The second hand seems to tick slower than it ever has. 7:55 is what the time reads and that is only five minutes until I get off of work. At eight I will leave the Mobil station in the center of town and go to Jesse Harris's house. I'm not sure what's in store for me when I get there. Maybe we will just hang out at and watch TV and play videogames, or maybe we will have some sort of adventure. Jesse and his close friends, a group of rap lovers who were deemed "The Purists" a few years ago, are a rare breed of ARHS students and I learned a lot about them over the course of this night.
The clock on the wall has wrenches for its hands and it says that it's time to get the hell out of here. I lock up and take the key with me; I will be coming back in the morning. I don’t bother to change out of my work clothes as I know Jesse and he is a friend of mine. I am wearing a blue button up work shirt that reads the name "Will" on it, with blue work pants and work boots on. I am the working man.
I get to Jesse's house which is a very short drive from the gas station so it isn't much past eight when I arrive. A sign at the door instructs me to please take of my shoes before entering and of course I do so. There's quite a difference in the size and style of my boots compared to the pair of Converse and the pair of Nikes lying on the floor. I hear laughs from upstairs so I follow them. In a small room with a blue ceiling painted to look like the sky, with clouds and all, sits Jesse Harris and Owen Talbot. Owen is one of Jesse's best friends and lives in the neighboring house. Owen and Jesse are both part of the Purists; they are very much the front men of the Purists in my eyes. The term Purist was actually started by close friend Jared Freedman and I. It started just as a joke to describe this obscure group of friends, but it caught on really fast and soon enough everyone was referring to them as the Purists, and the term took a turn for the worse, becoming a very stereotypical phrase. I am here tonight to see what being a Purist is really all about and to show that they are not just listening to underground rap all the time. They are more similar to the rest of students than most think.
Both Jesse and Owen are laughing and playing Super Smash Bros. on the classic Nintendo 64, one of the best video game systems ever made. Although it was popular ten years ago, it hasn’t lost its touch for Jesse and Owen. This is a new experience for them as well as it is for me because we haven't hung out like this in years, so they are both as excited for the night as I am. They offer me a controller and we all play video games for a good 30-45 minutes. We talk a bit about Purist and what it means to them. I ask Owen what some typical Purist music might be, and he said besides Flying Lotus (which is a musician, or a band, or something like that) which has come to describe all Pure music, that "underground, really obscure music," is what a lot of Purists listen to. "If you look at a Purist iPod you wouldn't recognize anything and you'd be really lost," says Owen. Owen is a white kid who used to have a flowing head of blonde hair, but has recently been keeping it short and stylish. He's flamboyant in his choice of clothes, and really enjoys being a Purist because he loves music. He's in a band and music means everything to him. "It's fun being a part of a group of kids who are so into the music scene." Owen goes onto talk about how friends everyday will show him new music and up and coming artists. I do the exact same thing just on a more mainstream rap website. We are not so different, you and I.
Jimmy Bright-Dumm, a fellow Purist comes into the video game room and looks almost astonished to see me. Jimmy is a tall white kid with a curly head of red cabbage. He plays soccer and enjoys music just as much as Owen does. Although I am friends with all of these kids it is very uncommon for me to hang out with them at one of their houses, so it only made sense that Jimmy was so surprised. Jesse, who looks a little bit younger than the other two and has a beautiful olive tone to him doesn't even see himself as a Purist. "I'm not even that Pure...Purists are people too you know." It seems like Jesse isn't completely happy about being Pure, and I wouldn't be either if people always had a laugh at my expense.
Our conversation changes from rap to country music. Country is one of my favorite genres of music and it dawns on me that I'm a Purist myself. The original Purists like the underground subgenre of rap, an obscure, dark, unknown genre that only they like for the most part. This is much how I like country music. Just a few buddies and I really indulge in it and we sometimes take some heat for it. I'm making more and more connections with the Purists and myself the by the minute.
So it looks like this is going to be the extent of my Pure night. We're going to sit here and play video games and talk about music. That's okay; it's what I was prepared for...
But oh wait! Kai Foster, Purist from across the street and student at PVPA is throwing a party. It's quite lucky that
Jesse, Owen, and Kai live right near each other in a triangle of houses that I'd like to coin as the Puremuda Triangle. I spent no time getting ready; I was set to go observe a Pure party at it's finest. Pad and pen in my back pocket, Jimmy, Jesse, Owen and I go across the street, and then things get a little more Pure.
We go inside Kai's house and I can immediately tell this isn't an average Amherst party. There are two main concentrations of kids. Half playing cards at a table and the other half in the living room, heads and necks glued against the back of chairs and couches. There are drinks everywhere, and there's a heavy aroma of smoke and incense. In the background, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by The Beatles is playing. Owen makes a sarcastic remark, "This is great party music... make sure you write down I was being sarcastic."
Us four kind of stick together, because this is definitely not my scene. At parties I'm usually well known and loud, but this is the first party I went to when I hardly knew anyone there. Having a pen and paper out the whole time and being dressed in a gas station shirt does not help my cause. I decide to enjoy myself while doing this and I pour myself a drink.
I look around the room just to see what the kids look like, to take notes, and I notice that many pairs of eyes are on me, and it's not for a good reason. They're probably thinking, "Who the hell is this idiot in the gas shirt taking notes about us? He's a weirdo." Although I knew I was out of place at this party, I tried my hardest not to feel out of place, and I introduced myself to a few people.
A few girls from ARHS walk into the party and a wave of relief crashes over me. These girls are notorious for partying. My kind of people. I've known most of them almost my whole life and we all know how to have a good time. When they walk in, a girl from PVPA comes up to me and asks me my name. I tell her it, and she swears that she knows me from somewhere. She tells me she's Sam Barbezat's sister, but I have no idea who the hell she is, but I humor her anyway and tell her I think I recognize her.
Me and one of the Amherst girls go out to my car, cup in hand, to have a cigarette. I get what I need out of my car, close the door, but I notice the door isn't locked. I've had my car robbed of $70, two wallets, an iPod, and my backpack, so I make sure to keep it locked now. I open the door to press down on the lock, when I see a flash of white door fly shut! My fingers are still in the door. We both looked through the window to see my fingers on the other side of the glass, and they were probably in there for a good three seconds. When she opens the door up I'm surprised my fingers are intact and I suck down the rest of my drink and cigarette within seconds to ease the pain. I look at my friend and I start laughing hysterically, maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe I'm crazy, but my fingers hurt like hell and I shouldn't be laughing.
We go back inside Kai's but Owen suggests we go over to his house, the bottom right point of the Puremuda Triangle. I ask if I should go get a cigar from the DB Mart. Owen replies, "Yea, that's a pretty typical thing of us Purists to do." So Jimmy and I make the stogie walk, and I am absolutely pumped from getting my fingers slammed in a door, the adrenaline just has me going. I think this could be a problem for the youth of the future because I could easily see them slamming each other's fingers in car doors to get the rush I have.
After buying the cigar we walk into Owen's house and much to our surprise we see more ARHS students just hanging in his room. This really is an awesome night. We're moving all over the place, something new is always going on, and different people are always entering the game plan. Owen's house is one of the coolest houses one could be in. From the outside it looks fairly normal, but on the inside it feels like the house could be in England in the 1800s, and in another room it's totally modernized. Owen's room has a sink right outside the bathroom, in his room. This totally baffles me as I have never seen this before. The walls have green wallpaper on them and are decorated with guitars on the wall. It is very much music oriented, just like the Purists themselves are. The Gorillaz are playing on the stereo and I lay my head back and observe the room and continue writing. Karina Vaid, a girl sitting near me tells me she can really tell that I'm enjoying the project that I'm doing. I thank her and nod my head along to the beat of the song. I'm turning into a Purist more and more as the night goes on and that is so fine with me. I'm enjoying myself like no other.
There is such a diverse group of friends sitting in Owen's room and it completely describes the Purists for what they really are: individuals that people just look over as a group of friends who all have the same interests. This is far from the truth. Each friend brings something different to the Purists. Each has their own taste in music, their own sense of humor. When this realization dawned on me, I became an honorary Purist. It wasn't spoken that I made the realization, but it was known through our vibes. I ask Jimmy, "Am I an honorary Purist after tonight?" and he replies with a strong and solid, "Yes." I feel like I'm really in with them right now, there's no bridge between us.
So we all sit back and listen to some Snoop Dogg. I ask Nick Benfey of ARHS what he thinks about being a Purist and a simple one liner is what he gives me: "Purism: The Highlife." It really is the highlife too. All these kids are so chill and just want to have fun, just as I do. Earlier Jesse told me he wasn't even that Pure, but I didn't believe him. When he tells me he's a huge Lil B fan, a Base Head, I totally am sold on the fact that he isn't that Pure. I'm a little upset at myself that I made such a stereotypical thing up about my friends, because there is literally no way to accurately stereotype them.
Things start to die at Owen's, but Kai's is still kicking so we make our way back over there, all twelve of us. To my surprise I find three more Amherst kids at his party. One of the friends I just found, Will Hird, comes up to me and the first thing he says is, "I think I might be going home soon." Classic Will, I might say. Things just keep changing up and it keeps me alive, because at this point it’s pushing 1:00 AM, and I should be dead tired. I go upstairs into some room in Kai's house and there's a room full of PVPA kids. They all look at me like I'm the biggest idiot they've ever seen. This wasn't my place to say anything, it wasn't my party so I didn't start anything, but I'm almost positive they were all looking down at me for working at a gas station. All these kids ride bikes and take buses and have the newest hybrid technology, I'm sure. Caleb, who I just recently met, is sitting in a chair near me. He says to me, "I think you should choose a different career path because gas is not the fuel of the future." I could detect the sarcasm in his voice, a bit of snobby sarcasm, but I let it go and exit the room.
I leave all of my previous conceptions of Purists back in the room too because being with them for just one night made me see exactly who they are and that we are more similar than we are different. After this night I'm an honorary Purist, and I feel like I have a new group of friends to hang with.