Earth Geeks Must Go!

A "concept entry" wherein Troy seeks a doctor and divulges exactly why his updates have been sparse. Also there's a Goosebumps book or something.

Transcript

Dr. Cass Tatum, Notes on my psychiatric session with Troy Steele, 04/11/2011

After entering my offices, Mr. Steele attempted to sit in my leather-backed plush chair. After gentle prodding, Mr. Steele was persuaded to sit on the couch facing opposite me. Upon being prompted for his current emotive state, Mr. Steele simply waved a pipe feyly in the air and made vague dismissive tones. I asked him to kindly return my pipe to the side table where he found it. He declined and attempted a poor René Magritte reference. I had been warned to watch out for such referential behaviors and countered with a quick, "Pipe down." This quip silenced the young roustabout and allowed us to begin.

I began the session-proper by engaging Mr. Steele in some simple background questions. After some particularly evasive and antagonistic answers (Q: Where did you go to school? A: Oh, I went to the University of I Hope You Die of Poisoning), Mr. Steele began to open up about his continued absence from the internet. Mr. Steele had previously been the proprietor of a popular web-site, Blogging Anywhere, and it was his continued absence from this internet journal that had prompted several of my patients to mention his plight in passing. However, as our discussion progressed, Mr. Steele proved less interested in questioning the limited mental acumen required to mock cheap books written for small children and far more invested in discussing his current difficulty in writing a new update. After several minutes of feverish plot description of the book in contention, I paused our session to fetch a tape recorder. So fantastical and confounding were the words coming out of Mr. Steele's mouth, I knew for certain that I would not be able to do justice to the madness unless I could transcribe it directly.

Doctor: Sorry about that. Now you were saying that in the-- I thought I asked you to please not play with that pipe. It's been in my mouth, you know.

(The patient then heaved pipe across the room. I later found it wedged between the leaves of one of my many office ficuses)

Patient: Why do you leave things that have been in your mouth just lying around? That's disgusting. I thought doctors were hygienic?

Doctor: I'm not that kind of doctor.

(Patient holds up empty pill bottle)

Patient: So, I'm not going to be able to get this filled while I'm here?

Doctor: Mr. Steele, you were telling me about this children's book that was difficult for you to read. Would you mind telling me about it again, for the sake of posterity?

Patient: Well, I guess posterity's never done anything to cross me, so sure. So it's called Earth Geeks Must Go, and right away we're introduced to this kid named Jacob, who tells the reader that he's just an ordinary kid. He goes through a lot of trouble at the beginning of the book to convince the reader that he's ordinary and boring and not even remotely interesting. Well, other Goosebumps characters convinced me of that without going through nearly as much work. Jacob gets an eh for effort though and opens the book by describing himself as nondescript-- which in retrospect is some feat, really-- and listing the dull things that he's into, which are bland enough to double for the Facebook interests of anyone who graduated from state college with a business degree. But despite all this front-loaded detail, Jacob shortly finds that once his first day of school arrives, he can't remember anything about himself. He finds himself in a strange classroom in a strange school being taught strange lessons in a strange language, a scenario that could only be described as--

Doctor: Heteromorphic?

Patient: Exactly. Things only get worse when he goes to eat lunch and all his new classmates start shoving their food into their armpits.

Doctor: What.

Patient: Yeah, and that's one of the major plot hinges, too. Everyone else in the school is shoving food into holes in their armpits and they actually get physically ill when they spy Jacob trying to put a sandwich in his mouth.

Doctor: Is it possibly meant to be some sort of anorexia commentary?

Patient: Bulimia maybe, because you'll definitely want to throw up after a few pages of teethed-armpit-eating. But luckily Jacob catches the eye of a short-banged classmate who isn't shoving food under her arm and they sneak outside to discuss what's going on. Turns out this girl, Arlene, also eats normally and she too can't remember how she got to the school. While trying to figure out what's going on, the two kids are attacked by scores of gross hairy bugs called Splatters. While the two roll around trying to fend off the attack, a gaggle of their new classmates gather around and fend off the insects' assault with high pitched singing. See, here's where I'd make a reference to a musician with an unusual or unappealing voice.

Doctor: Why?

Patient: Because people like feeling smart enough to get pop culture references that are even remotely obscure, which lends my site an esoteric vibe that all so-called outsider comedy thrives on. Also references are way easier to write than real jokes.

Doctor: So, for instance, if you were to say that the two kids were anxious to thank Judy Holliday for coming to their rescue--

Patient: Exactly. See, this stuff writes itself.

Doctor: But it obviously doesn't if you take so long to write an update.

Patient: Well, see, the problem is rarely the books, no matter how terrible they are. The problem is that I feel like I've already done all I can within the format I've established. There's only so many times I can say the same thing. I mean, do you realize that there are like eight books all about an evil ventriloquist dummy?

Doctor: I'm confused, I thought these were books for kids. Why would kids want to read about ventriloquism?

Patient: And that's the least of the series' problems. All these Goosebumps books follow a clear formula of artificial threats mixed with ludicrous actual threats, coupled with a dozen or more recurrent conventions that I studiously document every entry. And then, every once in a while, the author will just throw in some weird garbage that unfolds for six or seven pages before being revealed to be a dream. RL Stine loves non sequitur dream sequences like Tumblr users love Skins. Ack, see, I can't stop!

Doctor: I guess in a sense even your being here is a reference, since you were referred to me!

(The patient proceeded to give me a stern, disapproving glare)

Doctor: Sorry... So, you were saying that the entries themselves are hard to write?

Patient: No, that's not it. It's just that I kind of feel like all of the nostalgic glee that used to fuel my earlier entries has been replaced with easy tomato-lobbing-- I didn't read these more recent books when I was a kid, it's hard for me to figure the appeal this new series has for anyone, and thus making fun of something that obviously sucks seems like something less than a challenge.

Doctor: So, if it's not fun anymore, why not quit?

Patient: "Quit"? That's your advice? You are a terrible doctor, unless you are an addiction specialist, in which case you are a wonderful doctor. No, not only am I not going to quit, I'm going to go back to a regular update schedule. I just have to figure out a way to not bore myself writing these updates. And if that means that occasionally I have to do a self-indulgent meta entry, then so be it.

Doctor: Well, would anyone even want to read that?

Patient: Of course! There's a reason why everyone's favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie is Lady in the Water.

Doctor: Uh, actually--

Patient: Anyway, we got sidetracked there for a moment. Let's talk about those gross bugs.

Doctor: Oh right, I forgot all about that.

Patient: Don't sweat it, I forgot all about it while I read it. Anyway, from what I can recall, what happens next is the two kids are approached outside the school by a disheveled-looking man in a raincoat, and afraid that he wants these Earth geeks to come, the kids hightail it away from him. The two struggle to remember where they came from and Jacob vaguely recalls one of the houses around the block looking familiar. Once inside the house, the two start watching TV and learn that the planet they are on is under invasion by "Earth Geeks." Oh, and I forgot to mention, instead of creating a unique and interesting alternate reality, Stine just makes this world slightly weirder than our own and smudges words.

Doctor: What does that mean, he smudges words?

Patient: Well, instead of signifying a new language, he merely presents familiar-sounding words with their letters smudged-- things like "trelth grade" and "double meener." It's really snucking flupid.

Doctor: I snee mut you did mere.

Patient: Anyway, uh, how we doing on time?

Doctor: We could wrap this up anytime. I do have a sandwich waiting for me in the fridge, but, you know, it's in the fridge, so it's not like it's going to go bad.

Patient: Unless the fridge breaks.

Doctor: Why would you say that?

Patient: Huh?

Doctor: Why would the fridge break?

Patient: I don't know. I was just making polite small talk.

Doctor: What do you know about the fridge? What did you do to it?

Patient: Nothing, jeez! Can we get back to my session?

Doctor: You'd like that, wouldn't you? While we talk and talk, the fridge gets less and less... fridge...ed...er. Very clever, getting me to talk about children's books when my sandwich is in peril. Now, if you're excuse me.

(Several minutes pass)

Doctor: Okay, well, I'm sorry about that. Go ahead and continue, please.

Patient: Look, I'll level with you: I'm not really here for psychiatric slash therapeutic slash whatever kind of doctor you are-ic care. I just parked in your garage while I went to go see Hanna across the street and didn't realize that the theater didn't validate parking.

Doctor: You're aware that an hour session here costs way more than it would cost to validate parking, aren't you?

Patient: Well, it would, if I had any intention of ever paying you.

Doctor: I've really got to stop opening sessions with the parking validation. Okay, fine, but can you do me a favor and let me know how the story turns out. Call it morbid curiosity.

Patient: Well, she shoots Cate Blanchett.

Doctor: Not the movie you saw, the children's book!

Patient: That was the book. Like I said, Stine's a master of the non sequitur.

After our session ended, I sought out the rest of the story online, in the form of a Wikipedia entry on the novel. It was from there that I discovered that the strange dirty man was really the father of Jacob and Arlene, and that these "Earth geeks" had been taken to this new planet by those gross insects and armed with a secret bomb. Jacob diffuses the bomb and unleashes a screeching siren that kills the bugs. The weird people on the new planet hail the "Earth geeks" as heroes, but this is not enough for the family and they travel in an experimental rocket ship back home, only to discover upon arrival on "Earth" that everyone has lizard heads. This is then followed in the Wiki entry by the word "BOOBS" repeated sixty times. That Stine really is the master of the non-sequitor! [sic]

Comments

An annotated list of blog comments that received official replies can be found here.

Trivia

• Because this blog post is highly conceptual, Troy removed the Front Tagline section. However, the section never appears again in any subsequent reviews. (Meanwhile, the Back Tagline section makes its final appearance in More Tales to Give You Goosebumps)
• Apparently, the book was originally titled Earth Geeks Must Die!