Tonight another blockbuster opened at midnight it’s happening with such frequency these summers that it’s a cliché by now. This used to be special or different. The kind of time for films to be strange and different with crowds that reflected that but I guess times change.
I used to watch Elvira and went to Rocky on occasion but was never that big in it. Now in Seattle I see the listings at the Egyptian and find myself down there on occasion and that feels right. When I lined up for the ‘Two Towers’ or ‘Attack of the Clones’ it wasn’t the same, there was no edge or subversion in that experience. We were there for the movie instead of movie being secondary to the experience that has grown around it.
In college dragging a friend to ‘Rocky’ on the green behind Corbett, midnight sometime in October my Freshman Sophmore year, my friend was the Don Quixote to my Sancho Panza but he knew next to nothing of ‘Rocky’ beside the lingerie clad girls that night around campus. Back at my room I explained some of it to him and told him about the fun it could be.
Nothing better to do and sitting around Regents without a goal for the Friday he agreed. My roommate stayed. Pouring Jim Beam into coke bottles and in trench coats we headed off to Corbett.
We hung to the back since Don was a bit nervous of the crowd. Outside of his element he didn’t know how to deal. This wasn’t the dark streets with us just wandering but a crowd dressed in a sexy but not really seen way at our college. Not wanting to miss out I dragged him closer. Around the outskirts we’d pass people. Seeing a group with a guy from my dorm in a prom dress I pulled D. Quixote closer. Flamboyantly gay princess welcomed us into the circle.
It was random conversations with them but they knew ‘Rocky’ as I offered some of my coke and we talked about times we’d been, they offered a joint. Them in lingerie and drag looking more the part and Q and me in coats against the slight New Mexico chill. More Columbine than Fredicks but it was still a ‘Rocky’ so it worked. One, a vocal laughing blonde, suggested the Don should have gone as a tranny and we laughed at him in make up and a teddy. He was embarrassed, wandered off for more coke. They all said I should have been Eddy being a bit over weight with large hair but one said ‘Riff’ looked at my eyes and the way I kind of followed but was in charge. She was burnette and smiled infrequently in her leather maid and fishenet get up. Taking a long drag she passed it to me smiling.
Taking my turn I said, ‘Then I’d get a dance with you’ and passed it on.
