When did Le Freak become Le Norm?

There was a time when my magenta hair, black leather biker jacket, combat boots and black fingernail polish made me a bonfide freak…. At least in the eyes of my parents’ friends.

.

 

I just liked what I liked. And odd?

.

 

Well, sure, if you count that my favorite music was Metallica and Mozart, and my favorite books Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries. And, yes, ok so my love for Ziggy Stardust and weekends that included a backpack full of toilet paper, rice and a squirt gun for the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show might have gone a titch outside the boundaries of normal.

 

.

One of the few times I really managed to connect with my parents’ sock-hop crowd was when Barry Bostwick played one of the leads in Pirates of Penzance durig a summer musical festival. And if you don’t know who Barry “Brad Majors” Botswick is, then you probably don’t know who Dr. Frank-n-Furter is and should stop reading now ….

 

.

It was only much later – sometime after I “discovered” Meatloaf the musician vs. Meatloaf as Eddie, and realized that not every American child grows up knowing the lyrics to all the show tunes from West Side Story  – that I truly appreciated my freakish tendencies as a badge of honor to be worn with pride.

 

.

And for those of you really paying attention, that magenta hair (which ROCKED by the way) did have something to do with my love for a certain “domestic.”

 

.

Ok, ok, so I’m a bit older, I’ve ditched the magenta hair and am working on the streaks of grey instead… but those who know the real me, know there is a zombie-obsessed, axe-wielding, cross-bearing monster slayer still lurking beneath my calm, professional, adult exterior.

 

.

And the freak in me is feeling a bit “put off” by the invasion of all things freaky into mainstream pop culture.

 

.

Now don ‘t get me wrong … I salivate for all 60 minutes of each and every episode of True Blood, I dress up and wait in line for every Harry Potter movie, and, yes, oh yes, yes, yes, I had a weeklong countdown going for the first The Walking Dead episode on AMC.

 .

 

Zombie television show? An actual series? On a major national channel? Sign me up for a shamble-on zombie role! #justsayin

 

. 

But when in the name of all that is ghoulish, garish and great in this world did we get to a point where Alice “da king of freaks” Cooper is giving ballroom dance advice on Dancing With the Stars?!?!

 

.

Then we had Glee doing its’ own Rocky Horror version of the 1975 cult classic … oh how I wanted to hate it. And part of me did. But it was (gasp) the first time I ever watched the show and it wasn’t a total loss. But that’s not the point …. The freak in me dry-heaved through the Glee version of Sweet Transvestite – because the truth is some things were just not made for a television show about a high school performance group.

 

.

Some things really are better left for the bathroom mirror when nobody is watching ….

 

.

And, no, I am not going to reveal my personal shower-time repertoire

….at least not yet.

.