Melancholy Baby

Kevin kindly illustrated one of his neurology appointments for me

Well THIS was bound to happen. While sorting out those thousand and three boxes of my old photos and papers I found some letters from Kevin. You know — Kevin Alexander Scott , my first, bestest, jesus-I-can’t-believe-he-puts-up-with-me friend? Yeah him, the dude who exited the planet 23 years ago, leaving me with a nasty-ass,chronic case of Mega Sorrow. (There's no cure for this, it seems. I wanna know where, WHERE are the damned telethons!)

Bastard.

I thought I had all his letters buried deep, in one fat 9x12 envelope down in the studio somewhere. Apparently though they're littered throughout the house.

In one missive, written while he was stationed in Greece, he spoke of when the tune Time Warp from Rocky Horror Picture Show began playing on the office radio. Now, back in college we’d go see that on far too many Saturday nights to count. When we bothered to dress up (beyond the obligatory raincoats) he’d be Riff-Raff and I’d be Magenta (Jesus Clairoled Christ, I loved her hair).

It was a thing, even in our small, conservative Western Pennsylvanian college town. The theater was always full or close to it.

Meanwhile, back at Kevin's letter from Greece:

Time Warp from RHPS came on the radio. I’m singing along and everyone in the office is looking at me like I’m the definitive herpes carrier, when we notice this Navy captain also singing along. I asked him if he’d seen it. His reply? “Once or twice or 63 times...so far.”

What a shock — this guy is 50, at least, and has kids my age and he’s seen it 63 times? What a pervert! (Kevin meant that as a compliment)

My god — what will we feel like at 50? Will we age gracefully (so far NO) or become odd crackpots that don’t fit in? The latter does sound like more fun, doesn’t it? 1983 (oh no!!) the year we mark (drum roll, voice of god booming) A QUARTER OF A CENTURY OLD — antiques!!! Oh no!! I’m having an age crisis at 24 — I’ll never make it.

And he didn’t. Verdammt nochmal. At least.

Aging gracefully — I suppose back then we thought that meant being like Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart. Effortlessly calm, composed, uncontroversial, mature and...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Here I am, 23 years after Kevin had the supreme audacity to croak on me and, have to say, I believe I’ve continued on in our “Lucy and Viv on LSD” (as Kevin dubbed us) fashion — sans the acid that is.

A coupla little known Rocky Horror facts (more at the link):

Steve Martin auditioned to play Brad, but was passed over for Barry Bostwick, who had received a Tony nomination in 1972 for creating the role of Danny Zuko in Grease.

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger asked to play Frank-N-Furter in the film. The creative team turned him down in favor of the musical’s original star, Tim Curry.