Misprint Guide to Toobin' Summer in Austin isn’t easy; week after week of margarita-fueled days spent by the pool and hash-fueled nights spent watching Krull on VHS. With this kind of stress, it’s only natural to want to set aside some time for serious introspection, preferably toobin’ through the bucolic splendor of San Marcos surrounded by dozens of half-naked dudes and hundreds of Bud Light Limes. But floating the river is more than just acute alcohol poisoning, clinical sunburn and desperate attempts to keep your cigarettes dry. It’s also a metaphorical and spiritual journey into the heart of Americana and depths of the soul, only with toobs. The Entered Apprentice
Why does a man toob? Is it an attempt to face the darkness that lies within us all? Is it the cruel juxtaposition of the luxury of civilization with our basest animal instinct? Is it to drink 50 Nattys and pee on yourself to emerge on the other side a changed man? It is perhaps all of these things, and more. As such, it’s not a journey for the uninitiated. I recommend taking a cooler of beer and a roll of quarters to the Union Underground and training on Namco’s classic toobin’ simulator, Toobin’. Once you can get to the level where you throw beer cans at the alligator on one quarter, you know you are ready. The False Paradise
You will encounter others on this spiritual journey. Before long you will hear the alluring siren call of Jimmy Buffett or Sublime emanating from a jambox bungee-corded to a toob. This means you are nearing Party Rock, home of the Cedar Choppers. They will be easily identifiable by their wraparound shades, Winstons and Aquasox and will unsubtly cajole any females in the party to expose their breasts and/or genitals. Linger not in the land of the Cedar Choppers, for though it seems a paradise of dull-eyed college students, in reality it is an empty place of broken bikers in extra-short jorts with exposed elephant ears, faded panther tattoos and existential despair. Dangers
Not unlike Homer’s Odyssey, Apocalypse Now or the (frankly superior) Ice Cube documentary Anaconda, plying the river is not without its perils. Poisonous snakes, freshwater octopi, Jumpentyne Solutions Corporate retreats and rogue Natapaults
are always a danger. Also beware the harpies, who are usually disguised as redneck high schoolers who lurk by the waterfall with blowguns waiting to poach your beers when the cooler inevitably tips over. You can’t really fault them since they’re underage. The Part Where You Actually do Something
This is the part where you actually don’t do anything, other than sit in a toob. The river does everything. Just fucking sit there and continually crush the shortcans until you realize you’ve found what you were seeking: profound, damaging, soulerasing intoxication. The True Paradise
When the journey ends, you will be like a child again. You will need to relearn to walk and speak, largely because you’ve consumed enough beer to tranquilize a water buffalo. The bus trip back to civilization is the ultimate redemption, celebrate by drunkenly singing AC/DC songs. Try not to throw up. And if your voyage ends in a Whataburger or a barbeque joint instead of, say, a knifefight to the death with Marlon Brando in a grove surrounded by severed heads, something has gone tragically wrong. Pack up the cooler and start again, try not to fuck it up this time. h