#can you queue it

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“[Peter] describes himself as ‘5'10″ tall with long, light-brown hair, a ski-slope nose, brown eyes and a dimple.” - Monkee Spectacular (April 1967)

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“Now, the qualities that make all the difference between being laughed at and laughed with are acceptance and love. It’s as simple as that! We know that there are people everywhere who seem to carry hate in their hearts. It’s pretty hard to get through to them. But there are many, many more people in the world who have love in their hearts and who like to laugh. And it never hurts to be laughed with. All good comedians are laughed with because they’re loving the audience and the audience is accepting the love that the comedians are giving them. The handful of people who carry hate and send out hate vibrations only deserve to be pitied because they’re missing out on the whole groovy, love-filled happening called life!” - Peter Tork, interviewed by Audrey Hulse, Fave (May 1968)

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From Peter Tork’s guest VJ spot with Rosie O’Donnell on VH1, circa 1988: a partial rendition of “White Christmas.”

About that shirt Peter’s wearing, made by his then girlfriend Jennifer McLeod.

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Photos by Gene Trindl (?).

“When I was in junior high school, I was a punk. I wanted people to love and admire me for my gentle wit, my talented music-making and my beauty of personality. Instead I was loathsome and irritating and quarrelsome and I didn’t know why people didn’t like me. But I began to think and meditate on it. Meditation is the only way the personality can be improved, and gradually I began to work things out and better myself. I like to give someone as many ‘different sheets of music paper’ as I can — behave differently toward him each time I see him. That is the only way someone can know what the real me is like. You can’t know the real me by only talking to me. I believe that you can tell more about people by the way they looking walking away from you than you can by what they say. In the highest sense, I think a human life is art, that art includes all expression. The way I play a guitar expresses something, and the way I scratch my thigh expresses something. I think my guitar music is good; that is where I haven’t made any compromises. I think it really expresses me. And it’s going to be better. Our new Colgems album is a terrific thing. Everything you do is an accumulation of everything you have done in your life. If each action could be fully understood, it would explain everything about you. That is the ideal. In everything is its opposite. If you curse with great violence, there’s a tiny spot in which your gentleness appears, and if you say, ‘I love you,’ with great tenderness and passion, there is also an indication of hostility and anger.” - Peter Tork, interviewed by Edwin Miller for Seventeen Magazine (August 1967)

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All photos that I've researched of Mr. Thorkelson's time as a teacher at Pacific Hills School and New Dimensions High School (and that have been posted in the past separately with quotes). Photos 1-4 (?) by Anthony K. Roberts, photo 6 by Matt Asner.

“Best high school teacher I ever had […]. Tremendous empathy.” - former student Mark, commenting on a Monkees Live Almanac blog post (2018) “Peter was a great teacher and friend to me in 1977-78 in Los Angeles. He was my History and Music teacher 5 days a week and was the most wonderful, patient and real teacher I have ever had. I learned so much from his kindness and talent.” - former student David, MLive dot com (2019) In a New Dimensions High School Alumni public group on Facebook, various alumni recalled their memories of Peter, including: “We were lucky to have known him.” - Joanie (2019) “Was a wonderful guy and we [were] lucky to have known him.” - Alison (2019) “I was one of the luckiest student[s] the year [Peter] taught music. [He] let me rock the violin for the graduation ceremony.” - Mark (2019)

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“The first thing people usually ask me is which is your favorite Monkee, which is a horrible thing to ask a person. I usually try to avoid answering it unless I happen to be standing next to one of them, then of course he is my fave. But if you trapped me in a corner and threatened to cut my bangs if I didn’t tell you, I guess I’d have to confess to a certain preference in the direction of Peter. Tracy Thomas, the girl who used to write this column, has also confessed to favoring Peter. Do you suppose we’re both bats or is it just that Peter’s such a refreshing, thinking, intelligent, opinionated, male human being? […] I guess the one who had the roughest time coping with the Monkees was Peter. Suddenly he was forced to have opinions on things that never used to matter to him. But he’s sorting it all out and becoming a real thinker. He has political opinions and is not afraid to express them. There are things going on in Peter’s head that may one day become clear to him and, eventually, all of us.” - Carol Deck, Flip (January 1968)

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Photo by Nurit Wilde.

Q: “What is your favorite hour of the day?” Peter Tork: “The one I’m enjoying at the present moment.” - Tiger Beat (September 1968)

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Photo by Henry Diltz.

“I don’t think people try hard enough to reach beyond themselves and really experience different things in life. You’ve got to be adventurous to make it in this world. I really mean that. You’ve got to be willing to try different things—from entertainment to food to where to live and what to do with your life. If I hadn’t been adventurous, I wouldn’t have done a lot of things—like live in Greenwich Village and sing in coffee houses and become a Monkee. But I wanted to do something different and I did. It’s the same way in thought processes. You’ve got to be able to bend your mind to new patterns and thoughts. People from other countries or other centuries have lots to offer us. Now the reason I got off on all this in the first place was that I did see enough of you at James Brown’s concert. In the same way, I don’t think enough of you really tune into Indian music or classical music or even try, just once, to listen to a bagpipe album all the way through. It’s fine to dig the sounds on your transistor radio, but you really shouldn’t, for your own good, let all those others go by too. I’ve been tuning in to different sounds for the past several years and I’m surprised by what I’ve learned. You really ought to try it.” - Peter Tork, Tiger Beat (November 1968)