Sweet Transvestite, That's How I Roll

I know in these annals I have trashed Scouts based on my own mostly negative experience. If Boy Scouts was a great thing for you, great, I'm happy for you. And the bullying I endured is small beer compared to the sexual abuse some of my friends went through in that organization.

But in the process of building my drag queen Pinewood Derby car (pitiful, I know, but it's supposed to look like Frankie from the Rocky Horror Picture Show), I realized that part of the appeal of making a rolling Frankie for the First Annual 73rd Running of the Pines, is that Rocky Horror was in some ways where I found what Scouts was supposed to offer.

Rocky Horror was a pretty significant part of my high school experience. Started at the Bijou, but that closed and we ended up having to settle for Oak Park Mall's theater, which showed the film but was iffy about the props, costumes, etc. we wanted to bring in. They generally let us do what we wanted but inevitably someone would show up who didn't get it, do something that had nothing to do with audience participation but was genuinely vandalism of the theater, and we'd be on probation.

Anyway, my first time seeing the movie, well, honest, it's not much of a movie. Plot holes you could drive a truck through, low production values, if people weren't talking back to the screen it would probably suck. Oh, and acting along, playing out the parts on screen in the front of the theater.

I managed to screw up the courage to be Brad some. This involved stripping to my tighty-whities at the age of 15 or 16 in front of strangers, and then wearing nothing more than a robe for the next hour or so.

This takes a lot of confidence. Just standing at the front of the theater in my clothes did, acdtually, but to then undress and walk around in my underwear, wow.

On the screen, though, there's Tim Curry in panties, fishnets, ridiculous amounts of makeup, a corset. And he's just letting it all hang out and basically saying, I'm sexy, deal with it.



I didn't want to dress like a woman, but I sure wanted that much confidence. I still do.



So anyway, this whole project was therapeutic for me. Rocky Horror did make up for what I didn't gain from Scouts. As I explained to my own offspring from time to time as they grew up, a lot of maturing amounts to learning to ignore the opinions of people who don't matter. Don't dream it, be it.