La Jolla | The Che Underground

Goodbye, Bob Sinclair

December 18, 2017August 14, 2011 by Mmrothenberg

(Kristi Maddocks, assistant manager at the La Jolla Pannikin at the time I held the same title in Encinitas, contributes her memories of the San Diego coffee chain’s founder.)

It is with great sadness I say adieu to Pannikin co- founder Bob Sinclair, who was killed in a motorcycle accident last month. Bob died while riding his Moto Guzzi in the New Mexico desert.

Like many Pannikin employees, I started my stint there as a bright-eyed teenager, fueling up on coffee as I pored over notes with high-school study groups at the Del Mar and Encinitas Station cafés. Then, it graduated to hanging out at La Jolla café on weekend mornings, after a later night of dancing or at the tail end of a very cold scooter ride up the beautiful Southern California coast. Nothing was cooler than congregating on the deck of La Jolla Pannikin in the warm sun with your friends, living off an almost endless cup of coffee and bags of day-old bagels & day-old pastries. (That is back when the first cup of coffee was 75 cents, refills were 25 cents each!)

Fundraisers for Thomas Yearsley

February 2, 2011August 19, 2010 by Mmrothenberg

Thomas Yearsley, founding bass player for the Paladins, suffered misfortune Monday night and faces the medical-insurance woes of far too many working musicians. Click here to go to a site set up to help him get on his feet financially — and catch some music at a number of benefit shows.

“Thomas Yearsley, longtime bass player of The Paladins, was hit by a train on the evening of August 16 while trying to save his dog from the same,” reports the Help Thomas Yearsley site. “He was Life-Flighted away to Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., although he should be discharged by now. He suffered a broken leg and other injuries; unfortunately his dog Swango didn’t survive.

Kick out the jams, open your doors

March 29, 2019January 14, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

(A quick Che Underground public-service announcement: Manual Scan/Shambles guitarist Kevin Donaker-Ring files an update on a very rewarding career and issues a call to action for a worthy cause.)

What I have been doing, lo, these many years: high school student exchange. In late 1982, I got a job running the copy machine and performing odd jobs at a high school exchange program located in La Jolla, Calif. I devoted almost my entire adult life to that organization, learning most everything there is to know about student exchange at the high-school level. Yet after 21 years, everyone at our head office was suddenly out. The Board of Directors had decided to move operations to one of the satellite offices. In Arkansas.

After a day or so of panic, I realized that I had the opportunity to start my own program and founded AFICE, the Academic Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, in December 2003. We are a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. (Yes, donations are tax-deductible, so if you’re feeling generous, please think of us.) We operate all across the country, with local representatives from California to Maine, from Washington to Florida, and we even added a rep in Alaska recently.

Right now (and always, it seems), we are in serious need of host families. Our deadline (imposed by the US Department of State) is almost here and two of our families backed out at the last minute. Two kids from Poland, a girl and a boy, are suddenly without a place to stay.