What is up? Hello to all of you, unconventional conventions out there. Welcome to Rocky Talkie the show where we talk about anything and everything related to Rocky Horror. I'm Aaron. I am John. How are you guys doing this week, John, what have you been up to? What's been going on in your world? Well, for anyone who is listening, who has been under a rock for the past multiple weeks, this past weekend was my birthday. Yeah, I am now 69 years old birthday. Thanks buddy. It was a good day. Uh I did a 12 hour stream on Twitch. We played a lot of Pokemon Snap. We played uh some animal crossing because you obviously have to watch the animal crossing birthday scenes. They're adorable and we rounded out the day with some Wheel of Fortune because Wheel of Fortune is somehow the funniest game in the world. That sounds so fun. It was fun. I also got the second dose of the moderna and I had no side effects. I'm immortal. I can kill God. You know, piggybacking off of that by the time this airs all three of us will be fully vaccinated and you know what that means? What does that mean? The next episode, Rocky talkie will single handedly kill God. Yeah. So, look forward to that if I couldn't do it by myself. Imagine all three of us. Oh, yeah, it's done. It's happening. I already put it on the calendar. I'm going to spit in his eye. That would be a fun cover. Rocky Horror Kills God. I could Photoshop that. That'd be fun. Yeah. What about you, Nicky? What did you do this past week? Well, you know, I'd sectioned out a very heavy part of my week to celebrating your birthday because it's an all week event. But on my off time, you know, when I wasn't praying to my John shrine, I was able to vend at the Trenton punk rock flea market, which was a lot of fun. We got to sell a lot of stuff and see a lot of people from six ft away and I saw my tattoo artist and she didn't recognize me, but that's ok. But I had a really good time. I'm really enjoying myself. It's getting warmer in New Jersey and I can't be happier because I love the heat and I hate the cold and life is good. Speaking of life being good, you guys know what I did this week? No, I don't. I have no idea. Oh, I got, I got those sweet, sweet taxes done. Yep. That's right. You just got them done. You just want your taxes. Listen, some of us had some outstanding legal obligations that had to be reconciled before that. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, I, I put it off, I put it off like a little, little lazy bastard. Uh, finally got them all done, uh, realized a little bit too late that if I had committed tax fraud, I could have saved another $10,000. But, you know, that didn't seem like a great option this year. So I elected not to and got a couple of $1000 return, which you know what that all works out great. So, you know, we're gonna be putting that to some good use on a frank jacket or other Brockie. I, I don't know, I have nothing else to spend my money on. There's nothing to go do soon, very soon. But I think that's enough about us. Let's move it along to our first segment in global news. Uh I burped too at the same time. Oh my gosh, honestly. So first stopping global news this past week, our favorite activist, Susan Sarandon protested the start of Steven Donziger, New York City trial. I'm sorry, whose trial? Steven Donziger, he was a former attorney who went high profile after he successfully prosecuted Chevron for polluting indigenous areas of Ecuador. So back in 2011, Stephen was awarded $18 billion from an Ecuadorian court. Yeah, and it was reduced down to $9.5 billion in 2011. Which sounds like a lot, but it's less than 1/10 of what Chevron makes any single year. The legal situation behind it actually got really messy. Chevron refused to pay and then they instead filed a racketeering suit against Stephen in 2014, a New York Federal court determined that the judgment in Ecuador was obtained by corrupt means. So now Stephen is appealing the New York ruling, but he's also facing contempt charges for alleged misconduct during the appeals process. If he's found guilty, Steven could face up to five months. Wow, in prison, as well as having his entire legal battle with the big bad oil tycoons up ended. Stephen believes that Chevron's ultimate goal here is to try and scare people away from bringing similar lawsuits in the future against companies like theirs. Ok? So here's what's fucked up about this. Now, obvious disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer. I don't have any of the necessary background to properly analyze this, but I can critically read Wikipedia. So here's what I think is going on here that makes this particularly fucked up. Don Zinger had this judgment ruled on in Ecuador case closed done in an Ecuadorian court, comes back to New York and is charged by Chevron for actions in another country's court system. And then the judge who ruled on that insists that he be tried for criminal charges that the New York State District Attorney does not want to file against him. Chevron wants them filed against him. So what do they do? They let a US company determine that a lawyer who had a judgment ruled against them can arbitrarily have criminal charges brought up against them? Not because the government wants to, but because a company wants to, that's fucked up. I don't like that at all and it's super fucked up because Steven has suffered major personal loss from this legal battle. Back in 2018, he was disbarred from practicing law and has been under house arrest since August of 2019 to await trial as the presiding judge thought his ties to Ecuador made him a flight risk. Stephen has summed up his views for us stating oil and big fossil fuel companies do not want to pay for their pollution. If they have to, then their entire business model would be much less viable or would have to be extinguished. They hate the concept of a country like Ecuador having a court that holds a Big US company accountable. I don't think they want other countries ruling on the conduct of the US companies to this degree. Yikes. He sounds like he's got a pretty good point there. I mean, it's their country that's being polluted. But wait, where does Susan Sarandon come into all this? Susan is pissed, of course, and she's not the only one. In fact, Stephen's case has attracted the attention and support of 55 Nobel Laureates over 200 attorneys and six Democratic members of Congress including Alexandria, Acas Cortez, Rashida, Talab and Jamie Raskin Stephen's trial kicked off Monday, May 10th and is currently still underway that morning. The protest which was led by Susan Sarandon Pink Flood's Roger Waters as well as several dozen others took place outside the courthouse. Some participants were wearing masks that said free Donziger. Others carried signs, you know, standard stuff. Susan and Roger were even granted entry to the courtroom dep suspected as the trial started and opening statements were given, this is such an interesting case and while it is only tangentially related to our usual content because of how vested Susan is. We're very excited to keep you all updated as it unfolds. We here at Rocky Talk, you would like to give a humongous round of applause to Susan as well as the other protesters for standing up for what they believe in and taking the time to bring attention to such an important cause. But enough barely Rocky content, let's kick it on over to some real rocky content in a community news depending on how you look at it. This is also barely rocky content. Am I right? Yes, because they're Yeah, they ha ha they're naked. Speaking of naked. We've got lots of exciting stuff in community news this week. First up spoiler, you might have already figured this one out. Have you guys ever wanted to perform Rocky without costumes every week? I mean, sure. Who hasn't getting into costume can be such a pain when you're just not feeling it. It would be a million times easier some nights to just say, fuck it and go on stage in jammies. I'd like to reiterate my ultimate theme night idea. It was the first thing that I ever brought to N Y C and we still never did it because everyone thought it was stupid, but it's not. And I don't care what anybody says. Casual Friday, it's a Friday night show and all of us still show up with like full face of makeup for the character that we're playing, but we just wear whatever the fuck we want. It's Casual Frank just comes on stage and like ripped up jeans and a band t-shirt for sweet tea and throws off his leather jacket instead of a cape. It would be amazing. Everyone else is wrong if they think otherwise. No. Actually, ironically back in like March like two marches ago, pre pandemic when Coronavirus started becoming a big conversation piece and people started to get nervous. Our theater was still running. Obviously, there wasn't even a mask mandate yet and a lot of the cast members, including myself got nervous about the whole thing. So we called out of our Friday show because we didn't want to go. And that was like, that was the last show. And instead of wearing costumes, the the remaining cast members literally just wore their normal clothes and one of them put on like a Janet, like jacket and they held the bouquet and they did the whole show and like they pulled audience members on and they said that it was like an excellent time guys. No, I, I'm not talking about lazy costumes. I don't feel like you're getting it without costumes. Oh, yeah. You know, at seven I do this thing with the pink Frank lapse gloves, like the dinner scene, party hat with a champagne bottle. It's not really performing, but we're pretty good about staying in character. Tell me more. Tell me less. Like does he have a car? No, Jesus Christ, guys, it serves me right for trying to be cute. So anyway, we're talking about Rocky in the flesh. This is the longest running all nude Rocky cast and they're returning to the outdoor stage in Lander Lakes, Florida on July 19th, 2021 at nine PM. Yes, Lander Lakes like the butter. So there isn't much info about this show yet, but the info we do have is pretty clutch. So for this performance, the cast will be using a real pool and body paint costumes for, for show. Plus there'll be access to camping pool tables, a hot tub and a foam pit. This entire event is B Y O B and by the way, tickets to this ranger are only 20 bucks. Plus the show is immediately followed by a naked alien foam party which tickets to Rocky grants you access to. Um I'm so sorry to stop you, but a naked alien foam party. Wait, wait, hold on, hold on guys. I'm gonna try the thing. Bear with me. Bear with me. Ok. Sure. It would be nice to have a foam pit at R K 04 Roy. All right. It's out there. I've done my good deed for the day. Well, this sounds like such a fucking blast and honestly, a super fun way to kick off hot girl summer that we're all about to have. Now that so many of us are vaccinated that said there's no word yet on what the regulations on the event are going to be regarding the requirements for the vaccinations. Probably not a lot of social distancing going on in the phone pit. So hopefully they'll require all guests to show their shots card at the door, but it's Florida. So who the fuck knows? Holy crap though? If any of our Florida listeners go to this one, please, please please for the love of God or write to us and tell us about it. All the links for the event are in our show notes. Actually, it doesn't even have to be this event. If any of our listeners have been to a naked foam pit, give us the dates. Uh Nicky maybe don't hold your breath on that one. What someone does in a naked foam pit is between them. God and the other 43 people in the pit. Uh We do have more exciting community news coming right up though to your room and lock the door cause when you try it, once you want to try it some more size doesn't matter. And that's a fact it might be small but it's a big bus. Enjoy your what? Yeah, school just don't get cold. It takes a few minutes to Yeah. Spin corn nuts, an intensely crunchy corn snack comes in seven nut busting flavors. It sounds like there should be a commercial there but there's not so moving over to F F O. Our friends over at Frankie's favorite obsession cast that's out of Las Vegas are just about ready to return to the stage on Saturday, July 3rd at 10 P MFF O will be performing at the Regency Tropicana Cinemas. F F O made their triumphant return announcement on social media this week. It's always so much fun to see posts like this. It really feels like the world is starting to heal, you know. Absolutely. And this isn't just any triumphant return show after being dark for over a year. Not at all. This is a major two for one celebration because Sunday, July 4th is F F OS 20th anniversary. So not only will the cast be celebrating being back on stage, they're also throwing themselves a dope ass birthday party if you're gonna be in the Las Vegas area and you are interested in joining in on the celebration. We've got links for you in our show notes, tickets are only $11 at the door with an online purchase option that is coming soon. Plus we know that F F O is being super safe about their reopening. If the CDC S mask mandate is still in effect at showtime, they will be requiring all patrons to be masked throughout the performance. They're also very strongly encouraging that only fully vaccinated people plan to attend, get your shots people. Another fun little tidbit from F F O. They're also recruiting new cast members. So if you live in the Las Vegas area and are interested in joining a Rocky cast, they've got a Google form application open to the public. We'll link it for you in our notes if you're interested in checking it out. Last up, we just want to remind all of our listeners to tune in to the Francis Bacon Experiment's virtual performance which will be airing on Friday May 21st at nine PM on R P N live dot com. That's tomorrow. If you're tuning in on the day, our show drops. So this is a pretaped and highly edited performance of a dark alley drive in show that was put on to give Buffalos a safe entertainment option during the pandemic. We've already gotten to see a little bit of the footage from the show and it looks like it's gonna make for excellent virtual entertainment. The cast is super hot and they all look like they're having a great time performing. It's gonna be tons of fun. I cannot wait to watch. We'll all be tuning in to shout virtual callbacks and through digital props with the cast. So we hope that you'll join us if you'd like to. We've got a link to the event for you on our show notes. And with that, let's move on to the Nick segment of all. That's me. That's right. Boys and girls. It's time for Nicky asks a question featuring me. Nicky. Nope, what I said? Nope, it's my birthday. There is no knack snack today. I'm special today. Fuck you. Hi, special today. I will cut you. Oh my gosh. Ok. Well, John, what do you want to do for your birthday? There's a lot of things that I wanna do for my birthday, Nicky. But today today is a special treat you might not know, but I am what might be known as a nineties kid. Hell, yeah. Yeah, me too. How is that possible? Aaron is old as dirt and John is just barely geriatric. You can't both be nineties kids. Nicky and nineties kids range from anyone born in the early eighties all the way through to the mid nineties. You could be on either side of the decade. You could be a teen in the nineties or, or a Tween or a, or a pretween, whatever, whatever that is a twaddle. A, a kid. Yeah. Yeah. No, that last one it's a kid. Ok, fine. You're a nineties kid. And, well, I want to do what all nineties kids do now. I want to make a list with a super click baby title. Here's the five most important rocky moments from the early nineties. Only five. We'll, we'll do it. VH1. Like I love the nineties style. We can just merge a bunch of shit together. It's fine. Don't worry about it. But only after 1992 the world didn't really exist until around 1992. You were born in 1992. Yes. The world began existing in 1992. Uh 1992. I was six and the world popped into existence because a small bald child named John was born in a manger in Beth Laelia. You see there was no room at the Holiday Inn Express and though they had left the light on for us, our reservations had been at the day's end down the road. Oh, this is my favorite part. No, no, Rocky. Stop it. Save the conspiracy theories for your stupid podcast or whatever. OK. Nicky 1992. Uh that's the 17th anniversary of Rocky Horror. And the community is still recovering from the communal hangover from the 15th anniversary in 1990. You can uh finally get your hands on the V H S for a cool $89.95. That's 33.3333333 repeating Frank jackets and Sal Piros. First Creatures of the Night book is released. I said no Bible stories. Ok. And Rocky is still playing all over the country. The community is as big as ever having made it out of the bodacious eighties and into Dubbo nineties. You are not cool. Eat my shorts. And then I was born and then the world began and five months later after the world began in October, the UK Time Warp fan club hosts their first Rocky Horror convention that's Transylvanian 92. And that was organized by Stephanie Freeman and her husband David, who eared listeners might remember from the striped shirt mystery. That's right. And the couple organized the massive event in London with over 600 guests from all over the world. There were events and appearances from the stars, a packed panel schedule and even a special appearance from that guy from the Tasters choice commercials. You know that coffee Anthony head nineties kids might know him as that hot guy with glasses on Buffy. Sure. Later though his, his first Frank was in 19 90. Whatever Giles can taste my choice any time. We, we get it, we get it, Nicky. It sounds like an awesome event and was all for charity with the proceeds going to London's Great Ormond Hot Hospital, which specialized in dealing with Children with AIDS. A pretty great cause and a great Rocky Con. Also one of the first appearances of Richard o'brien's Mephistopheles Smith character, which he dawned to play a smattering of new songs to a full house. Did somebody say full House? Uh Yeah. Yeah. There it is full house. So 1992 also saw the release of a new Rocky horror calendar. Mm Yeah. It was themed around the year of the floor show and I gotta tell you the floor show photos were beyond useful to the community for costume references as well as looking pretty fly, pretty fly for a white guy 1998 by the offspring and 1992 was also the year that Sapiro stepped down as cast director of the New York City cast one winter's evening after one too many run ins with abusive theater employees and sell himself officially too old for this shit. He lamented in creatures of the night too that he was already in his late forties at that point. So your time is soon John over my sexy rotting corpse and that's 1992. But as John begins to come into his power at the start of 1993 a freak blizzard rocks the eastern United States dubbed the No Name Storm. It cut an icy trail from Honduras to Canada dropping over 56 inches of snow in Tennessee with even the Florida panhandle seeing ice and snow, but that won't stop. Intrepid rocky folks in late April. Washington DC hosts a mini convention organized by a non Rocky fan, John Cain, who only put together this convention as a gift to his daughter, Janelle. Fuck this. My dad. Can I be daughter? I'm baby. Gotta love me. Are you a dinosaur? Yes. OK. Yes. And I can do whatever I want. I, I appreciate that. You don't even get the joke. You just did. I have no idea what the fuck's going on. Boo boo sex. That's not a nineties joke. Wow. Oh, ok. You ruined the community. Awesome. Yeah. But if you think one Rocky horror convention is enough for a year, boy does 1993 have a lot in store in August. You had the age of consent convention thrown by midnight insanity out of Long Beach. And then in October just seven weeks after the bash in California, Megan Harris ran the 18th anniversary convention in Las Vegas, three cons on two coasts in just over six months. One year old John would have rocked that shit. I would have been bribing some congressmen in DC before heading over to the party in L A. That's right. Rocky's legal. Give me that sweet consent. Then I would have kicked it in Vegas, rocking my diaper at the craps tables all while hitting my appropriate developmental milestones and getting into a sitting position without fucking help. This is a really weird way to do a decade recap. This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices to come up with topics for Nicky asks a question. So one year old John has passed out after partying too hard all year long. Are we ready for? 1994? Hell, no, 1993 is also the year that Rocky first premieres on television. And this one's pretty huge at the 18th anniversary in Las Vegas. One year old John would have heard South Piro invite the crowd to come up to L A for the filming of the television special. He had worked with Lou Adler and Midnight Insanity to organize a show that would feature fans from all over the country. The special was shot over 12 plus hours. The content being filmed at the tower theater in downtown L A. Rocky was shown and performed twice with the cast and audience members then rushing to their local shows to perform for the third time in the same day. How did they show Rocky with a P on network TV? In 1993 1 year old John might have been mature enough for all that cursing, but I don't know if the rest of the world was ready for it in a surprise to absolutely fucking no one. At the last minute, the broadcast execs decided to eliminate many of the callbacks and then a bunch of the vulgarities had to be cut, which in turn led to a lot more of the audience participation getting cut because the jokes make no sense if you have to bleep every Yeah. Word, but some of the fucking jokes were still there and it aired in October around Halloween uh as you do with Rocky stuff and resulted in, you gotta say a pretty big kick in attendance around the country. 1993 also saw the birth of the Rocky Horror news group alt dot cult movies dot Rocky Horror where the majority of the online community argued and shit posted throughout the rest of the nineties. One year old John likes a good shit post just as much as all grown up, John in that regard, the network premiere kind of settled the hot button shit post topic from the tail end of the eighties. Rocky did not die because it was finally released on home video in 1990 everyone could watch it at home and it didn't die because it became too mainstream when it was shown on network TV in 1993. In fact, just the opposite that next year in 1994 Rocky was even the first movie ever shown on the FX movie channel, which also had a tie in with the New York City cast with Mad Man, Mike Sal Piro and other members of the New York cast appearing on the 6 30 AM FX Breakfast show, teaching 25 1st graders how to do the time warp. I mean two year old John dances like a machine but six year olds doing Pelvic thrusts that gets a red flag. For me, bro. Yeah, 1994 also saw the second UK convention again hosted by the UK Fan Club and Stephanie Freeman. And in March, a convention was put on in Albany. That's in New York by a little known Sunni college, Phi Kappa Sigma student named Larry Weisel, never heard of him. Also in 1994 the Rocky Horror stage show celebrated its 21st birthday with a star studded party at the Duke of York's Theater in London and saw CD releases of both the Shock Treatment album and the audience participation soundtrack. Teaching a whole new generation of Rocky fans. A bunch of outdated jokes remind me who is an Miller again. Uh Ann Miller didn't actually die until 2004. She had been on an episode of Home Improvement just a year earlier in 1993. So nineties kids uh still had no idea who she was. I knew she was a tap dancer, but like that was it. I think this was my favorite when we were flipping through these 1994 also saw the establishment of a world record for the most continuous performances of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The absent friends out of Sacramento, assisted by several other Northern California casts. Successfully performed 30 back to back shows starting on Friday, October 14th and ending on Monday the 17th. These guys were crazy. Apparently they'd set up tents and a camps style kitchen behind the theater. And the whole thing was covered by the media. I'm amazed that two year old John can remember it so vividly. What could I say? I'm a prodigy firestarter by prodigy March 1996. All right, 1995 John turns three. I could speak 250 to 500 words and I could count. How high could you count high enough to know when someone else had more cookies than I did. Then I'd have to smack a bitch up released by Prodigy in 1997. In 2010, the song was voted as the most controversial of all time. Well, that's just stupid. Stupid. Like a fox. You're not wrong in 1995 Fox went crazy with Rocky's 20th anniversary and you know what that means? That means a new ultra expensive box set this time. We've got 100 and $25 laser disc box set which finally featured once in a while and superheroes along with being bundled with a 24 carat gold CD of the soundtrack and the Sapiro book Creatures of the Night Two Gotta get the bling on the 20th. Wasn't a massive convention. It was mostly performance and costume contests, but there was a two day event held at the Roxy and Pantages Theaters in Hollywood. Seems a little weird to not have a big convention for the 20th. I mean, that's only because there had already been three events that year in February, Megan Harris Tabor threw Rocky Con 95 in Beverly Hills and on the opposite coast, Larry Weisel threw his second big Albany convention in April. September saw a Boston convention put on by Karen Majors and the test players and that was all before the two day event for the 20th anniversary held in October. And a fun personal note that October would have been the first time that a nine year old Aaron would get a glimpse of Rocky Horror. That's because it finally aired on VH1 along with a special hosted by Meat Loaf. It, it wasn't until five years later with V H One's huge collection of specials behind the music and pop up videos for the 25th that I really became like aware of it. But I do remember seeing parts of Rocky the first time it aired in 1995. Another fun personal note, 1995 October, both my parents turned 16. Anyway. Um, 1995 is also when Creatures of the Night Two was published along with a karaoke CD and a fan tribute album. That fan tribute album is um uh, well, it's got, it's good intentions but I mean, if I had to pick one of those two to listen to, I'd probably pick the karaoke album. Yikes. Yeah, I, I think that's where we're gonna leave it for today. We got all the way through the mid nineties. Johnny is three years old. I could poop all by myself. Yes. Good job. So we'll pick up from there. I don't know. Next time John has a birthday, I'm sure we might have missed a bunch of stuff. But I mean, we did hit a lot. Yeah, that's crazy. Something like 10 conventions over just a couple of years. A few huge milestones and a bunch of big crazy events. John might have been three years old but Rocky was definitely partying as hard as ever. Maybe we'll do one of these again. I like it. Wait, are we stopping in 1995? Because creatures of the night two came out in 1995. Is that just as far as the book goes? Shut up? There's, there's other books to tell us what happened after 1995. Sure. There are buddy. You're three, you're a baby. You can't read. Shut up. Make me poopy head. Oh, and that's our show. We want to wish F F O and Rocky and the flesh, all the broken legs as they return to the stage. And please don't forget to tune into the Francis Bacon experiments virtual show. It's going to be awesome if you've got a question that you'd like us to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or some community news you'd like us to talk about or even just a cool story to showcase your magnum dong to the entire community. We'd love to include it on our show. Just go to our website Rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to share with us. We all really love getting to hear about the cool shit you guys have been working on and we love getting to share your work with the whole community. Plus, if your cast is working on something fun, a virtual show or maybe even a real life show, send that too and we will help you spread the word. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners, which really helps us grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky talkie content, check us out on Facebook, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talkie podcast. We'll see you next Thursday. Spells a bad word. Bye. Oh, I get it guys. We did that last week. John, listen to the podcast. No, don't tell me what to do. I'm an adult or three, depending on which timeline we're talking in. Oh, can I get I get I get it. I get it. I can't even try to pronounce that. What the fuck Nobel laureate. Nobel Laureates should be a Nobel Prize. Ok? I blew out my voice. Yelling at Roy. OK. Highly edited performance of a dark alley drive in show that was put on to give Buffalos a safe entertainment option during the pandemic. Oh Juba Bob Bow. Wow. No, I don't know how the end of the whole house theme goes because I never watched it as a kid. I was a friend person. There was a link to a youtube video where you could find out there. Is there? I like mine better. Uh we might just use yours but hold on. I have uh that's my hand to hold on to I'm sorry, I'm going crazy. No, it's fine. You're gonna get there before he does so. Wow. Thank you. I am not a nineties kid. Six. That sounds good. Video. Mhm. Watch the video. Diy I even time stamped that one. Ok. Oh you guys are really teaching me a lesson about writing when I'm high. Get your package out and try to stay calm. Use a few fingers but I in y'all. Yes, it's going great when you finally master he bust a nut. Busting n grab a bag of corn nuts and bust a nut. They're lightly to enjoy yourself. We want to master K. Master King is what you have to do. Master Master King is a fancy word for you busting nut bus and not grab a bag of corn nuts and they live enjoy yourself on to what's to night folks.