I never saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. It’s been almost twenty years since I first even considered it. I lied to my parents on New Year’s Eve 1979-1980, saying that’s where I was headed. I ended up getting drunk for the first time instead.

All my friends in high school and even into college had seen it, many of them numerous times. None of them could believe that I never had. After a while, I started seeing it as a sort of badge of honor. I decided I’d never see it. I consciously avoided it on video and anyplace else. It became sort of an understated running gag.

Tonight, I decided “enough is enough”. I sat down to watch it for the very first time on VH-1. I was even a little excited.

After about 45 minutes, I realized I’d completely lost interest and changed the channel. I didn’t get it, it wasn’t funny, and I just didn’t care. This isn’t my “cerebral inner critc” speaking. God knows, I watch some flat-out crap and absolutely love it. Maybe you just need to see “Rocky Horror” in a theatre full of intoxicated 18-year-olds in order to fully appreciate it. Or to appreciate it all.

Color me severely disappointed after a 20-year wait. But at least I can still say I never really saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

While I’m at it, here are some other defining cultural moments of my generation which I’ve missed:

• I never played Pac-Man (or any of its derivatives).
• I never read “The Outsiders” (but I think that was more of a “girl thing” anyway).
• I never talked on a CB.
• I watched “Guiding Light” instead of “General Hospital”.
• I never lived in a dorm.
• I never made the switch from briefs to boxers and probably never will.
• The first “Star Wars” movie is still the only one I’ve ever seen.

I’m so ashamed…

Friday night rituals over the years:

• 1972: The Brady Bunch. The Partridge Family. Room 222. The Odd Couple. Love, American Style.
• 1977: Stay home. Get depressed because I don’t have any friends.
• 1979: Football games. Smoke cigarettes. Impress potential friends.
• 1980: Go to the mall. Smoke cigarettes. Get stoned with new friends. Come home and pretend I’ve been doing neither. Fool no one.
• 1981: Work at McDonald’s. Smoke cigarettes. Come home and pretend I’m not depressed about the fact that I no longer have friends since I no longer get stoned.
• 1984: Radio show. Smoke cigarettes. Pretend I’m not depressed about not having a boyfriend.
• 1985: Drive drunk to the queer bar in Winston Salem with friends. Get still drunker. Misplace cigarettes several times. Drive home. Pretend this isn’t a problem.
• 1990: Spend the evening drinking lots of free beer at XTC, smoking cigarettes, and being aloof. Drive home.
• 1994: Sit at home depressed and wishing the boyfriend I had could actually spend some time with me like he said he would. Smoke lots of cigarettes.
• 1995: Hole in the Wall. My Place. Ringold Alley. Manic anonymous sex. Cigarette afterward on the way home.
• 1999: Dinner with Dan and Jamie. Smoke cigarettes, while pretending not to be generally freaked out by life right now. In bed alone by midnight. Sigh with relief that at least I pretty much don’t drink anymore. Drinking might not be prudent this week.

There’s a message here. I’m not sure if I know what it is or if I want to hear it.

Two very strange phone messages recently. Last week, some guy from Indianapolis called to ask if I’d receieved the article he’d submitted. To XY Magazine. This morning, the concierge from a hotel here in the city called to arrange one of my “walking tours” for a guest.

Now I am most definitely not affiliated with XY Magazine. I don’t even read it. I think it’s pure crap. And, while I do an awful lot of walking, I don’t give walking tours professionally. Granted, the thought has crossed my mind, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this idea to someone named Hannah at the Nob Hill Inn.

Of course, Southern politeness required me to call them both back and let them know they’d gotten the wrong person. Ever called a hotel and tried to leave a message saying “your concierge got a wrong number”?

Here’s the strange part. Both of these calls involve activities just barely similar enough to things I actually do to make me wonder if they were really just coincidental wrong numbers. I can almost imagine someone reading this site and getting the idea that I conduct tours, and maybe even looking up my number. God knows I get enough idiots who read Loftomania and email me thinking I’m a real estate agent, dying to sell them new luxury live/work condo…

There’s a very strange sort of visibility involved with this web thing. I guess, though, that I should get used to it after all these years. Hasn’t been a really big problem yet.

I just wish Hannah had been there when I called back so I could have found out where she got my number…