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"







SHOCK TREATMENT
"NOT A SEQUEL, NOT A PREQUEL, NOT AN EQUAL"

I LOVE the music from "SHOCK TREATMENT".
For me, the best thing about "SHOCK TREATMENT" is the music.
I just can't say the same about the film "SHOCK TREATMENT".
"SHOCK TREATMENT" lacks any of the the charm of "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW".
It was aimed at ROCKY HORROR fans, and it smelled of that.
Richard O'Brien, Jim Sharman, and a lot of the old gang were involved with it, but Tim Curry wasn't in it.
Neither were Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon, Meat Loaf, Jonathan Adams, or Peter Hinwood.
We all knew it was not going to be "Rocky Horror Shows His Heels" or "The Revenge Of The Old Queen".
Jessica Harper told "US" magazine that she "couldn't care less about the run-of-the-mill script".
That wasn't very encouraging, coming from the star of the picture, just weeks before release.
However, I do love her performance as a junked-up Janet.

Sal Piro, President of The Official ROCKY HORROR Fan Club, had been at a convention in Anaheim that I hosted.
He played some of the soundtrack and showed us production photos from the film. The music was great!
We all bought the soundtrack album about a month before the film was released, so it got a lot of airplay.
All ROCKY HORROR people were waiting in "Antici...pation!"
With the help of Rick Sloane, we went to 20th Century-Fox to be the among first ROCKY HORROR fans to see it.
Jim Cochrane & Chelsie Kraemer from THE DENTON AFFAIR, and Lori Rizzo joined me.

The folks at 20th Century-Fox were really nice and we were honored to be there.
But t
he film was boring, and the story was tepid.
It was all very nice...and tidy...and clean...and shiny...and bright...and wholesome...and sterile.
"Don't Dream It...Be It!" had been replaced by "Trust Me...I'm A Doctor!".
I'll take "Absolute Pleasure" over "Sanity For Today" every time.
We couldn't see any way that we could relate to the film
, much less interact with it.
I didn't have anything to say at the Q&A afterwards.
It was a Pretty Big Downer. Even Charles Gray couldn't save it.

I did see the film on it's opening weekend at The Vista Theater in Hollywood.
A second viewing only re-affirmed my original thoughts and feelings about the film.
Although no one else said anything, we all knew that it was a major disappointment.
I haven't seen it in a theater since.
The film eventually found it's audience. I'm not one of them.
I still have my original vinyl LP of the soundtrack, and I did buy the DVD.

At that same time, things were changing rapidly for me, and not at all for the better.
In October 1981, we were evicted from The Crossroads Of The World.
The parties had gotten WAY out of hand, and we all ran out of money.
I wound up in an office at Victory Boulevard & Woodman Avenue in Van Nuys.
I got separated from my friends, and the woman I loved. I felt that I had no control over my life.
I was drifting in a dazed, downward spiral. I was outside in the rain.

In April 1982, my life came crashing down within 2 hours at a ROCKY HORROR convention in Hawthorne.
The convention was being run by a self-styled ROCKY HORROR impresario/mail-order business owner.
I knew most of the people that were there that day .
Security was handled by a nasty little group of quasi-tyrants from San Diego.
"They didn't like me...they never liked me!"...
So they threw me out and tried to have me arrested "for trespassing".
The cops knew it was all bullshit and a waste of their time, so they left and I waited outside in the van.

And then came one of the worst moments of my life.

She came out to the van to talk to me. And she was really pissed-off at me.
She cried only for a moment, and then very quickly regained her strength and composure.
She made no qualms about pointing out how much I had hurt her, and how much of a loser I was.
And she was right. I had let her down. She deserved better. And I had completely fucked up.
Someone like her only comes around once in a lifetime...beautiful, smart, classy, and creative.
And I had been a puerile, self-absorbed, fool. I was a loser.
In that moment, I felt for the very first time, a new, powerful, and very painful emotion.
The pain of realizing that I had really hurt someone that I loved without even trying.
I was ashamed of myself and my behavior. I hated who I was and what I was doing.
For the first time in my life I knew what is was like to hit rock bottom.
I had lost everything...my self-respect, my honor, my home, my job, friends, and now, real love.

I wanted to get as far away from ROCKY HORROR as I could.

I was done with ROCKY HORROR.

Or, so I thought...

ROCKYMUSIC.ORG
The Musical World of
Rocky Horror




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