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�Ĵ This text comes from IMPHOBIA Issue X - June 1995 �����������������������
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NAID - THE INSANITY TRIP
This report was started APRIL 12th (a
couple days before NAID) and completed
on APRIL 23rd, one week after NAID.
First off, if you do not like long
stories then skip this article. If
you are looking for a fact filled NAID
report then maybe you should skip this
as well. This article/report only
contains my opinions of said party.
Many thanks to Jeff for actually
printing this drivel which may
actually be quite entertaining to
some. Lets begin...
NAID APRAXIA--also known as the North
American International PC DEMO
Festival was the first ever North
American PC demo party. It was held
over Easter weekend (April 15-16) in
Longueuil (a suburb of Montreal)
Quebec, Canada.
It was about a month or so before NAID
that I got this crazy idea of actually
attending. I figured "What the hell,
I'll drive up." What's sixteen
hundred miles (2600 Km) anyways. I
posted my idea on the DEMOS USENET
group but did not receive any takers.
The closest I got was someone wanting
to organize a convoy which started
near Washington D.C.--1000 miles from
where I live. As the days grew closer
my interest grew even though I still
had no one to help me with the ONE WAY
journey to Canada. I called it the
"insanity car trip" because you'd have
to be almost insane to attempt such a
drive (30 hours)--especially for a two
day demo party.
A week before my trip I was able to
obtain a car that needed taken to
Montreal. An "auto driveaway" company
does the paperwork and you, the
driver, get to drive from City A to
City B and gas is paid for by the
company. My arrangement was $100 for
gas money upon delivery of the
automobile and the company would
reserve me a plane ticket for my
flight back to Fort Lauderdale.
The day of my departure was closing in
and I had yet to obtain a passenger to
help with the drive. One friend was
close to going but backed out within a
day--his fiancee convinced him the
trip WAS really insane and that a $100
plane ticket I was likely to obtain
was impossible. I called around and
found the latter to be more or less
true and I did not attempt to convince
my friend other than saying "It's an
adventure, a trip of a lifetime." But
nothing worked so solo I was.
Friends, coworkers, and family thought
I was NUTS! Especially doing it
alone. This sure was going to be the
"insanity" car trip. In fact, the
longest I had driven a car at one time
was 3 hours. "How will you make it?"
Seemed to be the question of choice.
Thing is I'm not normal so this seemed
to fit quite well into my puzzle of
life. Summed up everyone else's
doubts and trying to talk me out of
"it" started to make me doubt myself.
"Could I make it? What if...?" and so
on. It is not something other people
have to understand; this trip or
anything I do--only I need to
understand what I want and what it
means to me. If the outcome is great,
then all is well and if the outcome is
bad then I'll probably get a lot
of...I told you so... Funny how
things work this way. And when you do
succeed all those people who said shit
about your ideas/plans seem to
amazingly change their minds.
Thursday April 13th at 4:30am I
departed my living quarters in Fort
Lauderdale (Plantation, actually),
Florida for Montreal (Longueuil),
Quebec. My transportation, a 1991
Ford Taurus with 84K Km on it. Packed
were my inline skates, sleeping bag,
CD player (for car), some Escape CD's,
and a few other odds and ends--enough
to survive but not too much to bog me
down. Hey, of course the trip would
be tough but who said life was easy.
Sometimes the most interesting stuff
in life is also the most difficult.
You gotta do what you gotta do.
I cruised along the highway at a
decent speed (70mph) and was able to
make it out of the state before 10am--
Florida's a pretty long state.
Jacksonville, the last major city
before the Georgia boarder, smelt of
industry. It reminded me a northern
Steel town like Pittsburgh or
Youngstown. The sky was overcast,
rush hour was over and my mind was
racing almost wishing for a break so I
would jot down all my thoughts and
write story after story about my
journey, old towns, loneliness, and
such. I could not stop to smell the
roses so I passed the city, reset the
cruise and popped another CD in the
player.
I made my first stop after 5 1/2 hours
in Georgia for GAS and toilet--Gas was
$1.05, ten cents cheaper then where I
live. My trip through Georgia took
about 2 hours. There was not much to
see or write about, especially at
70mph with no stops. My next break
came at 1:30pm for lunch at the golden
arches. It had been 8 hours after I
started out and I was not growing
tired but my neck was stiffing up a
little. My thoughts often wondered
back to work and I keep thinking "what
would I being doing now?" Bad
thoughts, I know...good thing I got
away for a few days. A lot of other
cars on the road passing me had Quebec
license plates.
Lunch ended quickly and I was back on
the road until 3:15pm at which time I
hit the South Carolina/North Carolina
boarder (a.k.a. South of the Boarder).
This South of the Boarder is an
amazing tourist trap with high priced
everything. I was stupid enough to
buy some outrageously overpriced gas.
The weather was very comfortable--even
in my shorts--though it was starting
to get a little chillier. Back in the
car after a quick rest I set my cruise
back at 70mph and was ready for the
last third (7-8 hours) of this days
journey. I recall North Carolina
being extremely long and Virginia is
where the hilly country actually
began. I stopped for diner around 7pm
at Wendys. I stepped out of the car
and was hit by 50 degree weather,
burr. Dinner was a much needed break,
especially for my neck. I was even a
little dizzy after this long drive yet
a couple more hours still remained.
I had made it to D.C. at 9pm.
Construction, traffic, hills, and my
neck made for one amazing hell drive.
I wanted to skate D.C. that night so I
turned off onto what I though was the
correct road. Low and behold I got on
a road that had no exit, took me away
from the city and took about 15
minutes to get off. I figured I'd
leave D.C. to the morning and visit
Ryan who organized the NAID Convey. I
arrived at Ryan's house at 10:30pm,
shortly after my 3rd Gas up that day.
I was very dizzy/tired at this point
so went to bed after a little bit of
talking. Guess I got about 6 hours
sleep. Enough to keep me going for
the next several days.
I woke up early Friday morning (4/14)
and was able to take off towards D.C.
by 9:30am--after rush hour traffic.
My goal being to skate the "mall."
This was an HOUR backtrack but I only
had 12 hours (600 miles) worth of
drive to do this day so I had to burn
the time somewhere--I had no place to
stay Friday night. It was HELL
finding a parking space in D.C. The
one I got cost me about $1 for only 1
hour. I put on my skates, found the
mall and skated around for an hour.
By 1pm I was in Baltimore, MD eating
lunch. D.C. was great and it
definitely deserves more than a 1 hour
visit but that was all I could afford,
good thing I had my skates otherwise I
wouldn't have seen half the "mall."
It was cold but I had a jacket and
pants on this day.
A little excerpt from my journal--
4/14/95, Near Albany, NY. Still
Friday...A little colder and a little
darker. It is 9pm and a good time to
write before driving/snoozing. I'm
tired like I was yesterday night so
maybe it is better to rest a little
then drive. As is--with no sleep--I'd
probably arrive into Montreal around
2am--ugh. If there were more people
to help drive this wouldn't be too
bad. A lot happened today and I'll
try to recount most of it as I burn up
an hour or so of time and "freeze" at
the same time. Must be about 40
degrees outside and about 55 in the
car. I have a jacket on and my
sleeping bag is covering me a little
so I am okay for now. Once I start
the car and turn the vent up to warm
everything should be fine. [Lots of
stuff about D.C. and the morning left
out.] Youth Hostels--I looked at my
map and the closest one is not open
until May. None in Albany and the
Montreal one closes at 11pm. So, I
lost out on the comforts of a Youth
Hostel tonight so...alas, its sleep in
the car time...which shouldn't be so
bad. I figure I'll get anywhere from
2-5 hours of sleep. It is almost
9:30pm and I've got about 5 hours of
Driving left to do. I'll hope to make
it near Olympic Stadium and sleep a
couple hours in a parking lot before
skating (maybe, if not too tired),
eating and getting to NAID around 9am.
Let that be the plan and let me get a
few minutes of sleep here...out.
Continuing from my journal...April 15,
1995--Saturday 8:30am. Wow, I made
it. Here at last. Most of my goals
have now been accomplished--I made it
safely to Montreal with the car
intacked and was able to find an ATM
that worked. Last night I rested for
about 20 minutes after writing. Not
much but I was restless and wanted to
move on. Guess I drove for close to 2
hours and then I actually started
getting tired...that and the fact
there was a slight snowstorm convinced
me to pull over. A desolate place--a
couple truckers and myself...Good news
is there were toilets so I used em to
brush my teeth. I wanted to sleep
about 5 hours but ended up only
resting for about 2--leaving at 3am.
It was because even with my jacket and
sleeping bag I was cold. The shivers
forced me to drive. I fueled up just
before the boarder and was VERY cold
pumping that gas at 3:30 in the
morning. I think I arrived in
Montreal around 4:30am, found a Dunkin
Donuts and used the bathroom. A short
drive later I discovered a little park
and rested some more from 5-6am. Only
about 3 hours of sleep if you can
count what I got as sleep. I made it
to the college where NAID was taking
place at 8am but they would not allow
me to enter till 9am. So, I'm hear
writing this at 8:45am...wondering who
will be there and hoping to change
some of my clothes, brush my teeth,
use deodorant, and put my contacts
back in. Yep, its starting to get
cold in this car again..guess the SNOW
outside doesn't help either. The SNOW
and freezing weather will keep me off
the blades (skates) for awhile--likely
the whole day cause it does not look
like the sun will be out anytime soon.
The park by Olympic Stadium was quite
nice...they expect money for parking
too, but not at 6am in the morning.
Too cold for skating though.
NAID--From the inside.
The "HORNET" crew weren't too hard to
find. Posted there on a table was a
sign that said HORNET. I don't recall
seeing any banners like the ASM'93 I
visited, there were a few printouts
and notices of who people were but not
like Assembly. Within the first 15
minutes of my arrival I had met the
whole Hornet Crew: Snowman, Trixter,
Grave Digger, and White Noise. Them
and my ESCAPE T-shirt led me to meet
many other "well knowns" at NAID--
Daredevil, C.C. Catch, Krystall, many
Kosmic members including Dan N., the
organizers, Snibble, Humanoid, Man
Hunter, Miss Siagon, and a bunch of
others. Sad to say there were a few
people whom I never did meet.
Monitors throughout the school
broadcast all events and contained a
schedule of the competitions. Much of
the day, when compos were not taking
place, PC and Amiga demos were shown
on the big screen--including the
winner of the Gathering, Dope which
blew everyone away. There was very
little trash and hecklers, could there
be a correlation? Because of the lack
of entries in the Intro Compo the
deadline was extended. Word got out
pretty well about the lack of intros
and sure enough everyone that could
was doing a last minute intro.
With the intro deadline extended due
to lack of intros the organizers
decided to play ALL the music entries.
Can you imagine a 7 hour music compo?
We had it at NAID. I missed about 1/2
of it cause I had to deliver the car I
drove from Ft. Lauderdale and pick up
my plane ticket. I did hear about 20
tunes though. Some were really good
and some should not have been played.
Should things have been done so no one
knew the composer? I can't be the
judge of that.
That night there was a live band--
Public Enema--and a Techno-Rave dance.
This lasted the whole night and I
slept through most of it. I like
music but my body would have hated me
had I not gotten some sleep.
I was delighted the organizers chose
me to be a judge for the INTRO
competition. Unfortunately I missed
the competition at 10am the next
morning (which it was rescheduled for)
due to higher obligations--Easter
Mass. When I came back the graphics
were being shown. When I did
eventually see the intros I was a bit
disappointed by the quality. It was
tough deciding the best of the nine
and what surprised me most was the
fact that the public chose an intro
that did not even place with us. Many
of the intros crashed on the various
computers I watched them on.
Hopefully they will be improved before
release.
The demo compo went very smoothly and
contained a great deal of quality
productions. Originality abound in
the winning production by Craw
Productions. Da Cheeze Brigade, and
Kosmic placed second and third with
amazing productions. The Psychic
Monks had what I would consider the
best "message" demo. Not many demos
attempt to deliver a message or get a
point across but theirs did with a
1984ish (book) feel. I recommend
checking out all the NAID demos with
an explanation point on the above
four. You will be amazed at what
people on this sided of the ocean can
produce.
Closing comments were spoken by
Christopher (Snowman). He did a very
good job--maybe if we are lucky
someone will transcribe his speech and
post it on the USENET.
Awards/winners, are probably listed
somewhere in this great diskmag so I
will not reiterate them here. Suffice
to say everything went fairly
smoothly--at least from my POV. The
organizers were satisfied as was I and
probably the 700 other people. NAID
truly did kick ass.
I said my good-byes early at NAID and
found someone to take me to the
airport at 10:30pm that night. The
party was over and I sure as hell
wasn't going to drive home.
Especially not when I was able to get
a $95 plane ticket home. I got to the
airport at 11:30pm Sunday night and my
plane left at 6:55am the next morning.
So, I spent the night in the airport
and got very little sleep again. I
figured better this then having to get
up at 4am and hail a taxi. Funny, I
thought, what the hell were all these
people doing in the airport at 1am?
Guess there were quite a few of us
spending the night here. Surprisingly
I did not see any homeless people in
the airport.
After very little sleep I grabbed my
ticket, boarded the plane and--instead
of sleeping--watched the movie Junior.
By noon on April 17th 1995 I was back
home. My trip was over. Total cost,
after selling a few Escape CD's was
under $100. Was it worth it? Hell
yeah.
