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Part
1
"It Was Great When It All Began"
Part
2
"Erotic Nightmares"
Part 3
"Absolute
Pleasure"
Part
4
"Didn't We Pass A Castle?"
Part 5
"Not A Sequel, Not A Prequel,
Not An Equal"
Part
6
"We Return To Transylvania"
Part
7
"Perhaps Even Time, Itself"
Part
8
"Superheroes"


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ROCKY HORROR
"EROTIC NIGHTMARES"
I
began to meet others like me.
We had the same interests, tastes, and love of music, alcohol and marijuana.
We all considered ourselves to be artists and performers.
And above it all, we really loved ROCKY HORROR.
Sooooo....we created a cast, and
decided on the name "EROTIC NIGHTMARES".
The core group was David James as Frank, Richard Gifford as Riff-Raff,
Julie Ford as Columbia, and me.
Lisa Cifue as Magenta, Sherry Johnson as Janet, Kurt Koenig as Brad, Patrick
as Rocky, Cindy as Eddie.
There were also some Transylvanians and numerous other participants whose
names I will never, ever remember.
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EROTIC
NIGHTMARES
TROY
MARTIN, JULIE FORD, DAVID JAMES
JOANNA MORALES, RICHARD GIFFORD
TIFFANY THEATER - 1980
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By
January 1980, we all moved into an apartment on Burton Street in La Sierra.
It was not too far from the theater and Licorice Pizza. It became our
"Official Rocky HQ."
ROCKY HORROR and punk rock became our life.
As we were deciding on our characters, it was clear that no one wanted
to play the part of The Criminologist.
I decided that The Criminologist was the perfect character for me.
I knew I could handle the abuse from the audience, and it would strengthen
our cast.
AND I got to lead "The Time Warp".
I also liked that I could easily get the costume together except that
!@%$#%@ ascot.
It's Burgundy velvet with black sequins embroidered in a VERY UNIQUE pattern.
After a few lame attempts to make one, Sherry's mom made one for me. I
still have this costume piece.
One of the most
fun things to do was to create our costumes.
We would hit every thrift store in town for costume pieces. If we couldn't
find it, we would make it ourselves.
We would buy vintage pieces of clothing and alter them, rip them, soil
them, add and remove pieces from them.
We really strived to look as close to the characters as we could.
I'd spray my hair silver, and after I got tired of it sweating off me,
I bleached and colored my hair.
David & Julie colored their hair, too.
Richard bleached his hair AND shaved his head. Richard WAS Riff-Raff.
We could look pretty freaky when we were out of costume, too.
We would rehearse a lot and develop props. EROTIC
NIGHTMARES had their shit together.
We would buy things from the mail-order "ROCKY HORROR SHOP".
A&B Buttons, magazines, soundtracks from other versions of "THE
ROCKY HORROR SHOW".
I still have Bill Heinken's "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW BOOK".
My copy of "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW PHOTONOVEL" ("C'mon
Now!!!"...indeed!) was lost in transit.
EROTIC
NIGHTMARES were soon the established cast for Riverside, and
a regular, popular attraction.
We were a rather intimidating bunch when we were together.
We knew we had "that elusive ingredient...that SPARK that
is the breath of life!"
We were good...very, very good.
Bill Gartley, the
manager of the Tyler
Mall UA Theater 4 deserves
special praise.
Bill was really good to us.
He always encouraged us, and
helped keep ROCKY HORROR alive in Riverside for years.
We hit all of the conventions.
On July 20, 1980, we attended the Second Annual Transylvanian Convention
at the Holiday Inn in Hollywood.
Richard made a point of pinching every girls ass that he encountered.
The crowd adored him, and he took first prize in the costume contest.

RICHARD
GIFFORD
WINNER
- "BEST RIFF-RAFF"
Second Annual Transylvanian Convention - Hollywood CA - 1980
I bought a Limited
Edition of Richard O'Brien's "THE ROCKY HORROR SCRAPBOOK"
(#01809 of 2000).
Years later, Tim Curry signed it for me.
Once, we went to a convention in Anaheim and walked out with a bunch
of ROCKY HORROR photos.
We send a telegram to Richard O'Brien on his birthday, and about a month
later, he sent us a "Thank You" card.
We started going to other theaters in the "So-Cal Rocky Circuit",
most notably, The Tiffany Theater in Hollywood,
The Balboa Theater in Newport Beach, Montclair
and The Cove Theater in Hermosa Beach.
We enjoyed checking out the other ROCKY HORROR casts and making connections.
Richard had put together a "London Frank" costume to try out on the
crowd.
Our friend Joe mentioned to Richard that the panties he was wearing
looked pretty skimpy.
He suggested to Richard that he might want to wear another pair.
Richard simply replied, "If I don't wear these panties, the chicks can't
see my balls."
Later that night at the theater, there was a guy named Colon already
working the crowd out in front.
Colon was dressed in one of the lamest attempts of a "Sweet-T"
corset every seen in all of Transylvania.
Two guys were in line and one them pointed at Colon and said "Hey
look...there's Frank N Furter!"
His friend looked at Colon and told his friend "Nah...that isn't
Frank N Furter."
He pointed at Richard and said, "Now THAT'S Frank N Furter!"
We soon had our first group experience of that nasty beast called "Rocky
Horror Politics".
Another cast had sprung up at our theater. They called themselves SENSUAL
DAYDREAMS.
They were not as "good" as we were, but none one really cared...until....
One night, Richard was at the theater by himself, and Adam, the leader
of SENSUAL DAYDREAMS got rude.
He had insulted EROTIC NIGHTMARES. He said
that we were washed-up (?!) and inferior (???!!!).
Richard kind of laughed it off, and he told us about it when he got
home. We laughed it off, too.
But the next night, Adam insulted EROTIC NIGHTMARES
again.
He also said that from now on, SENSUAL DAYDREAMS
would be the "Exclusive Cast" for our theater.
And that all performances or input would have to be appproved by him
and SENSUAL DAYDREAMS first.
We figured..."Hey, Fuck You!", and we decided the best way
to deal with it was to put on "The Ultimate Show".
The idea was that if we focused and put on the better show, that would
end the insults and bullshit.
We had 5 days to prepare, and prepare we did!
That was probably the most intense and creative week that we ever had
together as EROTIC NIGHTMARES.
EVERYONE in the cast showed up for rehearsal every day that week.
We rehearsed and spent hours on the routines, costumes, and new props.
We called all of our friends to come out and support us.
And, we decided to do some of the things that we had seen other casts
do.
We arrived at the theater, and Adam told us that we were forbidden from
performing.
I simply said, "Try and stop us."
The color drained from his face, and he was unable to say anything.
Our
intention was to pull out all the stops and electrify the audience.
We were very successful.
The house was full of people that were in the mood for ROCKY HORROR,
so we gave 'em what they wanted!
Their enthusiasm was evident when they wents nuts as we made our entrance
into the theater.
I started the show with a bit of banter, we did the pre-show, and then
the movie started.
What
drove the crowd insane was when we did one of the bits we saw done at
the Tiffany.
We created, a large set of 3-foot tall black letters that spelled out:
"J-A-N-E-T".
We held them up in sequence against the screen when Brad sings "Oh,
J-A-N-E-T!
I love you so!"
The reaction from the audience was fabulous! Still one of the best that
I've ever seen!
We did our bits and then turned the stage over to SENSUAL
DAYDREAMS.
Our show went great! We would shift in between EROTIC
NIGHTMARES and SENSUAL DAYDREAMS.
We
clearly out-classed SENSUAL DAYDREAMS in
every way.
In the words of one guy that was there that night, "It's clear
who's got the better show!"
Afterwards, SENSUAL
DAYDREAMS never gave us a hard time again.
And we all decided that it was best if we all worked together from then
on.
With everyone working together, ROCKY HORROR in Riverside was fun again.
We kept drawing bigger crowds, and got more innovative with our show.
Naturally, Hollywood
Beckoned.
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