- Welcome to the thriving metropolis
of Buies Creek, North Carolina.
- Well actually Buies Creek is that way.
(groovy electronic music)
- On this special edition of Good Mythical Morning,
Rhett and Link return to their childhood environs,
Buies Creek, North Carolina,
where they haven't been for many years
and experience along with you the things
that made their childhood special and informed their novel,
"The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek."
- We wanted to come back to Buies Creek
to revisit a lot of the locations that made their way
into "The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek."
In fact, we originally, in the first transcript
of the book, we had written Buies Creek
as the name of the town, but the world,
the setting of Buies Creek is really
what inspired Bleak Creek.
Basically the reason that Buies Creek is here
in a lot of ways is Campbell University.
I mean a lot of this is new.
- [Link] What is all of this?
- [Rhett] Look at this, this is,
construction is happening, Link,
right as we come in.
I don't even know what that is.
- A traffic circle. - Traffic circle.
- We had never seen or heard of a traffic circle.
- It's European, I don't understand it.
- [Link] When we were growing up in Buies Creek--
- We would not have known how to navigate a traffic circle.
I still kind of don't know how to navigate a traffic circle.
- Pretty dicey.
- [Rhett] There's two branches at least
of Buies Creek, right?
I guess-- - Oh a huge turtle
on the side of the road. - West end and east
and then they-- - Let's go back
and get that turtle.
- [Rhett] What do you wanna do, eat it?
- We can put the turtle at the creek
'cause I think he's looking for the creek,
when we say this is Buies Creek.
I can turn to the camera and I can say,
"This is Buies Creek."
This is Buies Creek.
So we're all getting out here, there's gonna be a turtle,
there's gonna be a creek.
- [Rhett] Hold on, he left the side of the road.
He knew we were, hold on.
- [Link] There he is right there.
- [Rhett] Look at the size of the turtles
that you can find in Buies Creek.
- Welcome to Buies Creek.
Is that what I said?
This is Buies Creek.
Welcome to Buies Creek, literally.
We're at the creek. - Yes.
- Do they float, you just put 'em in the water?
- Just put him right here.
He'll probably go towards the water on his own.
Go be free, little one.
Big one, actually.
- You were already free.
Continue to be free.
Look, there he goes.
- [Rhett] And oh.
- Oh my goodness. - I guess he's used to that.
Do you think he meant to do such a nard nose dive?
- If we don't accomplish anything else on this trip,
I feel like we've released a turtle into the creek
that was already probably hanging around the creek.
It's safe to say, this is the first time
that the two of us together have gone back
to Buies Creek to relive anything
from a nostalgia perspective. - Yeah.
- And I love nostalgia so I've been very,
very excited. - So let's buckle up.
- [Link] So that's Rhett's old house right there.
- [Rhett] The gray two story is the house I grew up in.
The basketball goal used to be right here.
I probably shot 50,000 shots on this thing,
well maybe more than that.
And these, these people just built a house there.
- [Link] And they painted it purple.
- [Rhett] Purple.
- Now your house, when I first met you, it was yellow.
It was like bright yellow.
- [Rhett] And then my dad got vinyl siding.
- I remember you came to school and you were bragging
about vinyl siding, like for days.
Well you know it's superior-- - I'll still brag about it.
- The way it's durable. - Look.
This many years later, it looks like a brand new house.
Vinyl siding holds up.
That guarantee my dad paid for is being lived out
right here in front of your eyes.
- Now your parents don't live there anymore,
you should explained that.
- My parents don't live there anymore,
I should explain that.
- Whoever's inside has probably noticed
there's a very huge van out front.
- Now I know the guy kinda who lives there, Jake,
because he lived in the house,
his parents lived in the house next door
that I would visit my parents after I went off
to college and stuff and so my dad sold him the house
when he grew up.
He's ready to start a family and move into a house.
(soft acoustic music)
How's it make you feel?
Coming to the McLaughlin house.
- Really restored my faith in vinyl siding.
(Rhett laughs)
- [Rhett] Pick that up.
This is the McLaughlin brick.
You rub it for good luck.
I'm glad that they did not remove it.
- [Link] We should knock on the door
before you start rubbing on the house.
(Rhett chuckles)
- What's up? - Hey what's up man?
- How are you?
- You grew a big beard. - Big ol' beard.
- [Link] Hey man, I'm Link.
- Pleasure to meet you.
- [Link] So you were warned that we're--
- Yeah. - That we're coming.
- [Rhett] Well yeah, we wanna go to my old bedroom.
- Yeah, come on.
(Rhett and Link laugh)
- The very specific thing that we were interested in
in going to my house was to go to my room
and to play the game that we've now featured
in two books which we ended up calling testa-kill.
A simple game of sitting across from each other
with your legs spread and throwing a Nerf ball
at each other's nuts.
- You remember what side you sat on?
My vision of the room was always you on that side.
'Cause I felt like I was next to my bed,
I sort of owned that spot 'cause I was like inviting you
into the room to come throw things at my nuts.
- Yeah so I'm gonna sit here.
You sit there.
- We're a lot bigger than we used to be.
I don't remember our feet touching.
(Rhett laughs)
- So I can be back like this.
- I feel like those pants that you've got on
offer a distinct advantage 'cause you went like a hard--
- Hard what?
- You've got like a-- - I've got a--
- Pull 'em up a little bit.
The jeans that we wore back in the day were,
they fit different.
And you gotta remember, Link, it wasn't hard,
it was like you roll the ball, like this,
at each other's nuts.
I know what you're thinking,
you're about to do a baseball throw.
The philosophy in "The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek"
is that if there's something that we did
that sort of really, we think is very specific
to our childhood and something that kind of represents
our friendship and some just weird things
that we did as friends, if we can put those
into this book, I think it'll add a lot of texture
and a lot of color to these character of Rex and Leif
who are us but also not us at the same time.
(suspenseful music)
- That was light, man. - Yeah.
Here we go.
- Oh!
(Link laughs)
Oh!
Oh, and you know-- (Rhett laughing)
- It made such a good sound!
Good thing we don't need to use these balls anymore.
- You know what? - What?
- Three kids later,
the stakes are much lower. - That's right.
(Rhett grunts and strains)
Oh oh oh oh oh oh!
- And by this point, we would be cackling like this in pain.
And Rhett's dad would come up and say,
"What the hell are you doing?"
- Well we talk about that in the first book
but in the novel we talk about him coming up
and thinking that he's gonna be mad about something
but it's a twist.
You're gonna get to that scene in the book
and you're gonna be like, oh yeah, this is that game.
But for the people who are just picking up the novel
and reading it with no point of reference are like,
is this really a scene where these two teen boys
are throwing Nerf balls at each other's nuts?
And then that happens in the middle,
there's something that happens in the middle of the scene
which kinda sends it in a different direction.
- I don't like having to look so intently.
- No that's when pitcher's gotta look
right at the mitt, man.
- Close your eyes. (Rhett grunts)
Hey, hey, relax.
(Rhett whimpers)
- I can't relax, I can't, I can't--
- [Link] Oh gosh, I hit your freakin' knees!
- I can't, I can't. - I'm trying.
- It's the most-- - Come on, come on.
- It's the most unsettling thing that I've ever--
(Link screams)
- Gah! (chuckles)
- I got you 'cause I was talkin'.
- I was hungry.
- What? - Oh and it was,
it was the right one again. - What does that have to do
with anything?
- I'm nauseous now. - I was hungry.
Thank you, I was hungry. (chuckles)
- See, I have a lot of memories of us hanging out
at your house. - Right.
- Do you have any memories of hanging out at your house?
- Yeah and other things.
- Like what? (Stevie laughs)
- Just like, just like my-- - You have other memories?
- My entire life. - Okay.
- That was the joke.
Not other things with you.
- Rhett has memories. - What I mean is that--
- That don't involve his house.
- Do you remember things at your house?
I mean yeah, like I grew up there.
So one of the things that we've been talking
about wanting to do is basically recreate the way
that we would travel across town and meet up
with each other back in 1992.
- Yeah, so this would be your departure point.
You'd hop on your bike.
I'd leave from my house, hop on my bike.
- It'd be nice if it was as authentic as it was before
which that was before cell phones
so we just had set a time and you just had to be there.
- Well I mean it's gonna take five minutes to drive
to my house but then it's gonna take,
it would take about 20 minutes to...
- I'll meet you at the graveyard in 45 minutes,
in case you have a little accident,
you wanna stop and get a drink, you've got time.
- There's nowhere to stop and get a drink.
- In case you have an accident.
45 minutes.
- All right.
Should I go now?
- Yeah.
(Rhett chuckles)
- We should have started at my house.
Welcome to my homestead.
This is the home within which I grew up.
I mean the house is special because when Mom went
through her divorce and we, really both went
through the divorce, you know, and it was like
that house represents for us, us starting a new phase
of our lives and being on our own
and I know for Mom it was like very,
it had to be very scary to say okay, now it's just me
and my son and it's up to me to make a way for us.
As you can see, we fancied brick over vinyl siding.
We knew that was superior.
And we planted these trees.
It's crazy to see how much bigger these trees have gotten.
Like, the tree was my height when we planted it.
It's funny how trees grow over time in this area.
This is where my mom parked in the car port.
We were like, well, if we're gonna get our own house,
it's gotta have a car port.
And then my dog Tucker would chill out
beside the car.
This is Tucker's resting place.
I'll show you his final resting place a little bit later.
One day I came home from school
and Tucker didn't get up to greet me because he was dead.
So he was a pretty big dog.
But for some reason we had this refrigerator box
or we acquired one and then Rhett and I dug a hole
and buried him right here.
There was a divot for a long time.
But it's kinda smoothed itself out.
So we dug a hole not quite deep enough.
Talked about it in "The Book of Mythicality."
It was right here, so here lies Tucker, my dog.
Tucker, you've been memorialized in two books now.
I played my trumpet as part of like a funeral service.
I can only imagine what the neighbors were thinking.
And then,
it rained.
And the next day,
Rhett and I came out here to check on the grave
and it was just like a big pile of mud
and we took off our shoes and we rolled up our pants legs
and we jumped in the grave.
I'm not proud of it.
I don't know why we did it,
it just seemed like a funny thing to do.
I really loved Tucker but he was in a box,
so when we sunk in, my feet just hit the box.
I'm not saying that it was the right thing to do.
I'm not saying I'm proud of it.
I just remember that we did it.
And I do have pictures to prove it I think. (chuckles)
It was cold, the mud was very cold.
Why am I sharing this?
I showed them Tucker's grave site.
And I told 'em what we did.
- You told 'em about jumping into it?
- I told 'em that we did a funeral service
and that I played the trumpet
and that we went back the next day after it rained
and we jumped in the grave.
- And that's why your dog haunts us to this day.
- And now I'm still talking about it and I don't know why.
Every time I talk about it, I'm like,
I shouldn't be talking about this.
This is a PR problem.
Rhett said he was gonna allow extra time for me
in case I had an accident but instead,
I gave you a meandering tour
and aimlessly talked about my dead dog.
Now, in 1992, bike helmets did not exist
so I will not be wearing one
but you should always wear a bike helmet.
(light-hearted orchestral music)
I really had to rocket out of my house
because Tucker would be going along beside me
and if we made it to this point and he was still with me,
I'd have to turn around and go all the way back home
and try again in order to wear him out
so he wouldn't go wherever I went all day.
- So in the book, my character Rex,
who's technically me,
he rides a scooter because we thought that would be funnier.
I'm riding a bike today because it's too daggum hot
to ride a scooter.
(light-hearted orchestral music)
(Link sighing)
- [Link] I'm out of shape.
(light-hearted orchestral music)
- You're late. - So are you.
- I peddled a long freakin' way, man.
It's like, it was probably two miles.
- Well and-- - There's that mile long
stretch that's just desolate country road.
- It's just so hot.
We would meet in the graveyard and then we would ride
the actual distance.
- Yeah that wasn't-- - Like all around town
and I just don't ever remembering stopping and thinking,
man, it's hot.
We should get out of this heat.
Or we should possibly drink something besides Mello Yello.
- I didn't drink an ounce of water all day.
- We didn't drink water, we didn't wear sunscreen.
- We didn't pee.
We didn't wear socks.
- Was it all a dream?
- So what we would normally do at this point
is we would decide where we were gonna go
for the day and then we would go.
- Okay well we could go to the Groc and sort baseball cards
for a dollar an hour.
- They tore it down.
- We could go to the fine arts building
and go into the auditorium and make chairs fall
and then when people come, we could hide
in the orchestra pit.
- I'm sure they've instituted new security measures
as a result of the first time we did that.
We could go to the oasis and play ping pong
and annoy all of the college kids.
- I don't think that exists anymore.
I think they call it the student center.
- This is how it worked.
We would sit here and we'd bicker about
where we were gonna go and then we'd go.
We could go to the river,
being as it is 100 degrees out here.
- Oh we should definitely,
we should definitely go to the river
but I kinda feel like going back to the hotel
and just getting in the shower right now.
- [Link] Good idea.
- [Stevie] This video does not show how bad
we were all sweating in North Carolina,
but you're gonna be sweating it if you don't get
your copy of "The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek"
at BleakCreek.com or wherever books are sold.