I am a bad role model.
To date, the closest I’ve ever come to being a father is taking care of my car, BEAST MODE (affectionately referred to by some as Nene Hilario). And, like many bad fathers, I pushed my baby through puberty. Though only in his infancy, my car has already accumulated about 2,000 too many miles on it, thanks to two major road trips, one of which was BASICALLY THE BEST ROAD TRIP EVER, the other of which comprised the MOST WORTHLESS ROAD TRIP EVER. The following is a story about the latter.
Be forewarned, reader. This is a story of fire-and-brimstone adventure, discovering new lands, solidifying certain bonds, and tearfully breaking others. Most importantly, however, this is a blueprint for how to simultaneously shatter 8,000 hearts into a million little splinters. (Pay attention, schools I plan on applying to. That includes you, USC.)
There is no happy ending here. This is not a revelation of David’s triumph over Goliath. This story, in all its misery, could easily parallel any tale about all the trials and suffering of the Jewish people, and that’s saying a LOT. If you wish to dig into the hay pile and look for the silver lining, be my guest. This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this.
Presenting your feature cast:
Gordo, your friendly neighborhood Driver Man
TheYoc, party medic/SDN addict
Teeks,
DeezNuts, operator of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride
CarpeDM08, resident
EZ-E, resident
JenNAY, resident
Pussyface, resident
Pomona, helmsman of the U.S.S. Enterprise
PomonaXX, Pomona’s girl
TheWhiteMichaelVick, just as fast and more accurate plus not stupid enough to torture and kill dogs
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Act I
Journey to Oregonia.
Friday morning. Sunshine kissing our happy faces. Warm, but balmy.
BEAST MODE had the honor of transporting TheYoc and Teeks, piloted by yours truly. The eight-hour ride up to our hotel in Sutherlin, about an hour south of Eugene, had the following highlights:
-TheYoc: “Dude, I’m sorry, but I have to go pee again.”
Gordo: “But you JUST WENT, like, half an hour ago.”
TheYoc: “I know. I said I’m sorry.”
Gordo: “Suck it up. This is what plastic water bottles were made for.”
-Lunch stop at the In-N-Out in Redding, where we accidentally ran into another car of Cal Bandsmen. Also, we later found out that every single car involved in this road trip stopped at that In-N-Out. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name/and you’re always glad you came, ya know?
-Breaking out my “Songs We Grew Up With” playlist. BSB, *NSYNC, Britney, Christina, etc. instantly brought up the “OH MY GOD WE’RE SO OLD I CAN’T BELIEVE SOME OF THE NEWMEN DON’T KNOW WHO *NSYNC IS” talk. This xkcd comic reflects our collective sentiment exactly.
-Playing word-connection games. The celebrity name game: one person names a celebrity’s full name, and the next person has to name a celebrity whose first name starts with the first letter of the previous celebrity’s last name. This entertained us for TWO WHOLE HOURS and proved to us, as TheYoc put so well, “how much useless shit we know just by watching TV and stuff.” Also, playing Contact, which is basically a human crossword puzzle. It’s an insanely time-consuming game, psychologically challenging, and also extremely rewarding. Ask store for rules no need to purchase to be eligible prizes may vary see store for details.
-TheYoc: “Why does Oregon look like L.A.? Is this smog?”
Gordo: “Hmm. It shouldn’t. Maybe there are wildfires around here?”
TheYoc: “Let me look it up on my iPhone…OH SHIT there are HELLA wildfires.”
We drove through that smoke for about two hours.
Strider at the Inn.
8PM, gorgeous sunset in the distance.
Teeks: “This is our hotel?”
Gordo: “Hey, don’t knock it. It was cheap as hell.”
Teeks: “This is totally a hooker hotel. Look:
Wall-to-wall mirror against the beds…
…bigass mirror on the opposite wall
…few ceiling lights…
…this is totally a hooker hotel.”
Gordo: “I guess all that’s missing are magic finger beds shaped like giant hearts, a retractable stripper pole from the floor, and a mirror on the ceiling and this might as well be the cheapest Japanese love hotel ever.”
(Ed. note: the hotel was actually really, really nice for the price. The hotel stay, complete with breakfast and free wi-fi, cost less per person than any other expense, including tickets and gas. From the bottom of my heart to the Microtel Sutherlin staff – 4 stars, truly.)
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Act II
First Dinner.
The Apple Peddler restaurant, right next to our hotel. The three of us walked in, hungrier than three wolves howling at the moon, and immediately we felt the entire restaurant’s eyes peering our darker complexions and ethnic features. Not only were they all white, they were also coveting our youthful energy and vigor because calling them “beyond old” would be a gross understatement. One third – ONE WHOLE THIRD – of our menu was titled “Senior Citizens Early Bird Specials.” We would’ve been better off going to any of the other fast food restaurants in walking distance, because the food was pretty bad – the steak tough and chewy, the fish barely cooked well enough, and the gravy more starch than liquid. However, sustenance gained, we ventured to the gas station to procure vitamins and minerals, necessary for…um…
Prima Notte.
Teeks: “What is there to do around here?”
TheYoc: “Nothing. That’s why we got the beer and the cards.”
Gordo: “Let’s at least check out what’s on the TV.”
…click clickety click click…
TheYoc: “STOP. Oh my god. Is this SHOWGIRLS? THIS IS TOTALLY SHOWGIRLS.”
Gordo: “How do you know it’s ShoWHOOOOA BOOBIES ok we’re staying on this channel.”
Teeks: “You guys are GUH-ROSS. Can we please watch something else?”
There are reasons why men rule the world. Controlling the remote control is definitely one of them. We watched every single minute of that damned movie starring, you guessed it, Elizabeth Berkley of Saved By The Bell fame.
Yep, that’s her. Jessie Spanos, showing her ta-tas and hoo-hoo for the world to ogle, like some animal at the zoo, but with boobies and dancing around naked for most of the time.
BEST SCENE OF THE MOVIE:
Nomi Malone (Berkley): “I’m on my period.”
Dude wanting to fuck her: “Yeah, right.”
Nomi: “Check.”
Dude wanting to fuck her reaches down her pants and slowly pulls out his fingers dabbed with blood.
It’s no wonder why this movie became such a cult classic. Being lame and worn out/hot-‘n-bothered, the three of us went to bed at midnight.
Pomona, PomonaXX, and TheWhiteMichaelVick showed up to the hotel room at around 2AM. Let’s hop in the way-back machine and do some quick grade school math: if Pomona’s car left Berkeley at 7:30PM and got to the hotel room by 2AM, how long did it take them to drive the 460 miles north? At what speed were they driving to get there in that time?
Got the answer? I’ll wait.
Like I said. Helmsman of the U.S.S. motherfucking Enterprise.
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Act III
To Arms.
The other five actually got to the hotel at around midnight, but since we had all passed out, we didn’t actually see them until Saturday morning.
There was a football game, I think. I can’t really remember because I’m pretty sure I blacked out for most of it. That’s how bad it was. The only tidbit I would like to relay here in full detail: CarpeDM08, valiant warrior and watchful sentinel as always, whispering, “I can’t tell what’s worse right now – how badly the Bears are playing or the number of teeth missing from the Oregon fan standing next to me.”
Drowning our sorrows.
An extremely delightful dinner at Turtles Bar & Grill in Eugene plus daily specials, Saturday’s being $4 Sex on the Beach, meant that I was ready to gorge and booze and I was parking my ass there till I was done, come hell or high water.
Pussyface: “Well…now what?”
We all looked at each other knowingly.
Typical Cal Band hotel set: beers in hand, huddled around the idiot box, watching one of our favorite childhood films of all time - Jurassic Park. JenNAY had never seen the movie till that night, and I am proud to report that she was just as excited and thrilled as the first time all the rest of us saw it. “Clever girl,” indeed.
Click click whirrrrrr. 9:45PM. We needed to end this trip right. Translation: QUEST!
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Epilogue
10PM. Our motley crew, eleven soldiers of fortune, stood around the cashier area of the Dairy Queen, located literally a fifteen-second drive from our hotel, as they neared closing time. We huddled in that wagon circle, porking our sorrows away with Blizzards and cream cones and also doing an excellent job of getting in the way of other people trying to order.
At that point, I didn’t feel like a Cal Bandsman. We didn’t talk about the game. We didn’t talk about the future of Cal football. Instead, we ended the night with what I now realize is the absolute perfect way to sum up our trip in a convenient, ready-to-go, handheld 41-second package.
For every brilliant invention in the world, there exist fifty absolutely pointless and overhyped ones (such as the Snuggie, the Big Top Cupcake, and the Shake Weight). One of the most famous and technologically brilliant ones is, without question, the Segway. Originally touted as “the next leap forward in transportation technology,” advocated by the venerable Steve Jobs to be “as significant as the personal computer,” the Segway was one of the greatest flops of all time, even bigger than Ryan Leaf (YES I SAID IT).
The Segway was unveiled in 2001 and first produced in 2002. Since then, a grand total of nobody has purchased it for personal home use. Instead, Segway has found several niche markets, each as Failblog-worthy as the next. Observe:
Tour Groups (actually, not a bad idea)
Segway Polo, a.k.a. Sport For People Too Rich To Play Anything Less Regal Than Going Around Whacking Balls With Hammers Yet Too Lazy To Learn How To Ride Horses While Whacking Balls With Hammers
Communist Oppression Enthusiasts
None of these sectors, however, match up to the entertainment value of zoo animals on Segways. Chimpanzees, specifically. Watch this video. Turn the volume up, and I guarantee you that this damn song will be stuck in your head for the next two weeks.
I thought nothing of it at first other than quick, cheap laughs, but thank you sweet baby Jesus for letting this video inspire me to break my writer’s block.
Sorry for the way-too-long setup, but to the point:
The Segway is the 2009 Cal football team.
Gather the yearning, drooling masses to watch an extremely overhyped product, widely touted by multiple big-name sources to have extreme future potential, embarrass itself very, very publicly. Be unsurprised as the vast majority of the potential market share runs away, seeing the promise of many years of development fall inexplicably short of expectations. Be very impressed, however, with the dedicated few who stick with it through thick and thin, because that, my friends, is LOVE.
I’ve actually met a so-called “Segway enthusiast” in my time at Cal, and by Noah’s right hand, he LOVED that machine. I asked him about all the detractors, naysayers, and jokesters. None of it mattered to him. He loved his Segway regardless of what anyone else said. And this is the most valuable lesson of all: loyalty, though capable of being blind and unreasonable at times, is an honorable virtue. We will always and forever love our Bears, no matter what. There is no fancy language or impressive vocabulary to make that statement any more or less true.
So there you have it. The Oregon Trip, The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Nine. Since I’ve never been great at good-byes, I’ll simply end with this running gag from CarpeDM08: “You make sure they remember…FOREVER…the night they played the Titans.”
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Good news/bad news time. Good news: you just got through what I consider to be my best post ever. Bad news: I won’t be writing again until January. Science beckons, friends.
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