Adventures in Surreality (Part 2)

Having covered a little of the history surrounding the Scotia Inn, and a few of the pleasantly surprising aspects of my visit, I can now get into the really weird stuff, the kind of experiences that made me feel like my life was temporarily being directed by David Lynch. Or at least like I had stepped back in time and was watching the past unfold again, with a different understanding of its meaning, but with no ability to change it even the slightest bit.

The first incident involves an old acquaintance with whom I had recently re-connected through Facebook, and who had traveled down from his current home in Snoqualamie, WA, which was the actual setting for David Lynch’s surreal classic series, Twin Peaks (from which I’ve borrowed some images for this series.)

This guy, whom I’ll call Bill (because his name is Bill), is a musician, and he had alerted me to the fact that he was bringing his band down for the event. There was another band also scheduled to play after the dinner, so Bill and his boys were planning to fill in with a few short sets during the regular band’s breaks.

As it turns out, Bill has grown in a more, shall I say, “counterculture” direction than the average Fortuna High graduate, so when he started singing his first song, which was essentially a character study, perhaps even a caricature, of a prototypical environmental activist, who “wants to chain herself to a tree” and who enjoys “carrot juice enemas,” and “not shaving her legs,” some of the natives immediately started to get restless!

Accustomed to bland lyrics and familiar dance covers that require no thought whatsoever, a number of them were heard voicing complaints like “How dare he come in here and sing about being an Earth Firster! Can’t he see all the redwood in this room?”

By the time Bill’s band was ready to start their second set, the buzz had spread to the point where the entire group of people who had been shaking their butts to “Cisco Kid,” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” suddenly decided to express their disapproval by walking out en masse.

Aside from a few stragglers chatting in the back of the long room, I was one of only two people remaining to listen to the boys as they charged through another set of tunes. The only other person beside me (who happened to have been my best friend from grades 1 through 4) leaned over and reminisced about having taught Bill his first guitar chords back in high school.

After the music was over, I was standing in the back talking to the boys as they put away their instruments, and I had just about rationalized it all away. Perhaps the dancers all just had to go take a group pee (there was a bit of drinking going on!) But then Deb, the coordinator of the event, came up to say that people really were still upset about the first song. Her words were, “You’re gonna have to do something to make things right!”

We stood there, looking at each other, and simultaneously came to the conclusion that things were right! Bill said the incident “made it worth the trip down” as I congratulated him on having the power to single-handedly cause his entire high school class to regress into the childish herd behavior of shunning something they didn’t even understand.

So here, courtesy of Bill whose friend wrote the song, are the full lyrics that got the panties of the entire Fortuna High class of 78 in a twist:

Hippy Chick by Brett Shuler

Barefoot and PC I’ll chain myself to a redwood tree
I’m gonna have a baby, I’m gonna name her River
I grow mushrooms in my head and listen to the Grateful Dead
‘cause Jerry, Jerry makes me quiver

I’m not missing out
I’m happy blissing out
I could sit and space out all day
I feel good and I feel loose
An enema of carrot juice
Really helps me start my day

Two things that knock me out
Are Birkenstocks and bean sprouts
And meat meat meat is no good

I won’t even eat eggs
And I refuse to shave my legs
Even ‘though most men say I should

I’m not missing out
I’m happy blissing out
I could sit and space out all day
I feel good and I feel loose
An enema of asparagus juice
Really gets me on my way

Barefoot and PC I’ll chain myself to a redwood tree
I’m gonna have a baby, I’m gonna name her River
I’m gonna name him River
I’m gonna name ‘em River

It was quite an amazing experience, but it was after this unusual bit of high drama that things got really weird . . .