IWTVL S3 Musings - Keeping Tabs (Pt3a: The Failures Voice Overs - 3x1)
The problem I'm having with S3's narrative format is figuring out what the point of The Failures even is. So I'm just marking everything Lestat says in the audio recordings, to try getting a better sense of wtf is up.
(1A: Auction) If you are hearing this now, you must be a very privileged individual. You could have fed a small nation for years while they paved over the rubble. You bought my box instead. I like you already. [[He has no idea who'll win his auction.]] So let's begin in the middle, for I could and should have ended it there, my tour, my hedonistic pursuit of extremity, all of it. [[In media res.]] And had I done so, the regretful dead and the traumatized still alive would be somewhere other than where they are today. And I am not saying that the attempted extinction of the Y chromosome across the continents was all my fault. [[Post-QotD era Akashapocalypse]] No, that would suggest a level of self-importance even I'm not comfortable with. But upon reflection…yeah, made a contribution. It was the spring of 2025. [[Date range.]] A good nation was making itself great again, again [[Meta parallel: MAGA movement (IRL vampiric tyrants) & the Great Conversion / Akashapocalypse]]. And every vampire, those converting and those enduring, well, they were doing exactly as they pleased.
(1A: SNO / TVL) Naturally, I named the band after myself. And the 4 that backed me played their parts as instructed. There was Larry, the front man made sideman choking his guitar neck nightly wishing it was mine. Brother Alex, the more talented seedling, straight-edged and half the fun. Salamander, bassist, dumb. Shockingly dumb. And TC, the abandoned bride of a dozen "should have died in art school" bands keeping us all in the dirty pocket. We dropped songs on the streams and booked intimate venues to induce what Gen Snooze called FOMO. [[He claims the small crowds were intentional, not cuz he flopped. 😂]] They came for cosplay, left converted, and I baptized them the Beautiful Unwell. And yet here we were in the inn of the Stooges and the Stripes, 30 performances notched, and already resting on the alps of adequacy. Unacceptable. There's the band, and there's the shell that protects the band from the world's envy. Our band shell was Christine Claire. She hired, fired, dictated, and castrated with extreme prejudice. Did I mention that I was filming a documentary at the time? A bootless errand helmed by a first-time director. I've seen a rough cut; truthful and daring with less Warren Beatty [[Which cut are WE looking at?]]. Now, you'd think a 54-city rock tour would be a wonderful cover for a blood drinker. Hide your kill, hop on the bus, wave to the morgue reports in the rear view mirror, that kind of thing. But niche celebrity is a hunter's handicap, and a sloppy night in Corvallis made urgent the need for a body double. His name was Jarda Klapek, and the Albanian gangsters Christine hired to find my doppelganger found him working construction in the Czech Republic. Three inches shorter than your velvet-mouth narrator [[so Anne Riceian]], we fit him for lifts, blue eye contacts, and a wig and otherwise let him be Neanderthal me. I hunted this way, and we send him that way, and every sad photograph uploaded to Reddit or Discord of Jarda eating a tuna melt by himself only confirmed for most what they already believed: That I, the Vampire Lestat, was Daniel Molloy's fictitious creation, and The Vampire Lestat, the band, was fronted by a bricklaying karaoke fanatic from Ostrava, nothing but a desperate cash grab at the end of a cheugy vampire fad. And I've only myself to blame for the timing, having locked us in an attic for a year+ [[date range]] perfecting our sound, a sound I hoped would counter Mr. du Lac's portrayal of me as a mayonnaise villain with sociopathic tendencies [[So the BAND/MUSIC was intended as a response to IWTV; NOT the Failures/Docu]]. All beside the point, because the point was, the point forever is: Most of humanity moved on from vampires, and rather quickly. [[So Louis was RIGHT that no one really cared about the book for very long. 👀]] They lifted their heads from their algorithmic hand masters, uttered a collective "huh," and swiped left. I am the Vampire Lestat. I am a god. Gods are not swiped. [[LESTAT made the book a bigger deal than it was, by making the songs & going on tour.]]
Documentary footage caught on camera (Lestat confessing to using Jarda as the decoy/alibi for any vampiric activity; vamp!Daniel & supplier Dr. Fareed):
3x1: What vampires has Daniel killed by this point? 🤨 Or is this non-linear because The Hallway Fight already happened by the time this Docu segment was recorded? 🤔
3x4: Why are the Talamasca botting his streams and BOOSTING his popularity, unless they WANT the Great Conversion (a la Houseman)?
"It's My Era Now" monologue:
Daniel got an "easy question" freebie and asked about Halloween:
(2B: Montreal) No V/Os--why? 🤔 [[Dan asked about the night SNO/TVL formed; and it appears as a flashback mid-convo/interview--so this is an intrusive thought Lestat avoided answering--]]
[[--then gets Dan to change the topic/question]]
(2B: The Muses) From the alps of adequacy to the canyon of coup d'etat, two nights in a row, my violin competing with his guitar for the solo break. Two centuries waiting to share my music, two years as Mr. du Lac's B-movie brute. [[Time range.]] But just as I was about to bridge the bridge with murder and mayhem, [[Lestat was so angry at Larry that he was about to KILL his bandmate; when "the Muses"/Lestat's "nervous breakdown" STOPPED him]] something quite surprising happened. My music wrapped itself around me like a jungle snake constricting its prey, and a lifetime of blood bartering overwhelmed the temporal lobe. Muses appeared in my mind and in the now around me. Memories taking their turn. Blood in, blood out. Hammering away at the performative vampire persona I had welded into armor. The armor cracked. The bridge buckled. And the bona fide vampire emerged center stage. It was I who had been adequate. It was I who had been holding us back, [[First step towards accountability?]] and now, exposed in the raw under the white hot lights, my band mates began to feed. And that sound I had been grinding them for was finally unleashed, a euphoric grottiness spilling into the crowd, into their bodies, enveloping the venue. I should have quit right there and then. Would have been a lovely footnote to my life, the band, but the muses were just beginning. [["The Muses" told him to keep making the music that inevitably woke Akasha.]]
Documentary footage, vampirism (+ Baby Jenks) caught on camera:
5B is THE BULK of the episode:
(5B: Hotel) If you take nothing else away from your exorbitant purchase, heed this advice [[Talking to whoever wins the auction, a warning.]]: Never play two nights in Detroit! You'll wind up in Windsor with a broken orbital bone listening to transactional sеx through the adjoining walls. How I came to this squalid real estate is the premise of Side B, Album 5. [[Lestat is aware & deliberate about which narrations are going on which albums and sides.]] Now, the boutique hotel we were staying at was having a grand-ish opening that night, [[Shade]] and the band was asked to lend its celebrity status to the event. There was a red carpet, a pap line, and a vampire DJ of some renown seducing corporate employees, provincial influencers, and party crashing Beautifully Unwell. I was having sеx in an elevator with Dee and the girl I had just overindulged myself with earlier in the night. Actually, that happens later. A lot of things happened that night. The band is inside with Dan in the VIP perch. I'm giving the paps my pussycat with no idea that I would be in a fang fight less than an hour later. No, no, no, no. I'm getting ahead of myself again.... [[He rambles a lot, unscripted.]] I arrive fashionably late, of course.... Oh, you're in it now. I am feeling good. Surfing the sublime candy-flipped wave of the girl's blood. Riding the wonders of Dr. Fareed's blood transfusion quick pick-me-up cocktail. I sat there soaking up her praise along with the band, still somehow blind to the vampiric mysteries of their front man. So what if the dead and buried past was now a fresh and eager groupie? It's rock and roll, you know? Have a nervous breakdown onstage, chat it up with the floating girl on the ceiling you almost killed, have sex with her in the elevator--ah, I'm still not there yet.
Documentary footage: Baby Jenks; chatty-patty Christine
(5B: Bathroom) I excused myself to the men's room. Didn't read about vampire physiology in Mr. du Lac's memoir, did you? [[Angry & petty gotchas! over minute details. 🙄]] No mention of the scars on my chest either. Hair stopping way above my shoulders. And just for the record, no ticket pocket of mine ever had his initials inscribed onto them. I mean, these are the editorial wags of an insane person--! *clears throat* Note to self: Edit that out in the final version. [[He's well aware that what he just said about Louis' mental illness was 100% uncalled for.]] Starting again: Vampires pee. We don't do it as often as you do, assuming you're not one of us. [[He doesn't know if the auction winner is a vampire or human.]] And we generally avoid eco-friendly urinals. Eco-friendly urinals. Good for the planet, so we're told. Good for vampires? Hmm. We Chardonnay them. And then there's regional vampires, always trying to make a name for themselves. I Chardonnay them, too. I have a blind spot when it comes to blood poisoning. You'd think a vampire of my stature would know better. But then there's that old saying: You fool me once, shame on me. You fool me twice, MDMA and LSD are excellent drugs! Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. Twirl, twirl. Overshare.
(5B: Sex) Still feeling good, I went looking for my band, looking for sex, looking for anything that radiated the fun that I sang about in my song, "Long Face." And then…Regionals. Wait, did she say that "Long Face" sucked? "Does it suck?" I wondered. Did she have a point? And then I thought: Ooh, they want a little scrap with the scalpel~!? No worries, I thought. I have the Queen's blood in me. I could take 20 Regionals at once with the Queen's blood. [[Hubris AF.]] So I thought about having sex with Christine, and then I thought: That's all the way upstairs! And then I thought: I'm the scalpel! What does the scalpel do between here and upstairs~? Mr. du Lac's memoir tiptoed around vampire sex, didn't it? [[Angry & petty rant; this struck a nerve.]] He and Dan made it out to be this tortured act or obligational foreplay before blood drinking. That is not the case at all. It's not the capstone of vampiric desires. That would be the taking of life, and next would be a good draining, leaving your victim near death and paralyzed for an unhurried escape. And after that, there's the Petit Coup, the Little Drink, the sip. And after those 3, it's sex. So now you know: the 4th best thing a vampire can do to avoid thinking about the past is to have sex, sex sex! And I have had a lot of sex over the years. It's not all pain and toxicity. I have an immortal life, and I carry with it an immortal erection, and I am NOT ashamed of it! [[Rant over.]] Sex is fun, like the fun I sing about in "Long Face"--which, looking back on it now, does suck. I still have residuals coming in, actually. Carnal pleasure is essential to a vampire's survival, if only to keep time's baggage from burying you. Sex with the bellman & Dee & honey-trapping Baby Jenks. Probably should have gotten off the 7th floor when I had gotten off. But I didn't.
(B5: Fight) I killed a pack of wolves when I was a mortal. I'll most likely tell you about that later, as I let it define me for a time. [[Not pre-planned, but self-aware enough to know what's relevant/important.]] And normally, confining architecture and a thrift store coven galvanized by medieval dogma wouldn't faze me in the least. But the Drug Blood and my sex legs and the distracting past my music had unleashed on me put me at a momentary disadvantage. Law 4, as if the du Lac-Molloy memoir hadn't outed us all two years ago [[time range]], as if my entire stage show wasn't a bawdy burlesque of "is he or isn't he," as if half the vampire population outside the ruined port of Detroit wasn't waving the Dark Gift like red cups in a piss bar, collecting fledglings like they were Labubu dolls. [[The Great Conversion.]] I mean, I haven't even told my band I was an actual vampire. I was just singing my songs and f***ing my food and defending myself from the vibrant life choices I had made on my way from the Auvergne countryside to the 8th floor of this "why bother" hotel. And this is how it was all going to end for me?!
(5B: Daniel, Outed) I like to think I was owed the reinforcements, Dan and the oddly familiar DJ, but that's me looking back on it now. Anything I had done to deserve their timely rescue hadn't happened yet. [[He thinks he deserved being rescued NOW, but not THEN.]] I'd be dead, I think, without Dan. But then maybe more of the world would still be alive had Dan not rallied his army downstairs. Consider this sliding door of Dan as you decant my blood and devour my words [[He expects the auction winner to drink his bottled blood]]. It's hard hiding you're a god. CCTV, eco-flush toilets, IMF freezing your accounts because you have the blood of a patricidal queen inside you. And once you reveal yourself, you have to be on all the time and remember every face you've ever met. And everywhere you go, everyone remembers the thing they said to you in the room that you shared. This is why gods prefer hiding in the clouds. There's nothing there but water waiting to fall.
Documentary footage, vampirism (+ Dan & Sam) caught on camera:
[[WHY was SNO so shocked to see Lestat float on stage in 3x3, when they literally saw him FLY UPWARDS from the 8th floor window of the hotel in 3x1? 🤨 Wtvr.]]
(5B: GabriellA) So many opportunities to call it a night that night. After the song unleashed The Muses. After I saw my first soul. [[A legit ghost, NOT a hallucination?]] After I was nearly decapitated in a boutique hotel hallway. After my vampire nature was revealed to the band and my vampire gift winged me away north of the river, south of the country. But I was saved from such rational thought. Love will do that to you. It's not much of a reveal, I guess. I know it's common gossip now, the first thing one thinks about when my name comes up. [[The FIRST thing ppl think of wrt Lestat is NOT Louis-Molloy's book; and it's NOT the Akashapocalypse. It's LIONCEST. 👀]] I assume a privileged individual such as yourself enjoys a little dirt in their sandwich. So I serve it to you now how it felt then: Fledgling, lover, mother.
