The Magic Lantern Theater      
 
There used to be a theater in my town called “The Magic Lantern” it was a tiny art house theater, stuffed into the top floor of a historic building downtown.  This was the place you went to go see foreign films or touring film festivals.  Even during the multi-plex expansion when all the other single screen houses withered away, the Magic Lantern thrived.  Why?  Mostly it was due to one film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.   I know, I know EVERYONE went to see rocky when they were in high school / college.  It is a right of passage for most.  But in Spokane, it was an institution.  We often said that growing up in Spokane you had 2 choices for entertainment, teen pregnancy or Rocky Horror.
 
Every Saturday night at midnight we would gather for our weekly fix.  Black fishnets, big hair, and pale make-up we were Goth before we even knew what Goth was.  Between high school and college, T and I saw that movie more than 100 times.  Yes, 100 times.  To this day we can still sing every song by heart.   We even went as far as to bring our parents to the movie so they could meet each other.  In hindsight it makes perverted sense, “Hi, my son… the one dressed in the corset and stockings… is dating your daughter… the one in the French maid outfit dancing in the middle of the isle…”  Sort of set the tone for the rest of our relationship I guess.
 
Sadly the call of the night children lost its sweetness.  Maybe we had outgrown it, or maybe now that we could legally get into bars we had more entertainment options.  Either way we eventually stopped going all together.   
 
Fast forward a few years, Monk is turning 27 and wants to do something “interesting” for his birthday.  Let’s see, toga party?  Done it.  Orgy?  Done.  Binge drinking and strippers? Yawn, done that too…  Rocky?
 
Now there was a thought!  We could re-live the halcyon days of our youth and do the time warp again!  Of course now we were living in Seattle and Rocky was nowhere to be found in any of the theaters.  T’s solution?  Rent a projector and play it on the side of the house and do it here.  (That would be reason # 238 why I love that gal).  So after properly warning the neighbors, a block in either direction to be precise. We invited all our friends, armed them with toast, rice, confetti, playing cards, plied them with liberal amounts of alcohol and well…. Well let’s just say that when it was all said and done the lawn was covered in a solid foot of debris.  My neighbors did not speak to me for nearly a year and my brother dressed as Dr. Scott, sans pants, racing a wheel chair down the street.
 
I see that they will be hosting “Rockypoloza” at the local art house theater tonight.  I wonder if I still have my chrome motorcycle helmet.