As well-worn editorial conventions go, the thanks-on-Thanksgiving formula ranks up there with rewrites of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” come Dec. 24. Nevertheless, it seems an apt way to ask our growing ranks what debts they owe our youth and the history we share.
Months ago, we had an interesting discussion about how our early days informed our adult careers. We’ve also explored what the person you were in 1983 would make of the 2008 model.
I’ll say it again: Collaborating creatively with all of you … making do on the cheap and despite official disapproval … taught me at least as many skills I use today as I ever got from my (fine) formal education. For better or worse — and I say “better” — I’m the person I am today because of the all-too-brief time we spent together. Thanks!
All these years later, who or what makes you thankful about those times?
I’m so in the throes of a tryptophan hangover that I can’t begin to contemplate the depth of the question you’re asking, but I want to bump this potentially very interesting thread to the top by saying publicly something I genuinely thought yesterday on Thankgiving Day (my favorite holiday):
I’m very grateful to Matthew Rothenberg (whom I don’t think I’ve ever met) for all the work put into this site--and for the catching-up, ghost-communing, and nostalgia-wallowing he has thereby enabled.
Thank you!
Simon says (ha! I always wanted to type that. sorry.): >>I’m very grateful to Matthew Rothenberg (whom I don’t think I’ve ever met) for all the work put into this site–and for the catching-up, ghost-communing, and nostalgia-wallowing he has thereby enabled.
I second that emotion. I have reconnected with long-lost friends, made peace with the ghosts and formed strong new alliances with people I didn’t even know back then. Lots to be thankful for. I have also been laughing like crazy! Matthew you have been cracking me up….and you got me writing again.
I am thankful to my younger self for paying attention. Many details of my life today are attributed to the influences of yesterday. What my peers were listening to, reading, creating and talking about. I looked up to you all and tried to emulate what I interpreted as greatness. Overall, it gave a rich, boundaryless perspective and a bedrock of references from which all things could be built.
I thrice that emotion…
I am endlessly greatful for Mathew’s fortitude in building this space we call the Che Underground…greatful to be reconnected with old friends in discussing old times, while also creating new projects and events to invest in and look forward to.
Creativity and friendships are two fundamental themes in my life that were borne in this time. I truly believe that my passion for art and music, as well as the steadfast friendships of other Che Underground pioneers literally helped me overcome the scariest of all things-a brush with death.
I do not think it is “accidental” that as I began to reclaim my life, I was brought in touch with long lost friends and even new musical partners that would enrich my life and help me become stronger day by day…Thanks be to Anni Sajdera, Carina Burns, Cathy Bozzo, Dave Flemminger, Bruce Hammerlee,Shelley Ganz, David Rink, Dave Ellison, Bart Mendoza, Tom Ward, Ron Silva, Kristina Harrell, Kristen Tobiason, Bobby Lane , members of “The Null Set” (Joe Bender & family, Ian & Anna McColl, Beth Quade, Dave Celnicker, Cindy Johnson Kahl, Marko Barron, Heather Phillips-Cappiello, Konrad Dobrott, et al), and my immediate family. Thanks to so many of you, I am on the verge of a new creative project that I am very excited about! I think there is something bigger than each of us that has brought us together again…
Due to the phenomenon known as the Che Undeground Blog, I will soon see or hear from more lost friends, which makes each day a new adventure. I hope we all continue to swap stories on the blog, and bring enrichment to one another’s life!
You’re unspeakably kind — believe me, you’ve all given me at least as much as I’ve put into this project. Too much self-inflicted trauma at the end of my San Diego years made it very difficult for me to revisit some aspects of that era for a very long time.
For reals, I’m deeply grateful to every one of you for helping me reclaim a huge part of my life on my own, adult terms.
I don’t know if that makes a whit of sense, but maybe I can explain it over a sarsaparilla at the Che Games! 🙂
pass me the kleenex will ya?
Hee, hee … This cold is making me seriously drippy (literally and literarily). Sorry for the gust of sincerity — somebody drop a zoo, quick!
As the original zoo dropper, I am happy to oblige and drop you one anytime, Matthew.
I too am very grateful for you for bringing this era back that was both so good and happy, as
well as troubling and unresolved. I guess that the best thing to remeber from this time was how
relatively uncomplicated it was compared to now. By getting all of this going, you have reminded me of
that and have given me a lot of happiness just in re-living some of those times. I was not
always a part of this scene, but was on the periphery and thank you for
allowing me to read over your collective shoulders around the underground
campfire to get as close to that time as possible.
Sorry -- typing this on blackberrys sucks….
Paul: You’ve got thumbs of fury!! All that youthful ice-cream scooping obviously toned you for serious Blackberry action at midlife — another debt the man owes the boy.
Agreed with all I’ve read here…to have a chance to revisit and reconnect and reinterpret like this is a fantastic and unexpected gift. Paul, you put it really well.. it was somehow both an uncomplicated and yet unresolved time.
It’s been easy for me to be uneasy about it all over the years, but looking back all together expands the view so much beyond one person’s eyes.
I could drop a Wild Animal Park right now just thinking about it all….snif
Maybe we should all forget and continue our lives like it was all just a bad dream.
Maybe we should all remember each other in our underwear.
Maybe we should all remember each other in our underroos.
Then again, maybe we should not. Maybe we should reflect on the good that came from it all. The understanding of Man and his enviroment, the nature of music in an unnatural world. The effect of those unaffectable. Maybe we should look at it as a pillar, a foundation to the new, the new old same.
Maybe we should contemplate unnatural acts!
Premeditated Unnatural Acts…my favorite kind!
A Facebook friend just suggested that “Alice’s Restaurant” is the only song in the Thanksgiving canon … Can anybody think of Thanksgiving tunes? (Specific to the American holiday, not songs of thanks.)
There’s “Thanksgiving” by Poi Dog Pondering, which is not specifically about the holiday but suitable to it, but the obvious choice is “Over the River and Through the Woods.”
“We Gather Together” is one song us Episcopalians would sing this time of year.
“Tak Fur Maden” was a song I used to play when I taught elementary music. Can’t remember where it was from, or exact translation…just a multi-cultural food/thanks song!
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)