MiSTed: The Drake Raft Field Trip (7/8)
Chris Mayfield
[Continued from part 6]
>
>
>"Yeah, somebody new always like comes along, though."
>
>"But how can you be new when you look the same, act the same, shoot the
>same stuff, and everything.
Crow: How can you claim to be new when you keep spouting the same three
statements over and over again?
Tom: Liberals suck. Did I tell you that Joyce Carol Oates kicked me out
of her class?
> How'll you ever be able to tell if like
>you're original or if you're just the ultimate non-conforming
>conformist.
Mike: [Timber] Uh, you broke my puzzler, there.
> The thing is you won 't. And that's why all these new rock
>stars get like all these complexes, and shoot themselves, 'cause they
>know they didn't invent anything--
Tom: Unlike Achille Purefoy and his electrical "innerness ring."
> the whole corporate industry was
>already set up, and they tri ed out and got hired for the spot 'cause
>some fifty-year-old-bald butt pirate thought they were cute. I don't
>wanna grab my crotch for anyone."
All: Ulgh.
>
>I nodded and he turned and looked at me, and spat out his dip.
Crow: The pathos is overwhelming.
>
>"You feel it too? Timber, man-- I don't know what I'm sayin'.
Tom: I second that.
Crow: I third.
> It's just
>this restless feelin' I've been gettin'; it's borin' around here; like
>we could go trip on acid at Dave's tonight,
Mike: Here, let me offer you some hydrochloric.
> or somethin', or smoke
>Jennifer's dad's latest crop, or go high f ive everyone at Ray's forty
>kegger, or whatever , and like around in Susan's Cabriolet with the
>barley babes and go bounce moshing with Dillon Fence at the Duke Coffee
>House tonight,
Crow: Sounds like they've got a full evening planned.
> or stand and stare at Preppy Death, only I'd have to
>shoot up if I wanted to enjoy 'em any, but we'd just be kidding ours
>elves-- you know, you can kid away a whole summer, and then slack away
>another,
Tom: And before you know it, your life is an ABC Afterschool Special.
> and another, and you would never even know it until you were
>like ninety five, or something-- summer could really suck, if we let
>it."
>
>"Yeah, but like what else?"
>
>"F--- yeah
Crow: Elliot has the arrogance to suggest "fuck" but not the backbone to
actually write it. Oh, the hypocrisy.
> what else, let's get out of here. The millennium's starin'
>us in the face--why's everyone still bein' gay?"
Tom: Well, Freudians say it has to do with mother and potty training.
>
>"Yeah, but like where? Seattle?" I joked him.
Crow: Don't talk about Seattle, Martha.
>
>"Yeah, Seattle. We could start a band-- we'd like wear bell bottoms and
>stuff, and like maybe some acid queens
Mike: [singing] I'm the Gypsy, the acid queen! Pay before we start!
> would think we were like a Blind
>Cantelope cover band. You know, that's the thing-- the bands around
>here wear their humility with an arroganc e,
Crow: [smugly] I'm the most humble person I know.
> but the thing is they've
>got nothing to be humble about."
>
>"You think it's different anywhere?"
Mike: [Timber] Maybe on the moon.
>
>"I don't know." We just sat there awhile, staring into the clear sheet
>of water, and like if you let your eyes kind of go out of focus, you
>could like pretend that all the water was like this window, and it was
>really cool,
Tom: Uh...huh...
> 'cause like the way off distan t lightning would turn the
>whole sheet an electric blue, now and then-- the whole thing would like
>light up like a neon sign,
Mike: Eat at Dave's...Eat at Dave's...
> only cooler-- as cool as the virtual reality
>video game they had at Dave's Videodrome.
Mike: Like the one that Mr. Gilmore, the band teacher, threw up in at
St. Louis during the last band trip.
>
>"The thing is-- this sounds crazy, but I don't want to be a Rock'n Roll
>star. You know?"
Crow: I always wanted to be a lumberjack...
> Cliff looked at me. "Drugs bore me. Like the thing is
>nobody's makin' Rock 'n' Roll anymore anyways--
Tom: It's all done overseas now by Taiwanese sweatshops.
> Rock 'n' Roll's makin'
>people-- it's like our parents have auditions now for the best rebel,
>and then it's all so cute, 'cause we have our grunge,
Mike: [cloying] Is Billy a cute little pothead? Izzy? Izzy? Yezzie is!
> just like they
>had their hippies. But the thing is, this time around their doing it so
>we'll drink Pepsi." Cliff laughed. "Hey, that sort of rhymes-- no one
>makes Rock 'n Roll anymore; you can buy it in a store."
Tom: [Cliff] I've realized my true calling! I'll be an adman!
>
>"Yeah," I said. "But like what else is there?"
>
>"Everything! We could discover some fundamental law of nature this
>summer,
Mike: We'll call it the inverse square law of suckitude.
> if we set out right now to do it, or we could write a book." He
>stood up and walked over to the edge.
All: [chanting] Jump...jump...jump...
>
>"About what?"
>
>"About life. Whuddaya think? We could become the minds of our
>generation."
Tom: That's it. I quit Generation X.
>
>"You mean like the voices?"
Crow: You hear the voices too?
>
>"I mean the mind" He looked at me like I was insane. "We already have
>eight million voices-- Lemon Wanger's a voice of our generation, Bung
>Hole Cu tter is a voice,
Tom: Crazy Harry and the Anemic Enemas are a voice.
Mike: So basically, popular music is just a contest to come up with the
weirdest sounding band name?
Tom: Yup.
> and everyday the Hollywood elite's out
>marketing a new one naked on some magazine cover in Food Lion for you.
>I'm tired of heroin addicts bein' my voice.
Mike: [Timber] But we _are_ heroin addicts.
> But like who's gonna span
>the depth of this culture?
Crow: Two minutes ago they were discussing Beavis and Butthead, getting
drunk and listening to some grunge band; now they're the culturally
elite.
> And don't give me that line like that this
>culture's shallow, 'cause here I am, and I'll kick anybody's ass who
>says I'm shallow--
Mike: That's mighty enlightened of you.
> there's more to me than f---ing shampoo.
Tom: Want to bet they've never even opened any of Coupland's books?
> And don't
>give me that other line either that great thinkers never get recognized
>'til after they're dead-- the weird f----ed up ones don't, but where's
>the Shakespeare of our day?
Crow: Answer: Not in North Carolina.
> Who's the Plato?
Tom: Tag! You're Plato!
> Who's gonna be like the
>Aristotle?
Mike: Hey, I'm trying to know the whole of my culture.
> Where's the Einstein of our generation-- that could beus ,
>man. We could do what Rock is too old and sick with cancer to do-- we
>could give our generation a vision.
Tom: A hideous, extended, acid trip hallucination of ultraconservative
propaganda.
> We could write the Moby Dick of
>like our generation. The MTV-- no screw that-- I'm not the MTV
>generation."
Mike: [Cliff] I'm more the TNN generation.
> He thought for a bit, then nodded, slowly, "We're the
>nameless generation, dude." Cliff sat back down next to me. "'Cause
>everyone's trying name us to get their face on a magazine cover, but
>f---that-- we're nameless.
Mike: So here's the pitch...The Anonymous Generation. Think it'll sell?
> The adults are givin' us all this polished,
>rehashed 90210 rock'n roll and stuff, but like that doesn't mean I have
>to eat it. I'm a loser-- why don't you kill me.
Crow: He asked me! He asked me! Now where's my gun?
> That's not my anthem,
>it's my parent's, and we might as well. I don't have lowered
>expectations.
Tom: My father's name being Pirrip...
> I hate to disappoint everyone-- it's like I'm lettin' my
>generation down by thinkin'. Whuddayah say? You wannna do something--
>something cool?"
Crow: Let's go burn ants with a magnifying glass!
>
>"Yeah-- but like I'm not so good at this vision thing. I wouldn't know
>what to write about."
Crow: As evidenced by this story.
>
>"Shut up. It's only 'cause you've never been out of Chapel Hill. All
>you know is the Cave and the Cradle-- your whole world's some smoky dim
>room of posers and distortion. Like for starters why don't you road
>trip on up to Princeton with me, and dig up this treasure thing.
Tom: We'll have an adventure, just like the Goonies!
> It's
>cool up there, the people. There's something going down man, and it's
>not happenin' here-- you feel that callin'?"
>
>"Uh-- not really, too much, I guess."
>
>"It's different up there, man. People read."
Tom: And they marry outside of their family and everything.
>
>"Like what?"
>
>"Books-- and, oh yeah, I hear her callin'. And even if it's nothing--
>you know, it's more than the scene around here. It's an excuse to get
>out of here, dude! And plus they've got the smartest men alive up there
>at Priceton,
Mike: Come see the Smartest Men Alive exhibit, now at Princeton.
Tom: I hear the audioanimatronic Max Planck is one of their biggest
attractions.
> and an awesome library up t here I've been wanting to
>check out. There's this one dude I really want to talk to-- he's the
>modern day Einstein-- not the one in the wheel chair I was telling you
>about, but like just as cool."
>
>"I thought you just said we don't have an Einstein."
>
>"We don't--
Crow: Princeton does. That's why we've got to go there.
> this guy's practically's as old as Einstein-- you know,
>he's so old he was never assaulted by rock'n roll-- not even Elvis or
>the BG's. His mind developed totally intact.
Mike: He was shielded from disco.
> He built an atomic bomb
>when he was fifteen is how smart he is.
Tom: So Elliot, what color is the sky in your world?
> But anywa y-- this map is the
>coolest thing that's visited here in Chapel Hill in over a century--
>don't you see? It has all the markings of a top-notch adventure on it;
Mike: Or a hackneyed juvenile-fiction pseudo-pirate story.
>tra vel, mystery, and death. Now that's what life's all about, and if
>we just set out to some strange land somewheres, go forth, and look
>death in the eye
Tom: And play him a game of chess.
> and speak the truth we'll have a book! Twain had the
>Mississipi, Conrad had the Congo, Melville rampage d the seven seas,
>and like what do we have?"
Bots: Spirit!
Mike: What?
Bots: Spirit!
Mike: _What?_
Bots: SPIRIT!
All: GO TEAM GO!
>
>"The Cat's Cradle?"
>
>Cliff almost hit me. "Dude-- I'm dead serious. Now look; we could catch
>that five-thirty Friday freighter,
Crow: [singing] Outta my brain on the five-thirty...
> like we used to ride up it up to
>Durham-- you know, down by the bluffs where i t slows down. It runs all
>the way up to New York-- I've checked it before on a map. We've got
>about an hour." He looked at his watch.
Tom: Skeletor's big hand is on the seven...
> "An hour and a half. Whuddaya
>say? Yes or no? In or out for something which won't suck?"
>
>"So Drake's really alive, you think."
>
>"Hell yeah, he's alive. Like where's his ghost, if he's dead?"
Crow: Inexplicably, it's in the third stall of the 42nd street subway
stop bathroom.
>
>I laughed.
>
>"What's so funny?" Cliff looked at me.
>
>"Ghosts."
Mike: [Timber] I just love Ibsen. He's so goofy.
> It was funny seeing Cliff like so serious about something
>like ghosts.
>
>"Yeah?" He looked at me. "So?"
>
>"You don't believe in ghosts." I told him.
Tom: I don't believe in Crystal Light because I don't believe in me.
>
>"Hell yes I believe in ghosts."
>
>"OK dude."
>
>"They're scientific facts--
Crow: Weekly Worldly News said so.
> also I saw one once."
>
>"Uh huh."
>
>"Yeah, dude." He nodded. "There's one which haunts around Ghimghoul
>castle--
Mike: Since when does North Carolina have castles?
> right after storms when I was little I used to go over there,
>'cause that's when he came out."
>
>"Is that right?" I straight-faced him.
Crow: Ohh, you could cut the irony with a knife.
Tom: But please, use a spoon.
>
>"Yes way, man-- and the thing was I saw it wearing Drake's jeans jacket
>a couple weeks back-- this was before Drake'd sent it home, even. Go
>ahead, laugh.
All: [laugh]
> There's more in this heaven and earth than is dreamt of
>in your philosophy, dude."
Crow: If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be rolling in his grave.
>
>"So then how's Drake still alive, if you saw the ghost?"
>
>"It's a good ghost. C'mon man-- Priceton's callin'. Man or mouse?"
Mike: Tell me about Steinbeck, George...
>
>"Uh, my dad was like planning on my help-- you know, building the deck,
>like that carpentry stuff he's doin' this summer."
>
>"Tell him you're goin' on a fishing trip, with me, or something.
Tom: For the whole summer?
> Tell
>him I'll help you guys when we get back. I will, too-- hey, I've got
>nothing else."
>
>"Uh, like I dunno."
[Commercials]
[Concluded in part 8]