Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 30, 2004, edition 1 / Page 3
Part of University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
n September 30,2004 The Blue Banner Page 3 Features 360 Party Bus keeps the good times rolling by Rachel Wright Staff Reporter jSubwoofers pound out the bass 'of 80s pop, rattling windows as l^ple get down under a mixture ^lack, neon and lava lamp light ing. A disco ball twirls, while pat- ans of red-laser lights dance across the floor. The party does not occur atyour favorite club, but inside of ^ve Wickers 360 Entertainment Party Bus. I“lt’s amazing,” said Wicker. get on this thing, and they list go nuts. They start dancing, dally the adults, when they start nking.” hai>l'^“They just start dancing and lets [drinking, and hooting and lUering. They don’t want to go tffany clubs. Sometimes it’s hard to ga them off of the bus. They just viant to stay here and party.” 'The 360 Party Bus took off on New Year’s this year. The bus ac- ccjnmodates 20 people. By law, customers can bring on their own beer, wine and champagne. Smok- 'ing is permitted at the booker’s re- B est. Likewise, by law, liquor is not awed, nor drugs, and the owner’s ofltlie Party Bus cannot provide al coholic beverages. They do, how- erer, furnish ice, sodas and snacks, sajd Wicker. “People are allowed to drink as much as they can carry,” said Wicker. “I’ve had helorette parties come mtli([where and set a keg right jeco.|here, and drink the entire odeiiP“‘'g hours.” Ic, tlitl Wicker does not let )li[l]i(lcustomers carry their bev- kges off of the bus, because they takes be cited with an open container. hj’ji(lli“lt’s a club on wheels,” said Lacey lov{[Bislam, junior art major. “It gives (juJ(P|heville something else to do, be- g just bar hopping, and it en- jjjejBurages people not to drink and dtive.” I After research. Wicker discov- aed that Charlotte and Adanta host it own party buses. totirn crcet 1 ani- e the- ieriii| fore- :mii n wi ersor ratet rkii emu- ./ PHOTO COURTESY STEVE WICKER Customers of the 360 Party Bus enjoy a night out on the town without having to worry about getting around safely. The bus even offers a DVD player and patrons can bring their favorite beverage aboard. “I looked at other buses, and basically I eliminated what I didn’t like about their buses. Some of them kept the original seating that are all facing forward. Some of them just looked really cheesy and bro ken up,” said Wicker. Wicker purchased his bus, de signed in the classic, yellow remem brance of elementary school days. “This bus was actually bought by the city of Asheville in 1969, along with about 35 others,” said Wicker. “In the mid-80s they made them into school buses. So, when I bought the bus it was painted like a school bus. It had the cheap seats with a bluish, greenish ceiling, and no tinted windows.” Wicker repainted the bus black, and handmade the interior design. Vinyl encases the backsides of the seats, along with the ceiling, gen erator, and air conditioning. Hand rails decorate the ceiling, with a sliver of mirror running through them. Seats, similar to a giant couch, hug the walls, leaving enough space for people to cozy up PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE WICKER The Party Bus can accomadate up to 20 passengers and travel within a 200 mile radius. while they dance. Or, one can recu perate and watch a DVD. “People around here, they don’t know what a party bus is,” said Wicker. “Its just something they are not accustomed to. They’re expect ing a cheap, school bus-looking deal. They’re not expecting a nice one, like this.” The Party Bus will soon travel within a 200 mile radius, from shows in Charlotte, to the casinos in Cherokee, to Hot Springs, to bars in Greenville, according to Wicker who’s in the process of receiving li cences to cross state lines. Due to the newness of this type of business, Wicker researched North Carolina’s Alcohol and Beverage Comission and Alcohol Law Enforcement laws on the internet. He found, that with the size and height of his vehicle, laws pertaining to alcohol consump tion fell on his side. “When I originally called the board, and asked if I could have a vehicle people could drink on they said ‘No,” said Wicker. “A lot of people were misinformed about what you could and could not do. So I had to go and inform myself, then get back with them and point out ex actly ‘Yeah, I can do this. Are you going to let me do it?’ They couldn’t refute it after that.” Two people operate the party bus: the driver and the “wing-man.” The “wing-man” caters to the customers’ needs, like changing the music or cleaning up a mess, while the driver focuses solely on operating the ve hicle and reaching destinations. The majority of the 360 Party Bus’ busi ness comes from women in their mid-twenties, according to Wicker. “We have girls calling us up to go to bachelorette parties,” said Wicker. “Girls calling us up for 21st birth days. Girls calling us for going away parties. Wives calling to do birthday parties for their husbands. I haven’t had any husbands call for their wives’ birthdays, yet.” Besides the typical parties. Wicker caters to kids. Prices run during the week from $75 to $100 an hour. On the weekend, from $100 to $125. But, the longer one rents the bus, the less Wicker charges. As a form of advertisement, the 360 Party Bus involves itself in chari ties. For instance, the Grape Escape auctioned it off for a few hours, in which proceeds went to hreast can cer research, said Wicker. Recently, Wicker works on setting up a type of shuttle bus for UNGA students, at a reduced rate, to Shotzy’s downtown. “UNGA would benefit from it, because they wouldn’t have a lot of kids sitting around dorm rooms, without cars, just kinda hanging out,”said Wicket. “It gives them a good outlet to get out and go and do something.” As a double benefit, both the club and the Party Bus would have busi ness on slow nights. “It gives people a place to go and hang out,” said Haslam. “I remem ber when I was 18, we didn’t have anywhere to go after 9p.m.” (iay erotica writer recalls sexual past in graphic novel by Emily Sarkissian Staff Reporter Jery Tillotson, gay erotica author and North Carolina native, recently released a book of memoirs, “Nights of Fury.” Author of numerous books and stories ppular in the gay world, Tillotson writes pder several different pennames. One of the pnames, Jason Fury, authored “Nights of ury.” This book reeks of over dramatized, ste- ^typical gay, sexual experiences in conjunc ture with the events of the author’s life. While lily autobiography will always lean towards the egotistical side, this book seemed almost Snsational. 1 sail lOOtl Tillotson grew up in Denton, North Caro lina, and attended college at both Brevard College and East Carolina University. He ilks a lot about the challenges of being an penly gay male in the South in the 1950s id 60s. “During the 50s, no one discussed queers in polite society. Boys girled about them in the locker rooms,” said Tillotson, as Fury in the book. “Queers were so far off the radar Aat the guys I grew up with thought gay men ^ere drooling monsters. So when I came png, it totally freaked people.” The book reads more like a fantasy of lundless sex with numbers of gorgeous dpted men than a believable recount of vents. From the start, the tale of his introduc- |on to the male anatomy at the £^e of four by his teenage neighbor seems exaggerated best, hardly believable at worst. Tillotson kplicidy tells how his neighbor, Dale, led yini upstairs and proceeded to perform, what We Would certainly today call child abuse. The pay Tillotson tells it, paints a much less-dys- ^nctional picture, however, and in his ex planation, he related how much he loved ev- ry minute. ”I clapped my hands when he stripped PHOTO COURTESY OF JERY TILLOTSON.COM Tillotson, a former journalist, now writes under the pen names of Jason Fury, Andrea d’Allasandra and Kandy Kristmas. all of his clothes off and he lay back on the bed,” said Fury in the book. “I had thought and thought about our game and this time he didn’t have to encour age me to make him feel good.” Enjoying sexual acts of an adult nature at that age is either a fabri cation, or a symptom of some other very serious problems. Before making his home in New York City in 1978, Tillotson wrote as a serious journal ist prior to becoming an author of gay fic tion. He worked for the Associated Press in both Charlotte, N.C. and Fargo N.D. He also worked for The Montgomery Advertiser in Mont gomery, Ala. The tone he uses to describe his career at this point carries on with the sensationalistic mood of the earlier parts of the book. “No matter how my enemies felt about my persona, they couldn’t deny that my ar ticles brought me more writing awards than anyone who had ever worked on a Mont gomery newspaper,” said Fury in the book. “Medicine, mental illness, the art scene, the drama scene, the civil rights arena, I had brought prominence to all these fields. My contacts ranged in the hundreds.” When Tillotson moved to New Yotk City, he wrote stories in gay magazines for a while, as he adjusted to life in the big city, during the days of disco. Throughout this part of the book, he does not restrict the retelling of multitudes of sexual experiences in the gay theaters and movie houses. In New York in the 1970s, the gay life abounded. “Having been ‘locked’ away in closets for decades, the key had finally turned,” said Fury. “Prisoners were released and now they had to make up for lost time.” I had discovered a whole universe of throbbing men who were like me. We lived for the moments we could merge into the darkness of theaters like The Gaiery Bur lesque and become voyeurs.” The book has a convoluted tone of de siring equality for gay and straight folks, and specifically authors. Tillotson seems to aim to refute this no tion, which he claims still exists today, but he fails miserablely. While he mentions some personal rela tionships that do go beyond mere sex, most of his encounters typify the stereotype of gay men being sex-obsessed. At one of his book signings’ he described how he met one of his boyfriends. “I smiled and pulled an earlier favorite (book) from my briefcase,” said Fury. “I always carry extra copies of my work-in hopes it might convert someone handsome into someone closer than a friend.” These stories of the authors’ life, as de scribed in this book, seem ludicrous and melodramatic. The writing comes across as mostly unbelievable, often disgusting, and, at times, laughable. Sky contintied from page 2 the cause or person responsible for the catastrophes occurring in and out of the city. The occasional sar castic remark from Polly or Joe keeps the viewer awake during times of talk, but the story line be comes all too familiar and thus pre dictable to the vety end. Adventures to different parts of the world help to add to the visual element of the movie, but still take away from the character dialogue and storyline. However, toward the end, we see a new face that adds liveliness to the whole film named Capt. Francesca ‘Frankie’ Cook played hy Angelina Jolie. Her wit and authority displayed in the first ten seconds of meeting Joe and Polly makes up for dry con versation in earlier scenes. The actors give noteworthy per formances considering their situa tion and surroundings. They are instructed to play archetypes of old movie characters, which they do well. Audience members will likely divide into two camps on this one. Some who strongly dislike the heavy CGI feel of “Sky Captain” will argue that this is a bad thing, that withholding sets and props from the actors leads to soulless, overly technical performances. Then there are those who will recognize that style alone isn’t enough to make a movie good, but it can add an atmosphere of fun and imagination. “Sky Captain” does not compare to the Indiana Jones films, and CGI-phobes may hate it. It be comes almost deranged in its imagi native scope and overwhelmingly lovely to look at, tends to appeal to the 12-year-old boy inside.
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 30, 2004, edition 1
3
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75