There You Are and Here I Am

One of the best sights to see, in my personal opinion, is someone driving along in car, whether it be the passenger or the driver, with their arm stuck out of the window, moving their hand and fingers through the fast pace air as they drive on.

It always makes me smile.

I enjoy smiling at people, and having them smile back at me as if me smiling at them was the best part of their day. Seeing people happy just warms my heart.

I couple of posts back I said I would try to write about The Underground Days once and a while throughout this month, seeing as I mention them sometimes, without explaining myself. So. Here it goes, then.

Part One: Background story and the basics of The Underground

In May or June of 2005, I don't remember which exactly, a coffee shop was opened on Telegraph Road across the street from the weirdest looking bus station any of the people in Ventura had ever seen, and the mall just on the other side of that. The coffee shop was called The Underground and owned by two English women I believe. During the day it was just a regular old coffee shop in a brick building stuck in between the Goodwill and a furniture store. It was filled with good vibes, good art on the walls, and a small stage toward the back of the shop.

By night, The Underground was no coffee shop, but a venue for local music to play at, generally punk or some sort of new age alternative rock. Occasionally there would be an acoustic show earlier in the evenings on Fridays and Saturdays.

Once the clock hit 7pm, there were automatically at least 30 or 40 teenagers standing in line on the sidewalk to pay and get their hands stamped for the later shows. The better shows. The best, in our minds.

The Underground was the place to be every single weekend. We went religiously. It didn't matter who was playing. We went, we paid to get in, we sat outside on the brick wall in front of the planter full of dying flowers. I can't really put a label on the kinds of people that went there, because there was a little bit of every kind of person. There were always a good amount of PR kids, which is literally what everybody called them. If you weren't PR, or didn't know anyone who was PR, you generally didn't go to The Underground as far as I can remember. If you didn't like the second hand smoke of the underage smokers on the sidewalk, you didn't go to The Underground.

Not everyone there smoked, but most did, and the majority of people there were in the age range of 15 to 17. It wasn't the best environment, in retrospect, but it was the best place we could go to get away from home where our parents didn't actually know what was going on at all times. This was our happy place, our safe haven. Being at The Underground meant being a part of something.

And our something was better than everything.

Song of the Day: "The Nerve" by The Republic Tigers

Two Facts:

one . I've never read Brave New World but I've written at least 5 essays comparing and contrasting it with 1984.

two . I own 17 pairs of tennis shoes, 8 of those pairs being some sort of Vans.