03x02 - Potato

[bunniefuu]

♪ [LOW RHYTHMIC MUSIC PLAYING] ♪

♪ [UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

♪ [UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING] ♪

When we were seven
and eight years old,

my parents sent me
and my brother, Evan,

off to summer camp.

And I was looking
forward to this.

I was really
looking forward to it.

Play baseball, and basketball,

and all kinds of sports
all day long.

I was really
looking forward to this.

Except it wasn't that.

They would wake us up
at five o'clock in the morning

and we'd have breakfast
in this big, big room.

And after breakfast,
we were ushered off

to arts and crafts.

And arts and crafts
were run by this guy, Al.

When you're eight years old,
it's hard to tell

how old an older person is,
but he seemed really kinda old,

like 60 or so.

And he had this enormous head.

And he wore
a white sleeveless t-shirt,

and he had these long,
long hairs

that grew out of his shoulders.

And he had big, fat,
meaty hands,

and he would have us
make these...

what were supposed to be
tornado lanyards

made out of gimp.

I don't know
if they still make gimp.

It's like this plastic string.

And he would come around
and sing these camp songs.

And we were supposed
to sing along with him.

Clapping his meaty hands
and his bad breath

permeating the room,
and I just thought,

"This is no good.
I want to go play basketball."

Then after arts and crafts,
we were supposed to go swimming.

I thought,
"Good, I like swimming.

This is gonna be fun."

Except the lake that we swam in
was fed by a mountain stream

and the water was freezing cold.

It was unbearable.

And they let you out
of the water if you turned blue.

And a couple of kids
were lucky enough to turn blue.

But I never turned blue.

Then we would go and have lunch,
then we would have naptime.

One hour naptime.

And after naptime, they sent us
back to arts and crafts.

And this is when I planned
my escape.

♪ [UPBEAT MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪

JOHN LURIE: Other kids heard
about my escape

and they wanted to join me.

So I said, "Okay,
bring your duffel bag,

bring your sandwich,
and any camping gear

that you brought here,
bring it with you.

What we're going to do is,

at the beginning of naptime,
we're going to sneak out.

Then we'll have an hour
head start."

Thirteen of us left the camp.

Wally, Billy, Tommy.

There were two Ralphs,
so we called one Small Ralph,

and the other one,
we just called him Ralph.

So it was Wally, Billy, Tommy,
Ralph, Small Ralph,

Chester, Gerald, Carl, Wilbur,
Freddy, Joey, Dennis,

and Smeltzer.

Smeltzer never talked,

but we thought
his name was Smeltzer.

We thought we heard a counsellor
call him Smeltzer.

Smeltzer, Smeltzer.

We got about five miles away.

Then somebody said,
"They're coming!"

So we all ducked down
in a ditch,

and they drove by,
and they didn't see us.

♪ [QUIRKY MUSIC PLAYING] ♪

I promise you, the stories
I tell on here

and in my book,
The History of Bones,

they're all true.

I mean, they're as true
as I can make them.

Except for the stories,
of course,

that are obviously not true,

like I never had
quarters coming out of my nose.

But other than that,
I tried to be really honest.

So the first part of this
is absolutely what happened.

But it was 60 years ago.

And I more remember
telling the story

than the thing
actually happening,

if you know what I mean.

So some of this
may have drifted.

So I'm not sure,
but this is how I remember it.

So from that point on,
we decided to stay off the road.

We moved further into the woods.

♪ [UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING] ♪

Wally had a compass,
a toy compass,

and I don't think
it was really working,

but we were supposed
to be going east.

We had started out
in Massachusetts.

But clearly, now,
we were going south.

There was moss in the trees,
and there were more mosquitoes,

and there were these flowers,
these beautiful flowers.

Flowers I had never seen before.
They were incredibly beautiful.

And they were everywhere.
Flowers.

And there were fields
of beautiful, lush, green grass.

And it felt good to be
walking out here like this.

We felt free. We felt important.

Of course, almost immediately,

everybody had eaten
their sandwiches.

And by the end of the day,
they all started to get hungry.

But around,
just as the sun was going down,

we came to this place.

A place that I'd only
read about in books,

where it was like
a village with huts,

and they had these totem poles
with these tiger heads

painted on the top of them.

I'll try and paint them for you.

It was so beautiful there,
but there was nobody.

There obviously had been people,
but there was nobody there then.

So we kept going.

Now, we're really hungry.
And we saw these mushrooms,

I said, "You can eat mushrooms.

I know you can eat mushrooms."

So we started picking
all the mushrooms.

But Billy came by and said,

"No, those are
poisonous mushrooms."

But near
where the mushrooms were,

there was a farm,

and we could see these sprigs
coming up,

and Billy said, "Those are
potatoes underneath there,

and if we dig,
there will be potatoes."

♪ Potato ♪

We had a little, little pot,
like a little dented pot.

So we boiled the potatoes
and that's what we ate.

♪ Potato, potato ♪

And we moved on.

We came into this
really beautiful area.

It was fields, with these trees.

And Wally said,
"I think that tree is talking.

Is that tree talking?"

So we went up close to the tree
to see if it was talking.

And there was words
coming out of the tree.

So we thought, maybe the tree
could guide us on our journey.

So I got close to the tree.
And I said, "Can you help us?"

And he was going through
stock prices on the NASDAQ.

He was just reciting
stock prices.

And I would ask him a question,

he would just say
more stock prices.

f*cking tree. Why?

And we moved on.

And we came to this
very jungle-like area.

And we could see up ahead of us,
there were alligators.

A lot of alligators.
And I didn't know what to do.

And they were all saying,
"John, what should we do?"

And I thought about it,

and I remembered
something Gurdjieff had told me.

And I said,
"Okay, let's back up.

And we'll cut down little trees
and then take the branches

and tie them
with our shoelaces."

And we made stilts.

And we made stilts.

And then we walked
through the alligators.

We were like three feet,

the alligators would look up
and go... [GROWLS]

But they didn't bite anybody.
They didn't attack the pole.

And so we walked
through the alligators.

And now we were tired.

And once we saw
that we were safe,

we decided to make camp.
And we cooked...

♪ Potato, potato ♪

And as I was sleeping
on the ground,

-I heard this gigantic clomp.
-[LOUD STOMP]

JOHN: And I looked up and I saw
that Tommy was missing.

And that there was
a gigantic alligator

at the edge of our camp.

And I realized
what had happened.

I said, "Everybody get up,
everybody get up,

everybody get up,
everybody get up now!

Get up now!

Turn the alligator over,
turn it on its back,

and rub its stomach.

Turn it on its back
and rub its stomach."

Which we did,

and then the alligator
fell off to sleep.

When we were sure
he was asleep,

we pried his jaws open

and Wally climbed inside
and pulled Tommy out.

Tommy was covered
in alligator gunk,

but he was okay.

He was okay.
He was really okay.

So we cleaned him off
and we moved on.

♪ [UPBEAT MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪

JOHN: Then we got to this area
with giant frogs.

There were giant frogs.
There were giant, giant frogs.

Ooh, somebody said,
"We can eat the legs.

In France, they eat the legs."

And Billy said,

"No, not on those frogs.
They're poisonous."

So for lunch we had...

♪ Potato! Potato! Potato! ♪

So we continued on.

That night we came
to a small town

where everybody was asleep.

And there was a hardware store.

And in the hardware store,
in the window,

there was a TV playing.

And we saw
that we were on the news.

We were on the news. And...

So we were listening
very closely.

And we found out
everybody was angry at us.

They said,
"How selfish and irresponsible

of these children
to run away like this

and make their parents
and the camp counsellors worry,

unnecessarily."

"Unnecessarily."

So now with this, now we go,
"Oh, we can't get caught.

Now, we can't get caught.
Everybody's mad at us.

We have to hide,
we have to keep hiding."

And we continued on.

So now, we sort of started

to fight amongst ourselves
a little bit.

They were questioning
my leadership

and there was like,
"Well, where do we go?

We can't go home.

And we can't let
anybody find us.

Are we gonna live like this
for the rest of our lives?"

And I said, "No."
But I didn't know,

I didn't know,
I didn't know what to do.

I did not know what to do.

And then we found
another field that had...

Potato!

JOHN: I never realized
how delicious potatoes were.

But they are, they're delicious.

So Wally said,
"We can't just eat potatoes,

we need vitamin C,
we need all the vitamins,

not just potato vitamins."

So we broke into a supermarket.

And we collected lemons.

Because I think we were all
starting to get scurvy

'cause we were all walking

like we've been
on a horse all day long.

So now, we were getting
good at this.

We eat potatoes
and break into supermarkets.

And we would stay away
from people,

and we would just march on.

We'll walk till we hit the ocean
or something.

We came into another town,

and it seemed like everybody
was asleep.

And now we were worried
we're gonna get caught

'cause, like, there was a string
of grocery stores

that have been robbed
and they would mark our path

on the map, so they would know
which way we were going.

So we were worried,
we were very, very worried

we were gonna get caught.

We came into this town.
And again,

there was a TV playing
in a store window.

This was a store that sold TVs
and there was a bunch of TVs,

and there was pictures
of all of us.

So we listened very carefully.
And what we learned was,

when they were interviewing Al,

you could see Al
for what he was.

You could see the hairs
coming out of his shoulders,

the long hairs
coming out of his shoulders

and his big, big,
and massive head.

Ew, Al.

But more than anything,
what helped us...

was that,
when the reporter came back...

talking to the anchorwoman,
she said...

"That man looks like
he smells bad."

And he said, "Yes.

He smells really bad.
And his breath. Ugh.

If I was eight years old,
I would have run away too.

If I was eight years old,
I would've run away too,

if I was brave enough.

Those kids were brave.
Those kids were amazing."

And then people
became on our side,

and we became national heroes.

It was a f*cking
beautiful thing.

It was a really beautiful thing.
It was wonderful.

It was absolutely f*cking--
Oh, it was good.

So we decided to celebrate.

-ALL: ♪ Potato ♪
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ALL: ♪ Potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato ♪

♪ Potato ♪

♪ Potato ♪

♪ Potato ♪

♪ Potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato, potato ♪

♪ Potato, potato ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

♪ ["THE FIRST AND ROYAL QUEEN"
BY THE LOUNGE LIZARDS PLAYS] ♪

♪ [MUSIC FADES] ♪

Potato!