons of other cons and bids, is a pillar of Southern fandom, is far better read than I am, has written

stuff for all sorts of zines (including a piece in this issue!) and is an all-around good guy. We shared a room at

FenCon this year, and on the ﬁnal night I was staying with him and Glug, it was my turn to take the ﬂoor. I made a

little nest using almost all the blankets in the room. Warren was such a great guy, he didn’t even ﬁll the remaining

pillcase with doornobs and beat me into Kingdom Come!

Warren’s got a pretty amazing bunch of nominators. I’m one of them, so that’s one TAFF winner on his

side. James Bacon’s another, and he’s won TAFF himself, along with a Hugo and a Nova. Paul Cornell writes com-

ics and episodes of Dr. Whop. He’s a great guy and follows the sportcoat/jeans/sneakers theory of dressing like a

writer, much as Warren himself does! Tim Illingsworth is a Brit come to the States and is a great guy. I had hoped

to have a a chance to sit down with him at FenCon, but alas, I was too busy hogging all the covers. The last of the

Warren Commission is Canadian Mad Man Lloyd Penney. That’s a good set, I think!

Waren’s a great guy and I’d love to see him win TAFF because he’d make an amazing delegate and I know

he’d bounce all over the country and get to visit with as many fans as possible (and hoppefully get a Sno-Globe

for me). He’ll certainly bring a good deal of Southern Radness into the Radisson Edwardian!

So, y’all should go to Taff.org.uk and get the ballot or ﬁnd the PayPal info and go and vote! Supporting

TAFF is a good thing and as a guy who has been on his trip, I can say it really changes lives.

So go and join the The Warren Commission!

52 Weeks to Science

FIction FIlm Literacy -

The Rocky Horror

Picture Show

It is easy to write about Rocky Horror as a cultural phenomena, as a musical, as a reaction to the excesses

of the 1970s, but it’s not exactly easy to write about it as a science ﬁction ﬁlm. That’s exactly what it is, and if you

asked most of the folks who are at the midnight screenings, most probably wouldn’t even mention it (despite the

fact that one of the songs is Science Fiction Double Feature). It’s easily the longest-running science ﬁction ﬁlm of

all-time. There’s been at least 100 theaters showing it in the US for more than 35 years, which is pretty amazing if

you think about it. A science ﬁction ﬁlm, around which a massive cult of fans has grown, has been playing through

seven Presidencies.

Also, they started shooting it on the day I was born. Not the date, the DAY I was born. Not as cool as the

fact that the day they go back to in Back to the Future is my Mom’s birthday, but it’s a cool connection!

OK, let’s start at the beginning: the story. Two young former students of the great Dr. Scott, Brad and Janet,

are out for a drive after getting engaged and their car breaks down. They get out and go to the nearest building, a

castle where there’s some sort of party going on. The host of the party is Dr. Frank N. Furter, a scientist who has

built himself a new plaything named Rocky, a buff plaything for the doctor. It turns out that the Doctor and the

servants, Columbia, Magenta and Riff-Raff, are from the planet Transylvania in the galaxy Transexual. Or maybe it’s

the other way around. Hard to say. I can’t remember everything! The good Doctor Furter has had other playthings,

Columbia and her biker boyfriend, Eddie, part of whose brain was used to make Rocky. Riff-Raff and Magenta

want to go back home, and they bitch, bitch, bitch! Dr. Furter then beds both Brad and Janet. Eventually Dr. Scott

arrives, announcing that he’s looking for Eddie, who happens to be his nephew. Janet bangs Rocky, which leads to

the only time I’ve ever thought Susan Sarranden was hot while she was singing Touch Me, Touch Me, Touch Me,

and it also leads Dr. Furter into using a science-y thing to control the group into doing a ﬂoor show (and leading

to one of the truly great numbers in musical history, I’m Going Home) and then Riff-Raff and Magenta re-emerge

and announce that they’ve got new orders

to take the house (which is a spaceship)

back to Transylvania, and Riff-Raff kills Dr.

Frank N. Furter and Columbia and Rocky.

The house then takes off, leaving Brad, Ja-

net and Dr. Scott behind.

Yeah, that’s the story. It’s not quite

as simple as I let on in the beginning. Sorry

about that. Really, it’s kinda complex, cer-

tainly more complex than I’d have ever re-

alized when I was a kid, making my Mom

drive me there at midnight and pick me

up at 2am. It’s a fun story written by the

gentleman who played Riff-Raff, Richar

O’Brien, along with the director Jim Shar-

man. It was based on O’Brien’s stageplay

The Rocky Horror Show, which itself had

been a cult theatre experience.

OK, I have to write about the mu-

sic. It’s a musical, no question, and it has

some very fun songs, and there are some

great crazy songs. Songs like Eddies Ted-

dy, Dammit Janey and I Can Make You A

Man are at least a little bit campy. These sit

alongside a heavy torch song, a wonderful

1950s-style tune (Whatever Happened To

Saturday Night) and the perfect place-set-

ting tune, Sweet Transvestite. The music is

smart, much smarter than most would give

it credit for. Is it Sondheim? No. It’s much

closer related to the musicals of guys like Jerry Herman. It’s a great and very fun soundtrack. I love it, though

admittedly it’s been a part of my life since I was at least 5 years old. Dad had the record and I am pretty sure he

had the 8-track too.

Still, it’s a science ﬁction ﬁlm. The story ﬂows because of the science ﬁction elements, especially the fact

that they’re livign in a castle which is actually a space ship. The story is based around the classic science ﬁlm

tropes, especially the Universal Monsters of the 30s and 40s. Frank N. Furter is Dr. Frankenstein, and of Rocky

is the Monster. Riff-Raff is a combination of the traditional doctor’s hunchback and the butler who ﬁgured in so

many horror and murder mystery ﬁlms. Magenta is the cleaning lady, a role that was very popular in all the hor-

ror and SF ﬁlms that were popular in the UK, especially the Hammer ﬁlms. There was one in Counterstrike that

was always just on the edge of exposing the doctor. Columbia, played by the magniﬁcent Little Nell (aka Nell

Campbell, who would release a few records and be one of the leading lights of the New York party scene in the

late 70s and early 80) is an interesting role. You could look at her like the girl love interest, only we’re seeing her

after the Doctor has passed her over in favor of her boyfriend and then, ﬁnally, in favor of his own creation. It’s

a role that really has little place in the ﬁlm, but she adds a lot of ﬂavor to the ﬁlm. She’s a lot of fun, and her little

tongue slide in the song Sweet Transvestite is a sexy highlight.

And there’s an interesting thing. Frank N. Furter has fallen in lust with his own retain. He’s played God,

but unlike our Creator, when Rocky turns to Janet, he’s hurt and decides to take it out on all of them. OK, maybe

he’s a little like an Old Testament God. It’s a role that makes a lot of sense. He’s in charge, though only on the

surface. There’s a great deal of deception going on behind his back. Riff-Raff is in communication with the Home

World and manages to wrench orders out of them to go home. Rocky broke his chains and turned to Janet. Dr.

Scott has been working in the background, not only trying to ﬁnd his nephew, apparently, but also trying to learn

the truth about UFOs and the aliens that they bring.

And, oh yeah, it took me ages to realize that Frank, Riff, Magenta and Columbia (maybe?) are aliens. They’re

weird looking, but they don’t have the traditional alien look. I am shocked I didn’t make that connection earlier. I

should have known that for YEARS before I caught on.

This is a really important point because they were the weird ones. Frank & Co. were the ones who had

been through the Sexual Revolution, it would seem, while Brad and Janet were babes in the wood, as it were. I

STILL don’t know if Columbia was one of them, but it’s obvious that Eddie isn’t (since his uncle is Dr. Scott), who

may (or may not) have been the ﬁrst one seduced into the ways of the Transexual Transylvanians. Now, what’s

interesting there is all told in the song Eddie’s Teddy. He was a troubled loner, even as a kid, and that made him an

easy mark for Frank & Co.. This so plays into the idea of Cults and charismatic loonies that had been in the news

at the time. Frank is a cult leader, by any deﬁnition, and he bends his followers will to his will and appetites. You

could read the history of any numbers of cultistic movements of the Twentieth Century. Now, we’re only told a

bit about the relationship between Riff and Frank in the angry outbursts, so we’re not sure what they were into,

but we do know that Magenta and Riff are a pair and are brother and sister. Every possible perversion is repre-

sented in the actions of the Transylvanians, from all forms of sex to the playing of God, and they seem to be very

interested in dragging the people of our world in with them.

And they do a good job of it.

Frank is all about researching the extremes he can take those he comes into contact with. I’m not sure

whether or not Columbia (who is listed as a Groupie) is an Alien, and she kinda has an important role in the idea

of what Frank is going for. If she’s from Transylvania, then it’s not quite as impressive, but we can see that Colum-

bia is fully integrated into the Transylvanian way of life, and if she’s a human, then Frank has obviosuly proven his

point. I tend to think that she was an alien along with the others because when Riff-Raff kills people, he lets the

other humans survive. Dr. Scott, Janet and Brad all survive. It would make sense then that Columbia was not a

human. Either that, or she had become so ingrained that she had become a de facto Transylvanian.

And that’s a point that we should look at more closely. The norms are the Earthlings, the Transylvanians

are the weirdoes, and that makes me think of one thing: transformation. The Transylvanians are so much more

advanced than we are, because we’re not trotting off to other planets now are we?, and they’re the ones who

are breaking all the things we consider taboo. Are those the actions of an advanced species? It would seem that

is what the ﬁlmmakers are saying, and it makes a bit of sense. As we have grown technologically, we’ve also seen

the lessening of what is considered to be wrong. Acceptance of alternate lifestyles is much higher now than it

was ages ago. Strange, eh?

But the ending, especially Riff-Raff taking over with the phrase “Frankenfurter it’s all over. You’re mission

is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme.” Frank was studying humans, looking into their ways and means, but he

went too deep, like an undercover cop. Maybe it’s the fact that he liked it so much that he went extreme. The

entire idea that the evolved species is the one that has looser... strictures is blown there.

Or maybe not.

Riff-Raff and Magenta’s relationship is probably the most taboo of all the relationships, and even after Riff

has dispatched Frank, he and Magenta have Elbow Sex. There is the question as to wether Riff’s coup is self-gov-

erned or authorized by whatever group on Transylvania that does such things. It is usually presented that Riff is

taking it all on himselfThese are the questions that keep me up at night!

OK, you can’t talk about Rocky Horror without talking about the importance of the Cult that has grown

around it. It wasn’t the ﬁrst midnight mire hit. Todd Browning’s Freaks was a popular midnight movie starting in

the early 1970s. Reefer Madness also entered that circuit, and when Fox re-released Rocky Horror, it was often

on a double-bill with RM. The target was college kids, hence you could four or ﬁve theaters in the Westwood

section of LA playing Rocky once a week, and they managed to make decent money at it.

it was a dude named Sal Piro who could be seen as the Forry of Rocky Horror. When the Waverly Theatre started

started showing Rocky in 1977, he was one of the people who worked on developing the audience participatory

portion of the night. He also has been the head of the Rocky Horror Fan Club since 1977. The one time I saw

him perform he was Riff-Raff, I think. He was really cool.

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: