JamBands.Com - December '98 - The Kitchen Sink by Benjy Eisen

The Kitchen Sink
by Benjy Eisen - benjy@archive.phish.net
Installment Four: Three-Days.

We're brought up thinking that Thanksgiving is some wonderfully puritan holiday celebrating the Pilgrim's day of thanks and our modern day gratitude to Butterball for keeping us plump as pumpkins. Sure, Turkey Day is some bizarre Celebration of The Feast, but so what? It also provides us with an opportunity to take a few days off, visit with relatives, maybe go out for a drink with a few old friends, and reflect on all that we are truly thankful for. So this year, naturally, I spent Thanksgiving weekend in Worcester, MA.
The problem with Thanksgiving, as I see it, is that nobody really knows how to give thanks anymore. We sit at a dinner table and stack up on cranberry sauce and talk about what we heard in the news that day. We say grace and pass the stuffing please. We take turns with the condiments and then we take turns saying "Happy Thanksgiving" which, translated, means "I hope that you are happy to give thanks." Or in other words, we all look at each other and say "You're welcome" in a smug and unsuspecting way.
Maybe instead of saying "Happy Thanksgiving," we could actually give thanks, ourselves. Maybe we could actually say "Thank you." And mean it.
So that what I why I was in Worcester, Massachusetts for the weekend. It wasn't for the scenery, in case you were wondering. Rather, I was saying thank you. And I meant it. How did I say thank you? I said it by dancing for three-nights to the music that moved me. I thanked the music but more importantly, through the music, I was able to thank much more. I was able to thank The Great Spirit itself, and no I'm not talking about Trey Anastasio (although, of course, I thank him too.)

It was 8:35 am when I met Carla and Jaime at the Texico Station on Route 11/15 in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. I was five minutes late, but came equipped with a suitcase and a smile so wide, the gas station attendants probably thought that I was loopy. That's okay - I thought they were pretty loopy myself, although of course I didn't say anything. How could I? I was too busy laughing because here I was, with two funkdown cats of mine, and together we were setting sail for a three-day treasure hunt that was bound to strike gold. Our map was a Rand McNally, our clues were found in the little designs on the mail-orders and our digging tools included half a pack of Uno Cards, two pieces of glass, a notebook filled with setlists and show notes, some bottled water, DAUD1's of Utah, and a care-package from Molly, with a note that read, "X marks the spot" if you know what I mean. You don't have to go digging too hard to find the hidden treasure there.
About 30 minutes into it I realized I forgot my towel - a small casualty, but one Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect might not appreciate. Luckily those two are fictional characters from a book and so what does it matter? I laughed at the thought of this and let out a big "Whoop!" as we passed by the Pennsylvania mountainside. It was a beautiful autumn morning.
We picked up Jimmy somewhere around Scranton and headed on up the old 84, to where it crossed with the Mass Pike and rolled into downtown Worcester by 4:30 PM, just in-time to take care of individual matters and hop on the back of the worm. From the moment Funky Bitch struck up, I knew it was going to be a wild ride. And it was.
Back in October I focused this column on The Art of Surfing, equating an improvisational musical performance to riding a wave. Ironically the show that I mentioned in that installment, 12/31/93, took place in this very same building. Tonight, almost five years later, the waves had only gained strength and the surfers had even learned a few new tricks. Naturally, the band weaved in and out of Wipeout for the entire set and returned back to it two days later to bookmark the end of the run, and to commemorate the tour closer.
But the spirit of improvisation and adventure and surfing and all these things, carried on in-between the shows as well. From a 2AM revelation in a late-night Chinese Carry-Out ("From now on, I'm going to take an extra pair of chop-sticks where-ever I go. You never know when you may need it") to sleeping on the hard wooden floor of a friend's house in Arlington, with a room full of funkdown angels, to getting lost in Boston at some ridiculous hour trying to find that house in Arlington. Somehow we went from being a block away, at the Chinese Carry-Out, to being in South Boston, utterly lost. And I would add, "but loving it" except that not all of us did. When we finally made it back to the house, Jaime stepped out of the car and said humorously, "Let us never speak of this again." Sorry Jaime, but I just did. I hope you don't mind.
During those three days, I also witnessed my friends get into a bumper-to-bumper while trying to wave to Jimmy, who was with us, piling 9-packs of Magic Hat into the trunk. Yes, I said 9-packs. Funny, isn't it? I went down to Tammany Hall where I got to hang out with the Foxtrot Zulu funksters and Gordon Stone, the banjo king. I briskly walked through a shopping mall packed with Black Friday (and Saturday and Sunday) shoppers, where, just for kicks, I walked into DKNY and asked if it meant "Dank King of New York" I'm just kidding about that part - I didn't bother Donna Karen, but I did pause in the storefront and thought of a prep-school friend who lives in Stanford, CT. I met some beautiful souls while Rocking and Rolling on Sunday and I saw a girl who reminded me of someone I fell in love with once, long ago. I laughed when her boyfriend snuck up from behind and gave her a hug so pure that the moment truly was sacred. And it was a laugh that was full of joy, full of amusement, full of excitement, full of wonder and merriment and a million other things, even sadness. But it was a joyful and bittersweet sadness because that too is something worthy of celebration and I laughed because I was in Worcester, Massachusetts with the friends I can more accurately describe as family and the music that I can more accurately describe as The Pearl. It moves us to dance and it moves us to tears and it moves us to laughter and all of is this just a part of the treasure that we set out to find. Well we found it. And I was thankful.
When the three days were over, it turns out that I did have a ride home after all. And I was thankful for that too. And the adventure that it led to, for I ended up in State College, PA and now, not even one month later, I'm headed back there in a few days to look for apartments. Funny the way things work out sometimes. I'm thankful for that too...that is, that things work out...and that they're all the funnier for it.

You don't need to go to a Phish concert to learn the value of Thanksgiving. That is not what I am trying to say here. But you do need to do your dance and to sing your song. We show thanks not by saying "Happy Thanksgiving," but by enjoying the people we love and by doing the things we most enjoy. For if we live our lives this way, we will be thankful at every step of the dance. Not just once a year. Not just over some mashed potatoes and gravy, but at a much larger feast - a feast with the food that nourishes us and the nectars that intoxicate us and keep us going, keep us smiling, propelling us into tomorrow, one day at a time. And that, my friends, is a celebration that has nothing to do with turkeys, per-se. And that, my friends, is what Thanksgiving truly must be about.
Enjoy your holidays everyone.
Walk with light my friends,
Benjy
Columnist Benjy Eisen is currently learning how to party like it's 1999.
benjy@archive.phish.net
copyright 1998