A Partial Summary Of Chapter Thirteen, "Tribute"

...And My Love Of R.E.M., Who, I Am Happy To Say, Are NOT Oxymoron

Giles, in a rare moment of insight that wasn't tinged with sarcasm, says to Peck, albeit somewhat sardonically, "This all sounds like a lot of preaching to me, Burton. Kids don't want some latter-day Baby Boomers harping at them about their mistakes and misguided actions and intentions. They want unencumbered, unbridled, in-your-face rock and roll, dammit!"

"Yeah, but they also need some kind of guidance. A lot of people were devastated when Michael died, especially because of the horrible way in which he died. How there were many things about the guy that bugged me too after awhile. He could be a royal pain in the ass as you well know, but I loved him anyway. And I just don't want his legacy to be one of pain and some damn asshole writing in some stupid book that Michael had some weird teenage girl's disease and that's all for which he'll be remembered----"

"Hey, hold on!I get your point, with a sledgehammer", Gill interrupted, reaching over to give Peck a comfortin hug with his left arm. "You want all this crap to mean some sort of sense---to have some kind of meaning".

Peck looked off into the horizon, where the warm, comforting arms of a Texas autumn sunset wrapped their arms lovingly around the landscape. "I just want us all to be demystified; that's the long and the short of it. We're no different from any Tom, Dick, Mary Sue who buys our CDs. We have the same hopes, the same damned problems and the same dreams. All that stuff".

"The only difference, the sole differentiating factor, is that we make a Hell of a lot more money", Gill capped off his friend's philosophical meanderings with a typical Giles-style quip.

"And we're a Hell of a lot more arrogant and self-righteous because of that fact". Peck had to have the last word.

He struggeled to his feet and slapped the clinging sand from his shorts. It was time to go home. He had a wife and a little boy waiting for him, and, he reflected wryly to himself, the kid is definitely NOT going to be a rock star!

Those are the closing paragraphs of the novel.

Next, some positive works that ARE about R.E.M. (Nothing bad or sad, I promise).

See? Here's Michael Stipe, healthy as a horse