In the 2018 season at Stratford, The Rocky Horror Show became a wickedly talented, dear friend that met me at the door 14 different nights throughout a tough year and wrapped me up in a big, ‘ol campy, glam-rock blanket full of corsets, strange and beautiful people, haunted mansions, secret labs, sex and glitter.

That entire run-on sentence brings me joy.

Fourteen rock concert shows that carried me through some hard days. The loss of a real-life dear friend. The agonizing rollercoaster of my mom’s illness. Crazy amounts of change at work. But by the end of the first song Rocky – and seeing my wife in that kick-ass band – could always kick a shitty day out on its treacherous ass.

Tim Curry, the original Frank N Furter died yesterday. Dolly the day before. I think “I’m at the start of a pretty big downer,” as the line in the show goes. So, what can you really do but tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen. Pour yourself a cup of ambition. And write a little poem.

For Frank N Dolly

On the day Tim Curry died
we were still tending to
our Dolly-sized wounds.

Cruel and unusual punishment
that two people
so impossibly larger than life
could leave us so close together.
Two people stitched together
with glitter and courage.
Mad scientists in fishnets,
showing us the way
to our truest selves.

The thing nobody tells you
about larger-than-life people,
is that they make you larger too.
They whisper the same gospel
in different languages:
If you don’t like the road
you’re walking,
pave another one.
Don’t dream it.
Be it…

Be who you are.
Want what you want.
Shine how you shine.
No permission required.
Because the world
is just a constellation
of every kind of beautiful misfit.

And the secret is:
there is no gatekeeper.
No one is waiting
to grant you your life.
It begins
the moment you decide
it’s yours.