Hello to all of you. Unconventional conventions. Welcome back to Rocky talkie. I'm Nicky. I'm Aaron and I am John. Hi, Aaron and John. Hi. Hello. How are you? How was last week without me? It was amazing. I mean, terrible. It was brutal. We had, we had, we had Jacob here filling in, we had to do a whole Jack in session. We missed you, Nikki. What were you up to? Um, so my boyfriend came to visit. My boyfriend lives in Alabama. He goes to the University of Alabama Roll. He lives at 123. I'm just kidding. He came to visit. So I took the week off so that I could just like, hold hands and kiss with him all weekend. Um, and we had a really good time. He came to celebrate my cast's 20th anniversary. So we had like a really big show and like a bunch of alumni came and we did all these fun giveaways. It was a really great time and it was black tie. So I got to wear this fancy dress that I bought two years ago and never wore. Yeah, I had a really good time. The pictures are on my Instagram at Nicole F L W shameless self promotion. But yeah, I just had a really good time and now I am gearing up and getting ready because I am debuting as Riff this Friday. I'm very excited. Let's go. Yeah, so it's been pretty cool. But how have you guys been, how was recording with Jacob? What went on in between? Give me everything. Fight to the death for who goes first? Give me everything tonight. OK, Aaron, you go first because John just killed it in a bad way for all we know. Well, it has uh it has been quite a week here uh doing a bunch of work stuff and uh relatively low key on the rocky front. I mean, it was uh a lot of fun talking with Jacob about Sam Studios last week. You missed that. Oh Damn it. Yeah, I know. And big congrats to you guys over at F N S on 20 years. That's a huge achievement in the community. But yeah, we haven't been doing uh doing a ton over here, been relatively low key this week. Uh But I am super excited to say that uh the cast list came out for the big J C C P show in Pittsburgh that a bunch of the community is going out for and Meg and I are going to be performing in Rocky over there. So I am super excited. Yes. For the start of February. We're going over to Pittsburgh. I'm gonna be there. Oh, really? Ok. Yeah, so Meg is going to be doing Janet for the evening and um I myself will be playing Doctor Everett Acott. Uh So I'm super excited there's people from all over coming out for that and yeah, it's gonna be an absolute banger of a show. A little, little uh con preview party I think is uh what it's shaping up to look like you're driving eight hours to go play, Doctor Scott. Fuck you, man. I'm flying. You're flying to Pittsburgh? Oh my God. That must be the fucking the fastest flight ever. Wait. Are you actually flying? Yeah, it's only an hour. Oh my God. To spend more time grounded than you are in the air. Literally. I know last time we flew to Pittsburgh. That was the same thing. Oh my God, you guys are ridiculous. This doesn't surprise me whatsoever. What's wrong with flying to Pittsburgh? There's nothing wrong with flying to Pittsburgh. It's just funny. It's like an eight hour drive. I don't got time for that shit. Yeah, that's right. We pick you up on the way. You know what? Probably you'll probably still beat us there. But uh no, we are, we are flying in, spending the whole weekend there. We're gonna be uh partying with uh everyone who's coming out for that. I know Buffalo is coming out for that. I know a bunch of people from New Jersey are coming for that uh all sorts of stuff. It's gonna be super fun. So, John, what have you been up to? What was your week like I have done next to nothing this week. It has been fantastic. I think the only thing that I can really write home about is that I went to go see Haiti's town with Meg and it was fantastic. Uh We were front row. I had Patrick Page's feet in my face. I wanted to lick them, but I didn't what a thing to say. You would understand if you knew what Patrick Page looked like. I, I do, I just, do you really want to lick feet in general? Do you? First off, are you kink shaming me on a podcast that the primarily like the main, the main group of people who listen to are kinky feet. It's a foot fetish. Nicky. Look it up. No, I know what it is. I just do it, you know, it, I won't. So, you know, I, did you say you don't think so? I said, no, I won't think so. Thanks though. You know, I, I thought that you had told this story last week and I realized that I just tuned in your, into your stream part way through. And this is like the third time I've heard you tell this story. It's just, it's just what licking Patrick Page's feet or so sad. Yeah, but he's hot. I want him to call me a little songbird while I lick his feet. I can't, his feet were in front of me. Not his head. It's like the stage was elevated. I'd look up. His feet were in my face. Is it better if I say I would like to lick even Nobles feet? No. Ok. Good. Because then I would have just called you homophobic. No, it's not that he's a guy. It's the feet. It's because he's old, isn't it? All right? Enough of the feet. Let's move on. That's very ageist of you. Nicky. Yeah. Hai Town is one of my favorite shows and being able to see it again is fantastic. I went home and bought like three more days worth of tickets to go see Hades Town in February. So I'm going to be seeing it like twice in one week and then again the week after that because I fucking love that show so much. That was kind of the highlight of my week. Aside from that, it's just been the usual shit existing, taking up space. You know how we do up in the Washington Heights. Yeah. Nice. I, I lead a very fantastic life. Everybody. I'm happy for you, John. Um, but with that, let's get started with our first segment this week. We're starting off Global News with a little bit of a bummer. Just a few days ago. Fox announced that Susan Sarandon's new series Monarch, which was slated to premiere on January 30th. 2022 will be delayed due to, of course, everybody's least favorite reason the panda express stupid panda express. It's not even real Chinese food. I mean, technically none of the Chinese food in the US is real Chinese food. It's got tons of added sugar and doesn't taste anything like the food that they actually make in China. But we digress technically, as if you have never said that before on this podcast, I just appreciate it. So you say it at this time, I should have done your voice. Well, technically none of the Chinese food in the US Monarch. The new series starring Susan Sarandon follows the dramatic events of the Romans, a country music dynasty family matriarch by Susan's character Dotty Roman. In a recent interview with Eon Line, Fox's entertainment spokesperson commented with an incredible pedigree of talent and musical performances. The powerfully compelling drama Monarch is a top priority for Fox Entertainment in 2022. Unfortunately, due to the unavoidable realities of the pandemic and the profound impact COVID continues to have on our industry around the world. It is necessary to reschedule monarch's debut in the fall. The spokesperson also shared that Fox will be announcing their replacement line up here in the next few days. So although we'll be seeing Susan's new show, it sounds like we'll have to wait just a little bit longer. I wonder what happened though. They've been plugging this show for so long. You think that they have gotten most of the filming done already. I wonder if something got slowed down in postproduction. Yeah, I saw tons of media outlets starting to do their announcements and like their press that would usually be going out at the start of a new show's premiere. So it seems like they were already in the pipeline to get this thing out the door and start going when like last minute the decision came down. So this is, this is relatively uh relatively surprising. Anyway, we here at Rocky Talk, you hope that Susan and everyone else involved with the production of monarchy is keeping safe and healthy and fuck you COVID. Go eat a dick next up. We've got a surprising bit of news from an interview Barry Bostwick gave this week to page six about his political upbringing. It turns out that Uncle Bear Bear was a proponent for Richard Nixon as a youth. Oh oh no, not my bear bear. What? That's insane. You know, Uncle Barry man, he's got to put the interests of America first. Yeah. In this interview, Barry tells the press that he quote, grew up in a political family and that his father was congressman, Jay Arthur Younger's campaign manager. Very Republican. For those of you who don't know which is most likely all of you, Jesse Arthur Younger was the Californian representative from 1953 to 1963. Barry stated that he quote was doing parades for Nixon, all this kinds of stuff. I stood in front of the train station and handed out flyers for every Republican running for something in San Francisco from 1955 to 1960. For reference, baby Barry was born in 1945. So he would have been between the ages of 10 and 15 when he was doing all that panhandling. Barry went on to note that his dad, Henry Bud Bostwick was even going to run for mayor of San Francisco once before Shirley Temple entered the race and quote, got all the money. Holy crap. There's so much to unpack there. Barry's dad was going to run for mayor but Shirley Temple like animal crackers in my soup stopped him. What the fuck? Yeah. So Barry's dad, Henry led the San Mateo County Economic Development Association from 1955 through to 1992. And he was really well known in the area for being a political promoter. He passed away back in 1999 at the age of 86 a whole bunch of local politicians absolutely sung his praises for being largely responsible for the prosperity that we enjoy in this country today and a dedicated leader in community development. He was a big deal in local politics and apparently everybody really loved him. And wait, Shirley Temple somehow stopped him from running for mayor. Am I the only one that just every single time they think you're Shirley Temple they just think of like a small child. Yeah. Like, she never grew up, like, she never, she never aged past the age of, like, eight. And I just picture, like, Barry Bostwick, like Barry Bostick's dad, like, walking over to the, the mayor's office. I don't know how you run for mayor and like an eight year old Shirley Temple is standing outside. Like, no, you can't do that. She never aged, but after when she stopped being a child actor, Shirley Temple's Wikipedia page actually lists her as the 27th United States ambassador to Czechoslovakia before it mentions anything about her childhood stardom. She was also the ambassador of Ghana and served as Chief of Protocol of the United States. That's the person who advises the president on how to handle international diplomatic relations. She was a big deal politically and not just an adorable movie star. It's wild that she did all of this at the age of eight. Not quite, but in 1967 Shirley ran as a Republican for the US House of Representatives actually hoping to replace Papa Bostwick candidate J Arthur Younger because she wanted to quote, break the all male hold on. California's congressional seats to another Republican candidate Pete mcclosky. But the mayoral elections were held the following year and I guess a lot of the Republican funds went into helping Shirley's campaign. So Henry Bostwick lost the election to a democrat named John F Shelley. But the happy ending there is that there hasn't been another Republican candidate in San Francisco since that election. So, thanks Shirley. Anyway, barely closed out the interview by stating that his intensely political childhood really makes him apprehensive about discussing politics in any kind of meaningful way. He said, quote, I'm not against people having a point of view, against all that. I will have it privately, but I don't think I would actually be able to change the world with who I thought was an a hole besides me. And you know what? Good for you, Barry, you're the number one asshole in our hearts and we don't need to bring fucking politics into the mix to mess with any of that. And we hear at Rocky talk, you're very glad that you left your political career in the past and have moved on to more important shenanigans like acting seriously, Shirley Temple kind of learned a thing or two. She totally went in the wrong direction. Well, speaking of politics of a different and way more entertaining nature, the winners for the 2021 Broadway World Awards are currently in the process of being announced. The Broadway World Regional Awards are the largest theater audience awards with over 100 cities participating worldwide theater fans are encouraged to log into the Broadway World website and vote for their favorite shows in their different categories. The categories are all pretty much what you'd expect. Best direction, best performer, best design stuff like that. The exciting part here is that this year Theresa Craven won the Broadway World San Diego Award for best costume design of a play or musical for her work on the Rocky Horror Show at the Obie Playhouse. Now, we talked about the Obie Playhouse's production of the stage show a few months ago. The production is a staple at this playhouse. They performed it back in January and February of 2020 and again during the summer of 2021 it's always nice to see a theater company with great taste. Hell, yeah. And looking at the pictures of this show's costumes, the company isn't the only one with great taste in this equation. Teresa Craven's onstage looks are fabulous in her real life. Teresa works at a beauty salon as a hair and makeup artist and wig stylist. Her Instagram Craven beauty is full of gorgeous before and after images of her clients while putting together looks for this production. Teresa took a very modern punky approach to costumes, lots of body harnesses, straps and vinyl made appearances throughout the characters. Wardrobes. Colombia appears to be the most traditionally costumed in a Rhinestone stier and shorts made out of colorful fringe. Pretty much everyone else looks like they're dressed in some sort of bond gear and we are absolutely here for it. Special shout out to the production's space suits which looked to be vests covered in led lights because there's no wrong way to Rocky, right? Buffalo, the, the show's floor show ensembles had almost a circus vibe to them with lots of like red and black vertical stripes all over the place. And of course, Frank's full drag hair and makeup looks were absolutely stunning. The back and forth white to black wig change could not have been simple. And we here at Rocky Talkie would like to congratulate Teresa as well as the rest of the O B Playhouse team on their win. It looks like you all did an incredible job with this production and you fully deserved it. If you'd like to check out some photos from last summer's show, we've got them linked for you in our show notes. And with that, let's move on over to some community news. Our first community news segment comes to you right from Facebook. Our friend Harley made a post to the Rocky Horror Shadow cast members group a few days ago that elicited some great responses and we thought it would be fun to share. They posted that they were conducting some research and asked if group members could share what kinds of merch their cast sells either online or in real life. The responses they received for the post were just so much fun to look through. And there was a ton of merch posts that honestly we'd never even thought of. Turns out Rocky people are weirdly creative who knew. So we thought it would be a good time to run through some of the responses that we found just the absolutely most creative Rocky people are weirdly creative. Have you ever been to a con talent show? Aaron? Yeah. The ones that I thought were the most novel were the glassware. We know lots of casts do shot glasses. They're practically a community staple at this point and they make awesome collection pieces. But I was never aware that some casts also sell glassware that isn't necessarily exclusively for alcohol consumption. Gasp Kyle Defina of Sweet Translucent Dreams, which is a cast that is based out of Eastern P A shared that among lots of other merch. His cast sells glass tumblers with the Columbia Roxy album logo and lab scene. Frank embossed on the side. We also had Kristen Kelly of the Masters Affair out in Lexington, Kentucky post a coffee mug with their cast logo printed on the side. It's an illustration of Frank with the cast's name written into his hair, love it. Full body cast up in Boston is something I've never seen another cast do fully embroidered patches. Of course, we all know that patches are something that sell well throughout our community, mostly because of Frank's leather jacket. But it never occurred to me that they might be of interest to audience members as March too. I really wanted to point this out because my cast does fully embroidered patches, but we don't do like character specific specific ones and I think that that's pretty cool. F B C's merch people are brilliant though. And on their website, they have all sorts of different embroidered patches for sale. They have the lips in red as well as different pride fly colors. They've got cute little heart shaped butts and an assortment of varieties. Columbia shorts, Frank Scar, belton stockings, gold space suit as well as a whole bunch more. But they've also got Brad's Denton patch as well as quite a few Frank patches. Also up for sale to both audience members and shadow casters alike. The more I thought about this idea, the more I thought it was genius, think about it. You know how they sell t-shirts and hoodies and stuff for all kinds of fake high schools and colleges, for movies and TV shows. If you've got a dent in high school patch, an audience member can buy it and turn literally any jacket they like into a dent in varsity jacket. It's pretty much guaranteed to be a cooler jacket than the nerdy beige one Brad wears. Yeah, I won't lie. I have bought a ton of these patches. These come out of Tyler's shop wild and untamed things. Go check it out on Etsy. They sell all of the Frank jacket patches and you know me when I'm putting in an order for some Frank patches. Of course, I'm gonna be like, oh, well, look, there's all these cute ones. Click click, click, click, click purchase So yeah, I absolutely love these. Go check them out. Uh They've also got a whole bunch of Frank jacket patches that obviously look great on pretty much any leather or denim jacket. So you could like low key wrap your favorite movie without being super over the top about your fan girl lane. Fun fact, F BC also sells Brad's wedding boo, the white carnation with the green leaves. You can also costly, Brad bet any wedding by adding this bone to your black suit and wearing a plaid bow tie and cumber bun. Wow, that's gross. You've probably done it before Aaron. No, but now I will when you getting married. Great question. Also before we move on, quick shout out to F B C's coffin clock patch with the little skeleton peeking out of the front. I don't know why, but I think it's really fucking funny that they turned it into a patch for no reason. It's insanely detailed and I think the little skeleton face is so stupidly funny. I've got two of those last but not least I really want to shout out Aaron Robbie from Boone Iowa, R H P S. Almost every cast sells buttons. They're easy to make with a button press. You can sell them for super cheap. People love them. And it's really simple to continually come out with and tell new designs to see which ones sell. There were some really fun ones in this thread R H P S Buffalo showed us a few that they sell at their shows and we particularly liked the little cartoon ones with the different character pairings. Frank and Rocky. Eddie and Columbia, Magenta and Columbia, Magenta and Riff and Brad and Janet. The characters have these humongous googly eyes and it looks like someone might have personally drawn them specifically for the buttons. If they did a great job, they're super cute. I have one and I love it. But anyway, back to our shout out ad posted their casts idea to loot box, the buttons they sell now this is super clever. They package their buttons into these neat little cardboard boxes that, you know, they look almost like happy meal containers and they sell them for five bucks each. It feels like it's got to be such a win-win, especially in a place like Iowa where a lot of your audience is probably regulars, people can come and get a fun surprise every week. It probably feels more like an event than just a regular purchase. You know, they're trying to pick a good box and get the button that they want. Plus there's a whole other social element of buying them with your friends and swapping them around. Once you've all opened them up and on the cast site, it's great because you get people spending more money trying to support the cast and get one of the buttons that they specifically want. Loot boxes are weirdly addictive. Ask me about how many crates I've opened in Team Fortress two. The rush of getting lucky and scoring the thing that you wanted totally outweighs the extra 20 bucks you spent on the four that you were kind of mad about. So before we wrap up this segment, I've got to ask you guys two questions. What's your favorite piece of merch your cast has ever sold? And what's the most unique piece of merch you've seen for sale? Isn't there a cast somewhere that does? Like underwear? A bunch of places have done underwear? Is it? Yeah, I, I'm one of, I, I'm pretty sure it's one of the new England casts. So I think that that checks out. I think it's Tesser who does underwear? Uh I haven't been able to go up and catch a test a show. I've only ever seen R K O up in that general area, but I would love to get up there to get a pair of underwear that has like the rocky shit on it, I think, don't they say like asshole and slut on them or something like that? Like fan fucking fantastic. I love those. Yeah. Here in New York we're pretty much down to just t-shirts and buttons at this point. I mean, hell, the way that everything's worked out this last year, we, we don't even have most of our merch available at our shows, but back in the uh pre Panda Express days we, we definitely had a ton of different merch on sale. Honestly, my favorite piece of merch that we sell is probably just the I lips New York shirts. They're so iconic, right? Like everybody picks one up just because they are New York Rocky, right? They're, they're very, very representative and very on brand. Um I think one of the weirdest things that we've sold. Oh OK. This one's fun. Uh Shout out to our buddy Jacob because uh Jacob's dad has a uh business where he uh makes and sells uh isolated uh film strip slides with original 35 millimeter print film strip from the movie uh in kind of a neat little display case and all this, he usually sells them on ebay. Uh Jacob has brought them to our show and sold them before they're super cool. Uh So if you ever wanted to know where one of the last remaining 35 millimeter trailer prints is, it's sitting in Jacob's house being slowly cut up and sold for pieces. Wow. Is that true? It's true. How did his dad get that? He buy, he buys trailers. So like he buys Disney trailers is how he got into it. He buys like trailers for like the Little Mermaid or like Aladdin, all these kinds of things and he like chops them up and sells them on ebay and like it funds their Disney trips and stuff every year and like three years ago after Jacob got in or no, five years ago now after Jacob got into Rocky, he was like, well, I, there's a, a Rocky horror, you know, like, he only uses like damaged trailers and stuff. It's not like he's using a pristine copy of the trailer, but he picked one up and started chopping it up and was like, all right. And like, I still see him on ebay every week when he posts his new listings and stuff. I love Merch. I love everything about it. I spend way too much money on it. My cast sells these really sexy enamel pins. We have a bunch of them in circulation. We have like, um if you're from New Jersey, you know who Tilly is, they're like the mascot for Asbury Park, but it's like a creepy little happy, cute face and we have one that's styled to look like Franken Furter. It's our con logo. So we sell that on an enamel pin and we sell just like another nice Frank enamel pin. We also my favorite one that we just debuted is our 20th anniversary logo enamel pin, but it's glow in the dark, which is really, really cool and really sexy closing out community news. Now that we've gotten a chance to spotlight some cast merch, we wanted to share a fun fanmade item that we found for sale. Recently. Hugs and fizzes is a small bath bomb company owned and run by Michelle Richardson Hillegass out of Louisville Kentucky with her shop, Michelle creates and sells horror bath bombs made with love in every fizz so you can keep it creepy even while you're in the bath. Michelle's bath bombs are out of this world. They're definitely not the shapeless blobs that you like pick up from bath and body works for 99 cents a piece. No, these are fully shaped colored and shaded works of art that you might almost feel bad about yeading into your bath and turning into bubbles. Michelle specializes in horror themed bombs with pieces including both Gizmo and the evil gremlins from the movie Gremlins, Wednesday, Adams from the Adams family and Sam from trick or treat. However, she also is out from time to time on her shop and will post lighter content. She's got an insanely detailed set of frozen characters, Elsa Olaf and Sven who are all airbrushed to perfection. She's also added bath bombs shaped like all the members from the band kiss and even more relevant to our show. Michelle recently put out two new designs for sale, a round bomb airbrush with Frank's face and a big red set of the lips T M. These bombs are totally cute. Michelle has somehow managed to make Frank look kind of pretty in spite of the big red blood splatter on the side of his face. Presumably this photo is from right after he killed Eddie. I'm super impressed with these people usually go pretty menacing. With Frank, but Michelle took it in a different direction and I think it really worked. The red lips are also really adorable. They're completely molded into the right shape and even have the little teeth in Boston, which is slightly unsettling in a good way. Like you're buying a hard the product, you want it to be a little weird and this definitely delivers the colors on both of these bombs are super crisp and vibrant and overall they look really great as far as product eats. When you throw them into your bathtub, these bombs fizz and smell great while softening your skin with, I don't know, oil magic something. All bomb recipes have been designed with anti-inflammatory relief and skin softening in mind. They're made out of cruelty free vegan ingredients and love it specifically lists love as a key ingredient in the shop. Michelle personally blows kisses into the center of each bomb to be dispensed like an airborne love pathogen. When the water fizzes it all the way down to the middle, that sounds COVID safe. We've linked the hugs and fizzes shop for you on our show notes and for right now if you buy six or more bombs, you can get 10% off using the code by 6 10. These bombs would make a great gift for the self indulgent rocky horror or regular horror nerd in your life. Definitely check them out if only to look at the insane levels of detail in some of these pieces. It's always great to see small businesses showing Rocky some love with their products and we like getting to show them love right back. Speaking of shit, we love. Do you know what we love here on Rocky Talkie bombs? Apparently. Exactly. Both of those answers. Snacks. So guys, I've just got to say I am so pumped about R K O K so pumped about R K O K. I'm John. Yes. Yes. But I'm really excited. I've been trying to get all my plans figured out seeing what I might want to do, looking at travel, all that stuff. Yeah, R K O K four is a little under six months away. Making plans early is always good. I mean it sucks to scramble for K at the last minute. Yeah, but I've got to say basically how the hell do normal people attend? Cons? I did the math and it is so expensive. We're talking like 500 to $1000 now. Obviously it's worth it to me and I'm for sure gonna be there. But I totally understand why so many people can't or just choose not to attend conventions. Yeah, cons ain't cheap but there are always the min max your dollar to con ratio. Con can be a big expense that takes a lot of planning and budgeting. See and that's the thing. I haven't gone to a con. I don't really know how much some of this stuff costs and even what the options are going to be. Everyone's con stories are always about going out and partying and doing Rocky. Not the bill. Sounds like a good knack snack, Nikki. The not so secret tips to optimize your convention dollar. I mean, not really. I was just kind of bitching too late. We're doing it fine. Talk to me about the Mola, the clams, the scratch bread bucks, cheddar dough mula again, the somos. Give me the lowdown on the wang. What the fuck the, what the Wanga derived from the Romani Wang, meaning coal, which itself was used as slang for money in the 18th and 19th century. Try to fucking keep up Aaron. Yeah. Try to keep up. So you've got to start with your most fixed costs, the ticket and the hotel mostly. And the hotel is like $850 for all the days and just a disclaimer. I'm using round numbers here. It's easier to talk about and big numbers give me headaches, right? But if you split that with one other person, it's like 425 bucks for the stay. But here's the thing. If you reserve a room for four people, the cost only goes up to 1000 80 bucks and broken down. That's like $270 per person for the entire convention. Plus you've got your ticket and right now they're still early bird for 75 bucks. Right. So that's not horrible. Stay with three people from your cast or maybe make some new friends in the community. And the con is what we're all here for. Got to make sure A K O covers their costs so they can keep throwing awesome events. So I'm at like 350 bucks and you've still got to add in travel and food, not to mention everything else. And travel varies most from place to place. If you're part of R K O, well, it might be faster to get to the Hilton than to your fucking job. But if you're out in California, you're looking at like a five or $600 round trip flight, but you can do some averages or at least like, figure you're out some rough estimates. I mean, driving will generally be a lot of people's default travel choice. If you do drive, it'll run you about 100 bucks in parking just to park at the hotel for the entire con. Well, if there's four of us, that's only 25 bucks each. Right? Not too bad. So let's say you're in Chicago, I only pick it because it's relatively the middle of the country. Right? You could fly, checking the airlines that's gonna be like 400 bucks round trip or you could make the 15 hour drive, you'd probably spend around 100 and 50 bucks or more in gas more. And that is if your car doesn't get shit gas mileage. Like mine does not having public transportation. Am I right? You could take a bus that's still several $100 and like a day and a half in travel time. Amtrak can be fairly cheap at, around, like 100 and 20 bucks. But it's still over a day of travel time. Yeah. Last R K O K I took the bus and I'll be honest, that's probably my preferred way to get to any con that is in bus uh bus distance, I guess because there's just something about stuffing a bus full of Rocky horror people. And you know how we always say that like when you get a part of Rocky Horror, it becomes your primary social circle and like you invite the cast to the parties that you have and then all the people who are not part of Rocky, just kind of like either go to another room or just straight up leave because Rocky people end up taking over the entire party. It's kind of the same thing when it comes to a bus where we just become such a powerful force on the bus that nobody wants to bother us. And we just kind of do our own thing and say our own thing and we're, we're loud and annoying and then we pass out halfway through. It was fantastic. And also on the way back, you get to like, you know, Ky with all the Rocky people. About who slept with who who got too drunk, you know all that shit. I might just have a dirty mind but bus distance and stuffing the bus are absolutely sending me. I don't know why I'm gonna start saying that to you want to stuff the bus. Yeah you you want to come back to my place and stuff the bus pretty close uh bus distance. So how how much uh how much did it cost last year or last time you went John to stuff? The bus. Do you remember? Uh it was like it was pretty cheap. I think the ticket there was like what? 25 30 bucks? Oh, that's great. Yeah, one way. So it's like 60 round trip to stuff. The bus which ain't bad. I would do a lot of things for 60 bucks and stuffing. A bus is one of them. Yeah. No, me too. Uh so it's a big range depending on where you are. But then there's all the costs at the con a girl. I gotta eat well, you're in luck because Providence Rhode Island right there in the pud zone is the corporate home of Dunkin Donuts. There is literally a Dunkin Donuts on every goddamn corner. You know how New York has. Starbucks. Providence has Dunkin Donuts. Uh You can have cheap ass dunks for the entire convention. I generally have cheap ass dunks because uh they're great when you're hungover stuff in the bus with some cheap ass dunks. Yeah. Stuff in the bus with my cheap ass dunks. Oh God. Anyway, and if you want even cheaper than that there's dollar pizza places. You can go there and get an $8 pizza and be set for an entire day. And if you want there's all the stuff in the mall food court that's nearby along with just generic fast food mcdonald's and the like, so, I mean, you can eat on the pretty cheap and if you mix and match, you can save on some and go to nicer places a few other days, it's what, 100 100 and 50 bucks. Now, we're at like $500 and there's still travel on top of that. Assuming you drive with a couple of people that could still be easily another 50 or 100 bucks in gas and travel expenses, you're not wrong. It does add up. But fortunately from that point, you're already guaranteed to get there and back. You've got a room and you got your con pass and you're not going to starve even if you're about to subsist on dollar pizza and bagels. You know what bagels are good for stuffing the bus, soaking up all those drinks. So you don't have to call it an early night. Does Rhode Island have good bagels? They have Dunkin Donuts bagels. That's not a bagel. That's a bread circle. They're pronounced bagel. But right, that's the other thing a lot of K is partying and that means drinks and that means paying for drinks and drinks are not cheap either. There's some easy tricks there, there's a couple of liquor stores within walking distance of the hotel and they have pretty much everything you would expect from a regular liquor store. You can save a bundle during con evenings when you're just hanging out at the hotel, just invest in some Dunkin, don't nuts cups, a Gatoraid bottle, whatever suits your fancy and always be able to refill your drink up in your room. And obviously not all the con events are at the hotel. Dave and Busters is certainly not going to allow outside booze. So that one's just gonna be up to your budget. Personally, I don't drink kind is still fun as fucking hell. And there's plenty of fun to be had without having to pay a $100 bar tab at the end of the night. That makes sense. I mean, honestly, the real expense is all the money that you put into the guitar hero machine at Dave and Buster's. No, that was literally just you, Aaron, listen, I've got to do something while the room is happening. Yeah, that's fair. And all the other expenses are relatively optional. Do I buy stuff at the dealer room? Do we go out to dinner somewhere fancy? How much am I spending at the bar? Listen, we can't really lie is a big expense for a lot of people. It's their only big vacation that year. You can try every trick in the book and still not be able to swing it. But I think comparing it to the concentration that I've taken that cost about the same amount, it's got an amazing return rate of enjoyment. Right. I was thinking about the cost and all that and then being like, ok, what kinds of things could actually reduce how much Khan is costing me? Right? Like do dealers at the conventions make money? Is it worth it to offset their costs? That's really hard to say. Vending at a con has a whole other set of challenges. Like I've never personally vented at a con, but one of my best friends, Jen, she's one of New York's longtime Franks. She vended at several past conventions, mostly selling wigs and tattoos. Uh You may have purchased tattoos from her over the last Halloween. That's deadly sting tattoos up on Etsy. Um So if you have the right product and you set the right prices, I mean, sure, you can definitely come out ahead, but you also have so much more to look at. You're now literally running a business at the convention. You've got costs transporting merchandise, you've got your just your costs on the merchandise that you've got to take into account. You've got to take into account the time you spent making that merchandise. Like never forget to value your own time and on top of that, you're committing to hang out in the dealer room for a good portion of the convention which, you know, can be fun on its own. But it's another thing entirely. It's more like a working vacation because you're dealing with all the aspects of, you know, doing business. Did you make sure to get a square reader for your new phone? Because nobody has cash anymore? Exactly. But, I mean, it definitely works out for, uh, a lot of members of the community R C 03 had over a dozen vendors listed in just their program. And I know a lot of staple sellers from years past also have showed up every single year. Clearly, there are ways to make vending a part of your con experience that you can be really successful at, but I probably wouldn't try to do it for someone's first convention. Oh, I wouldn't think so. Just the amount that you would miss and you wouldn't know about what's happening and what times people are around for things and just all that stuff. I was just thinking of how to offset the cost of the trip, which actually kind of brings up a write in that we had from Rowan a few weeks ago. Oh, for fuck sake. Hi, Rowan Rowan writes. I know Rocky is a large hobby for many that said I had the thought the other day. Are there any Rocky horror picture show? Shadow Casts that pay their casting crew. I know that Rocky is something we do for fun and spend insane amounts of money on. But I've always wondered if any casts out there make it more like a job. No. And that's our show? Oh, come on. I know it has to be more nuanced than that. Not really. No, nobody makes money doing Rocky. It's also my personal rule. Number one, never try to make money on Rocky. Rule one do not violate rule one. Come on. I know that's not all of it. You guys did that caveat show where you got the rights and there's definitely rental shows. Lots of casts do those. Sometimes those get split. That's definitely true. But you've got to remember it's a nine or 10 person show plus crew, like in my experience with New York's rental shows, even if the cast isn't keeping anything, which they should since casts, they still have expenses for shows too. The amount paid out isn't really anything to write home about. But your mileage may vary on this one. Many casts out there certainly have done paid shows. Sometimes it's worthwhile. Sometimes it's very little money. But I'm not aware of any cast that has ever like, permanently been paid. If there was, I bet they didn't last long or it changed at some point. Right. Because even if you get the rights to the film, you split the door with the theater. I mean, you'll probably break even even if you sell really well, let alone being able to pay the cast, movie theaters will make money showing Rocky. But as soon as you're responsible for the rights and not getting all of the profits and you have to book through criterion instead of through a theaters booker. It's very difficult to make up the huge chunk of change that the rights are gonna cost you. Yeah, if you want to do Rocky and get paid. Well, good luck with your audition for the professional version of the stage show. So I guess the answer is sure sometimes people get paid a little bit for Rocky. Generally it's outside bookings special for higher shows or appearances at events, but we don't know of any cast that has managed to actually make it a thing. The margins just aren't there. Maybe they could have in 1980 when 400 theaters were selling out four shows a weekend, but like not in 2020 two. But I mean, that's not really violating your stupid rule one. That's not super trying to make money off Rocky and I'll take issue with it back in the early days. I know there was a lot of money made off merchandise. Hell, hot topic still carries it. So there must be money to be made there. But you've got to remember back in the day a lot of merch was unlicensed, think like the stuff that you see on Etsy except it wasn't artsy. It was blatant copyright violation territory, all of those tim curry badges and stuff and something like hot topics certainly has the resources and existing licensing contracts. Someone at a hot topic at corporate plugged Rocky Horror into a spreadsheet and said, sure, let's do some of those. And even way back in the late seventies and early eighties, you only had a handful of people who were actually licensed to make official merchandise And of course, there were several people who made businesses out of selling this licensed Merch. The Rocky Horror Shop being one of the big ones out of which came the shop talk fanzine, the official fan club. Uh I mean, all you had to do was flip through the newsletters and you could find dozens of these sellers, but most of those places have kind of faded away. There's definitely dealers still but not like that. There just aren't many dealers of just General Rocky stuff, which is why Khan is awesome because it's the perfect chance to meet those dealers, pick their brains and pick up some awesome stuff that you have been dying to find. What about all the people who sell costumes and wigs to the community? I know that they are at least approaching it like a business. Let me tell you, I guarantee that every single one of them will tell you that they do it out of a love for the community. Not because it's a great way. To pay their bills. The cost that goes into wigs and costumes isn't so much the raw materials. It's the labor. Think about it if it takes 15 hours to style a space Magenta wig and the base for that costs 90 bucks and you use like, I don't know, 10 bucks of products and materials and maybe you sell it for 200 bucks. Well, congratulations. You've now made $6 an hour for the time that you spend in styling that wig rocky people have a tendency to weigh under charge for the amount of time they're putting into things. Almost anything related to Rocky should be because you wanted to be doing it and enjoy it. Here's actually a good example for Rowan and where there are some opportunities to get paid for Rocky. I know that in the past New York has hired alumni talent for their professional skills, for example, to choreograph your preshow stage, manage a for hire show or to create marketing materials and artwork in our website. That's one of the best uses of a cast fund is to try to get back to people who love Rocky and are willing to put in professional quality work for absolute garbage. Rock bottom prices. Yeah. Ain't nobody ever got rich working on a Rocky horror website. Let me tell you, I doubt there's much anywhere nobody struck it rich writing a Rocky book or making a documentary. That company that made the porno were still in business. There's always money in porn. John. That's the answer. Just like real life. The only way to make money with Rocky is porn. You know, I might have an idea for how to pay for. And that's our show. We want to thank your mom for the blow. She gave me last night stuff in the bus. Yeah, we want to thank Harley for their awesome Facebook posts. We also want to thank Rowan for their amazing write in and you know, for the blowy they gave me last night and you know, just everybody out there in the community that responded and gave us some wonderful content to talk about this week. And as always, we'd like to thank our writer, Jacob and our editor Aaron from Tennessee. We appreciate all your work. If anyone has a question, they'd like us to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or some community news that they'd like us to talk about or even a cool story to share with the community. We would love to include it on our show. Just go to our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to tell us about it. If you're enjoying Rocky talkie, please help us out by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners, which really helps us to grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky talkie content, check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talkie Podcast. We'll talk to you next week. Bye bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye bye. Get the fuck out. All right, this is the recording of me saying Ono not my bear, bear with a few variations. I first regular generic Jacob. Oh, no, not my beer bear. Sorry. My grandma just texted the entire family group, chat of 30 people. Hi, Colly, how are you? And it's, it's killing me. Boomer, texting and then she private messaged it to me just now. Thank you, grandma. All right now. Uh I'm gonna do it. Like I'm really surprised by this news. Well, oh oh no, not my bear bear also if we're like, if we're in a minute. Um I just want to say that I understand that Shirley Temple is probably like a normal name. Like her name's just Shirley and her last name is Temple, but it is a silly ass name because of the drink. The drink is named after her. I know but like I understand that like before she had a normal name but like I could not take a politician named Shirley Temple. Seriously. The same with Arnold Palmer, the golf fighter. No, the guy who created the drink, the fact that they are one and the same I I will disagree with until the day I die. All right now, I'm gonna do it like I'm really angry and like I'm really riled up about the politics. Oh, no, not my bear bear. Speaking of shit. We love. Do you know what we love here on Rocky talkie bombs? Apparently. Exactly. Both of those questions. Nope, that's not what I was saying. That's the word. All right. Now, I'm gonna do it. Like, I'm a girl who, when puberty happened I got a lot of male hormones and so my voice is, like, really deep and I'm Harry. All right. Oh no, not my bear. Bear. Fine. Talk to me about the Mola, the clams, the scratch bread bucks, cheddar dough mula. Again. The somos. Give me the lowdown on the, what the fuck the what the Wanga derived from the Romani Wang. Why, why, why do I have to say this? Fuck you guys? Is this a prank? What is that word? I don't know why this is a Jacob line. OK. The Wanga derived from the Romani Wang meaning coal, which itself was used as slang for money in the 18th and 19th century. Try to fucking keep up Aaron. OK. Uh Now I'm gonna do it like I'm an anime girl in an, in an anime. Oh oh no, another better better coon. Why do we specify that Aaron is from Tennessee? Like imagine if it was like, welcome back to Rocky Talkie. I'm Nicky from New Jersey. Our writer Jacob from New York. I'm Aaron. He 35 from New York. My name is John. He him. Pronouns 29 Taro's son, Scorpio Moon Taro's rising from Levittown, Pennsylvania Balsa. And this is Rocky Talkie. Ok. Now I'm gonna do it. Like, I'm on a sketch of S N L and I'm in like a, it's like a classroom sketch and like the camera zooms in on me for this one and it's like a jokey, sort of like puny thing. I'm doing all right. Oh, no, not my pa pa. Ok. Now, uh, that's, that's all I've got.