CGB passed away.
Its always a kick to have people flip out when I tell them that Clarence Gatemouth Brown played our prom.
Well he passed away today.
He died of cancer.
Here is an article about him.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4234938.stm
Any News anyone else?
Welcome
It seems like a million years ago, but really it was only yesterday, a bunch of GOOFY kids shared 5 mins together with a bunch of GOOFY adults, in a small/BIG town in the Mid-East (not really the south, not really the mid-west, and not on the coast) of the us.
Different, religious, economic, social backgrounds and a couple of different ethnicities gave us the smart, sometimes crazy, mostly funny place of 'learning' where we developed into adults.
I've checked around and most of the people I have met are confused by my description of St Francis.
What kind of school has a graduating class of ~35, mostly freaky kids (ok maybe not freaky but not typical).
Well, somehow I ended up there so that already tells you something.
(How does a Haitian, raised in Africa, nurtured in New York City, end up in Louisville KY in 1988, and then into a tiny tiny expensive Liberal somewhat crazy private school?)
Some of you decided long ago to put those years behind you, hell I did, the thing that happens with life is that it takes over and pretty much straight after StF my main concerns was figuring out how to pay the Chicago style heating bills (incredibly 3 times my rent), Paying for the tube of REQUIRED Titanium White oil paint ($50) which would last 2 weeks on the $90 54 inch roll of canvas, while figuring on how to get some protein in my diet of white rice with hot sauce and pasta with butter, so as to gain some weight to attract the equally famished but otherwise gorgeous art school chica's (needless to say I was only single for one day or something, this not a function of my MacDaddy abilities but learning early on that two can pool more resources then one).
At first I kept in touch with a few people but eventually the rubric* of daily life got the best of that and except for couple of peops, Naomi & Sarah in particular I fell pretty much out of the loop.
I see Torbitt every 3 years or so on the street or in a loud bar in Williamsburg in NYC where I have lived the past 8y, (yes somehow we both ended up in the hipster artist capital neighborhood... except he is for real a rock & roll star, where I am just a poser commercial artist), and every once in a while I hear some amazing rumors of people becoming New Zealanders (Allison?) and super successful dotcom founders (Ben).
Zoom forward to Christmas 2004; I am stuck in Detroit for 2 days on my way to Louisville because of an incredible mid-western snow storm.
Because of this delay I am on a plane Christmas Eve, and as people waddle trough the isle laden with gift bags and heavy coats, an ghost from the past appears in front of me, temporarily wiping the 2 days spent in a nasty airport lounge.
Someone I had not seen since graduation in 92, Norm Jones, except that unlike me he hadn't gained any pounds or really aged that much.
Definitely more respectable, but otherwise still the same.
We got to talk for a sec when we got into Louisville as his luggage was lost in the great mess that Northwestern Airlines had created trough their utter disorganization (AVOID). But we couldn't meet later as our time in town was short.
This conversation made me want to know more about everyone, so after a pretty random internet and grapevine search, I decided to make this Blog, yes I know its the cliché term of the hour, but I think it would be GREAT to check in with EVERYONE and see where/what life has brought us.
This is not about who is MADE or not --hell I am a national disaster area in the making; it is more of a 13th year check in, and who knows maybe there are synergies of interests or random anecdotes that would once more join us.
I know some of you might not feel completely comfortable with all of this, so I am not going to post anything about anyone, but everyone is able to post their own stuff by just sending me an email, with their info so that I can make them a login. I don't have very many addresses now so if you have info on anyone else do tell me, on the site you should see a list of who I have info for and who I don't.
Those who are comfortable with this can also give me the permission to post their contact info to be only accessible by members of our class (with a password.)
EVERYONE, is welcome here and the intense clique action which pervaded our high school experience, will be a thing of the past, lets just talk about our present and the interesting trips that have brought each of us to this point in time.
(man do you guys remember going to that ropes/trust course, bwaahahahhah aha ha, what a trip).
Shmood!
Seabass out.
PS: I would like to invite all the teachers/professors who where part of our years at SF to write too, y'all where all amazing folks who really gave us a lot and affected the direction of our lives --even if we didn't realize it then.
'Mark Dater' keeps appearing in conversations about physics--Wheaton--, being obsessive about reading about Vietnam (thanks Miron), raising Llama's in KY (that was confusing to a kid from Africa, Ms Robertson), Skip (I know you don't do that anymore but humor me) got me into telling insane parables to describe how to emotionally connect with the work at hand. I don't even know how many times I told a parable when I needed to get one of my teams to get a project done.
* words courtesy of Foshee & Mikulak
