The rankings were published one month after Seipel was promoted to senior associate dean for academic affairs and director of graduate studies at VCU’s School of the Arts (now officially VCUarts) in 2001.

Seipel was clearly on his way, but no one could have guessed how far he would travel. Last year, at a time when most folks would be thinking about retirement, the 61-year-old Seipel let it be known that, after 35 years at VCU, he would leave in May to become vice president for academic services at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

Click here to read Proctor’s piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Click here to read more background on Seipel in previous published material at the Fan District Hub.

Mar. 1, 1980: In the Biograph Theatre the night “Rocky Horror” broke the record of “The Sound of Music” for the longest-running movie in Richmond.

On Saturday, February 28, 2009, the one and only “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which played for a solid five years at the long-lost Biograph, made its debut at Movieland. It is currently scheduled to play every other weekend at 11:30 p.m.

In 1975 “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” produced by Lou Adler, was released by 20th Century Fox. Adapted from the British gender-bending stage musical, “The Rocky Horror Show,” the movie version died at the box office. Most critics didn’t like it, either.

The odd-ball story of the movie’s second life — as the cult midnight show king of all-time — began at the Waverly Theater in Manhattan, when during the spring of 1977, audience members began calling out sarcastic comeback lines at the screen. It became a game to make up new and better lines.

Later that same year the unprecedented interaction between audience and screen jumped to other cities where “Rocky Horror” was also playing as a midnight show — chiefly, Austin and Los Angeles. Cheap props and campy costumes mimicking those in the film appeared.

So, by the spring of 1978 “Rocky Horror” was playing to wildly enthusiastic crowds in a few midnight show bookings. Yet, curiously, it had not done well at others. At this point, what would eventually become an unprecedented pop phenomenon was still flying below the radar for most of America.

A trip to LA in May of that year boosted my interest in the film. As the manager of the Biograph, I was fascinated with the potential of “Rocky Horror.” So were my bosses at the Biograph in Georgetown. Their former partner, David Levy, had already secured the title for The Key, to lock up the DeeCee market.

Our inquiry hit a roadblock. With all of its prints of the movie then being used, the bosses at Fox felt unwilling to risk money on striking any more prints to cater to a weird fad that might fizzle any time. And, there was no enthusiasm for the picture’s prospects in Richmond.

In those days Richmond was generally seen by most distributors as weak market — not a place to waste resources. Besides, no one at Fox seemed to have the slightest idea why the audience participation following for the picture had started, or what was making it catch on in some places, but not in others.

Over the telephone, I was told we would have to wait for a print to become available; there was no telling how long that would be.

So, sensing the moment might pass us by, we got creative. The Biograph offered to front the cost of a new print to be made (I remember that as being something like $6,000). For that consideration we wanted a guarantee from the distributor that we would have the exclusive rights to exhibit “Rocky Horror” in the Richmond market, as long we held onto that same print.

Fox went for the deal. The Biograph’s chief rival in the midnight show market in those days was Ray Bentley’s Movie Machine, in association with Neighborhood Theatres. This strategy meant Bentley would have to wait until we were through with exploiting our print of “Rocky Horror.”

Based on what I had learned about the strange success of the movie in the cities where it was playing well, I decided to use a concept that had worked with other cult films at the Biograph — let the audience “discover” the movie.

Don’t over-promote it and draw the sort of general audience made up of too people who might leave the theater bad-mouthing it. Instead, get the taste-makers to see it first. Let them spread the word to the like-minded, associates who look to them for knowing what’s the new cool thing to get in on it.

Accordingly, I cut radio spots using 20-some seconds of the “Time Warp” cut on the soundtrack to run on WGOE-AM. The only ad copy came at the very end. The listener heard my voice say, “Get in the act … midnight at the Biograph.”

There was no explanation of what the music was or what the ad was even about. I put out a handbill with a pencil drawing of Riff Raff — a character in the movie — against a black background, with the distinctive dripping blood title in red; the “Get in the act” theme was repeated. But the hook was that none of it gave the listener/reader as much information as he expected.

Still, it was more than enough to alert the fanatics who had already been going to DeeCee or New York to see it.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” opened June 30, 1978 and drew an enthusiastic crowd, but it was far short of a sell-out. Some of those who attended called out wisecrack lines to respond to the movie’s dialogue. Most did not. There was a handful of people dressed in costumes drawn from characters in the movie.

In the next few weeks a devoted following for the rock ‘n’ roll send-up of science fiction and horror flicks snowballed. At the center of that following was a regular troupe who became the costumed singers and dancers that turned each midnight screening into a performance art adventure.

John Porter, a VCU drama major, emerged as the leader of that group; they called themselves the “floorshow.”

Dressed in his Frankenkurter get-up, Porter missed few, if any, midnight screenings at the Biograph for the next couple of years.

There were a lot of crazy things that happened in the five years of babysitting “Rocky Horror.“ Among them was the Saturday night I threw out the entire full house because so many people had gone wild; bare-chested rednecks were hosing the crowd down with our fire extinguishers and fights were underway when I shut down the projector and the movie ground to a halt.

Everybody got their money back. Interestingly, after that melodramatic stunt, we never had much trouble with violence to do with “Rocky Horror” again.

But there was no stranger night than when about six weeks into the run a man in his early-30s breathed his last, as he sat in the small auditorium watching “FIST.”

Yes, that Sylvester Stallone vehicle was particularly lame, even for him, but who knew it was that bad a movie?

The dead man’s face was expressionless … he just expired. When the rescue squad guys got there they jerked him up and onto the floor. As jolts of electricity were shot into the dead man’s heart his body flopped around like a fish out of water on Theater No. 2’s sloped floor.

At the same time, down in Theater No. 1, “Rocky Horror“ was on the screen delighting a packed house. The audience had no idea of what was going on elsewhere in the building. A couple of times, I walked back and forth between the two scenes, feeling the bizarre juxtaposition.

Learning just how much to allow the performers to do, what limits were practical or necessary, came with experience. Porter’s leadership of the regulars was unquestioned and he played a key role in keeping it fun but not out of control. For his part he was given a lifetime pass to the Biograph.

On Friday, March 1, 1980, with its 88th consecutive week, “Rocky Horror” established a new record for longevity in Richmond, breaking the record of 87 weeks that had been established by “The Sound of Music” at the Willow Lawn in the 1960s.

That night Porter and I were both dressed in tuxedos. In front of the full house he held up a “Sound of Music” soundtrack album. I smashed it with a hammer, which went over quite well with the folks on hand. A couple of people came dressed as Julie Andrews, in a nice touch to underline the special night‘s theme.

That same night Larry Rohr (see photo above) rode his motorcycle, a Honda 350, through the auditorium’s aisles at the point in the story when Meatloaf’s character in the film, Eddie, rides his motorcycle. Rohr’s rides happened only on a few special occasions, like the record breaking night.

The late Carole Kass, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s sweetheart of an entertainment writer/movie critic, wrote up a nice feature on what was basically hokum.

Nothing bad ever happened with Rohr’s rides, which were noisy, slow and careful. One time, after we had just barely dodged the fire marshal to get Larry in position at the proper time — which underlined the what-ifs of what we were doing — I had a dream that the Biograph exploded.

The nightmare scared me enough about danger of the stunt, no matter how careful we were, so that the motorcycle rides were discontinued. Now, of course, it seems crazy as hell that I ever facilitated such shenanigans. In context, it was just another part of living out the theatre’s slogan/motto — Have a Good Time.

While “Rocky Horror” had an underground cachet in the first year or so of its run, its status eventually changed in the staff’s eyes. Rice, toast and all sorts of other stuff that got tossed around — never at the screen! — had to be cleaned up each and every time by the grumbling janitors, who grew to detest the movie. To keep the peace they got “Rocky Horror” bonuses — a few extra bucks for their weekend shifts.

Once into the third year of the Friday and Saturday midnight screenings the demand began to wither. By then much of the audience seemed to be tourists from the suburbs … any city’s suburbs. The Fan District’s fast crowd in the punk rock scene mostly ignored it. The shows didn’t usually sell out, anymore, but they continued to do enough business to justify holding onto that print.

Porter met Susan, his wife, at the Biograph. No doubt, many lifelong friendships stem from the hundreds of nights the floorshow kids were dancing in the aisles.

At the completion of exactly five years, to the week, the Biograph shipped its print of “Rocky Horror” back to Fox. Naturally, Ray Bentley booked “Rocky Horror” into the Ridge Cinema the following weekend.

On July 23, 2008, Variety reported that MTV has plans to remake “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Once again, Lou Adler and 20th Century Fox plan to get in the act.

No doubt, the possibility that it could catch a wave is tempting. But much of what made “Rocky Horror” what it was in the late-1970s was the era itself — the context. This far into the Internet Age it’s hard to imagine that the flickering light of serendipity can be caught in a bottle again, 32 years after the fad was set in motion at the Waverly.

What will they do, get better singers? Go funnier? Go for more gore? Maybe they should have the original characters be geezers in their 50s and 60s, as they would be now.

Meanwhile, Movieland, at 1301 North Boulevard, has another connection to the Biograph; it is the first new movie theater to open within Richmond’s city limits since the Biograph Theatre, at 814 West Grace Street, in 1972.

Time-warp, indeed.

– 30 –

Words by F.T. Rea; photo by Ernie Brooks

Editor’s Note: Last week’s episode, which includes the author’s foreword, is here. The words that follow are those of Rebus, the story’s narrator.

Part Two: To begin with, let me say hello to my old fans, those who remember me from my work for the Biograph Theatre and SLANT. Then, please allow me to introduce myself to readers who don’t remember Richmond’s long-lost repertory cinema, or the quirky little periodical that SLANT was.

My name is Rebus. I first went to work as the spokesdog for the Biograph in its initial year of operation, which was 1972. In those days, in some circles, it was cool to believe in truth, justice, the American way, and cartoon dogs, such as the one depicted above — moi.

In his capacity as manager of the theater, Terry Rea (who goes by F.T. Rea when he signs art, or for his byline), gave me that job 37 years ago. Which meant that in addition to my regular work in comic strips, etc. I appeared on Biograph handbills, programs and so forth, on behalf of the cinema.

My credibility on the street, with my natural underground look, was a good fit for the Biograph in the ‘70s. In those days if I said the theater’s motto, “have a good time,” once — oy vey! — I must have said it a thousand times.

Please note that I was not onboard in any capacity when a post-Biograph Terry Rea ran for City Council in 1984 and lost to Chuck Richardson. As well, I had nothing to do with Rea issuing his strange Briley Brothers trading cards with bubble gum in the pack.

However, when SLANT was published regularly, say 1986-93, Rea had me with him to act as spokesdog for the ‘zine. Which means I was there during the Godzillabrook vs. Sherwood Luck brouhaha in 1987.

Up front, I have to say the “brouhaha” was probably more to blame on know-it-all Rea, the publisher, than it ever was on poor old Luck, the lovable movie critic/booze hound. To grasp the utter absurdity of a huge hospital chain trying to crush a warmed-over beatnik magazine, with a weekly readership of about 5,000, today’s readers need some measure of context. A sense is needed of what SLANT and Godzillabrook were seen as, before their names were linked in headlines over news stories about a $300,000 lawsuit and freedom of speech.

To begin with, SLANT was the third-best known periodical being distributed in the Fan District, Carytown and Downtown corridor in 1987. Online publishing was still just a dream then; in some ways, SLANT was a forerunner to blogging. At this same time STYLE Weekly had been around for five years and its power was still waxing. Although ThroTTle had built a steady following in its six years of monthly editions, it’s peak was about three years behind it.

While its number of pages and its press run increased for a while after 1987, that same year was probably the zenith of SLANT’s influence on Richmond‘s popular culture.

SLANT, Vol. 1, No. 1 (see below) was printed at Kinko’s on one side of a piece of ordinary bond paper. Under panels of a comic strip and a mission statement blurb, it displayed a couple of advertisements. Copies of that launch edition were stapled to utility poles. Others were posted in shop windows or on bulletin boards in retail settings. Small stacks were also placed in strategic spots in a few restaurants.

Rea published SLANT twice a week for its first three months. His point in putting them on poles was to invite the police to bust him for violating the existing local laws against doing just that. With volunteer attorneys (friends) and expert witnesses (more friends) at his side in 1982, Rea had beaten the City of Richmond in a courtroom over the same issue. Since then the statutes had been rewritten to ban handbills again.

Rea, the dreamer, believed fliers for live music shows, yard sales and social causes — when lumped together and seen as part of an information system — were tantamount to pages of a newspaper; at least, they were to a segment of the community that distrusted the mainstream media. Rea, the provocateur, relished the idea of knocking the local laws against posting handbills in the public way off the books for good.

So, SLANT began its run as a defiant gesture.

Thus, with freedom of speech as a platform, SLANT’s initial cause was to defend musicians, promoters and the clubs featuring live music. Naturally, some of those entities bought little display ads, because they wanted SLANT to live long enough to prevail.

Then came SLANT’s first columnist, H. Sherwood Luck, who was an instant hit with the staffs at key restaurants, such as Soble’s, the Jade Elephant, the Texas-Wisconsin Cafe, Rockitz, the 3rd St. Diner, the Main St. Grill, etc. Those restaurants’ baby boomer bar-hopping patrons took to Sherwood’s self-deprecating stories like ducks to water. The irascible-but-lovable Luck quickly earned a loyal following.

That Rea used a picture of a different person for each issue of SLANT, as an illustration for H. Sherwood Luck, was a running joke. In an oblique way the gag added to the everyman enigma that Luck was.

The other running joke was that when tortured Woody Luck was writing his columns — singing for his supper — he was always either getting drunk, or he had a hangover, or both. Either way, he supposedly created each column sitting in a bar that he would name.

Godzillabrook was a local psychiatric hospital that had become absorbed into a national chain. Following a trend that had become enormously popular, it was operating a dry-out clinic for people wanting to get off the sauce, or kick some sort of substance habit. Advertising for its dry-out clinic was ubiquitous. Moreover, stories about celebrities checking themselves into such facilities were being seen in newspapers and magazines all the time.

Kicking the habit in 30 days had suddenly become fashionable.

To be continued…

*

Editor’s Note: Part One of this series is here. Part Three, which will include selected excerpts of Luck’s provocative columns, will be posted soon.

For info click here.

Please note, this heretofore untold tale has a happy ending, in that in a court of record a wee blow for freedom of speech was struck by an independent publisher. This post begins a series that will unfold under the title above. My plan is to write this on the fly, to see what will evolve and what feedback I’ll get.

Foreword

In 1987 a posh dry-out clinic commanded a powerful law firm to buffalo SLANT into not publishing any further material, satirical or otherwise, mentioning or referring to Godzillabrook Hospital.

Threats swelled into a full blown law suit: Godzillabrook laid $300,000-worth of legal action on SLANT, itself, and its wiseass film critic, H. Sherwood Luck.

Although I was flabbergasted then, at first, since this is a true story there’s no use in trying to work the suspense angle. Ultimately, after some twists and turns, SLANT was successful in defending itself.

Nonetheless, the way my little magazine got itself in such bizarre trouble, and the unexpected gift from out of the blue that helped make that trouble vanish, should be good for a few laughs.

That’s my hope, anyway.

To begin with, of course Godzillabrook isn’t really what the dry-out clinic was named. For reasons that must remain secret to this day, its real name won’t be used here.

But that speck of editorial discretion won’t really do much to cheat the reader, as the clinic/hospital in this story doesn’t exist, anymore. Then, again, as it’s all a matter of public record anyone determined to solve that little mystery can simply look it up.

Hey, H. Sherwood Luck was a made-up name, too.

Luck’s column, ostensibly about movies and popular culture, appeared in the pages of SLANT from 1986 through 1989. The best of Sherwood’s work was top shelf social criticism, satire delivered with a deft balance of absurdity and slapstick. Typically, his rambling yarns would start out about a classic film or a new release and digress into one of his own misadventures.

Sherwood, with his urbane, self-deprecating brand of off-Broadway bluster, was a bemused Everyman.

From the onset, it was all a joke. Soon after I began publishing SLANT, a friend offered to write a stream-of-consciousness film savvy column for it; kind of a spoof on Earl Wilson’s or Hy Gardner’s name-dropping gossip columns of the 1950s.

Presto! Luck became my first columnist. As SLANT was totally an experiment, as its editor, for each of his columns published I decided to run a photo of a different person on the page with “H. Sherwood Luck” under it as the caption. No explanation was ever offered to the readers. The illustrations in this post are all originals.

An essential part of the arrangement SLANT then had with the creator of the H. Sherwood Luck series was that the public would not know who was doing the writing. The person who put the words in Sherwood’s mouth had reasons to remain anonymous.

So, H. Sherwood Luck was a penname and a character. I bet when fictitious characters get sued the trials are usually good for a few laughs.

Anyone who read Luck in SLANT knew his face was different in every issue. They could tell his self-deprecating stories about the nightlife of a has-been writer, as seen through the bottom of a shot glass, were no more or less true than what a sarcastic, cynical stand-up comic might say.

Anyone, in their right mind, that is…

The dry-out clinic’s legal team pressed that its client’s pickled customers weren’t always in their right minds, so they might not be capable of telling the difference between a news story and a joke. The high-powered lawyers argued before a circuit court judge that a crazy person weighing dry-out clinic options might get the wrong idea about Godzillabrook from reading Luck’s outrageously over-the-top descriptions of how he was mistreated during a forced sobering at the Godzillabrook facility.

Jokes aside, what will follow will be a faithful-to-the-truth recounting of what happened. However, it will not reveal who wrote the H. Sherwood Luck stuff. And, because, as the publisher of SLANT, I was knee-deep in the middle of this story — to avoid certain conflicts of interest — I have asked Rebus, my longtime spokesdog, to act as the narrator.

From here on, dear reader, you will be guided through this story by an extremely reliable cartoon dog. An old girlfriend of mine used to tell me Rebus was a chump. Although I could see her point, I still think she was wrong.

Rebus and H. Sherwood Luck

To be continued…

– F.T. Rea

Looking Glass: Films About Art and Glass enhances the run of From Sand: Works in Glass by Ken Daley, Richard Jolley and Joyce J. Scott with a free screening on (mostly) alternating Saturdays, January 31- March 21. Films begin at 2 p.m., with fresh popcorn for all!

Films remaining in the series are:

Feb. 14: Heart of Glass (directed by Werner Herzog, 1973) Running time: 93 minutes

This is the story of an 18th-century Bavarian glassblower who by virtue of his delicate work casts a spell over his neighbors. When the glassblower dies, the townsfolk discover that he failed to leave behind the secret for his special ruby glassware, and they will do literally anything to find the answer. The word usually used to describe Heart of Glass is “haunting”; some viewers have gone beyond haunted and into “possessed.”

Feb. 28: Chihuly over Venice (1999) Running time: 90 minutes

Acclaimed glass artist Dale Chihuly goes on the road to the glass-blowing centers of the world to create a stunning 14-chandelier installation to hang over the canals and alleys of old Venice. Departing from their Seattle studio, Chihuly’s team collaborates with master glass blowers at the Hackman factory in Finland, Waterford Crystal in Ireland, and Vitro Crisa in Monterey, Mexico. As they create the fanciful, organic sculptures, Chihuly and members of his team talk about working together on the project before continuing to Venice for final assembly.

March 7: Alchemy in Light: Making Art Glass (1995) Running time: 29 minutes

Alchemy in Light is a multiple-award-winning film that combines music and cinematography for a sensual and vicarious experience about creation. The film examines the ancient craft of glass blowing from the perspective of three modern artists. Beginning with sand and fire, we watch them labor at Vulcan’s forge to transform the 2,000-degree honey-like material into art glass. Each artist has a unique style and technique; the life they breathe into the glass is their own, and their art reflects their personality. As they work the material, the artists talk about the craft of glass blowing and working with the molten glass.

March 14: Neon: An Electric Memoir (1985) Running time: 26 minutes

A pop culture history of neon as told by Gloria Raposo, a showgirl in love with all the tubes of colored light that illuminate the theaters, bars, diners and hotels of North America. Raposo introduces viewers to famous and obscure neon from New York’s 42nd Street to the Las Vegas Strip.

From Sand: Works in Glass by Ken Daley, Richard Jolley and Joyce J. Scott presents three artists who express their artistic visions using different forms of glass and remains on view through March 22, 2009. VACR exhibitions are also supported by a generous grant from the Gwathmey Memorial Trust and educational programming is supported by a grant from The Wachovia Foundation.

For info call 804/353-0094 or click here.

– The information above was provided by Maggi Tinsley at the VACR.

Visiting the Library of Virginia today, I saw a big poster advertising that they’re participating in The Flickr Commons. And, lo, they are.

Click here to see Jaquith’s post.

Hyde, a poet, essayist, translator and cultural critic, is this year’s featured guest speaker in the Windmueller Lecture Series at VCU School of the Arts. Hyde’s lecture, “Cultural Commons,” will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Grace Street Theater, 930-934 W. Grace St.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Hyde’s “The Gift” examines the position of creative artists in a commercial society. The book has received raves from such high-profile admirers as Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Zadie Smith and the late David Foster Wallace.  Atwood described the book as “a masterpiece” and Wallace said “no one who is invested in any kind of art can read ‘The Gift’ and remain unchanged.” Wallace also called Hyde “a national treasure, one of our true superstars of non-fiction.”

Hyde’s other books include the non-fiction work, “Trickster Makes This World,” which examines the human imagination through ancient myth and modern practice and which The New Yorker called “brilliant,” and “This Error is the Sign of Love,” a collection of poetry.

Hyde, who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991, formerly served as the director of the creative writing faculty at Harvard University. He has served as a professor at Kenyon College since 1989.

 – The information above was provided by Tom Gresham at VCU

For two more YouTube videos shot that same year, featuring the Memphis Rockabilly Band and Billy Price and the Keystone Rhythm Band, go here for the former and here for the latter.

This photo was taken in 1977 by Danny Brisbane at John Marshall HS, during a day of Fan District Softball League activities. The laughing man on the left was on the Back Door Bombers roster, although he was mostly there for moral support. He was then a well-known man about the Fan, because he was a popular disc jockey at WGOE-AM.

Name him.