Rumi as Miss Lucille Higgins from Peoria coming to see Sylvester doing a floor show as Miss Ruby Blue from Chicago. Photo by David Wise

"Steven Arnold was instrumental in bringing the Cockettes together for the very first time. The MIDNIGHT MOVIES and later the NOCTURNAL DREAM SHOWS at The PalaceTheater, where Steven and Michael Wiese showed rare historic films, created an atmosphere where San Francisco artists and eccentrics could mingle and meet. Steven was always flanked by this magnetic entourage and working artists like The Joseph, Ruth Weiss, Pandora, Nikki and Joanne. If it hadn't been for Steven, the Cockettes might not have met.

Prior to that, a performance group arose out of Berkeley known as The Floating Lotus Opera Company under the direction of Daniel Moore with Zilla, Charles the organist, Hibiscus, and others. I wasn't in the group, I was just sleeping with them. It was New Years Eve, 1969, Steven asked The Opera Company to be the opening act and invited the Cockettes to follow them. When The Opera Company left the stage, they left all their props.

The Cockettes leapt onto the stage immediately following and danced wildly as they played The Stones "Honky Tonk Woman" twice. Scrumbly landed on the Opera Company's prayer scroll, Johhny stepped into the footlights completely naked, and I ran in front of him to cover him with a fur coat. It was then that I crashed into a giant, illuminated, glass mirrored ball which blew up in smoke. We totally decimated their props, and as far as I know, they never performed again.

Steven Arnold and Hibiscus shared a similar vision and affiliation with Cocteau. It was at the San Franciso Film Festival that Steven was asked did he recognize his similarity to the Opium flavored, psychoanalytic-surrealist. Steven slowly perused the room from left to right, as he quietly offered..."I am Cocteau." However, LSD had been added to the recipe, and Hibiscus, Steven and the Cockettes set a precedent of reveling in make-up, feathers, glitz and goop.

As the audience entered, Steven stationed Cheryl dressed as a Gypsy in the ticket booth collecting the small admission price. Hibiscus, who did not believe in money or collecting it, always insisting the shows should be free. After all the paying customers arrived, he was known to open the side doors and let the rest of the audience in for free. The nudity, could have been a problem, considering how North Beach police terrorized and censored Lenny Bruce only a few years earlier. The Chinese Chew family that operated the Palace Theater, was saavy and paid off the police, so nudity and profanity were never a problem.

Johnny and the other Cockettes had naked carte blanche and the ambience it created, made The Palace Theater a safe haven for John Waters and his up and coming star - Glenn Milstead, the hairdresser/interior designer from Baltimore, who came forth and performed with The Cockettes at The Palace Theater once and forever to be known as Divine."

- Rumi Missabu -

The Cockettes featured in Steven Arnold's androgenous cult classic
Luminous Procuress . Photo by Scott Runyon

Steven dirdecting The Cockettes on the set of Luminous Procuress at the Seventeenth St. Studio and location of the first Nocturnal Dream Shows. Photo by Ingeborg Gerdes