08/27/2026
So, here’s a long story. For a FB post anyway. Maybe worth it, or not. You decide. It has meaning to me. You decide.
When I was 15 my mom sent me and my nerdy friends to Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights to see a movie. It is no exaggeration to say that this changed my life. Up until then we spent my birthday weekend playing Dungeons and Dragons after we had done our best to get as much candy as we could from the local group of cul-de-sacs. Of course we are talking about Halloween weekend. Most of you already know. Best candy memory was my friend Bandon telling every house that we stopped to late that ther were no more trick or treatrs left so just go heade and give us the remaining candy. It worked once in a while. My hero!
But mostly it was about being the kids you guys know as the kids from Stranger Things (minus the girl) and real adventure. My Mom told us we had to get out of he house and had my Dad drop us off at the move with instructions to leave us there. God, how I miss the ’80’s for child rearing. Anyway, we got in line to get tickets and were scared out of our minds. Everyone was dressed in fishnets and high heels and other outlandish costumes.
Lipstick and eyeliner and skirts and skin and everything you might imagine of an 80’s midnight movie crowd. Now, I knew my mother’s sense of humor but I was as weirded out as my two friends. We had never seen anything like this and my Dad had pulled away and left us.
So in we went.
I can’t speak as much for Brandon and Chris but for me this was a turning point. My parents has always raised me to be accepting of people and I was raised with my moms friends being gay but this was different. Rocky Horror Picture Show changed my simple and very basic understanding of a world I didn’t know. I think this is one of the best things my mom every did – sending our scared nerdly dressed butts there that weekend.
Tim Curry in his outfits and the music (which I would love for my whole life) and how cool people were to us, us being out of our element. I would spend a lot of weakens there and later in LA see the extravaganza even more. My parents would later question my own sexuality cause I would not only go so much to the movie but embrace the whole community so much. These last few years my love of the q***r community still had people asking if I’m gay. I am proud. I have never been but have never thought for a moment that I wasn’t full of love for them. Mostly because my parents raised me right – despite their issues with a son who-might-have-been. I’ve been at more gay bars then straight for years (the music is better). Ive been a shoulder and a handkerchief for many and one of the proudest moment of my life is the fact that my bar was considered a ‘gay’ bar.
Long story. I know but this is all because Tim Curry (remember him, it’s a story about him) was awesome and proud and beautiful in a movie a few nerds were sent to by a mercurial mother. I felt welcome at that movie because the q***rs were cool. I felt welcome at all the bars and clubs because the q***rs were cool. And, to be clear I hope that everyone all felt welcome in my life and at my bar and everywhere I go because Tim Curry made me sad and teary at the end of what is widely considered a silly movie.
