Fortress Party Retrospective 1998-2001, part 1

Fortress Party1998

I have not been able to find any photos from Fortress Party '98, but there is an artifact that has survived, and it is one of my most precious possessions. 

This sign was drawn on six connected sheets of perforated printer paper. It's the earliest documented appearance of the term, "Fortress Party," and it encapsulates the excitement and terror of being only 13 months from the next millennium. The drawing on the sign were supposed to represent our predictions for the year 2000.

From left to right:

• A hand holding a DIVX disc.
• Some kind of malevolent space god cursing a farm in a crystal ball
• A retro rocket ship
• A nuclear explosion at the North Pole
• A laser blaster
• The gravestone for Jim O'Keane (Who I think was Jeff Bercovici's middle school English teacher?)
• An envelope with a 34-cent stamp
• A small (but apparently futuristic) shovel.
• A sinister bug-creature
• A robot with an oscilloscope on its chest
• An alien
• A tower in the clouds with a nearby flying saucer

Fortress Party 1999

I only found one picture. The centerpiece of the evening was Fortress Gladiators, in which hosts and guests would put on costumes and beat each other up. Note that we were in the middle of the Fort, and the ceiling was high enough to stand up. 

Fortress Party 2000

As you can see, things turned out pretty much as we predicted in 1998. (34-cent stamp not shown.) 

The reason this picture is wonderful is that it shows a bottle of custom Fortress Party beer. My dad was going through a home-brewing phase and produced two different custom beers for the event: Fortress Tonic and Fish Piss Fortress Brew. 

I think there were 6 of each beer, and the handful of guests had a chance to sample both. Everyone agreed that both were delicious, but we argued fiercely about which brew was better. 

The next day, my dad confessed to me that while he had, in fact, made several bottles of beer for the occasion, he deemed it too good to waste on Fortress Partygoers. What we had been drinking was Milwaukee's Best that he had relabeled. 

Even with that knowledge, I maintain that Fortress Tonic was better. 

Fortress Party 2001

Lauren and I had moved to Ann Arbor by this point, but we were weren't sure how to introduce this concept to a whole new crowd, so we decided to do one last Fortress Party at my parent's house in Milwaukee.

String lights (or as the gentiles say, "Christmas lights") have become a staple of Fortress Party. They are clothespin-friendly, and provide consistent low levels of light and fire risk. In this picture, you can see them only vaguely through the green sheet and reflected in the TV. 

We had three custom temporary tattoos made. The The first was a two headed horse with the words "Fortress, etc." 

The second temporary tattoo was a smiling factory with the text "FP '01." 

The third one was red, and I can't remember what it said. 

A Ronald Reagan quote book was awarded to the year's Fortress Gladiator champion. 

Turns out, he wasn't a fan. 

And before I forget: Please bury me with this Superfriends sheet.

Fortress Party 98-01 will be back!

I found mini-DV footage from these parties, and we took them to Costco to have them turned into mp4s. When we pick those up in a couple weeks, we'll discover together what other magic and mayhem happened in the peri-millennial Forts.