there’s an encrypted clue in here that will lead you to my next entry

scavenging, adventuring, non-mandatory fun

While attending the University of California at Santa Barbara, I met a young, goofy man named Graham Talley. Graham had an infectious laugh and a “FUN” club, and I loaned him some ketchup one time, and you know, things progressed from there. Graham said his ultimate goal was to have his own scavenger/treasure hunting company, designing hunts for clients and their friends/enemies, and he and some other FUN club members organized dry runs throughout our four UCSB years.

The most elaborate hunt (to my limited knowledge) took place during our sophomore year, when Graham tricked my friends Chris and the aforementioned Ari, among several others, into following a several week-long hunt around the UCSB campus and the nearby slum of Isla Vista. The best part was that much of the hunt was caught on video by surreptitious FUN club operatives. The second best part was for some reason, the participants thought they’d win money, and were annoyed when they simply won being blindfolded, led into a huge party and publicly humiliated. If they sound a little thick, remember, this was UCSB.

Now nearly three years later, Graham is using his talent for manipulation and tomfoolery to – surprise! – win himself some money. He’s started Whim Hunts, a company which crafts scavenger/treasure hunts individually for each client. Whim was even featured in the Santa Barbara News-Press last week, in part to promote the public scavenger hunt Graham and his cohorts will be organizing to begin tomorrow, Friday, July 28.

I’ll admit, I was rather skeptical about Graham’s goals back in the day, but that just makes me even happier to see him successful now. Yay, Graham.

Incidentally, the same day Whim was featured in the News-Press, my friend Jason sent me an invitation to participate in Midnight Madness, the ten-year-old scavenger/puzzle hunt game taking place in Manhattan on August 5th. “It is exhausting and difficult and ridiculous and fun,” says Jason. The game was created in 1996 by two Columbia University undergrads; the name is inspired by the 1980 Michael J.Fox film. There are only two rules: no motorized vehicles, and no tampering with clues. And not that there was really a question, but I read this on an old message board circa 2004 re: the typical player:

The average profile of the late night walkers is pretty homogenous, and not surprising if you consider that we're talking about a scavenger hunt involving electronic gadgets, a central messaging program and analytical puzzles. if your guess was '20-something geeky types', you would have been pretty right on.

And even though it’s not Mandatory, east or west coast, you have no excuses – get outside, run around, solve some clues and, like, have some Fun. Or whatever.

mandatory fun and less mandatory fun

sex, drugs, nerds

In my unemployment I’ve been reading a great deal more than perhaps I ever have before, and that means exhausting my usual outlets – and yes, it’s true, I have begun perusing Slate. Which is how I came across this article by culture editor Meghan O’Rourke, and laughed for at least fourteen minutes.

Ms. O’Rourke attended the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) summer program in 1988, and writes about her good, clean fun (minus the making out during Mandatory Fun! scandalous!) at “nerd camp,” where she still remembers feeling “the sense of relief at finally being in a place where people felt, in some sense, normal. It was a place where kids could be cool without having to downplay their interests.”

Okay, Meghan, I’ll grant you that one. And I also agree on the intellectual-growth points: I can say with a fair bit of confidence that CTY is what made me want to become a writer.

But here is where our memories diverge a bit (or perhaps just our divulgence of the juicy details). I attended CTY about ten years later, and while I, too, remember “the sense of relief,” I also remember the 14-year-olds ditching Mandatory Fun, getting drunk, dealing ecstacy, having sex in the bathrooms and being shamelessly courted by their residential advisors.

Meghan writes, “Each [dance] concluded with either "Sympathy for the Devil," "Ana Ng," or "American Pie," at the end of which students chanted "Die! Die! Die! Die! Live! Live! Live! Live! Sex! Sex! Sex! Sex! More! More! More! More!" Delighted, we would go home invigorated and exhausted—a kind of clean high.”

C’mon, Meghan. That’s just what you wanted them to think.

one month later

sabbaticals, the post-postmodern new new journalism, hypocrisy

Contrary to popular opinion, I am indeed still alive.

The last month or so I’ve taken a break from the internet more or less and I apologize to any of you that I’ve resultingly blown off. The internet and I have been close for over a decade now, and I felt like I just needed a break from the relationship – it was getting a little intense there for a while.

So it goes.

This past week my friends from college Ari and Adam came to visit and crash at Top Floor while on their two month cross-country road trip. The road trip is ostensibly an exploration of drive in movie theatres across America, their death and resurgence, and their impact on and reflection of the changing culture. As they’ve been progressing through (about halfway through), Ari and Adam have altered their focus somewhat, to include more of themselves and their own experience as well. This is what Ari and I got into a somewhat antagonistic on-film conversation about when the boys were staying (in the visionary, of course).

I should say: I love first person journalism. It acknowledges the greatest human truth: no matter how hard you try, you can’t go beyond yourself; you are in everything you do. There’s a personality invested in the story, instead of surreptitiously (and sometimes dishonestly) hidden behind the material.

But there is, of course, a line between being a part of the story and becoming the story. I’ll call this the Thompson line. Hunter was an excellent documenter, but his Gonzo predilections often won out over his journalistic ones, leading him to purposefully alter the story to make it more exciting.

This is part of what concerns me about Ari and Adam drive in documentary. The other part is the narcissism, which I’ll call the MySpace syndrome (alternatives: Reality television and/or the blogosphere).The drifting, ambivalent neo-nihilist/alarmingly sincere twixter experience is a trendy and marginally interesting one (and you must agree at least a bit, considering you’re reading my blog.) But, you know. There are limits.

Incidentally, my other advice to Ari and Adam was to make their blog entries shorter and less rambling. So, a grain of salt.

So it goes.