Up the Creek

The 1980's move with Tim Matheson and Stephen Furst where they're in a raft race is on now. (On some network called Retro).
Yeah, it's dumb, but the leader of the military school team who loses his mind is one of the funniest characters I've seen in any movie.

"There can be no winner if there is no river! So we'll blow up the river!"

 

dude, last night i started thinking of tim matheson out of the blue. what is he even up to these days? after fletch he sort of vanished.

and that movie sounds vaguely familiar. i never liked furst.

 

The most recent think I can think of for Matheson was Van Wilder, where he played Ryan Reynolds' dad.

 

Ah, Jennifer Runyon. Hubba hubba.

 

This thread gives me an excuse to post a corny Cheap Trick video.

 

God how I loved that movie when I was 13, but at what cost?

Me and my buddies in Milwaukee loved it so much, we decided to have our own Up The Creek in Milwaukee.

The plan: Make it a sort of triathlon. Use our bikes as well as inflatable rafts we could easily buy at the Mayfair Mall Kaybee. We never quite worked out the running part.

The course:Take the Milwaukee city bus to the Menomonee River Parkway and North Avenue. Yes that would require taking fully inflated rafts on a city bus. Float down the Menomonee River approximately 5 miles or so. Get out of the river under the Hawley Road bridge at Saz's, cross State Street to find our bikes hidden under some well-hidden brush at Hawthorn Glen. Ride to my buddy's house at 60th and North Avenue.

For those not in the Milwaukee know, the Menomonee River was, and for all I know, still is, one of the most polluted waterways in the midwest. It certainly was in 1985. Farm run-off, factories on the northwest side of Milwaukee all spilled into the Menomonee before we would enter the river.

Somehow, my dad caught wind of this plan and banned me from going to the mall to buy my raft. Fuck. My friends (both of whom, by the way, I've long lost touch with, but who both had adult police records) had already bought theirs, damn them for having uncaring parents. Despite parental static, I was undeterred, no way was I bowing out of this boat race before it began. So I went out to the garage, took five seconds to judge the buoyancy of my plastic snow sled and deemed it seaworthy. Game on, bitches!

On the appointed day, we gathered at the bus stop to start our journey. Common sense prevailed the day before the race as we took the bike race portion out, given the massive likelihood our bikes would get stolen.

Hard to fathom, but the site of three 13-year-olds with inflated rafts and a red plastic snow sled riding on a city bus in the middle of August through suburban Milwaukee made us the center of attention for the other bus riders. Fuck the gawkers, I was born ready. I figured the aerodynamic sleekness of my sled gave me a big advantage over my inflatable rivals.

With the geeked-up feeling we all had, getting off that bus had to be what I would imagine coming down the tunnel at Notre Dame would be like. Fuck Rudy though, I was the Joe Montana of plastic snow sled river rafting. I had Cheap Trick's Up The Creek in my head and victory in my heart as I reached the shore.

I decided to show up my friends by getting a running start. I did a full-on leap into the Menomonee River ...

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Sometime between the leap and when I landed hard in gravel-bed under two feet of water, it dawned on me that this was not going to be Up The Creek-ish.

The first sign of trouble was my sled. Not to blow your mind or anything, but plastic sleds bought at Toys-R-Us do NOT float. They don't come close. Unfortunates who have been whacked by the mob and dumped in the river with cement shoes float better than a plastic sled. My race was over before it began.

Or was it? My gloating buddies took to the river in their inflatables. Yes, they did float. But given the glacial pace of the current in the Menomonee River, they were due to arrive at the finish line approximately ... now. They weren't going anywhere.

So here we were, Up The Creek ... literally. Since we were already drenched with river water that smelled like a Holstein cow's ass and industrial metal, riding the bus back was out. We were forced to make a death march down river, through a city golf course, to a point where we could get out and walk home.

I cannot tell you how sublimely ridiculous my friends and I must have looked to the golfers at Hansen Park that day. I almost wish I could have been in their head when they caught the first glimpse of two dudes marooned in plastic rafts (and since it was '85, those rafts probably had a Smurf emblazoned on them), joined by yours truly walking down river with his snow sled. This was at the height of Just Say No, after having witnessed us, they probably had Nancy Reagan on speed dial.

Failing that, they called a golf marshall and let us know in no uncertain terms that the authorities would coming soon if we didn't haul ass out of their golf round. So now we had to Das Boot it to the Swan Boulevard bridge, about a half-mile away, in double-quick time. We had to do it via the river, as any entry on to the golf course itself was an invitation for law enforcement.

A river, by the way, that had the muddiest bottom I've ever had the misfortune of walking through with a plastic snow sled in my life. Honest to God, it was up to my chest at one point, every inch of it probably saturated in heavy metals and pesticides.

Fuck that, fuck the river and fuck my friends too, I was sick of this shit.

I finally risked certain misdemeanor hard time, and possibly, exposing myself to the first Darwin Award won by a living person if the tale of our stupidity got out, and exited stage left out of the river on the golf course. I dodged golf marshall trouble and waited for my friends at the bridge. Five-0 never came, of course, so my friends ended up enjoying a relaxing float down the Menomonee before we met up again.

We were still about 4 miles from home. I walked the bitter walk of Up The Creek, snow sled-division defeat through Wauwatosa that August day. Caked in river mud, smelling like the Loch Ness Monster's vagina, with sled in hand, it was a sorry site.

Somehow, my dad never found out about it until years later. Or at least, he acted like he didn't know.

To sum up. Fuck you, Up The Creek.

 

This is very close to the spot where I got out of the river ... as you can see, we were brainiacs for even trying.

 

Oh my God, that was worse than I remembered. And I remember thinking Cheap Trick sucked...until of course I was sucked in by the irresistible cheese of "The Flame." Took until many, many years later to realize they recorded the classic "Tonight It's You" in between "Up The Creek" and "The Flame."

 

Bubbler's tale sounds like it would have been a lot more fun than the movie.

Bubbs, did you and your buddies ever try and recreate the Chinese Downhill from Ht Dog: The Movie? (A damn good piece of celluloid if you ask me.)

 

I remember loving the movie. Of course, the last time I saw it, I was probably about 13...

 

I think he was on the "West Wing" for a while.