Whiteclay Part 2

The story of the Whiteclay trip really begins for me on the night before, just as it really ends for me on the day after. I was spending a normal Saturday night out carousing and ended up at my friend's Myles's house.

Ths is important for several reasons. For one, we were playing poker while watching poker on TV. This would foreshadow a general theme of the trip, it was something that pseudo-intellectual freshmen and those of us who will always be psuedo-intellectual freshmen find hillariously absurd. Far more important were Beverly Hills Ninja, Mc'Donalds, and the alcohol.

"Beverly Hills Ninja" is one of Chris Farley's last movies and is, of course, absolutely fucking dreadful. We watched it for irony's sake. (Certainly not because we were a pack of drunks looking for an excuse to stay awake and keep drinking.) The entire crew consisted of professional sarcastics who live for opportunities to flog movies like "Beverly Hills Ninja" like it was Jim Cervezial. This is what we do, in lieu of having girlfriends and lives. (I should probably speak for myself on this.)

Yet something interesting happened. There were long streches of Beverly Hills Ninja that were so terrible, scenes that were not just unfunny, but threatened to destroy the very idea of comedy, that all of our razor tongues were left speechless. The cleverest thing anyone had to say about it was not a quip but a question. One Brandon Turner wondered aloud why Chris Farley was a ninja, and no one knew. There was no answer. The question was asked and then it hung in the air, like an unsolicited murder confession.

As intended, the movie gave us the opportunity to get very drunk and stupid, and we began to get hungry. I half-heartedly suggested De'Leon's. (The best resturant in Lincoln, if you are ever a visitor here, eat nothing else, period.) This idea quickly became a mission in search of food. But the De'Leon's in south Lincoln closes at night, which is proof that anything south of Highway 2 isn't part of the real Lincoln if nothing else is. The neighborhood Village Inn was also closed, which left...Mc'Donalds.

If it were up to me, I would have preffered to just go home and eat a box of Hamburger Helper, because I dislike Mc'Donalds. I am not a vegetarian, and have no political qualms against fast-food resturants persay, but I think that Morgan Spurlok and all the other evil veggie-socialists have given me some sort of psycho-somatic reaction to Mc'Donalds because Mc'Donalds simply tastes foul to me. I can taste the shoddiness and the bacteria and the granulated remnents of a thousand cows in each burger in a way I never noticed as a child. I really would have preffered to just eat my own food, but I went through the drive-thru with everyone else, and it's awkward to be the guy who isn't eating in a group drunk-fest, so I got the Big Mac meal.

We ate in the parking lot of Myles's apartment, without ketchup or salt, throwing our wrappers onto the ground and letting them blow away to desecrate whatever piece of nature they chose to. We were beasts, eating food not fit for beasts. It was the beginning of several days of drinking too much, eating badly, offending God and nature,and seeking visceral experience with no intention of contributing to society. (Rogues, ruffians, and rascallions.)

I was too drunk to drive, so I left my car parked in the distant wastelands of 14th and Old Cheney and let my travelmate Dan drive me home. He claimed to be good to drive, and so he was. Was he technically legal to drive? Never mind.

The night before set the table for Whiteclay in several ways. It complicated our departure for one. This was the night of the time change, so me and Dan woke up an hour later than we had planned to. Things were furthur complicated by the fact that I had to walk to his apartment on the other side of downtown and than get a ride to fourteenth and Cheney and then back too my apartment to load my stuff into his car. Because of this and the great median adventure which I will discuss tomorrow, we ended up rolling into the Gordon/Rushville/Pine Ridge area at least three hours later than we were planning too. Last but not least, Dan and I, the only two drivers on the trip, spent the entire day hungover and sleep-deprived. This was how I would experience every conscious moment of the trip.

Expect no mercy if your car breaks down on the interstate, and never drink Hurricane Malt Liquor if you're the kind who likes to keep your emotions to yourself. Enough for now.