My favorite part about Thanksgiving?
Ok, sure, it's partly Andy's slow-roasted turkey inside the small, black clay army tank that is the Kamado grill. But what gets me up early every year like a kid on Christmas morning is the annual Gobble Gobble Give, a DIY community gathering to feed the homeless. The grassroots-organized and run event every year is crazy chaotic and crazy cool: Mostly total strangers cramming into the Echo nightclub on Sunset Boulevard and slogging side by side for a few furious hours to get as many boxed meals out the door as possible. The annual feed-a-thon began in 1998 when Echo Park resident Barry Walker decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner and deliver the meals to homeless folks in the neighborhood. It's since grown into a magnificent mad mash of locals--possibly around 600 in all including the drivers, deejays (gotta have music!) and kids--serving up Thanksgiving meals to nearly 1,000 fellow Angelenos who because of a twist of fate or a twisted lack of governmental services for the mentally ill, drug addicted or just plain poor in this otherwise rich nation find themselves without.
The massive turnout of volunteers this year was no doubt due to the more formalized efforts (including a website and Paypal). Despite all of that, me doubts it will ever lose its punk rock soul. This is, after all, Silverlake/Echo Park. Gobble gobble.