"I can't complain, but sometimes I still do"- Joe Walsh, "Life's Been Good"

At a recent show, we were graced with the presence of a 10 and 12 year old. Taken by their parents, the two young wide-eyed boys giggled at every fuck, and the parents themselves were tossing out the ocassional line. (which tells me they've seen it before)

I think in many ways I have had my viewpoints on child-rearing and children tainted in that I was blessed with wonderful, caring parents who actively gave a fuck about my development and well-being in all senses of the word. So in my mind, the idea that the government should censor music is ridiculous. The notion that a movie ticket cashier or a vide store clerk should be responsible for what a child sees is equally so. The responsibility falls solely, in my opinion, on the parents.

If you can't keep a decent amount of control on your child, perhaps you should consider adoption and get a cat. I hear goldfish are a good substitute too, if you're allergic to fur.

Now I realize that my standpoint on this issue is not shared by many, and indeed we do have a societal impulse to protect any child we see whether or not it's our own. If the child is lost, we help them find a policeman. If the child falls, we help them up.

But the upbringing and instruction of that, or any child that is not ours- is, well . . . none of our damned business. If parents want to bring their two year olds to Rocky, hey great. I was watching "R" movies by the age of five consistently, but never without my parents, and never without a frank discussion over anything that confused me.

Although I seriously doubt that the majority of parents out there today actually take an active a role in explaining things and showing right from wrong as mine did with me, I'll give the benefit of the doubt. They are the parent. And they decide what their child will see and experience. Particularly at an age as young as that.

So these kids are at Rocky. Their parents shove em up on stage to be devirginized, and I do so.

There are those on the cast who feel that when there are children around, we should tone down our antics and language. I don't fall into this category. As far as I am concerned, it wasn't me who brought them here. I go to the show, and at the show I act in a way that I never would in my daily life. I do things that I would never do in plain daylight, where a child doing more wholesome activities might see. But that is because their parents know these places to BE more wholesome and why the vast majority do not take their 10 and 12 year old boys out to an "R" rated movie at a theater in East Cleveland at MIDNIGHT.

I hate to say such a strong thing as "they deserve it", but fuck it, they do. I refuse to not do what it is that I do in that space. That space, and that time is set aside for behavior like that. Whether or not Romper Room invades our seating plan.

We are not role models. We are not examples to the youth of America. We are Rocky Horror cast members. And if you come into the theater, that's what you're going to see. I did not go out of my way to shock or "corrupt", but I also did not make the slightest attempt to change what I would have done in the first place.

Should I be held responsible for damaging that child because I swore like a bastard? Is it my fault if the child takes ANY bad habits away from the experience?

Hell no.

As with most things in life, I can answer this by quoting Willy Wonka:

"You know exactly who's to blame. The mother and the father."