Canal Street Chronicles History: Happy Anniversary, Dave!

Today marks the anniversary date of our fearless leader (and you too, Willona) first joining CSC. Well, actually, that's the date given on his profile page - April 18, 2008. As it turns out, Dave's actual join date is April 7th and his "Created" date is April 18th. Whatever the hell that means.

Anyway, since this is the correct month, and the 7th has already passed, we might as well celebrate today. So, let's get to it!

Dave took over CSC from a cat who called himself "Sunil" back in April of 2008. Dave Cariello was known then as Saintsational. This was back before bloggers on SB Nation decided to become a bunch of money hungry attention-seeking whores who lusted after ad revenue and started using their real names in the hopes of gaining worldwide fame and adulation (The preceding line was brought to you courtesy of Stujo4).

For those of you who are newbies to CSC and never knew Dave under his pseudonym, you may have seen me on CSC tweaking Dave occasionally about him only getting this job because my good pal, Saintsational, the cat who used to run CSC, was killed in a gang related shooting while attempting to purchase several kilos (of t-shirts) back on the mean streets of Long Island. That's just my way of paying homage to the work he did back in the early days of this blog and keeping that memory alive.

Dave's very first front page article as the Managing Editor of Canal Street Chronicles was on April 8, 2008 in a post called "This Blog's For You!!". You can click on the link and read about Dave's goals for the blog, but more importantly, how he feels about the kind of Saints fan community he hoped to build and what that community represents.

Seriously, you SHOULD read it. I think he's done one helluva of job in realizing those goals and building that community.

And just for the sake of Lulz, and so I can see Dan Kelly's head explode, please check out this article in which Dave campaigns for the return of HWSNBN to the Saints as their starting CB. If you look in the comments section, you will notice the first time anyone uses the term "PayLoo" on this blog. The term was coined by a certain fella who has created quite a few phrases and common memes on CSC during his time as a member of this blog and does not receive enough credit or recognition for his contributions to this community.

I must say this before I go. It takes a lot of time, effort, and flat out love as a Saints fan to build and maintain a community of this size and with the recognition it has gained over the years. Particularly, when there is barely anyone reading or giving you feedback like in the early days of this blog. Go ahead and scroll through the CSC archives of 2008. You will see a guy who continues to post even when there are no comments for several articles in a row. And when there are some, it's mostly low single-digits here and there scattered about.

Do you know how many folks have started a blog only to give up and quit because no one is there? It's damn lonely when you're writing about something you love and there's barely anyone around paying attention. If Dave didn't stick it out, where would you cats be? Bleacher Report?

Perish the thought.

Let's all give a big hand and a Happy CSC Birthday to a guy who is absolutely Saintsational - Dave Cariello.