The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 30, 2003, Page 14, Image 14
14 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, April 30, 2003 j
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Three former
students find
that college is
inadequate
BY COREY GARRIOTT
THE GAMECOCK
Three of today’s youth won’t be
tomorrow’s leaders.
Disillusioned after high school
— or is it enlightened? — Daniel
Shealey quit the academic assem
bly line for the reality of the blue
collar workforce. It’s not as if his
underachieving 1.12 GPA would
have carried him along anyway.
“Yes, I have no aspirations,” he
said.
Shealey, 21, had his first daugh
ter Thursday. “I just want to be
happy,” he said.
Three smart guys with humble
lives say they just want to be hap
py
“One of my goals is to have
fun,” said Michael Williams, who
scored a “14 or 15-something” on
the SAT and cooks at the Waffle
House. His other goals are “to get a
job, get my own place and, down
the line, make some more money.”
They’re going to be statistics,
blips on Columbia’s social radar,
and you know what — that’s OK.
It’s not exactly the idealism of
youth. It might be wisdom come
early.
“College is perceived as what
you do when you graduate from
high school,” said Ellis Creel, a
Gentlemen’s Closet suit salesman,
who did not graduate from his sec
ondary school, South Carolina
Governor’s School for Science and
Math, a residential high school for
the gifted.
Creel, who aspired to be a his
torian, said he sees college as a
phony deal.
“A lot of people go to college and
have a four-year long party — do
a lot of drinking, you know, what
ever, then go out and get a real job
that has nothing to do with what
they learned in college,” he said.
Shealey can’t shake the dream
of acting.
“I want to be a movie star,” he
said.
He participates in locally pro
duced trailers and has spent time
at Oberlin College in Ohio, hang
ing out with the local artistic set.
“One year ago I didn’t see this,”
he said. “I thought I was going
back to Oberlin to spend another
semester eating tofu and sleeping
on couches, nights with randy
women going to different dorms,
playing piano at 4 a.m. in the
morning, running down the street
naked in the snow.”
He could have gone to Ohio and
come back with more stories to an
noy his friends — but everybody
has drunken stories, he said.
Williams made it through two
years of college before leaving be
hind his half-completed biochem
istry degree. He said he wasn’t try
ing in school. He said he hadn’t
given in or given up but that he
just wasn’t sure what he was going
to do.
“I had a vague idea. I thought
I’d do this and do that and go over |
here,” he said. But he didn’t find
what he was looking for as an un
dergraduate. “I didn’t see the peo
ple you might have thought had
been around,” he said.
While none of these guys knew
one another, all came to the same
conclusion about life.
“As long as I got food and peo
ple to play with and watching my
movies, I’m good to go,” Shealey
said.
Creel was more general, es
pousing his philosophy of why
people desire what they do:
“Everything that people pursue is
to get happiness,” Creel said.
“Do you really want to play the
♦ STATISTICS, SEE PAGE 15
Getting your band
off to a good start
BY MEG MOORE, Absolute Being
COREY G ARRIOTT AND Gigantor Romulus
CHARLES TOMLINSON AIM Profile
the gamecock Black.Albedo
Redox Reaction
Memo to all you aspiring Dry Erase
bands out there: your name is Hotplate
like the cover of a book. People
will judge you by it. This is a
big deal. Punk
You should probably not
pick the name yourself. Farts on Fire
Lucky for you, The The W-2 Forms
Gamecock has been compiling The Cliffnotes
a list of the, uh, best names RedTape
we've thought of over the Windex Junkie
semester — we offer them here Bodily Fluids
as a public service. Take one of The Jill Martinis
these names quick; they won’t The D-Bags
be here for long.
Indje
The Paper Napkins
Cliche
The Exemptions' >
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Undiscovered
Michael Bubble
Asphalt f/mi&Ek
Out in Left Field
The Hit Songs
Sandals with Socf^^
Neoteny
Hip-Hop
Aakeet Paa'fel
Big Kim/?11®
Skittelz
Chpcka
|gJ§§or |
HPHemifinite
! P BeamerSquad
wr
Electronica
L Punnetfsquare
1
Emo
Midnight She Cries
Rainy Day Hotel Management,
nailpolishremover
Tragic T A
Quickly, Break My Heart
Nothing Much
Lead Pencil Won’| Write
Sadness of Emotion. Longing
Katie’s Burnt Out
r Alternative R
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SHOW PREVIEW
McCain to bring roots back to Columbia
BY MEG MOORE
THE GAMECOCK
Edwin McCain has never been
one to bask in the spotlight.
“I’ll Be” and “I Could Not Ask
For More” might have become ra
dio playlist staples and won over
the world’s hopeless romantics
in the process, but McCain has re
mained true to his singer-song
writer roots by playing, perform
ing and writing his sensitive
tunes in relative quiet. Unless, of
course, you consider an appear
ance on “Rock ‘n’ Roll Jeopardy”
to be an example of rock ‘n’ roll
excess.
Touring in support of his lat
est release, the independently re
leased “The Austin Sessions,”
McCain will make a stop at
Senate Park Friday — and will be
bringing his full band with him.
“The Austin Sessions” reflects
the acoustic side of McCain’s new
sound; it’s more down to earth
than his previous offerings.
“It gave me the chance'to be
free,” McCain said.
Trading the veneer of his other
studio albums for raw guitars
and rich harmonies, McCain put
out his latest release through the
independent ATC Records, af
fording himself the artistic free
dom that was impossible under
major label constraints.
Having logged countless hours
on the road and released four al
bums with Atlantic Records,
“The Austin Sessions” serves as a
fitting tribute to McCain’s career
thus far. Yet it is actually a pre
conceived part of the McCain mu
sical plan.
“I’ve been meaning to do this
for a long time,” McCain ex
plained.
Featuring a collection of tracks
ranging from covers to McCain
standbys, “The Austin Sessions”
comes across as distinctly more
human, more tangible, than some
of McCain’s previous albums.
Included on the album is
“Ghosts of Jackson Square” — a
folksy, New Orleans-inspired
tune that is McCain’s favorite
song to play live.
‘“Ghosts of St. Jackson
Square,’ that’s a lot of fun,” he
said.
Ultimately, McCain considers
performing to be the most re
warding aspect of his career —
“to be able to go into a room with
500 people and spend the evening
playing and performing.”
Friday’s show will mark the
South Carolina resident’s sec
ond performance at Senate Park
in a little more than six months.
He is undoubtedly a seasoned
performer, playing many loca
tions at least a couple of times
per year. While at some venues,
McCain chooses to play acous
tic shows, Friday’s performance
will include the full band and
promises to be a rollicking mu
sical experience. Even amiable,
“Jeopardy”-competing, singer
songwriters have to step into
the spotlight and rock some-'
times.
Will»Hoge will open for
McCain on Friday. The show
starts at 10 p.m. Tickets are $15
and are available through
www.senatepark.com or at the
venue.
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com
BOOK REVIEW
‘Decaffeinated’delivers literary buzz
. I T
“DECAFFEINATED”
By grian Ray
out of
BY GRAHAM CULBERTSON
THE GAMECOCK
If you’ve ever been to a
Columbia coffee shop, you need to
read “Decaffeinated.”
This new novella, by third-year
English student Brian Ray, fol
lows local magazine editor John
Warren’s ramblings through the
local coffee house scene.
Warren, who bears a striking
resemblance to dazed author Ray,
seems to be on a quest to consume
every ounce of caffeine Columbia
has to offer.
Along the way, the aspiring ed
itor ends up investigating a group
of red-robed cultistj painting the
works of Salvador Dali and Pablo
Picasso all over Columbia.
Warren is understandably con
fused by his surroundings, and
he’s not alone. He enlists his friend
Carmen in his laid-back quest for
the truth, and together they roam
Columbia, photographing the mys
terious murals.
Chief among the supporting cast
is Alexandra, Warren’s older sis
ter.
A locally acclaimed artist,
Alexandra packs her bags and dis
appears at age 16. The flashbacks
detailing Warren’s relationship
with his sister, who used him as a
guinea pig throughout Jier child
hood, contain some of the best
writing in the book.
Warren’s eccentric accomplices
includes fundamentalist Eunice
Coker and her younger brother#
who looks like David Duchovny
— and even goes by the name Fox
Mulder. Fox thinks he’s living in
an episode of “X-Files” and en
courages Warren to spy on his
crush, the cultists and anyone else
in the vicinity.
If this all sounds like a jumbled
mass of bizarre characters and
preposterous plot devices, that’s
because it is. The story is hard to
make sense of and the characters
hard to keep track of, but it all
♦ RAY, SEE PAGE 15
mi £ The world breaks everyone, and
afterward nUTHy are strong at the
broken places„ ^ ^
— Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”