The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Fourteen

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This series is dedicated to my friend ‘The Pieman’ who hosted ‘THE P.I.T.S’ BBS in New York City and sadly passed away in 2016. I know his son ‘Blake’ will be reading this sequence of stories with anticipation.

We will never forget you man, you were one of a kind.

Also I would like to say a big thank you to Fabulous Furlough, ex-leader of ‘The Humble Guys’ who helps me fill in the gaps of what happened almost 30 years ago, The Slavelord who has given me a plethora of memories from the early days and to Suicidal Tendencies (@trolleydave) who remembers more about the UK scene than me.

The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) is a continuation of my previous series, The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops.

I was once known as 'Bryn Rogers', a member of THG (The Humble Guys).

Other articles in this series:
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part One
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Two
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Three
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Four
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Five
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Six
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Seven
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Eight
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Nine
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Ten
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Eleven
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Twelve
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Thirteen

August 1992

The next leg of our journey nearly didn’t happen at all. We were scheduled to board a plane at JFK (New York) for Orlando with a stop off somewhere in North Carolina.

One of us must have been was farting around or the taxi was late as we barely made the plane garnering terrible looks from the other passengers. Fortunately, they did not bear us any grudges and all was quickly forgotten once in the air.

After a couple of uneventful days lounging around by the pool in a cheap motel in the Kissimmee area of South Orlando, we started the next leg driving down to Fort Lauderdale to meet the Axeman.

HootMon wasn’t very active on the BBS scene, but he had somehow befriended a dude in this town. I had no idea who he was and lamely went along with it.

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‘Is this a typical American welcome for the innocent visiting foreigner?’

He wasn't called ‘The Axeman' at all, in fact, I have no fucking idea what he was called, and my sole memory of this event was finding his place in a really run-down area, banging on the door only to be met by a wide-eyed lunatic wielding an axe.

Stuttering and stammering we hastily backed off explaining who we were, the accents quickly gaining us much credibility.

He lowered the weapon and silently hastened us inside casually attaching the deadly weapon to the wall struts.

‘You can’t be too careful around here’, growled Axeman in a distinctive southern drawl.

After probably an hour at Axeman’s run-down apartment and a visit to the local store in search of booze we said our goodbyes and booked in a cheap motel.

Less than an hour later, some twat was frantically banging on our motel room door. Fortunately, there was a peek hole which revealed another insane looking dude on the other side with wide rolling eyes.

This one looked remarkably like yours truly’s’ Avatar

Is Fort Lauderdale full of crazy bastards or should we just have stayed somewhere else a little more upmarket?

‘Crazy bastard’ did go away after banging on the door a couple of times and then trying his luck with other doors.

The next day we were heading for Miami…, well that was the plan. We got halfway down the coastline and both bottled it.

There were such bad stories about this city; carjacking’s, muggings, knifings that were simply turned around back to the city of Axemen and Crazy bastards.

Sometimes, it’s good to know what you up against.

Given the year and no internet, I'm still not sure how I booked this trip with planes flying from different cities, and not simply the one we arrived at.

The next day we were jumping on yet another plane, this time to Nashville, Tennessee and my first and only face to face encounter with Fabulous Furlough.

My memories of this are hazy, but I’m quite sure he met us at the airport. Communication was a little strained as by this time we hadn’t quite gelled and he’s not exactly an extrovert.

It was nice to be met but that’s as far as it got. We ended up at his place of work and him trying to show me the latest technology which at the time was either an Operating System or some Hardware in one of those oversized cases which were common then.

I just wanted to talk scene, warez, lamers, and THG. Regarding the latter, it was clear he was burnt out and the most productive thing that came out of that meet was that we had a common interest in Beavis and Butthead.

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Well, you have to take what you’re given. He declined to make the offer of introducing us to his family or a visit to his home which still sticks in my mind.

Maybe his wife hated Brits, or maybe it was Scots? HootMan was one of ‘those’ after all.

The visit to Nashville was always going to be short and it was yet another dodgy motel that night for us close to that great landmark, the Grand Ol’ Opry.

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Deja Vu kicked in that evening when another crazy bastard started banging on our motel room door. I swear it was the same twat as in Fort Lauderdale who had followed us.

Those peepholes with their fish-eye lenses intensify the view so that wild-eyed lunatics look even worse than their genuine appearance, but by this time I considered myself an experienced cheap motel door lunatic recipient.

‘Ah him again...’, I stated with a hint of boredom, and then settled down to watch a re-run of ‘Miami Vice’.

To be continued...

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