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Great BBS made in Mystic highlighting vintage Macintosh that I noticed on Reddit. I've been playing around in BBS systems recently, just for nostalgia's sake, trying to relive my first years on the internet. It's no secret I was a Mac user back in the day and was cruising BBS's and Hotlines all the way until I had my Performa 636.
Since I was able to read and watch TV, I was crazy about Vampires. I loved the old universal movies growing up, and I was so into watching and reading the horror media of the 80's I grew up in. As I got older and in high school, I read a ton of Anne Rice, sometimes the same book twice in the same week. If a new book came out, I would be in line to buy it right away. One of the reasons I started working at Books-a-Million part time was to get all the cool Vampire: The Masquerade and White Wolf books first, and at a heavy discount.. sometimes even free. In one of these horror magazines at Books-a-Million there was a whole section about The Memnoch Ball in New Orleans in 1995, and that started an obsession.
The movie had just come out and I was in love with the imagery and overwhelming gothic nature of New Orleans. New Orleans was a mythical place in my mind. I know it was real, I have heard of stories of people going there, but never did anyone really close to me experience it themselves. Asking my parents if I could go really made them concerned, and there was nothing I could do to convince them to move a vacation there. I wanted to see the cemeteries, the shops, the places from the movie. Every damn book, game or anything that had something to do with modern day Vampires was based there. I had to go. I had to know more.
I subscribed to the Anne Rice newsletter and joined the Usenet groups on AOL. There was a thread where people (adults) were talking about where they were going to meet, the hotels that they would stay at, and the great dinner before The Memnoch Ball. I asked a ton of questions and got them answered: Where was the ball? What dinner? Which hotel? What's the address? And so on. In this way I was able to schedule a fictional trip to New Orleans in my mind and get excited about it, even it I was not able to attend. The tickets for the dinner were $250 and I got the phone number to call and make a reservation over the phone, and the address to mail the check to. There was three different levels of tickets to the Memnoch Ball, one was a public ticket, and two higher tiers were for her Fan Club. The top tier came with a bottle of wine signed by Anne Rice, and you got to meet her and get a picture. That ticket was $200.
7-Eleven, a previous employer of mine for around six months sent me a letter that they have sold out their profit sharing and were now part of another company, and sent me a check out of the blue for almost $1200. All of a sudden the funds to make my dream became a reality, but it did have it's challenges. For one, my parents could not know that I was going to make a road trip, alone, out of state while under 18 years old from Florida. I had only went on the highway a handful of times, and I had a hotrod 1972 Nova SS that was of questionable reliability. I built it, it was mine, and I have fond memories of it. Big 350 engine, awesome stereo.. and fast. Holy shit this car was fast.
First thing's first- I bought the tickets. I called the numbers, mailed the checks. One issue came up, no hotels or rooms available anywhere. I felt indestructible at that age, so I did not let that stop me and vowed to just sleep in my car in the back seat. I owned a knife, I figured that would be enough. My girlfriend at the time was living with me, so I had to figure out how to not tell her about what was going on, and also explain my absence. Our parents knew each other, if she or them found out, the Memnoch Ball would just be a fantasy. It just so happened, one of my friends in the military who lived in Tennessee was getting married the same week. I called him and some friends that were going and they said they would cover for me. I felt like an asshole not attending their wedding, but I had no idea what kind of paper marriage bullshit my friend was up to anyways. My alibi complete, I was ready to leave.. the tickets came, and I saw the ball said 21 and up, but whatever, I looked old enough, and had a beard already.
I arrived in the early afternoon with two hours until the dinner, so I found a gas station and went to the bathroom and changed into nice clothes, and set out towards the french quarter to The Rosegate House for the big dinner. I had my Vampire Lestat Fan Club Ticket, my Coven Card, and I was ready to rock and roll. I got there, parked two blocks away and holy shit.. it was just as I imagined it. huge mansion on a beautiful old street.. ancient vampires could be in there! I got in line with a bunch of other people with my heavily used copy of Interview with the Vampire. The couple in front of me were also fan club members, and dressed in dark purples and black gothic period clothing. There were so nice to talk to, and did not seem at all concerned that a kid from Florida made it here alone for the opportunity.
My ticket said - Anne Rice's Memnoch ball at The Coven. I took my car, which looking back was a mistake because parking is not the easiest. I cant remember where I actually was, but the whole street appeared to be under construction. The Ball was just as the pictures described.. people dressed up, a band playing incredible music, everyone dressed up, and I was correct to assume I would not be carded for ID at the front door. My black drawstring bag handed to me at the door had two bottles of wine signed by Anne, a bookplate of Memnoch the Devil with Anne's picture (blank) and a black candle. The place was fucking PACKED. You could barely move, and I wanted to ditch this heavy bag at the car, but it was so far away. There was a another level with an iron railing and you could walk up to the next floor, and it was less populated so you could get a break- and there she was. Anne Rice with her arms on a railing next to what looked like a punk rock Mad Max extra talking to her.
She was in all black and looked like she belonged in the movie. She was laughing and talking loud over the music like she was a normal person. I walked over and waiting next to the railing where her people and the punk rock girl was standing, and sure enough she laid her attention on me. Right then and there I realized I forgot my Interview book for her to sign, and the only thing I had was the bookplate and my ticket. I stammered a few words of how much of a fan I was, of her, and her writing and the way she shaped the world I'm standing in right now. I told her how much I loved New Orleans and I drove from Fort Myers. She just smiled and nodded her head while she signed the couple of things I had. She apologized about the dinner, and blamed someone by name, but I cant remember who she said, and thanked me several times... and just like that, the 2 minutes was up, and she was talking to someone else again and smiling her big broad smile to them.
The rest of the night was a blur. I saw her walking around several times, and at one point they put a throne on stage and people were talking to her between music sets. Several celebrities in her world.. authors and agents were thanked and brought up on stage. Some band covered Marilyn Manson? Or maybe it was him, either way I was drunk and happy, and just in a different world. The drive home was easy as soon as I got to 75 and went south. I spent way less money than I intended and nothing bad happened, with the exception of the dinner getting cancelled.
In a dystopian future, where the kid from Robocop 2 and the love interest of Indiana Jones share the screen, a sport that requires an AI driven truck to reach Terminus reigns supreme. Mix two parts Mad Max with one part Cyborg 2, and you have the recipe for Terminus. (Watch full movie here!)
Sometime around the year 2037, a truck named Monster is designed by a boy genius to drive by itself and the lady from Indiana Jones is talking to the truck for about the first third of the movie. Eventually, we meet our main villain:
Complete with fish net fingerless gloves, our confused super-bad is very upset by some voice speaking to him through a speaker for a while. I'm not sure at this point if I should be concerned or not, but I'am.
I can't talk enough about the AI truck mouth. It's constantly talking in an exaggerated african-american wise cracking tone that is really off putting, getting a ton of screen time. Occasionally to my delight, the little TV's under the mouth would show random anime, and when asked was told it could one of two things, evil, just a short circuit that made the anime display on the screens.
At some point the Baseball Furies from The Warriors stop the convoy from going any futher. Previous to this, the AI mouth truck would just plow through everything and make things explode. I would dwell on this, but we get transported right into a nightmare world of reused sets and props from other movies, with the only exposition a sex scene with a robot hand.
It's awkward and full of cringe.. exactly how I like it. We meet some more mini-bosses, an irate jacked italian guy who likes 80's video games, and this guy who is terrible at arm wrestling.
We learn that our metal armed friend has orange teeth, is great at drinking and arm wrestling and has no issues taking over the helm of the AI mouth winnebago after Marion from Raiders eats shit. Yes, she dies, and I'm not sure why she was written out. I think I missed something?
How delighted was I to see that the AI mouth truck has a coffee machine hidden away in the center console. It pours automatically and then reminds our new hero that it's bad for him. Our hero with orange teeth, one arm, and is also super drunk. More anime displays on the little TV's in the cab, and there is some kind of bullshit going on outside that makes me wonder what I'm doing watching this movie to begin with.
Is there anything more exciting than fake GPS? Not since Star Wars wire frame garbage have I seen something so spectacular. All of a sudden, I'm back in this movie 100%, my faith renewed.
What comes next is the single most important shot of the movie: A long tracking shot of this cool city with 1000% fucking random nonsense going on. Click the Tarzan Bikers link above and just give it a watch, I swear its the most amazing this you will ever see, only lasts like 2 minutes and appears to be France? I'll try to write down just a few things in this scene below:
