Sex and head trauma

Dave A. lived up by Aurora Village and met a cute girl in the record store there named Cindy. He invited her to the Neptune and the after party one night. Pam Sprowl had earned her degree at the UW and was resigning as the manager and this was our farewell party for her.

I picked Dave up in my Dad's old green truck, then drove over and picked Cindy up and headed down to the Neptune on I-5. Cindy was gorgeous, pretty with an attractive body and a good if slightly acidic sense of humor. We went to work while Cindy watched the movies and visited with Dave at the concessions counter. One of our clean cut recently hired coworkers was excited about attending his first actual party and we all tried to act sophisticated on the subject.

After the RHPS ended we drove over to the house that 3 or 4 female UW students shared near 45th in Wallingford and the serious drinking began. Most of the Neptune crew was there and Frank B. was there, hitting on Dave's date mercilessly. We laughed and talked and pounded a few drinks. I visited with them a bit then wandered off to visit elsewhere. It had been a long day and I was drinking heavily so I got sloshed pretty quickly. I could still talk and move, but I was prone to poor balance and the occasional stagger as the alcohol kicked in.

After a while Pete walked over and said "Dave, you better go deal with Dave. He's outside." Huh. I walked to the front door and out, and there was Dave with a large tree limb in his hands. He was bouncing the end of it off the cement of the sidewalk and he looked very upset.

"Time to pack it in already?" I asked, acting like the tree limb was no big deal.
"Just keep Frank away from me!" Dave snarled.

OK. I turned around and staggered back to the stairs and up to the door and back into the party. Said goodbye to Pam as I staggered past, but I don't think she heard me over the music. I found Cindy back in the dining room hanging out and visiting with the coworkers.

"Hey Cindy, it's about time to go" I said.
She frowned and said "it's so early, is something wrong?"
Uhh, how do I put this, "Yeah Dave's upset and I figured we should get rolling."
Now she looked really upset, and she was so gorgeous and it made me feel so sad that I wanted to hold her and make it OK. I'd normally be way too repressed to act on an impulse like that, but I had been drinking fairly heavily. Cindy felt wonderful as I hugged her tight and her hair smelled good.
"It's OK, don't be upset, Dave'll be all right." Eventually, after a few days.

The door to the bathroom opened and someone wandered out.
"Hang on a minute, gotta take care of this" I said as I staggered over to the bathroom and relieved myself. As I opened the door and came out Cindy was hovering so I stepped up and took her in my arms again. I rotated to the side of the bathroom door to get out of the way a little and leaned back. Against a door, which opened as I put my weight on it.

I remember things slowing down as I fell back through the door. I moved my left arm over to the door as it slid past me, trying to grab something to hold onto. No dice as I fell to a full horizontal extension and looked up past my feet at Cindy, staring down at me as I fall away from her. I remember being surprised that it seemed like I kept falling, like there wasn't even a floor there. That's the last I remember for a bit.

The next things I recall, I'm back up in the living room, swaying a bit and feeling odd, with Pam freaking out and Pete calming her.
"Oh my God, we need to take him to the hospital! He's going to die!" Pam shrieked.
"Ah, relax, it's nothing much" Pete said in an attempt to calm Pam.
I hoped Pete was right and wondered who might need to go to the hospital. The back of my head felt very odd, and there was a strange warmth below it around my neck and the top of my shirt. I reached back and touched the gaping wound, about as large as my hand, wide open and very wet. My hand came back bright red with blood and I realized who might need to go the hospital.

"Guys, I'm going to have to side with Pam on this one. I need to go the hospital" I said calmly.

The clean cut coworker at his first party didn't drink or smoke (that's why he wasn't invited to parties much, I suppose) so he was nominated to drive me to the hospital.

"Look away, this may hurt a bit" Patty, one of the coworkers who lived there, told me. She was holding a towel.

I turned away and took a breath as she firmly pushed the towel against the wound. The feeling is hard to describe: the flaps being pushed back, the throb and spiraling dizziness, through the overwhelming sensations the relief of being cared for as she puts her other hand on my forehead for better purchase and clamps the towel fairly firmly against the wound. I take a gasping breath and the dizziness ebbs a little.

The wetness on my back had now soaked down several inches into the shirt down into my shoulder blades. Patty walks me carefully to the door - "slowly now" - she guides me down the steps and out to the car.

"Oh my God he's going to die in my mom's car and there will be bloodstains all over and my mom is going to kill me" the clean cut co-worker babbles as he starts the car and looks over as Patty puts me into the front passenger seat. She transitions to the back seat and keeps the pressure on my wound with her other hand on my forehead, clamping my head in place as we pull away from the curb and head to the hospital. I close my eyes and things kind of fade out a bit as my universe gets very small. I'm still experiencing the pain as a weird sort of intense feeling that doesn't hurt normally and I'm feeling quite shocky, sweaty and dizzy as the car moves.

Eventually they get my attention and we've stopped moving and we're at the hospital. It's hazy as we cross the emergency room and speak to the lady at the counter about insurance. "778-3964" I say. She picks up the phone and calls the number. After ringing for a while (it's 3 or 3:30 AM by now and mom worked this evening) my mom answers the phone. I zone out as the voices talk to each other - "your son is here with a head wound, can I get some information" and after a bit someone gets me up and takes me into a room.

They have me lie down and they poke needles into the open wound, injecting anesthetics. It makes me squirm some, and sweat more. They start stitching the inner portion of the wound, and I can still feel it a little as the needles loop through and the flesh is pulled together. I can feel the tightening of my scalp all the way to my face and it's very odd. Finishing the inner part they stitch together the outer part and my scalp and face tighten a little more. Tingling odd sensation. They finish and when I try to get up I find my arms are completely numb, so asleep that they won't function to lift me. They help me sit up.

I feel wide awake now, unlike when I came into the hospital. I wonder what they gave me in those last shots? They finish explaining how I care for the wound and what to watch for and tell me I can't wash my hair for 48 hours. I'm a big sweaty dude so I'm going to be pretty ripe by then.

I get up and head back to the waiting room. Patty and the clean cut co-worker look relieved to see me and we head back out to the car. Looks like we avoided any major blood stains in the car and things are much calmer as we drive back to the house.

We walk up into the house and the 5 or 6 remaining folk are all glad to see us. No sign of Dave, Cindy or Frank. Huh, maybe Frank drove them home? If so that would've been one frosty car ride, I guess.

Everyone insists that I need to lie down, I shouldn't go anywhere. I tell them I'd prefer to drive home while the drugs they shot me up with are still in effect since they are keeping me awake anyway but they insist so I go and lie down in the bedroom by the front door.

No chance I'll sleep so I lie on the bed, wondering what happened to everyone and staring at the ceiling.

I found out later what happened. Cindy was able to grab onto the door frame and catch herself so she watched me fall down the stairs behind the door to the far side of the landing 4' below the floor. I caught the back of my head on a ledge there, knocking myself out, and ended up lying in a spreading pool of blood around my head. Cindy ran from the house screaming "Oh my God I've killed him!"

Pete thought the thump/smash was Dave outside with his tree limb coming after Frank, so he was surprised to find me lying in a pool of blood on the stairs. He was able to wake me up and get me back up the stairs, which is where my memory kicks in and they took me to the hospital.

After I left Dave and Frank figured out some of what happened and went out to look for Cindy, Dave's earlier anger put aside. After that the party wound down a bit. That's pretty much what happened while I was at the hospital.

So I lay there wondering and I heard the front door opening and some voices. After a bit the bedroom door came open and Cindy came in looking very relieved to see me. She sat down on the bed beside me and smiled at me and she was so attractive! I realized my injured status gave me a free pass and I used it - sitting up and kissing her, still a little drunk, buzzing on something that keeps me awake, and intoxicated with the feel of Cindy, her smell, her lips on mine.

By the time Dave and Frank got back and Dave walked in Cindy and I had progressed to lying beside each other and fondling. Oops. I hate when that happens.

Dave's rage of earlier in the evening was nothing compared to this. Yet I had the messed up head and therefore had a free pass. He controlled himself, left the bedroom, and then screamed at everyone else. Cindy started to get up, but I held out my hand and stopped her. I told her about the free pass, and that Dave would just have to leave, which he did after a bit more yelling. Frank took Dave home, the door slammed closed, and it got much quieter in the living room. There were still a few voices, but they were much quieter.

Once the coast was clear Cindy and I got up, walked out of the bedroom, waved goodnight to our coworkers, and headed out to the truck for the drive home. I managed to get Cindy's phone number before I dropped her off. Oh well, maybe I'd get lucky on the second date...

Wiring the Neptune Theater

Fred was one of the more creative loons around back in the late seventies. He used to hang out with us when we worked at the Neptune Theater back then; we were showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday and Saturday night at Midnight so there were big crowds and lots of action. Nerds like Fred and I always had a bit of a hard time finding any action, so the RHPS was nice: a big party every Friday and Saturday night, and we were effectively invited!

Fred bought wrecked Cadillacs for next to nothing and put together souped up over engined super charged big convertibles and traveled in insane style. He found an app note on how to build a 72v amplifier using new power amplifier ICs. He bought 8 of them and mounted them in big heat sinks and built in a preamp stage; when he was done the amplifier was almost oo heavy for one person to move - some serious metal and heft there.. We ran the projector's sound into that.

Next we took a few hundred feet of high end audio wire and threaded it through a pipe to the space above the booth. From there we crawled through the beams under the ceiling that support the lath and plaster shell below us, rolling out wire behind us as we went. Back stage we brought down the wire and connected it to 2 huge "corner horn" folded Klipsch speakers with 15" drivers and expensive horn mid-range and tweeters. The best bass money could buy at that point, it was used to simulate sonic booms. Good stuff, very loud. Very, very loud. You know how car stereo fanatics overbuild their car systems to the point that the bass is painfully loud and unavoidable even outside of the car? The Netpune was like that, only huge.

Friday night at 11:45 they'd start letting the kids in. We're playing a Zoro serial with Hendrix's "Hey Joe" for sound while the seats start filling up. We wait until they start yelling "turn it up" and then we crank it. Hendrix's licks screaming and wailing, drums thumping heavily. Rocky Horror rocks out like never before, guitars and keyboards punchy and loud, bass booming away and resonating like mad. Sellout crowds with plenty of liquor and drugs being noisy completely drowned out by the Frankenstein sound system. Pretty darn cool!

The loudest bass noises notes ring and resonate, booming out into the auditorium and shaking your gut and vibrating your seat. The Neptune's booth was a concrete bunker designed to keep the noise of the projectors from escaping to the auditorium, so it's pretty well sound proofed. Concrete walls and double glassed windows make it hard to hear the sound during the movie from inside the booth so we have an extra speaker in the booth that we can turn up if needed. The noise with the new amp and speakers was so loud that it overwhelmed the sound proofing, thundering into the booth, drowning out the projector noise and making all the film reels rattle and shake. The empty big aluminum reels were shaking right off of the work space table top and dropping to the floor. Fred's power amp was hardly even warm, those new transistors were amazing!

I wandered down to the lobby and hung out in the concessions stand as the movie wound down and the bonus "There's A Light"/"Sweet Transvestite" secion kicks in, the Neptune always used to replay reel 2 at the end so that the audience left on a triumphant high with Frank the sweet transvestite still strutting his stuff, rather than lying dead and murdered. As the final words of Franks big intro ring out - "I see you shiver with antici" "Say it!" "...pation." Loud using his trained singing voice: "What may be the rain," quieter "isn't really to blame, So I'll remove the cause" - chuckle and lips twitching, "...but not the symptom" and the button is pushed and he disappears up the lift. The lights go on, the curtains open and it's a wrap, the show is over and the crowd starts ambling out.

The crowd wasn't as amped up as usual, more like shell shocked. At the time I thought they were very quiet, now I realize they might not have been quite as quiet as I was thinking, since my hearing probably took a little damage. Their's did too, though, and I think it really was quite a bit quieter than normal. The show that night was more of a sensory overload than usual, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show was pretty much always a sensory overload with loud rock music and rice and cards and toast flying through the air and everyone singing along and screaming their favorite interjections on cue. We hasd to put some effort into it, but we managed to overwhelm everyone's expectations.

Over the next week we installed stereo optical detectors for the sound in the projector using photodiodes and wired up a better input arrangement, giving us better sound and gain. We also turned it down a bit for the remaining weekends and only cranked it all the way up in private. We'd have a short stereo concert around 11:10 while the theater was empty, just before letting in the Rocky Horror Picture Show audience. A few buddies and I would play something by Chuck Berry or Led Zeppelin or a good synthesizer workout like "Funeral For A Friend" by Elton John (the system handled that sort of synthesized sine wave music brilliantly) and we'd go insane with the volume. We'd grab a soft drink and head up to the center of the balcony, front row, and enjoy our own custom built stereo cranked to painful levels in our huge listening room that seats more than 800 and feel like the coolest kids on the planet.

You never realize how good you have things at the time; I definitely had some peak experiences at the Neptune.

Concessions

My first regular job was as a concessionaire at the Neptune Theater. We sold over priced candy, popcorn and pop. The popcorn was manufactured in Eastern Washington, died yellow and salted, and sent to us in huge plastic bags. Nasty stuff. We kept a "butter" dispenser with this nasty greasy partially hydrogenated soybean oil in it for "buttering" the "popcorn."

The Neptune wasn't part of a local chain - the operators had a few screens tucked away here and there, but nothing within 100 miles of the Neptune. That meant we never bid enough to get the high demand movies, so we'd get the lesser films, the horror films and thrillers, and some soft core porn. Business wasn't great, but 2 people making barely over $2 an hour could run the place when the crowds were small, so they managed to stay in business.

I worked my way up to assistant manager pretty quickly - I had a key and the combination of the safe memorized and would open and close, do the paperwork and make the deposit. I also got trained as a projectionist, and even did a stint as a janitor. I even got to put the letters into the Neptune's sign above 45th there in the U-District.

In an uncharacteristically brilliant move the management decided to show "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at Midnight on Friday and Saturday. I think Pam Sprowl, the Neptune’s manager, promoted the idea to Rayleh Burns and the head office. There had been an earlier run at a local theater but it ended pretty quickly. The amount of business that was too small for them to bother with looked good to the Neptune's management, so we started showing it.

I remember Pam nervously hoping for a reasonable amount of business as we got ready for the first show. People were showing up outside by 11:15, so we told them to wait until 11:30 and we’d sell tickets. There were already a dozen or more people at 11:30 and by the time we closed the booth and shut the doors we sold well over one hundred tickets. In those days we were making the $2.35 minimum wage with the projectionist and manager making a bit more so staff cost maybe $50-$75 for the movie so we were making money. On top of that we sold another $2 or $3 on concessions per person and that was 85% profit too. That first crowd was fairly quiet, but within 2 or 3 weeks the crowd size tripled and the crowd got much louder and rowdier.

We got more business each night than we normally got in a week or two. It was crowded, loud, and happening. The crowd would smuggle beer, booze, pot, and other drugs in and get hammered. The crowds kept increasing quickly and we started selling the venue out - in the neighborhood of 800 tickets, at up to $2.50 each, for a huge $2,000 haul. Concessions and the regular show added another $1-2,000. It was huge to us at the time, anyway. I remember being fascinated by the challenge of getting some of the bigger deposits into the little locking deposit bag.

I became the primary ticket seller for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I got very fast - I sold 800 tickets in 40 minutes, that's 20 tickets per minute. Things got crazy and out of control as the crowd got bigger and more drunk and stoned. After a particularly bad weekend with fights breaking out, repeated vandalism including toilet and sink destruction and drug addled customers threatening to get their guns and come back and kill us the staff decided that we needed a change.

We met with the management and they agreed to hire a rent-a-cop for security. Officer Bob Franzen joined us and things never got as out of control again, thank goodness. On the rare occasion that some idiot couldn't be convinced to leave then Bob dealt with them, efficiently and with a minimum of brutality. I felt my whole teenage cop hate (those bozos want to bust me and my friends just because we want to party) going away, and I came to appreciate having the man around to deal with hassles so we didn't have to. Much.

Show Time

When I was young I tried drinking beer a couple of times and loathed it. Joe and I snuck a couple of Dad's Rainiers out to the horse shed in the horse pasture I grew up next to and tried them. Out shivering on a cold evening, maybe 14 years old, whispering with Joe as we opened the bottles and sipped from them. We tried to hide our disgust but it was obvious neither of us could stand them. Blech!

Years later I was working at the Rocky Horror Picture Show, selling 800 tickets in 50 minutes on a Friday in August, drenched in sweat on a hot summer night locked into a little glass booth out on the sidewalk on 45th.

I had my left hand on the ticket machine buttons and my right hand held the money - a wad of ones and fives. I had my money tray on my lower right side, ticket machine a big metal monstrosity in front of me (you kind of straddled it with your legs) and the FM radio's stereo speakers on the floor pointing up at me blasting away.

I had a system: the ones in my right hand were on the visible side where I could count them off quickly with my thumb and the fives were hidden behind the ones. When I needed a five I reached with my left hand and pulled it off the bottom of the stack.

As the customer stepped up and indicated the number of tickets I'd push the appropriate button with my left hand and start counting change out with my right, making additional passes with the left to the money tray to deal with tens and twenties if needed. As the cash piled up I would count up bundles of 20 ones and 20 fives while waiting for the customers to get to the window slot and tell me how many tickets they wanted. Eventually enough would pile up that I could bundle 20 twenties too. I'd fold the bundles of 20 and put them in the money tray.

By the time I sold out in 50 minutes I'd have the first pass of counting 90% or more done with a few left to count. I quickly recount my bundles, count and recout the loose money, fill in the paperwork and add it all up and sign off quickly, within the first 15 or 20 minutes of the doors opening.

As I was feeling parched, tired, and also satisfied - the numbers all came out correctly and the hard part of my evening was over - officer Bob came in with a trash can full of beer. He pulled open the fridge and started cramming in bottles and cans. As I finished and signed the paperwork he winked at me and went on back out of the office. I wandered over to the fridge and decided to try a beer one more time. There were several different types, so I tried one of the fancier looking types. It was good and cold, the RHPS fan must have bought it just before coming to the theater. It was so good it amazed me.

A good cold beer when you're hot sure hit the spot. One of the many lessons I learned at the Neptune.

Cruising

The Neptune had been showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show for a few years, but we still didn't get good movies very often. The big chains would bid more for the better films, so we mostly got the b-list stuff. Then Al Pacino did Cruising, a movie with gay sex and S&M and public orgies that had the homosexual community in an uproar.

The local chains didn't want to offend an important element of their customers and critics, so they didn't bid or didn't bid much. The Neptune got the rights to show Cruising and the circus began.

The Neptune was already a bit ahead of the curve on queer culture: we were showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which included a gay wedding between Frank N. Furter (in bustier and skimpy briefs) and Rocky Horror (his creation, a tall tanned blond muscular dude with half of Eddie the biker's brain) followed by Frank then seducing both Brad and Janet on the night they got engaged to each other. Our manager was Doug Dutton, a funny shorter dude who always wore a mustache and was totally gay.

After a quick huddle with the Burns, who ran the Neptune at the time, Doug held a press conference and acknowledged the controversy behind the movie. Doug felt that he could not condemn a movie unseen, and therefore invited the Seattle press to stay and watch the movie with him so that they could form their own opinions about it.

We got to stay and watch the movie too, which was actually kind of cool. When you were working you rarely got to see more than 10 minutes of a movie at a time, and you only came on your day off if at was a good movie - and the Neptune didn't get too many of those. For once we saw a movie together, the whole staff, which was an interesting experienced - binding with my coworkers through the movie and then after as Doug addressed the press again. As homosexual identity politics, commercial and artistic interests all tugged and stressed against each other we sipped our free soft drinks and ate the nasty popcorn.

The movie was well made and somewhat difficult. Someone was brutally murdering members of the gay S&M club fringe, so a cop had to enter the scene undercover as they try to crack the case. No explicit horribly nasty stuff, but lots of implicit horribly nasty sexual stuff if you had any imagination: guys greasing up their fist and arm, followed by guys on saddles squirming as the angles change and the camera cuts from here to there. Our hero ending up tied up in bed with a man he just picked up in an S&M bar, and of course a sadistic serial killer with all kinds of kinks and twists that may be tied up in his sexual identity.

Doug told the assembled reporters "this movie is about a fringe group that does exist. Their behavior doesn't represent anything like the spectrum of behavior in homosexual society today, but this movie doesn't try to claim that. I believe in freedom of expression and I will do my job normally as the Neptune Theater shows Cruising."

With all of the additional publicity it was packed on Friday, opening night. Doug's boss Rayleh Burns was there, normally we didn't see her much. I was the fastest ticket seller by far, but Rayleh didn't like the way I looked. I was over weight and long haired and not well groomed. She had them send out Mark a more acceptable choice. He sucked at selling tickets, though, and after using up 40 minutes he had sold maybe 120 tickets. With 30 minutes to go until showtime he was only going to get 200 in. Rayleh finally cracked and sent me out to sell tickets. Hah! Victory tasted sweet! I had the remaining 700 tickets sold and the customers in the house before the previews were over. There were cameras for a couple of TV broadcasts and some protesters. Across the street was the most stereotypically over the top homosexual - feminized, wearing mesh hose and something frilly and lacy, maybe a bustier, high heeld black leather shoes - holding a sign and marching back and forth. Across the street from him were a bunch of soused frat boys yelling "Faggot!" and other equally brilliant epithets at him. Across the street from both were TV mobile crews filming brief bits and background bits. I sat in my little glass booth on 45th selling tIckets and taking it all in.

Once I got the crowd into the theater and the TV crews left it got quieter, and by the start of second show the last of the protesters drifted away. It was already an unusually good day for the Neptune - 2 sellouts with full ticket prices and we still had the Rocky Horror Picture Show to go. I took the cash and the tickets in, balanced the books and kept the better part of $4,000 in the locked drawer in the office and headed back out to sell out Rocky. No queer vs. straight tension, no glare of the TV cameras, just a young hedonistic crowd out looking for a good time. At $2 a pop I was happy to give it to them. It was a BYOB or maybe BYOD affair. By showing up at 11 you could buy a ticket and crowd in under the marquee by the entrance. You now have about 45 minutes before the doors open to finish off all the beer, smoke your weed, and do whatever else you have lined up.

The doors open and the crowd shuffles forward, pausing to get patted down by officer Bob. A pile of rice, cards, and beer soon builds up next to Bob.

I finish selling out my 800 tickets, lock the front slot and gather the money and tickets, hitting the buzzer. Once the door to the lobby opens I unlock the booth, let myself out, and lock it behind me with my key. I zip through the door into the lobby, down the ramp past the crowded concession stand and into the office.

Taking the prime seat behind the desk in the empty office I set down the money and tickets and get out the paperwork. I slow down a little, hoping that officer Bob will show up soon and stock up the fridge with confiscated beer. It's no wonder I'm overweight, I get all the free beer I can drink every Friday and Saturday.

The Neptune didn't manage to sustain the good luck of Cruising so we went back to b-list movies and revivals and let the Rocky Horror Picture Show carry the load.

The Ticket Booth

I spent a fair amount of my adolescence in a little glass booth on the sidewalk on 45th in the U District selling tickets at the Neptune. Almost every Friday and Saturday night from 1977 on past 1980 I sold tickets for the Rocky Horror Picture Show.



The booth was octagonal with glass from waist height up in front and to the sides, with a locking door behind. The booth was "outside" - the doors into the Neptune are behind it, and the public can walk all the way around the booth. The top of the booth approaches the bottom of the theater marquee so it looks built in and it's pretty solid.
The Rocky Horror crowd was usually pretty amiable. We had a good understanding worked out. They'd line up - claim their territory - starting from the right-most front door as you enter, which was my left-most door since I faced the street in the booth. The line would move back to the side walk, then West in front of the neighboring business, then wrap around the corner down onto Brooklyn. On a really nice summer evening at it's peak the line would then continue down Brooklyn along the Neptune and past it a further half block. A spontaneous block party every Friday and Saturday night, with cases of beer consumed and weed and pills and 'shrooms and who knows what all getting passed around and consumed.

I got along well with the crowd. I sold them their tickets and I was unfailingly nice and polite. An occasional belligerent drunk or really drugged out person needed to be dealt with, but I'd just hit the buzzer so that somebody inside would come out to deal with it. I was out there alone and couldn't leave the money unattended, so I was always somewhat isolated from the crowd. I was the dude who sold tickets but not the dude you drank or got high with. I kept a certain distance from the crowd and the fans. Not always, of course, but mostly, anyway.

I'd buzz along selling tickets and counting money and keeping an eye on the front of the crowd under the lights. We kept the crowd over on the West side so that the audience leaving the 9-ish show could leave using the East doors and avoid colliding with all of the drunk and stoned enthusiasts already camped out in front of the theater. We usually didn't have terribly large crowds for the regular movies so the doors wouldn't be open that long as the workers chased out the last of the regular crowd and restocked for Rocky. I almost never saw much of this end of things until after the movie started since I'd be out front selling tickets then locked in the office counting the money and filling out the forms.

I mostly got along well with the crowd, but we did run into one issue that was challenging. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is rated R which means nobody under 17 is admitted without a parent or guardian. This is a voluntary system in the US, so there is no actual legal requirement to enforce it. For the first year we pretty much ignored that and sold tickets to anybody who wanted them. We got complaints. More importantly someone complained to Twentieth Century Fox and the distributor. Our management was called and threatened with losing the film if we didn't enforce the limit.

I was told not to sell tickets to anyone below 17. I got some reaction from the crowd, but I told them we had to enforce it or we'd lose the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fortunately there was a crowd of sympathetic fans standing around so I'm sure the kids got in anyway by having somebody else buy their tickets. I no time the average purchase went from 2 tickets to 6, and I don't think the crowd got any older.

We got further complaints, though, and the manager asked me how the underage kids were getting in. I told them the obvious answer - their friends buy their tickets. So the rules were revised: only 2 tickets per customer.

I didn't make the rule, and as a recent 16 year old myself I didn't appreciate the attempt to "ruin the fun" but I was honest and did my job as directed. For the first time I had to deal with a fair amount of annoyance from my customers and there wasn't that much I could do about it. I took it as a challenge to be unfailingly polite and positive, even chipper, about the whole thing. That mostly helped keep people from getting too upset so the most common unfavorable response was a "that sucks/is stupid" or an expletive or a grumble. I'm sure the kids mostly still got in, but at least we had finally made it a slightly obnoxious process. Apparently that was good enough because the distributor quit complaining and threatening to yank the film.

I finally had one asshole customer who got terribly upset by the 2 ticket limit and couldn't be calmed down. After arguing with me for 3 or 4 minutes he finally gave in and bought his 2 tickets. I handed him the tickets and change and he punched the glass window of the booth right in front of my face and cracked it. After 3 minutes of being nice to this asshole's escalating unpleasantness I was incensed. If I could have reached him I would've grabbed him and started pounding. Unfortunately he was on the other side of the cracked glass, I was locked into a little booth and surrounded by drunk and stoned fans who hadn't even noticed the action, and I couldn't leave the booth and the money. I hit the buzzer and held it down. In the minute it took for someone to come out the asshole had disappeared down the street and around the corner. We never saw him again.

Working in that booth taught me important lessons about empathy. I was stuck implementing a policy I didn't particularly like or believe in, that's how it works when you're the peon who has to deal with the public. The geniuses who dream thesre policies up won't get caught within a mile of the public, perish the thought. So when you're tempted to take your petty annoyance out on the poor employee who has to deal with you remember that he or she probably has to deal with ten or a hundred times more annoyance than you do. It's not their fault, and while being an asshole to someone who doesn't deserve it may make you feel better it also makes you an asshole.

I also learned positive lessons in empathy. By consistently being friendly, positive, and professional no matter how outlandishly the customer wsa dressed, no matter how freakish their behavior, no matter how drug addled, and just getting the needed business done cleanly and correctly with a minimum of fuss, I actually enjoyed a fair amount of empathy and sympathy from the crowd. I was able to use that to get the crowd to respond to my orders on several occasions.

I remember a late Fall day around 11:30, it had gotten dark early and was cool and damp. The crowd by the front door was up to it's usual antics lighting up bong hits. They were behind me and to the left and the crowd blocked the view from the street, so they felt pretty safe toking away. They knew the routine - the doors wouldn't open for 10 minutes yet so they were aggressively getting their buzzes on. I was facing away from them and politely not watching, but I could see the flickers of the lighters reflected in the window that faced the opposite direction. It made an interesting orange flickering overlay on the angled panel, moving and flickering for 5 or 10 seconds then stopping as the next bong hit was completed. Then I noticed another flickering orange light that lasted a bit longer and started to spread. Huh? I turned and looked and I saw that one of the regulars was holding his lighter up to the "You will be subject to search on entry" sign on the front door.

I could picture it: stoned, buzzing, a little reaction to the authoritarian tone of the sign, a little pyromania, the next thing you know you're lighting the sign and the flames look cool as you buzz along...

I sang in the choir at school since the 7th grade so I knew how to use my diaphragm and had training. I took a deep breath, leaned back in my chair against the door, opened the lock and stuck my head out the door towards the corner where the bone head was lighting the poster-board and boomed out "Hey asshole put that out right now!"

The acoustics out there are pretty good - a stone floor and a reasonably low and sonically "bright" roof to enclose sound, and the idiot was in the corner where the walls would focus my voice.

He literally jumped in the air at my voice and whipped his hands out and brushed out the fire before he landed. He turned away from me and his head slumped - he did not want to meet my eye. I knew this guy from selling him tickets 20 times already even if I didn't know his name, and he knew me too. He didn't want to get permanently kicked out and I knew he'd never do anything like that again, so I just pulled my head back in, locked the door, and turned to the next customer and said "how many tickets?"

It did give me an odd perspective - I always thought of myself as the lowest of the low, the guy they send out to deal with the public so they don't have to. I hadn't really noticed that still left me in a position of power as far as the public was concerned.

The window getting cracked in my face was my worst experience in the booth, and considering I sold tickets to over 100,000 Rocky Horror fans who had been drinking, smoking and drugging for an indeterminate amount of time I'd say I got off pretty lucky.

I took one day off on a Friday so I could get to bed early since I had to take my SAT at 8AM in the morning so they had someone else sell tickets to Rocky for the first time in over a year. That night some big dude got thrown out for fighting and decided to try to break into the booth by kicking in the back door. My coworker told me about sitting in that little booth, watching this 6' 6" dude taking huge front kicks at the door, watching the door bow and crack as he held the button down for dear life, praying for officer Bob to get out there quick and deal with the situation. Nothing that bad ever happened when I was there. Apparently officer Bob came out before the nut job could get through the door and proceeded to take him down and sit on him until backup police came and cuffed and arrested him and hauled him away. I'm almost sorry I missed it, but being there for violence always turns out to be an unpleasant experience, more funny in the telling than the living. I just don't like being around violence.

Most Friday and Saturday nights weren't that crazy, though. On most weekends a loud verbal altercation or a puking idiot was about the worst you dealt with.

After letting the crowds in 3 or 4 of us would go out in a group and bag up all the trash and sweep up the broken glass. A few hundred people can consume an amazing amount of beer and they weren't shy about it. Since we'd hired officer Bob they couldn't bring it in any more, so they just got there an hour early with a group and drank a case or two before getting in.

I suppose most people wouldn't fondly remember sweeping up broken glass and cleaning up puke but for me it was an integral part of a fascinating adolescence. It kept me out of trouble, anyway.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Experience

The Rocky Horror crowd had an amazing amount of regulars. The same people came again and again week after week. Their friends were all going to be there, the pre-show sidewalk party was cheap, and they got to hang out in a theater and throw rice and cards. If you were out of weed somebody would usually share, and if you were underage you could find someone to make a beer run there. I'm sure we had dealers working the crowd as well - a full service semi-spontaneous block party every Friday and Saturday night from roughly 11 to 12.

Rocky Horror on the Werewolf circuit brought out the odd behavior in the crowd. The regulars smuggled rice in, so that during the opening wedding scene when the wedding guests throw rice on the bride and groom it starts flying all over the auditorium of the Neptune. It catches the projector light so you can see it pretty clearly in the darkened theater. You'll usually end up with a bit in your hair and in your clothes.

A quick side note: I enjoyed working the Rocky Horror midnight movies, but I sure didn't enjoy cleaning up after them. Movie theaters always get spilled soft drinks on the floor, and the rice and cards end up in it, then it gets semi-dry and sticky and it is really difficult to remove. I learned that not all honest labor was for me when I worked at the Neptune. I did some janitor work, but I passed it on to someone else as soon as I could.

Next up are the lines - speaking lines, that is. By some organic non-verbal collective process the crowd has worked out a script for itself. At an assortment of opportune moments in the film the audience interjects it's own dialog. When done right it sounds like an integral part of the show.

When Brad and Janet enter the castle the first time Janet says "Brad, what kind of place is this?" and Brad replies "It's probably some kind of hunting lodge for rich weirdos." That's the cue for the audience to shout "Rich weirdos are the best weirdos!" This interjection is amusing, but I like the ones that feel integral to the script.

When Janet and Rocky are discovered together they do an odd repeated take to show the shock:
Brad with anguish or anger or maybe surprise in has tone: "Janet!"
Janet in shame and embarrassment: "Brad!"
Dr. Scott in surprise: "Janet"
Janet: "Dr. Scott!"
Frank: "Rocky!"
...and then Rocky is shown looking back at Frank; Rocky never speaks dialog, he only sings on occasion. He does grunt at the dinner table, though. Then the whole sequence is repeated before it continues with Frank threatening Rocky.

The audience has decided that we need to verbalize Rocky's silent response, so at the Neptune you get:
"Janet!"
Brad!"
"Janet!"
"Dr. Scott!"
"Rocky!"
Crowd grunts as Rocky looks at Frank.
"Janet!"
Brad!"
"Janet!"
"Dr. Scott!"
"Rocky!"
Crowd grunts as Rocky looks at Frank.

Somehow I found the rhythm there much more compelling, like it was scripted for that bit of crowd participation. It flows better, I suppose. If I was in the auditorium when that scene rolled I always had to grunt along with the audience, helping provide poor Rocky's soundtrack for him.

At it's peak the vast majority of the audience knew every scripted bit and participated enthusiastically. Somehow that wasn't enough participation.

The audience took to dressing up as characters in the film. With the bustiers and skimpy outfits it gave me something interesting to look at from the booth on occasion, but the costume crowd didn't focus on the pre-show as much, and when they did with the Seattle weather they mostly had to cover up outside anyway. Their focus was the stage.

The Neptune had a stage in front of the screen back in those days. It was fairly wide and moderately deep, maybe 25' or 30' by 10'. The best Frank, Rocky, Brad, Janet, Magenta, Columbia, Riff Raff, Eddie and Dr. Scott in the crowd would get up on the stage and act the film out in real time. Different actors and actresses would sometimes play the character for different costume changes.

Further props were pulled out by the audience too. When Frank sings his last lament and gets to the "cards for sorrow, cards for pain" line and makes a throwing motion with his hands the cards go flying. People smuggle decks of cards in and hand them out, so as Frank gestures the cards go flying through the projector lights, flickering and flashing and adding a surreal depth to the show.

The movie plays out on the screen, the more or less meticulously costumed players up on the stage just below the screen act it out, rice and cards and who knows what all fly, lines are joyously shouted out by the crowd, drugs and drinks smuggled past officer Bob are shared, couple make out, strangers make out, crowds hang out in the upstairs Women's lounge and the couches under the balcony and the halls and socialize and flirt. Employees in their RHPS tee shirts and later in bowling shirts scurry about restocking, cleaning and counting up, patrolling and keeping things under control.

For some reason the Neptune always showed an additional chunk - after the ending of the movie as the credits roll to the Time Warp we queue up Brad and Janet's entry into the castle on the other reel and switch right back into it, running through the intro of Riff Raff and Magenta and the whole Transylvanian convention doing the Time Warp and into Frank's big entrance number, "Sweet Transvestite."

The movie ends with Frankie - "so I'll remove the cause, but not the symptom!" blasting up in the elevator and the crowd surges for the exits talking and enjoying the buzz of another fun Midnight Rocky Horror experience.

The last 4 or 5 employees hover in the concessions stand, waiting for the crowd to leave so that they could go check the rest rooms and back stage and get all of the doors locked. We learned to do a quick scan of the seating area once the lights were up, people sometimes left the most surprising things, but that's another story.

Religion in the U District

Working at the Neptune during the Rocky Horror Picture Show I met plenty of people who's philosophy of life could be summed up as "whoopie!" While some of them may have considered themselves religious, they were mostly hedonists and not too concerned about morality.

Sitting out in the little glass box office on the sidewalk I'd watch the Hare Krishna's (that's what I called them, after the repetitive chant that they'd continue for an hour or more) on some Fridays and occasional weekdays up the street near the intersection of 45th and the Ave. I can still hear the drums in my memory - bump-a-bum, bump-a-bum, as the voices chanted. It got oddly hypnotic and strangely comforting, although I had no idea what exactly it was all about at the time. Some religious thing from India, apparently.

My favorite religious activity involved the Scientologists, though. I like to discuss and argue, and one time as I walked down the Ave a clean cut young couple approached me and started asking questions. "If you knew a way to improve everyones lives, a way to overcome mental and physical issues, wouldn't you want to share it?" and so on.

I was happy to engage them and discuss things, but they pretty quickly figured out that I was a complete waste of their time. Their arguments were not convincing in general, and once they tried to get specific they just got ridiculous. They gave up after 5 minutes without any sign of traction with me. I was disappointed that they gave up so easily, I enjoyed the argument. Oh well, I had to head to work shortly anyway.

I noticed that they worked the Ave all of the time, and I started watching for them and horning in on the discussion when they had a live one on. (Sorry for the fishing metaphor, it's a family thing). I'm sure they hated that, I'd demolish their arguments and get them sidetracked, often allowing the victim to sneak away while they were distracted. For some reason I find hard to explain I enjoyed messing with them.

Pretty quickly they learned to take their lunch break as soon as they saw me coming. Sigh, all my fun came to an end.

The U District has some great progressive churches that do many good things and run food banks and other charitable operations but I pretty much ignored them. Not enough controversy or interest for me there - I was a pretty shallow dude as a teenager. Faith wasn't a large portion of my life at the time.

How I Got My Job

Paul and I were friends since grade school. His parents were part owners of a chain of theaters that included the Neptune, so we'd bus down to the Neptune from our homes in Edmonds, hang out in the U-District, and watch the shows. I thought that was pretty cool.

One weekend Paul asked if I could count the number of people coming through the door. "Don't be too obvious about it" he told me.

I didn't think too much about it, saying "sure, I can do that." I sat up the ramp towards the balcony with my back to the wall and kept a tally as the doors opened and the customers trickled in. There weren't all that many, less than 50, but I don't remember the total after all this time.

I hadn't considered why I was asked to count, I just figured they were nice enough to let me see movies for free so I was happy to help out.

Once the show started I gave the tally to Paul, who handed it over to one of the owners. Shortly after that the assistant manager (who took tickets at the door) and the cashier (who sat in the box office selling tickets) were called into the office.

After a while they came out looking upset and left. It turns out the owners had been suspicious that the employees were stealing box office revenue, but every time they came and kept count the numbers matched. Yet if they weren't there the box office always dropped by 20 or so people, so they figured the employees were smart enough to stop stealing if the owners were there.

They didn't see me as a threat since Paul and I were there fairly often, so they went ahead and stole and got caught and were fired. The scam was pretty obvious. As the assistant manager stood at the door and took tickets she was supposed to tear them in half, giving half back to the customer. Many customers don't pay attention to this or don't want the stub, so she'd palm the un-torn ticket, wait for a pause in the flow of customers, and take the tickets out to be re-sold by the cashier.

Now the ticket numbers and the counter in the ticket machine would show fewer sales than they had actually made, and they would pocket the difference, splitting it between them, when they counted up the receipts.

I felt a little guilty about getting someone fired - I had been completely blank about why they asked me to count people. The owner then turned around and offered me a job on the spot, which made me feel a bit more guilty - but not so guilty that I didn't take the job.

Working at the theater seemed like a cool job - the work wasn't hard or boring the way the paper-boy job I had the prior summer or the lawn mowing I did on occasion were, and the perks were very nice. I could usually get into other theaters, as long as they weren't selling out, by having the manager call the manager of the other theater and ask them.

I saw quite a few movies as a teen, and I didn't pay for very many at all. Occasionally a movie I wanted to see like Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" would be "no passes" and I'd have to pay, but that was OK.

So I got my job by unknowingly getting someone else fired, probably a pretty apt metaphor for life in corporate America now that I think about it.

How I Lost My Job

I went to work at the Neptune when I was 15. I was employed in concessions and as a cashier, projectionist, janitor and assistant manager. From the age of 15 to 20 I never missed a day.

I got my first girlfriend a job at the Neptune. Eventually she got to be the assistant manager and we broke up and working together was a drag. One weekend day I missed the bus to the U-District. The next one was in 30 minutes, so I was late. I called in and said I wasn't going to be able to make it on time. She said then don't bother coming in at all, you're fired.

It surely was for the best, we both needed to move on, but I took it poorly. I got crash space from my sister and would lie around feeling sorry for myself. Eventually Greg dragged me to a fast food joint where I got slightly better than minimum wage for an honest if unpleasant job. Mopping p, cleaning the fryer, frying burgers, and deep frying stuff was all mildly unpleasant, but the worst job by far was changing the grease out of the fryer.

I don my protective vest and apron, then lower the face guard and put on the big hand guards so that I can lift the vat of blisteringly hot oil, straining to hold the hot metal with sloshing frying grease away from my body and steady enough that it doesn't slosh out, as I shuffle across the room, out the door, and across the parking lot, with my arms and shoulders getting tired and cramped, the nasty crackling sound as the hot grease hits the water that has condensed over the prior layer of grease in the barrel and splatters - nothing has ever got me more motivated to do a high tech job: they pay so much better, the conditions are much nicer, and the job is much more fun.

Pretty quickly I was able to find gainful employment programming robots, but that's a different story for another time.

Give Me A Lever And I Will Move the Observable Universe

Lane had to be one the worst managers they ever got at the Neptune.

One of the funnier things I ever saw happen was when the most attractive candidate (who else would Lane pick?) who was running the projector had a problem. She threaded up and started the film normally, but the image was not centered and reached over off the screen.

A janitor and another dude, both reasonably big guys, volunteered to help out and were soon wrassling with the projector, the huge, operating, cast iron base tipping and sliding a bit as they worked at it.

I was out in the booth selling tickets. I was the most experienced projectionist there that day, but Lane gave the position to the cutie who had little training. One of the concessionaires was watching through the curtain and saw the whole image tipping and moving, and a curious saw wave looking thing over to the side, all moving around and jumping, and figured "that can't be right!" and came out and got me.

As I came in and ran up the ramp I saw the image tip and fall back through the curtain. Awesome, if scary! The sound track was clearly visible, a vertical bar that thickened and flickered if there as any sound. The fix for this sort of thing was always in the aperture, that little square metal window right at the light focus next to the film that determines where the light is cut off. It should always cover the sound track.

I ran on up to the booth and in, and told the boys to step away from the projector. Moving up beside the projector and opening the cover over the film path I reach in to the aperture and pull out the removable frame which was loose, clean it, and put it back in until it locked in place. Now the image was properly framed and the sound track was hidden, but it was way over to the left, partially off the screen.

I stepped to the back of the booth and picked up the funny looking fat club, put it under the rear of the projector and lifted and levered the base back maybe a quarter inch. Dropping the club and moving it back, then up and to the left again I did another quarter inch. It took 10 or 12 passes to undo the 3 inches and line it back up in the center of the screen at the front of the auditorium.

I didn't say much, just left the club and walked back out of the booth, down the ramps and out to the box office.

Corporate Jungle and Carnivores

We had quite a few different managers over the years at the Neptune. Most of them were easy enough to work with, so as long as you did your job well they were fine with you.

One in particular was more dishonest and lousier to work for than most. He'd give the higher paying position to the most attractive woman almost every time, even though I was much better at the job and would have to bail the woman out if she didn't know what she was doing. Bear in mind, this isn't a sex based thing on my part; it is from the manager's point of view - he selected them based on his preferences. I resented them for being lousy at the job that I was better at, that paid more, that they didn't deserve. Having to show them what they were doing wrong just rubbed the unfairness in. I'd have felt the same way if it were men he was appointing.

This manager was actively dishonest. He ran the normal ticket reselling scam at least 2 or 3 times that I know about, so I assume he ran it way more than that. He held an employee meeting - morale was low, and he didn't understand that his poor qualities as a leader were largely to blame. He decided to pump us up.

"I don't mind stealing from the company. We can all do well if we steal from the company." Words more or less to that effect. Pretty mind boggling. He was older than the rest of us, the only adult in a sense - we were all college or high school students at least a few years younger than him. He confused younger with stupid and/or safe, which was a mistake.

His words were recorded by a tape recorder hidden in a jacket. I was at the meeting where the recording was played to Rayleh, the corrupt manager's boss. I suppose I was there as an additional witness to the dishonest boss's statements, they all new I was painfully honest. Rayleh fired the manager and hired the college kid who had the organization and skills to record and turn in the boss as the new boss.

He ended up being one of the better bosses and was completely honest as far as I could tell. It probably comes as no surprise that he ended up being a lawyer. Given the adversarial nature of our system of justice, the guy who rose to the top of the Neptune heap may be the best bet for your lawyer.

His path to the top reminds me of how I got my job at the Neptune, over the figurative corpse of your competitors career. As I said there, a pretty apt metaphor for life in corporate America.

Bat Out of Hell

We had been showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show for almost a year and we were selling out regularly. Meatloaf was going to be in town for a weekend show so we got some tickets and I arranged to have someone else cover the earlier shows at the Neptune for me that night. I suppose not everyone is into the Rocky Horror Picture Show so I should spell it out: Meatloaf plays Eddy, the biker/sax player, in the movie.

Dave A. was a friend at school who was in the choir with me and I ended up bringing him along to the Meatloaf concert and then to work. The Meatloaf show was great - it was a KZOK Rising Star show so it only cost $1.02. It was at the Paramount, I venue I've always liked. A big old school classy palatial theater with a huge balcony and ornate light fixtures and details and interior multiple floor open spaces with balconies above concessions that seats several thousand or at least over 1,000 - one of the coolest venues left in town. I think a Microsoft millionaire bought it and restored it, so it's a better venue than ever now.

The band came on first and was doing a simple vamp. The pianist Steinman came out and made an elaborate production of taking off his two sets of gloves, putting on a clinic in psyching up the audience through physical showmanship and flamboyant piano performance. He got us yelling and brought the emotional temperature up, and Meatloaf didn't disappoint us - he took the temperature even higher.


He had an amazing voice, loud, strong, powerful, and on pitch. Paradise by the Dashboard Light was a high point featuring Meatloaf and a powerful (and gorgeous) alto going toe to toe singing, more musical theater than rock show, but definitely in a rock musical vein. Bat Out of Hell rocked out, 2 Out of 3 (Ain;t Bad) was OK, and All Dressed Up With No Place To Go featured Meatloaf throwing his mike aside and bellowing at the top of his lungs, still able to be heard above the amplified guitars, bass and keyboards. Definitely one of the better vocal performances I have ever heard, especially in terms of power and volume.

After the show wrapped up (and boy did we get our monies worth!) we piled back into the Dodge Dart and drove back to the Neptune. Dave went in and sat down while I went out and sold tickets to the freaks. After 30 minutes a weaselly looking guy in a black leather coat shows up. "I'm Meatloaf's manager and he was wondering if he could come in and visit with the crowd."

It sounded like a good idea to me, so I hit the buzzer to call for help from inside and when someone came out I told them "this is Meatloaf's manager, take him in to see our manager so that he can arrange to talk to the crowd" and in he went. A while later, after the doors were open and the last of the crowd was filing in a limo pulled up and Meatloaf and a few people got out and headed into the theater. I was stuck outside finishing tickets sales, then in the locked office counting up so I didn't get to see Meatloaf's performance, but I heard the highlights secondhand.

Meatloaf was up on the stage talking shit with the audience and it went well. The theater was full and crowded with a loud and enthusiastic crowd. They yelled when they realized Meatloaf was on stage with a microphone. He raised his arms for silence and got a decrease in the noise.

"How many of you have seen this movie before?" and the crowd start yelling and carrying on.
"How many have seen it five times?" and the yelling gets louder.
"How many have seen it 25 times?" and fewer people yell, but there are still plenty.
"How many people have seen it 50 times?" and many continue yelling.
"You assholes are full of shit!" he bellows at the crowd, smiling widely as they roar back, obviously enjoying himself and thriving on the attention.

I always wished I had seen that, or better yet had a recording. It's too bad we didn't have modern inexpensive video recording technology back then, all of those quirky live costume performances are gone forever, and one off appearances like that really don't leave much of a trail.

After the show was over and the crowd was filing out I went in to get Dave. He looked a little pale and overwhelmed, but in a good way. Not surprisingly he enjoyed the experience and ended up working at the theater shortly after that. Getting to bring your friends to the movies was one of the nice perks of working there.