MiSTed: The Drake Raft Field Trip (6/8)

[Chris Mayfield]

[Continued from part 5]

>
>"I think you're mixing metaphors."
>
>"Dammit son,

Crow: God damn your damn sinning ways! Jesus Christ! What's gotten into
you?

> don't get smart with me!

Mike: That won't be too hard.

> The soul is a reality, I tell
>you. As much as this table here."

Crow: [Dad] Uh, son, where'd the table go?

> He like pounded on the table. "A
>reality which the scientists and biopsychiatrists and what have you try
>to deny me-- running wild in their gangs

Tom: Look out! It's B.F. Skinner and his Bad-Ass Behavioralists!

> through the palace of noble
>culture, wielding their PhD's like clubs, dealing Prozac as the key to
>heaven;

Crow: [singing] She's ingesting a stairway to heaven...

> but it is my reality, I tell you! It is John Milton's reality!"
>His dad got up, and started in like he was Henry Rollins, or something,
>and he told a poem about a bear:

Mike: Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair...

>
>"Or let my lamp, at midnight hour/ Be seen in some lonely midnight
>tower/ Where I may oft outwatch the Bear/ With thrice great Hermes, or
>unsphere/ The spirit of play-dough,

Tom: God, take this soul of mine, and make a lumpy whole out of it.

> to unfold/ What worlds or what vast
>regions hold/ The immortal mind that hath for sook, /Her mansion in
>this fleshy nook." He made the word nook last three minutes.

Mike: ...oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook...
Crow: By that time his lungs were aching for air!

> "We
>memorized those immortal words in Uncle Walt's class-- bless his soul.
>And until they club the life out of me with their paper degrees, they
>shall not deny that I exist!

Tom: [a man] Sir, I exist!
Crow: [the universe] However, the fact has not created in me a sense of
obligation.

> F or just as a fire can consume the wood,"
>he pounded on the table again, "So can the darker forces of this world
>consume a man's soul!

Mike: We suggest keeping your soul in an inert atmosphere for
protection.

> It is what's happening to your generation, as you
>all become those, those what do they say-- grungy slack ers;

Crow: [Cliff] No, no, no, dad. It's one word. "Slackers."

> it's what
>happened to your-- his-- as did."

Mike: Uh-oh. I think dad's hit "the wall."

> He stopped and took a deep breath.
>"Take a sane man,

All: Please.

> son, take a sane, honest man and place him in this
>structureless context; will he not become mad without a faith?

Tom: Uh, no.

> Without
>a system of justice? Without an order in wh ich to develop that rewards
>strength of character and integrity and shuns vacillating liars? For in
>spite of all our mutual beliefs, I could never get your father to
>believe in our Lord the savior, Jesus Christ.

Crow: Isn't _he_ Cliff's father?
Mike: Come on, me. I've gotta have faith.

> Let Uncle Walt's and
>Drake's shared traged y be my testimony. No academic--"
>
>"I don't think Drake's dead."

Mike: At least not physically. Mentally, however...

>
>"Nor do I son! The better part of him!"

Tom: His elbow?

>
>"I really don' think-- nevermind."
>
>His dad took a few paces. "No academic discipline can fill the heart of
>a man with the love

Crow: Though a recent scientific study filled one with cheeze whiz.

> and integrity that our Lord Jesus Christ can, and
>so he lost the way. A man's mind needs a place to sleep, a shelter from
>the cold and dark November rain, a plac e

All: [singing] It turns a "plac" into a "place." It turns a "mac" into a
"mace..."

> where his soul can pause on
>its trek and rest in peace, and this, my son, is what faith provides.
>As Einstein said, science sans religion is worth nothing. "

Tom: [Cliff] But dad, he was Jewish. He didn't believe in Jesus.
Mike: [Dad] Stop refuting my arguments! I'm trying to teach you
something!

>
>"Takin' attendance at church isn't going to change anything."
>
>His dad turned up the volume, to like eleven. "My words fall upon deaf
>ears!

Mike: No, just disinterested ones.

> Your generation has become jaded by the technological assault on
>your senses; immune to heartbreak and remorse, and without those two
>megaphones of the Lord's

Crow: Every time I think it can't get weirder, it does.

> to awaken you to the morning light, your
>consciences have withered, and you exist but in the shadowlands,

Tom: A little C.S. Lewis reference there for our Christian readers.

> where
>there no longer exists any sense of personal responsibility, as Rush
>was saying today--

Crow: After he made the joke about Chelsea's appearance.

> you are taught that all is motivated by oppression,
>all art and greatness and genius is but the white man's

Mike: Burden.

> plot to
>dominate the earth. Where all superior thought is seen as demonic, and
>one must never think , but only feel

Crow: How is this different from the Jolly Roger boys feeling they're
great without actually thinking?

> -- but look; without a firm
>foundation of thought, without a supporting structure of logic and
>reason, the flesh of feeling and the human spirit are reduced to a
>formless fen, the spirit an amorphous morass.

Tom: Yeah, well blow it out your morass.

> Such a bleak, nihilistic
>piture of humanity the liberals paint, where man is so fundamentally
>evil that a government must be instituted to restrain him."

Mike: And which of us believes in original sin?

>
>"Like and conservatives have never restrained anybody."
>
>"Yes-- the conservatives constrain you to hard work, and honor, and
>duty and cheerful optimism,

Tom: Hello. We're slashing welfare. Have a nice day.

> viewing men's quests in a noble light,
>whereas the liberals constrain you to a world of darkness, to a world
>where the only noble act is to escape the reality- - to lose yourself

Mike: I've gone to find myself. If I should happen to return while I am
out, please tell me to stay until I get back.

>in the pseudo peace and love of nihilism-- drugs. And son, I do n't
>know how good an influence that Timber character is--

Crow: [Dad] Boy, I'm sure glad that Timber kid isn't here. Man is he
ever stupid. And ugly too. And unhygienic and...

> with that long
>hair, and the broken family he's come from.

Tom: [Cliff] Dad, would this be a bad time to ask what happened to mom?

> Drugs are a one way road to
>perdition. Look at that gun toting Kurt Cocaine. Your voice!"

Mike: No thanks.

>
>"Timber's pretty cool."
>
>"You know I know his mother;

Tom: Yes, but does his mother know I know you know that she knows that I
know she knows?
Mike and Crow: Huh?

> she's joined the congregation. "
>
>"Yeah?"
>
>"Have you been tuning in to Rush at lunch time yet?

Tom: No. Some of us would like to be able to _digest_ our food.

> Do they have a
>radio in your school cafeteria? I'm still going to write them about
>having a Rush room--

Mike: We'll start the indoctrination while they're still young!

> while they're passing out contraception, I can 't
>see how they could deny you a Rush room--

Crow: By saying "no."

> his show is the best
>contraception in this land.

Mike: Whenever you start to feel romantic, just think of Rush in a
Speedo.
Bots: Ulgh.

> I've heard stories about that Timber
>character's father. He sings in his sermons."
>
>"She cheated on him."

Crow: So he sings the blues.
Tom: [singing] Mah woman done cheated on me, and mah dog done gone and
died...

>
>"But there's hope son, for you to gain the faith. Just always be true
>to thyself,

Tom: Good advice, Polonius.

> and then as night follows day, so it follows that you can't
>be false to any other man. I tried to make Drake understand--" Then his
>dad kind of half whispered. "An angel ."

Crow: [Cliff] Uh, dad? Hello? Earth to father...

>
>"Don't touch me." Cliff said. Just then the phone rang, and his dad
>answered--

Mike: Uhhyello? Whozzair?

>
>"Hello? Yes, hello. . . We ordered Cinemax. . . it's not coming up.
>Yes, yes HBO's working fine. . .OK, free what? No, not People Magazine.
>Yes, we'll take the shoe phone. . .yes sir, red.'" And his dad put the
>phone down.

Crow: Vital background details, that.

>
>"Now why don't we get those guitars in the classifieds-- or anything
>else you'd like to sell, like those books underneath your bed."
>
>"What book?"

Mike: The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide
available from Bantam paperback!
Tom: Only $16.95 US ($23.95 Can)!

>
>"Those catch books--Catch 22 , and Catcher in the Rye."
>
>"What'd you do with it?" Cliff sounded like he'd been lit on fire.

Tom: Get the marshmallows!

>
>"I've warned you about those anti-American New York books--"
>
>"What'd you do with them?"

Crow: Wouldn't you like to know?

>
>"I've relieved you of their existence."
>
>With that I heard Cliff scoot his chair back, and book out of the room.
>He slammed the kitchen door so totally hard that I expected to hear the
>glass shattering, only it didn't. Like the whole thing was pretty wild,
>though, in a father and son sort of way-- my dad's never said that much
>to me in my entire life.

Tom: Of course, he's mute, so...

> After a bit I heard Mr. Raft sighing an d
>muttering something to himself,

Mike: [Dad] Rhubarb rhubarb orphanage rhubarb...

> and then I heard him walk out and start
>the Mercedes up,

Tom: [singing] God won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz...

> to head on back to his wedding rehearsal, or whatever,
>and I took off down to the Waterfall fort, through the rain and all, as
>I knew that's where Cliff would surely be-- it's where he always goes

Mike: Even the characters realize they're stereotypes.

>to sulk when one of his books gets trashed or banned, or something. The
>worst of the storm had passed on by, and there was just that steady and
>warm, windless rain. Some random lighting tagged on behind,

Tom: ZZZOT! You're it!

> streaking
>down here and there, but I didn't worry so much about it. Either it had
>my number on it or it didn't. It felt pretty cool, so I just walked,
>catching rain drops in my mouth.
>
>
>
>The Waterfall fort is down underneath where Sand Run flows over a sort
>of overhang rock. It's pretty neat.

Mike: [flatly] Please. Stop with all the flowery prose.

> It's always perfectly bone dry
>there, and everything, even when it's raining, and there Cliff was
>sitting, watching the white sheet

Tom: [Cliff] I think it's time for a lynching.

> of water tumble over the edge. He
>offered me the can of Skoal without looking up to greet me.
>
>"What's up,

Crow: A positive displacement in a vertical plane.

> dude?" I like yelled over the rushing water.
>
>"Nothing man."
>
>"Yeah."
>
>He just sat there awhile, looking straight ahead. "Just thinking, and
>stuff."
>
>"Yeah? Like what."
>
>"Nothing really.

Crow: Big surprise there.

> Just about how everything sucks."

Tom: Whoa. Like, totally deep, man.

>
>"Yeah." We sat there a bit, not saying anything.
>
>"Like Chapel Hill."
>
>"Yeah-- your dad bummin' ya?"
>
>"A bit, but mostly it's just the whole Chapel Hill scene." He shook his
>head.

Crow: [dumbly] Nope nope nope nope nope...

> "Who's anyone trying to kid anymore? It makes me puke, with
>everyone getting Gibson Les Pauls from their mothers for Christmas, and
>flannel shirts, or whatever, growing goatees, and then like thinking
>they're like rebels,

Mike: Without a like cause.

> or something. It's phony-- they all know the same
>three chords, even."
>
>"Yeah, but if you can play them real fast, you kinda are."
>
>"If they're detuned, right? I mean they're trying to look like Bloody
>Stonehard, they're tryin' to sound like Bloody Stonehard, only its hard
>to suck as bad. But what the f---,

Crow: Fart?
Mike: Fund?
Tom: Flat?
Crow: Oh...they mean--
Mike: [grabs Crow] We know.

> even Bloody Stonehard is embarrassed
>to be Bloody Stonehard-- they know they're phony Pearl Jam wanna bes--
>you can tell by the way

Tom: They use their walk they're ladies men; no time for talk.

> they're so goddamned whiny about everything. At
>least Pearl Jam's embarrassed to be themselves, you can tell. All this
>alternative crap-- alternative to what ?

Mike: Real music.

> And then when they can't sound
>like them, they'll tell ya it's like 'cause they're just too f---in'
>original to help it. Nobody's going anywhere, really fast,

Mike: This plot's dyin' in a rush.

> but then
>that's what like makes it so cool to them in the first place. To suck
>is to be cool.

Tom: Elliot is absolute zero.

> You know, Rolling Stone could take absolutely any band,
>and make 'em famous."
>
>"Some of 'em are OK."
>
>"You ever read any of their lyrics? They suck. Don't call me daughter.

Mike: We return to Non Sequitor Theatre after these messages.

>Nothing means anything-- intrinsically, at least."
>
>"Yeah."
>
>"Then there's like those masters of originality being all sensitive in
>like dresses saying how he hates videos, but it's like then why the f--
>are you in videos, dipf---?

Tom: Ah, the voice of our generation.

> F---head record companies believe in it,
>and like the fashion industry, too, and twelve year olds, but that's
>about it. It's dead."
>
>"Yeah, kind of, I guess. But something new--"

Mike: [mystically] Something...improved...

>
>"F---in' Beavis and Butthead-- I mean they're twenty times more
>original

All: [noisily clear throats]

> than any of the bands these days-- Kurt couldn't compete. I
>mean the irony of them watching that Aerosmith video in total reverent
>silence, and Butthead saying, 'this is the coolest video I've ever
>seen.'"

Crow: [dazed] Wow...Infinite Jest...

>
>"Yeah, Rag Doll's a cool video."
>
>"They were cool and all, for like a day, but s---, Timber, that ain't
>us.

Tom: We're much less talented.

> It's what adults want us to be, or like what they expect us to be,
>like f--- that-- it's what they are. They're the one's creating it .
>Greenday's them."

Tom: I thought they were a bunch of losers from Seattle.
Crow: No, I think that's Trent Reznor and the Blowfish.
Mike: No no no. That's Smashing Blind Lemonheads.

>
>"They're funny, like when they told everyone at Lollapalooza to--"
>
>"But dude, don't get me wrong, I'm not against it--

Mike: Just because I say it's all fake and stupid and I hate it...

> I'm not saying if
>you don't make MTV then you're automatically good, like all the ass
>munch's around here always are.

Tom: He truly has a poet's ear for dialogue.

> It's cool to suck-- like they could
>make it big, if they wanted to, but they're not selling out. The thing
>is though, they couldn't sell out-- there's like nothing about 'em
>anyone would want to buy.

Crow: And so we come full circle.

[6...5...4...3...2...1...]

Mike: Finished with your assignment yet, Tom?

Tom: Yep.

Miss Mistiehearts, Help me, Help me

Miss Mistiehearts sat in front of his computer staring at a small
piece of paper on which Shmike had written a prayer.

Brain of Miss M, educate me.
Humor of Miss M, amuse me.
Wit of Miss M, intoxicate me.
Laugh of Miss M, warm me.
Oh, good Miss M, excuse my plea,
And hide me in your heart,
And defend me from mine ignorant enemies.
Help me, Miss M, help me, help me.
In saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Although the deadline was less than a quarter of an hour away, he was
still working on the skits. He had gotten as far as: "Welcome to the
Satellite of Love."
On his desk were piled those he had received this morning. He started
through them again, searching for some clue of good material.

alt.alien.visitors
This is a compressive attent to solve the misteries of why aliens may be
in earth. I started the ball rolling and by logical means I'm sure we
can conclude why alians are in here. Many other answers may come a long
with it. But I think this is why the internet is best for. If we all
coperate little by little we could fill all the holes and who knows may
be show the goverment we are ready after all!

Miss Mistiehearts deleted it and opened up another.

rec.arts.theatre.books
RHONDA Is Here!
InformationWants2BFree!
BooksWant2BLiberated!
Destroy Copyright!
CyberSpace Rulez!

He stopped reading. Everyone wanted answers. Knowledge was the answer,
but if he did not want to get sick , he had to stay away from the
knowledge business. He had tried to argue with people, educate, but they
didn't want knowledge; they wanted answers. They wanted Yes. They wanted
I Love You and Right and Anything You Say, not Because or Wrong or No.
Shmike came in and leaned over his shoulder. "Same old stuff," he
said. "Why don't you give them something new and light? Here, I'll
dictate:
"Open: Satellite of Love. Everyone is smeared with lemon meringue,
there just having been a huge pie fight. One is beating the other with a
rubber chicken.
"Go on from there."

Miss Mistiehearts and the Cripple

Miss Mistiehearts dodged Susie because she made him feel ridiculous.
He went to Frankie's one day after work to avoid her. Inside, Miss
Mistiehearts found Shmike at the bar. Shmike saw him and pulled up next
to him, saying, "Come, tell me, brother, how did you first came to do
this? Was it MAKE.MONEY.FAST? Robert McElwaine? Ratliff?"
The familiar jokes no longer had any effect on Miss Mistiehearts, who
simply smiled the smile of the martyr.
The bartender who was standing nearby broke in to address Miss
Mistiehearts. "Excuse me, sir. There's someone here who wants to meet
you."
Before he could reply, the bartender motioned to someone sitting at
the end of the bar. The signal was answered by a little cripple; a gold
colored, pin beaked, net headed cripple. A freak of nature who wobbled
about on his two malformed legs. A hideous, grotesque creature of

Mike: Uh, Tom. This is all fiction, right?

Tom: Of course. Why do you ask?

Mike: Nothing. Never mind. [lights flash] We'll be right back. [hits
light]

[Commercials]

[Continued in part 7]