Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost
Don’t Follow Me I’m Lost: A Memoir of Hampshire College in the twilight of the 80’s, by Richard Rushfield
In the twilight of the 1980’s, there was an enchanted land in the woods of Western Massachusetts, where punks and hippies lived side by side in a time before goals, ambitions, exercise, relationships or responsibilities. This land was called Hampshire College.
In 1986, Richard Rushfield traveled from sunny California to enroll in this land. These are his stories.
Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost takes us to a campus populated by deadheads, club kids, poets, and insomniac filmmakers, at a time when America saw the rise of punk and grunge alongside neo-conservatism, earnest calls for political correctness and Take Back the Night vigils. Shunned by all of the school’s reigning subcultures, Rushfield joins the most hated clique on campus, the Supreme Dicks, navigates a dating scene where to express interest in anything is social suicide, and mostly avoids class where hippie professors blather on about post-structuralism. Culminating in a mad clash of slackers and yuppies, Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost captures a watershed moment for American youth in one hilarious, and unforgettable trip.
Advance praises for DFM:
“Richard Rushfield was a dick in college just ask him. DFMIL is a hilarious recanting of a unique, and often absurd higher education experience. Rushfield is a completely lovable ne’er-do-well bumbling through a do it yourself education. Required reading for anyone who went to college, lives near a college or owns a hacky sack.”
- Greg Behrendt, comic/Author -”He’s Just Not That Into You”
“Richard Rushfield has provided a worm’s eye view of one of America’s kookiest education experiments: Hampshire College. It was here that the idealism of the Sixties curdled into the nihilism of the Eighties — and ‘Don’t Follow me, I’m Lost’ isn’t merely about a troubled liberal arts school, but an entire generation’s nervous breakdown. It is by turns rueful, angry, touching and, above all, very, very funny.”
- Toby Young “How To Lose Friends and Alienate People”
“Richard Rushfield has written a smart, funny, fish-out-of-water love letter to the 80’s. Vivid settings plus memorable characters and wry humor equals one totally awesome memoir.”
- Moon Zappa
“Had Dorothy Parker been a teenage boy in the Eighties, she’d have been Richard Rushfield, whose bon mots fly from a roundtable set in dank stairwell parties around kegs of flat beer.” –Stacey Grenrock Woods, author of I, California
“Richard Rushfield recalls his college years as a loveable miscreant living among the P.C. police with unflinching humor and a generous appreciation for a group of wayward youths struggling to forge meaningful identities (and stay in college as long as possible). He finds humor in nearly all the players – from the hippie advisors who suggest skipping classes in order to encourage independent thinking to the over-privileged students who rise from their cocaine and cockroach-filled dwellings to perform purposely upsetting concerts. I can’t imagine a more unique or uproarious depiction of the post-Reagan, pre-grunge era.” – Anna David, author of Bought, host of “Attack of the Show!”
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Dltooley on October 28th, 2009
This is a weird coincidence, but on the eve of publication these fairly talented folks release this low budget production.
..gotta hire these folks for the film rights!
http://themelononline.com/2009/10/melon-visual-presents-three-very-happy-fellows/