Big Blond Foam Wigs

There is a wonderful old movie house here in the city where one can catch a cult classic on most Friday nights at midnight. It is one of a dwindling number of cool places to patronize in the ever-changing town of Lexington, where it seems that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. Everyone is welcome. In fact, diversity is encouraged.

On one particular Friday night, I found myself carousing with one of my closest friends. We ate, we drank, we painted the town, biding our time before show-time at the historic downtown theatre, where our eyes were about to feast on the glamour and the glitz of the rock-musical classic, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” There were dregs and pierced noses along side nerdy, black glasses types, along side gay and straight and a hearty college crowd. Everyone in line for popcorn and root beer, excited to see the horror and the beauty of it all on the big screen.

For those of you who don’t know, the story is rather bizarre and twisted, unlike any other. But isn’t it always that way with the true cult classics. We were informed that the writer was a Lexington resident by the theatre manager as we walked into the main viewing room, quite proud to have someone tied to the project so close. But, apparently, he is not one that you would immediately think was capable of creating such a story by mere appearance. But I imagine that writers are rarely what we expect them to be in person based on their work.

The story here involves an East-German child that is seduced by an American soldier and taken to the United States as his bride after a botched sex-change operation (that the soldier insists he have). Once in the United States, the American soldier finds a piece of fresh meat and leaves our main character behind. As the story progresses, Hedwig becomes a song-writer and falls in love with a young lad, who later steals his songs and becomes a huge pop star leaving Hedwig in the dust without any credit for his work. Hedwig forms a band of the same name as the title of the film and begins following this lad across the country, playing each city he stops in for a concert in a smaller nearby venue, fighting for credit to his work and struggling to reach this child that has left him in the dust. What is the angry inch, you ask? Well, the botched sex-change operation left poor Hedwig with a useless (and apparently angry) inch of flesh where his genital used to be. “It’s what I have to work with,” he says as his lover discovers his malfunction. Such tragedy, such drama, such classic cult style.

Why do we love them? Why are they classic? Because they are so different, because they are so unlike anything else out there. If nothing else, they prove that maybe there is someone out there more screwed up then we ourselves are. They are as unique as each one of us and take us to another place, however bizarre and surreal. Where else can we put on our big blond foam wigs and sing about deformed genitals. I couldn’t think of a better way to pass a Friday night into the wee hours of the weekend.