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

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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

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

April 1991

Organising a meeting for a bunch of anarchists, phreakers and pirates was quite the challenge, I tell you! It's not like there were many on the invite list but you need to remember this was the pre-internet and pre-sat nav era.

The exact date I can't recall but the agenda was a Saturday morning start, bugger about all day, crash when we can't stand anymore, and split Sunday around noon.

The days of being single... ah.., except I was not single then and my girlfriend at the time was non too happy about all these damn weirdos descending on my house.

What still amazes me is that EVERYONE who was on the guest list arrived and on the correct day too. The order of arrival is murky, but Bungle and his 'dad' were first.

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Bungle was this high flying executive, with a flashy company Jaguar car who traded a lot of warez in the UK scene, likely from work and using their facilities. If anyone was the odd one out it was probably him, in terms of social status.

He bought along this older dude, who was promptly named 'dad' by the rest of us. I still don't know who 'dad' was or is until this day, only that is was NOT Bungle's real dad.

Suicidal Tendencies (@trolleydave) and Jolly Roger pulled up in this old crappy rusting mini, and I was surprised that they were both, how can I put it.. 'rather large'.

@trolleydave explained to me flatly that it was a case of eating too many pizzas due to having a job. I guess some have more restraint than others.

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The next time I would see Suicidal Tendencies (@trolleydave) would be a year later. During that time he had lost his job and 80% of his weight. I have honestly never seen such a change in anyone.

The picture above is a much older Suicidal Tendencies (@trolleydave), and that weight never came back again. Bloody pizza's eh?

I had struck up a good relationship with Suicidal Tendencies (@trolleydave) on the BBS's messaging system and had something in common besides ripping off software in the form of Video Nasties.

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Both of us hated censorship and we felt we had the right to watch these mostly terrible movies just because was could.

This was despite the BBFC's fears that by watching this gruesome content, we would instantly turn into rapists, murderers, serial killers and criminals.

He had brought up a bin bag full of third and fourth generation VHS copies of films such as 'I Spit on Your Grave', 'Faces of Death', 'Last House on the Left', and 'Cannibal Ferox' amongst others.

Jolly Roger was Suicidal Tendencies (@trolleydave) co-worker and a fellow 2400 baud user. This would be the first and last time I would ever meet him.

I seem to remember JROK coming to 'a' meeting but not this one. There were at least THREE more over the course of the next TWO years.

Night Ranger arrived by train and I had to collect him from Burnley. He was a tall skinny dude with long black curly hair and drainpipe black jeans which matched his worn looking leather jacket complete with tassels.

Well what else would you expect from an INC member?

I always felt a sense of morbidness around Night Ranger, not that he was unfriendly but he did have a liking for all things related to death.

During the course of the weekend, he watched, 'Faces of Death' several times and told me something a little strange.

'I once witnessed a suicide where someone jumped from the top of a high rise and splattered themselves on the ground'.

It indicated that he found the sight of squished brains, blood and gore as 'interesting'. OK mate....!!

Last to arrive was Hi.T.Moonweed and the most visually interesting character by far. He arrived in an ancient rusting Renault or Citroen with tires about as thick as a bicycle, though it was not a 2CV.

How that junk heap had made a long journey from Norwich beats me.

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He was a little taller than me, Albino, with long white hair, cowboy boots (without the spurs), a Cramps t-shirt that was missing the sides, black leather trousers and a black studded leather jacket. He was also vegetarian, but not adverse to some smokes (as was @trolleydave).

With all of us arrived by around noon on Saturday it was time to party....

To be continued...

All images have been cited and are under the category 'Labelled for Reuse' or are in the public domain.

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.NFO files courtesy of the .NFO libraries at https://defacto2.net

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