The Styrous® Viewfinder: Rumi Missabu, the Marquis de Sade & the Cockettes

April 9, 2024

Rumi Missabu, the Marquis de Sade & the Cockettes

Rumi Missabu - 2012

I met Rumi Missabu, aka James Bartlett, in 2012 when I attended a production of the 1963 play by Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (link below), when it was presented by the Thrillpeddlers. I met Tom Orr and other members of the cast as well but somehow, it was Rumi with whom I connected.

He stayed at my studio in the mission when he was on his way to New York to do who-knows-what because at that time I had no idea of the projects he was doing there. All I knew is that he had been a member of the avant garde psychedelic hippie theater group, The Cockettes.

Years before I met Rumi, in 1971 I saw one of the productions by The Cockettes, Journey to the Center of Uranus, which was playing at the Pagoda Palace Theatre in North Beach just on the edge of Chinatown in San Francisco. Divine, of Pink Flamingos fame, made an appearance in the number A Crab on Your Anus Means You’re Loved, dressed as a lobster, recalling the crustacean love scene in the John Waters film, Multiple Maniacs (link below), released only a year earlier, I vaguely remember the lobster bit in Journey but I don't remember Rumi.

Journey to the Center of Uranus poster

Rumi did a whacked out and totally weird (of course) cover of the 1972 Dan Hicks love song, I Scare Myself, which was used as a tribute to him in 2013 (link below).

We lost touch with each other for over ten years and I only recently discovered in the SF Chronicle Datebook that he'd been living most of the time here in Oakland, California, where he died last week.

Rumi is survived by his partner, Sebastian Cheron and his sisters Mary Bartlett and Debbie Mitzlaff. A third sister, Linda Gail Bartlett, died in 2018.

There is a fund-raiser to help the Bartlett Family cover burial expenses. Afternoon of a Thousand Rumi's, is the plan for a Memorial Potluck and Roast + BLUE HOUR (live entertainment, slide shows and movie clips), tentatively scheduled around Memorial Weekend which is before Pride Month (link below).

"Missabu was among the last surviving members of the Cockettes, the glittering, counter-culture performance group that burst onto the stage at North Beach’s Palace Theatre on New Year’s Eve in 1969-70. From 1970-1972, the Cockettes changed the face of drag and theater with their irreverent takes on genres spanning musicals to monster movies. Described by Missabu as “gender anarchists,” the Cockettes’ drag (worn by men and women) included everything from glittered beards to nudity and helped make the Bay Area an epicenter for experimental, gender-blending performance."