Artist: Richard O'Brien

I spent the night of November 6 with a "V" – for "virgin" – written on my face in bright red lipstick, surrounded by "girls dressed in next to nothing and guys dressed like girls dressed in next to nothing." Throughout the night, I heard more profanity than I've heard from drunk frat guys [...]

I have a very strong tradition of my own for New Year's. When everyone else is getting pissed and shooting rockets at eachother, I tend to stay in my own solitude, enjoying the New Year's the way I want it (and okay, I'm a drunken party-hating grumpy bastard that no one invites anyway). I spend hours of it by playing the soundtrack for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (written by Richard O'Brien , or Riff Raff in the film) and singing wildly along. Often watching the movie too, although to get the best out of it I [...]

• Richard O'Brien - Hot Patootie - Bless My Soul
• Richard O'Brien - Sweet Transvestite
• Richard O'Brien - The Time Warp

Halloween, at least in part, belongs to Richard O'Brien, as does the midnight hour with which we've come to associate all things frightening, macabre, and sexually taboo. O'Brien, 66, is the revered creator of The Rocky Horror Picture Show , a stage musical and cult film that fuses together the unlikely triumvirate of science fiction, cross-dressing, and rock & roll. And for nearly thirty-five years, fans of all ages and from all walks of life have stolen away to movie theaters in the wee hours of the night—dressed (or cross-dressed) as Brad, Janet, Frank-N-Furter, and Riff-Raff—to participate in this [...]

When I think Halloween, I think The Rocky Horror Picture Show . I've probably seen it a hundred times. When I was thirteen and fourteen (and fifteen and sixteen and seventeen), you only had to be eighteen to get in, and being that this was before September 11th, at thirteen I was eighteen (or at least felt that way). And by this time, RHPS was already a 25 year tradition. Rocky is the furthest thing from a horror movie, ever, unless you're afraid of men in corsets and heavy makeup, [...]