In September 2008, I went on a little trip from Seattle to Los Angeles with three other pals. We did pretty basic Los Angeles fun stuff like shop and hangout at the beach and look at the pretty people and the weird people and just whatever. It was vacation. And, it was awesome.
On a Saturday night one of our pals was away visiting another friend, so three of us decided it would be fun to see the spectacle that is the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” at Midnight at the West Hollywood NuArt Theater. I have seen “Rocky Horror” many times both live and on tape, even a documentary on the history and fanatics of “Rocky,” so I am well aware of what is to happen during this chaos the “actors” call fun. And that’s all okay. It’s how they get their kicks.
Three of us on the trip have jobs with Landmark Theaters. This allows us to see movies at our sister theaters around the country for a steep discount or free. As is protocol, we attempted to call in to the NuArt theater way ahead of time to ensure that we would be able to see this event. Well, we tried to call in ahead of time. Their direct line automatically transferred to voicemail every time we tried to call. We ended up leaving a very polite message stating that we would like to see this film. We know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of annoying calls, so we try to make it easier for the theater employees. We decided to just head out to West Hollywood early since we had time to kill anyway (it should be noted we were in Encino when we decided on this idea, and that’s quite a drive). But, we were all in good spirits. Vacation!
We arrived at the box office and explained the situation to the girl in the box office. We mentioned that we’re from Seattle and tried to call in ahead and could we please see “Rocky Horror” tonight? We were very polite and she was just as polite back. We had a little chit-chat and we explained that their phone went to voicemail and she acted surprised and asked us if we answered our phones in Seattle? We replied that yes, indeed we did. She was surprised by that as well. But, in typical landmark theater employee passion, she let it slide. She gives us our passes and problem solved. Except, oops. She gave us tickets to the movie they were showing at 9:30, since we showed up so early, it was time for the 9pm show to start seating. No big deal, we understand common mistakes like that and we even joked about it. All of us. Together. She then gave us the correct tickets.
Since we had driven from Venice Beach to Encino and then to West Hollywood, the three of us needed to use a restroom. We asked the box office girl if we could use theirs and she said sure. We went to the front door, where we met Manager Marc. He was tearing tickets for entry. We explained that we had tickets to the Rocky show but we needed to use the restroom and we would be quick. He very begrudgingly and curtly said we were allowed to use the restroom quickly and were NOT ALLOWED to stay after that. I took of quickly for the restroom, but my two companions were more leisurely and witnessed Manager Marc accosting an old man for not having his tickets ready. Apparently it was pretty intense, like, he nearly tackled the poor old guy. We went across the street to this neat old diner for a late dinner, talking about weirdly intense that Manager Marc guy was.
The show was supposed to start at Midnight. We got in line a little after 11pm. We felt like some of the oldest people there; everyone looked as if they were in high school. The girls were barely wearing any clothes, and it was little chilly out. But, we weren’t there to judge. Well, not vocally, anyway. Around 12:45am, we finally got an announcement that the line was to be let in soon. Uh, thanks. Around 1:30am the line finally started moving and we had to go through “security checks,” which was really just boys and girls wearing white tank-tops that had ‘Security’ written in black Sharpie across the front. Where they basically got to grope you, really. But it’s “okay” because girls check girls and the boys check the boys. Yeah. Real okay. I have never been more uncomfortably violated.
We FINALLY get inside and it’s just chaos. We chose seats in the back because we’re getting really tired now and don’t want to participate in the “show,” but watching will do just fine. We’re still in good spirits, but fading. The sights around us are astonishing.
My friend in attendance says the next part the best; “We were then subjected to about an hour of "comedy" from a man who might have once had a promising career as a host at a TGI Fridays, but got caught up in the world of comedy after being inspired by Dane Cook and turned his back on any sort of steady income. Since he's old enough to buy beer for the 18 year olds in charge of security he gets to do what felt like a 2 hour long "set" of rape jokes.” Yeah. Awesome stuff. Uh huh.
Then Manager Marc gets a turn on stage! He started some shtick about selling DVDs and about how you could “ONLY find them at the NuArt!” even though they were located right next door to one of the best video stores in Los Angeles. But then, Manager Marc decided to make some new friends in the crowd. He singled out "the folks from Seattle." We didn’t know what to expect, but probably just some dumb jokes about Starbucks and rain. And yes, we did get subjected to a couple of those innovative jokes.
But then something happened. For some reason he started screaming and swearing at us from the stage. It went something like this:
"Who here's from Seattle?"
And a couple people cheered and raised their hands, but thankfully we had the presence of mind not to. Those kids were probably lying anyway.
"We have a few visitors tonight from The Neptune Theater in Seattle."
(BTW, at which point, I was like, okay, he's calling us out, I don't know why, but I guess it's to welcome us to their hometown. Oh ho ho, it was not.)
"They've come all the way down here from the land of rain and Starbucks, and then they had the nerve to try to get into our theater for free!"
(Boos.)
"And after we graciously let them in for free, they decided to criticize us for not picking up our phone! Well fuck you, Neptune Theater! Maybe up in Seattle you don't get any customers, and you can just sit around all day picking up the phone and drinking coffee, but we work hard, and we don't have that fucking luxury." And then he said "Fuck the Neptune!" some more and then other people were booing and yelling "Fuck the Neptune!" And then he puffed out his chest like some fucking baboon and left the stage.
We sat very still to not call attention to ourselves, because there were 250 half naked teenagers hopped up on energy drinks running around. The anger that came out of Manager Marc was astounding. And, ridiculous. And, completely unprofessional. Isn’t he supposed to be a representative of his theater and his company? Or is “after hours” now?
We watched the first hour of Rocky before leaving in a (quiet) huff. We were still outnumbered by energy drinks. But, we could simply not sit there and enjoy anything after the verbal lashing we were subjected to for no reason.
Just plain awful, that Manager Marc.
(We found out later that he was one of the “Geeks” on Comedy Central’s “Beat the Geeks”. IMDB it. And I heard on a totally random radio show, a guy called in to say that he saw a movie at the NuArt and Manager Marc had a real attitude problem. Yeah. Nice career, pal. Good luck.)
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