Lets talk about TAFF. Theres a TAFF race going on right now. Its 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 Whites 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. Shes 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 Ive wanted to get out to over the years. Shes 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 theres Warren Buff. Warren runs cons, including the 2010 NASFiC that was so much fun. Hes 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 nal night I was staying with him and Glug, it was my turn to take the oor. I made a little nest using almost all the blankets in the room. Warren was such a great guy, he didnt even ll the remaining pillcase with doornobs and beat me into Kingdom Come! Warrens got a pretty amazing bunch of nominators. Im one of them, so thats one TAFF winner on his side. James Bacons another, and hes won TAFF himself, along with a Hugo and a Nova. Paul Cornell writes comics and episodes of Dr. Whop. Hes 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. Thats a good set, I think! Warens a great guy and Id love to see him win TAFF because hed make an amazing delegate and I know hed bounce all over the country and get to visit with as many fans as possible (and hoppefully get a Sno-Globe for me). Hell certainly bring a good deal of Southern Radness into the Radisson Edwardian! So, yall should go to Taff.org.uk and get the ballot or nd 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 its not exactly easy to write about it as a science ction lm.Thats exactly what it is, and if you asked most of the folks who are at the midnight screenings, most probably wouldnt even mention it (despite the fact that one of the songs is Science Fiction Double Feature). Its easily the longest-running science ction lm of all-time.Theres 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 ction lm, 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 Moms birthday, but its a cool connection! OK, lets 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 theres 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 its the other way around. Hard to say. I cant 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 hes looking for Eddie, who happens to be his nephew. Janet bangs Rocky, which leads to the only time Ive 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 oor show (and leading to one of the truly great numbers in musical history, Im Going Home) and then Riff-Raff and Magenta re-emerge

and announce that theyve 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, Janet and Dr. Scott behind. Yeah, thats the story. Its not quite as simple as I let on in the beginning. Sorry about that. Really, its kinda complex, certainly more complex than Id have ever realized when I was a kid, making my Mom drive me there at midnight and pick me up at 2am. Its a fun story written by the gentleman who played Riff-Raff, Richar OBrien, along with the director Jim Sharman. It was based on OBriens stageplay The Rocky Horror Show, which itself had been a cult theatre experience. OK, I have to write about the music. Its a musical, no question, and it has some very fun songs, and there are some great crazy songs. Songs like Eddies Teddy, 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-setting tune, Sweet Transvestite. The music is smart, much smarter than most would give it credit for. Is it Sondheim? No. Its much closer related to the musicals of guys like Jerry Herman. Its a great and very fun soundtrack. I love it, though admittedly its 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, its a science ction lm. The story ows because of the science ction elements, especially the fact that theyre livign in a castle which is actually a space ship. The story is based around the classic science lm 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 doctors hunchback and the butler who gured in so many horror and murder mystery lms. Magenta is the cleaning lady, a role that was very popular in all the horror and SF lms that were popular in the UK, especially the Hammer lms. There was one in Counterstrike that was always just on the edge of exposing the doctor. Columbia, played by the magnicent 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 were seeing her after the Doctor has passed her over in favor of her boyfriend and then, nally, in favor of his own creation. Its a role that really has little place in the lm, but she adds a lot of avor to the lm. Shes a lot of fun, and her little tongue slide in the song Sweet Transvestite is a sexy highlight. And theres an interesting thing. Frank N. Furter has fallen in lust with his own retain. Hes played God, but unlike our Creator, when Rocky turns to Janet, hes hurt and decides to take it out on all of them. OK, maybe hes a little like an Old Testament God. Its a role that makes a lot of sense. Hes in charge, though only on the surface. Theres 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 nd 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.Theyre weird looking, but they dont have the traditional alien look. I am shocked I didnt 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 dont know if Columbia was one of them, but its obvious that Eddie isnt (since his uncle is Dr. Scott), who may (or may not) have been the rst one seduced into the ways of the Transexual Transylvanians. Now, whats interesting there is all told in the song Eddies 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 denition, 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, were only told a bit about the relationship between Riff and Frank in the angry outbursts, so were 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 represented 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. Im 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 shes from Transylvania, then its not quite as impressive, but we can see that Columbia is fully integrated into the Transylvanian way of life, and if shes 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 thats 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 were not trotting off to other planets now are we?, and theyre 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 lmmakers are saying, and it makes a bit of sense. As we have grown technologically, weve 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 its all over. Youre mission is a failure, your lifestyles too extreme. Frank was studying humans, looking into their ways and means, but he went too deep, like an undercover cop. Maybe its 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 Magentas 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 Riffs coup is self-governed 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 cant talk about Rocky Horror without talking about the importance of the Cult that has grown around it. It wasnt the rst midnight mire hit. Todd Brownings 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 ve 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.

Rocky has become a right of passage for a certain kind of teen.The band geek, the theatre geek, the D&D geek. Well, lets just say the Geek. It provides a place where kids (and adults) can mix in admiration of a single lm and let out some aggression, sexual frustration, other. Its a really good thing for that. Even I, who had little to rebel against as a kid, loved having a place where I could let it all hang out. There are theaters that have been showing Rocky once a week for more than 30 years (one in Milwaukee and another in Portland since 1977) and as of today its grossed more than 139 million dollars, though thats a tough number to be certain on as there are a great many theaters and non-authorized showings that have never paid anything into the coffers of Fox. Oddly, one of the major reasons people point to for Rocky taking off the way it did within the crowd that now seems to have ti engrained is that they showed it at the WorldCon in 1977. I wasnt there, I dont think, but I do know folks who were and they say that there were some folks who showed up expecting a serious lm screening! SO, theres no question that Rocky Horror is one of the most important science ction lms ever made. It start the movement of lms attempting to be camp (well, at least people trying to make camp lms for actual studios) and it introduced a lot of folks to the concept of lm as participatory medium, which we could argue was for better or for worse. I think there is no question that Rocky led kids to other lms, including Reefer Madness, Freaks, many of the other Universal Monster lms. Listen to the song Science Fiction Double Feature. I did when I was a high school kid and I started to try and watch all the movies it mentioned. It wasnt until recent years that I nished the task, but Rocky Horror led me to lms like The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Day of the Trifds and Forbidden Planet. Rocky Horror also led me to The Hammer lms, whcih was obviously a major inuence (right down to using the same castle!) and I could say that it was partly responsible for me becoming a major fan of musicals and cult lm. Its a gateway drug, you know...

Why I Cant Stand Rocky Horror Picture Show By Warren Buff

I may be unusual in this, but Rocky Horror is one of my least favorite movies of all time. I saw it once through on television, and twice in the theaters (complete with the midnight crowd and doing all the ridiculous shit youre supposed to), and thats at least two times too many for me. This goes deeper than my distaste for musicals, because while I absolutely detest the vast majority of stage musicals, I nd that musicals on lm are more capable of playing with the form of the song and dance number, which tends to increase my level of interest in a work. No, this is a particular loathing for a bad lm with a cult following. See, I was raised Lutheran. Church (which we attended nearly every Sunday in my family) was a highly ritualized affair with a lot of stand up, sit down, call and response, sing along, and a bit of procession. There was one bit of relief in it, and that was the sermon. Yeah, I preferred the sermons we had a pastor who would give a thought-provoking sermon, usually nding three ways to approach the same point and tying them together rather well, all with a good bit of storytelling. My parents church involved all of the boring ritual of Apollonian religion, along with the discursive and meditative aspects of its better nature. I left the church at 14 when I no longer believed the same things as my parents, and was rewarded with a whole year of getting to sit down with that very pastor and explore a lot of deep topics at just the right time in my life that I think Ive wound up a mature, respectful atheist and I still get lunch with him when I can. My rst exposure to RHPS was that it was something the kids in high school who smoked down in the ravine liked. Well, them and the drama kids, and both of those groups had some overlap with the gamers and computer science kids, who were my tribes. Enloe High had something of an edge to it we were the arts magnet, and one of the few schools in NC to actually break into national rankings (the others were in Chapel Hill

and Charlotte). So, freshman year, the tribes werent as pronounced as they would be later, and a rather grand alliance of gamers, coders, and actors would eat on a hill out front of the main ofce. An odd fellow who went by the moniker of Fish and was two years older than me was probably the rst one I knew to talk about RHPS (I refuse to call it Rocky Rocky won an Oscar for Best Picture, damnit). He would later be a roommate, a romantic ally and rival, and the only adult Ive ever punched in anger (I dont count the backyard boxing thats sport). After a long time of wandering in the wilderness, he wound up in Washington working in intelligence (so its just as well I use his old pseudonym). He introduced me to yurts, early Bruce Springsteen, and a lot of weird headspace that would later mean I loved Alan Moore when I started reading his work. Fish talked about RHPS with the casual air of one referencing a piece of the cultural superstructure, the way Id talk about Star Wars or the Beatles. He seemed to have a particular afnity for Riff Raff. Fish was, unfortunately, the only person I knew who talked about it like this who I didnt see as one of the annoying drama kids. While the grand alliance of the tribes meant we ate together, it didnt make me particularly like them. So I was predisposed against the movie before I ever sat down and watched it. Sometime in my sophomore year, it came on late-night cable television, and I gave it a watch. I think I fell asleep somewhere in the last third, and I didnt nd anything in it to make me care to repeat the experience without the passing out. After my sophomore year, Fish graduated, the school paved over that hill, and the alliances of tribes shifted substantially. The schools science ction and fantasy club had become a social center unto itself, and I was elected its president in an upset (in retrospect, Im not sure the write-in that carried me over the top was valid, but I suspect the lone vote that didnt go to me or the other viable candidate would have gone my way if wed needed a revote). We took over some picnic tables in a wooded area between the west campus and the ravine, and some of the drama kids left their habitat under the stairs near the drama room to join our tribe. Some of the smokers from the ravine would split their lunch breaks between eating with us and smoking in the ravine. The smokers loved RHPS. Oddly enough, my rst trip to see it was with a stoner friend (who now has his PhD from Cornell in Math) from the computer science tribe. Wed made a habit of sneaking out and going to grab pizza late at night at a bar near his house that served it for half price after 11. At these late night chats, we often talked about philosophy, religion, girls, math, and Docs (Ill call him that) less-than-legal pursuits. On the matter of girls, he had a casual, condent air that never gave away the fact that he was a virgin, and tried to introduce me to the ways of the pickup artist (a set of skills I never was all that good at, and a mentality Ive come to revile). At the time, I was mostly just too awkward and mopey after my rst serious broken heart (and the several more which followed). We went down to the Rialto together for the weekly midnight showing, and I pretended to be an old hand at it to avoid being subjected to whatever it was that virgins would have to go through. Doc went forth, though, and I saw that it really wasnt anything so bad. But it was clear that the theater wasnt going to really be watching the movie so much as each other. They were dressed funny, and seemed to have lots of social groups within the set. I think I saw a few folks Id known earlier whod graduated. A cute girl sat down on the other side of Doc from me, and he started to work his moves. She made pleasant conversation with us for most of the movie. Oddly enough, when we did the underwear run, and could actually see the shape her curves took in pretty much full glory, Doc became signicantly less interested in her, and I moreso. Nothing came of it. The movie was no less terrible than it had been the rst time Id seen it. A larger screen didnt reveal any hidden truths, it was still a barely extant plot and fairly bad songs, only this time, with audience participation. We stood up. We sat down. We engaged in call and response. We sang along. And of course, we all moved around the room together when the time for that came, too. It was church, all over again, but with a bad movie, worse

music, girls with too much makeup and the smell of cigarettes, none of the deep thought that had made church bearable, and a layer of kitsch thrown on top. I dont like kitsch. Its kinda like camp, only that much more, and it winds up in the too-clever-by-half pile (along with The Postal Service). The whole thing left me feeling like Id wasted a Friday night (and this was before I started drinking on Friday nights). I had no intention of going back, but around the time I got my rst place of my own, several of the hooligans I kept company with convinced me to go hang out in front of the theater. There were always a bunch of folks out there just talking and loitering (and a few coming out of the theater for a cigarette), and I could frequently meet such neer-do-wells as Bones (a con man of the rst degree) and John Carter, USMC (who had supposedly been ejected from the Marines for decapitating a man with a pocket knife). Bones is best known for having crossed the line sexually with several of the women in my social circle and for scamming even more folks out of cash. John Carter was best known for his ability to make a ten-inch knife appear anywhere within thirty feet of himself. Dude was intense. Slightly less unpalatable was Bevin, an old friend from high school (and the president of our sci- club two years before me yes, we called it that, Deal With It), and her then-boyfriend Thud (I wouldnt learn that nickname for him until much later, but Ill use it here). Thud was so-called because he had shown up to a local Norse pagan group (I forget which avor, but recall at least two exist around here) and made the power rune out of bullets. Needless to say, he wasnt welcomed back. Thud kept a well-stocked liquor cabinet, though, and didnt mind if we came over and drank with him, so long as we either had a DD or crashed on the couches. There were, of course, always plenty of other folks around, and on one occasion when Id had a few before venturing forth, I was leaning on a wall near a newspaper box when one of the too-young girls in too much makeup decided to sit up on the box, squeezing into the space between me and it, and then told me to get my crotch off of her leg. Nevermind that my crotch was where it had been the whole time, and shed chosen to put her leg there. What she really wanted was the patch of wall for a fellow she was sweet on, and I was in no mood to oblige. I did shift my stance, but I gave her grief about it. This was the incident that hammered home for me that there was really nothing interesting about hanging out outside the Rialto on a Friday night, and Id much rather be someplace where the girls were at least 18. So that would have been my last encounter, had I not gotten a really pathetic room mate who hadnt gone out and experienced any of the bullshit youre supposed to have out of your way before 21, and insisted on everyone joining her for it. So there I was, going back to the Rialto, prepared to go through the motions of something I knew I wouldnt enjoy, all because my room mate had managed to convince enough of the crew to go that itd have been interminably boring to stay home, and I hadnt devised a clever backup. The only real difference from my previous encounters was that the management had decided to sweep away the loiterers. The moment that petried my already hard resistance to returning to the place was when I realized that the curvaceous woman in the bikini bottom and duct tape pasties was sixteen. The hell with that. Maybe Im just a curmudgeon, but Id really prefer to hang out places where the women are my own age or thereabouts. I have no use for a bad movie with bad songs in a theater full of ritualized hecklers and kids too young to buy beer.