Old friends, old pictures

[gordonzola]

Facebook is an inadequate medium to satisfy most of our online needs. It think this is proven by the fact that that I see so many post by my LJ friends complaining about it. Facebook is not generally a place for refection or involved thoughts. It’s the place where most of my co-workers gather online so I do get up-to-date snippets from their lives sooner than I would otherwise and I enjoy that. There are a few performers that I follow there, but I think that I know all of them personally. Mostly for me though, it’s more a place to run into people I once knew, chat with them excitedly for a few minutes, then realize that there’s a reason I don’t see them very often.

You may have a desire to read that negatively. I don’t mean it that way. I find it incredibly satisfying – sometimes even cathartic – to communicate with folks who I used to see every day -- people who were crucial to life at whatever time they touched it – and see they are doing good things, raising children, and living in exotic (to me) cities like Cleveland and Baltimore. But I don’t have much unfinished business out there. And the reason I don’t see those folks much, no matter if I miss their daily presence, is that they are busy doing something else.

I know that’s obvious. But between 1. Living in a city that people live in and leave quite often 2. Growing up in a town that’s too expensive for most kids to reside in when they grown up 3. Working very public jobs 4. Historically being a sometime anarcho-tourist and 5. Going to college across the country from where I grew up, I know a lot of people that I don’t know anymore, if you know what I mean. Facebook is good for seeing that those folks went on somewhere. It might be just me. I’m overly nostalgic. But I like the frequent reminders that they are carrying on, even if I will likely not see most of them again in real life.

My girlfriend from 1985-1986 found me recently. We haven’t communicated for about 20 years but there wasn’t any bad feeling. We just went in different directions. Well, not totally different directions really since her husband (who I’ve never met) worked with my friends (who he didn’t know back then!) Tia and Carl (Whose New Orleans documentary “Trouble the Water” just got nominated for an Academy Award!).

But she had bad news along with the good. A friend – her name was Young -- from back in those days had died. My ex had stayed in touch but I hadn’t seen Young since 1987 or so. The three of us had spent a lot of time together back then but all I can really remember about Young was her intensity and her loud, crazy cackle-laugh. I can’t claim to be in mourning, but it is sad.

I promised I would look for pictures and the only one I had of her is actually really fitting, even if it was taken on Halloween. Young is on the top right, my ex is hugging her and two of my housemates are in the foreground.


While I was looking for that picture, I found another one of another person from those days that I heard was dead. As I type this, I can’t remember who would have told me that information so I’m a little tentative to spread the word. I feel like it was someone I trust, but have no way to know.

Here’s Becky (on the right) having a drunken snow fight with the singer of Mutant Breed sometime in 1985:


This was the time of year that, to commemorate my friend Ron Apple’s stupid death, I used to call for people to post their memories of friends who died Stupid Punk Rock Deaths I called for an amnesty for one day on the pain they caused in order to remember the good things about them.

I am not calling for that today. (Though if you want to remember a friend use the link in the last paragraph). Today I’m just thinking how weird it is that a medium like Facebook can be so ephemeral and content-less yet also provide the opportunity for these fulfilling and/or intense interactions. I’m still figuring out my relationship to it I guess.

Comments

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I think you're very well grounded. Like the Rock of Gibralter maybe ;-)

What I mean by that is that you have a sense of continuity in your own life that's affirming to you and pleasant for me (as a stranger more-or-less) to read about.

I don't feel very well grounded at all -- never have, even when the financial end of things was running more smoothly. For me the friends I've made over the years were substitute family and it wrenched me to lose touch with them, which I always did on account of I'm so horrible at reaching out to people when they're not in the here and now. So I just really love Facebook. It's put me back in touch with people I really love.

It's not a place for in-depth analysis or soul-bearing, true. On the other hand, it's got some kickass word games.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

see, I never play the word games. I had to find another reason to stay. ;)

[carolc.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with all your musings about Facebook, especially: "Mostly for me though, it’s more a place to run into people I once knew, chat with them excitedly for a few minutes, then realize that there’s a reason I don’t see them very often."

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

o to be young and beautiful again

[jette.livejournal.com]

Compared to being dumb and unestablished again, I'll take middle aged and relatively attractive.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

ah, c'mon. You're totally MILFy.

[jette.livejournal.com]

Aw thanks. :-)

[thisisthenow.livejournal.com]

I've been strenuously avoiding Facebook for the reasons you stated above. There's this very high school element to it...will So-and-So from 15 years ago want to be my friend? I got rejected! Oh noes! Still, you make a compelling case for those few important nuggets to be mined from it.

I still think I'm skipping it. I'm glad you found some worthwhile things.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly not a missionary for it. Honestly, I got active mostly to promote my book. but I did find some fun/useful stuff too.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Navigating all this is interesting in its own right.

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

I have been all over Facebook for the past few weeks.
I have gathered up all sorts of relatives ( and we have a very VERY small family) and gotten them together. One cousin didn't even knoe another second cousin. My Aunt and my great Aunt, my nephew. I tried this on LJ and it just didn't work.
I even found a long lost very good high school friend ( Class of 75).
It's like Twitter Plus.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I still hate twitter. ;)

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

there are a LOT of people I know who i don't know anymore. group after group. hmm.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

well, we're in the same line of work.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

eh?

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

not literally. I just mean we've had similar experiences that give us both groups of people all over the country that we've known but don't see regularly anymore.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

oh, yeah! true!

[susansbeeswax.livejournal.com]

Been watching pix of me in college show up online via friends of friends on FB this week. People I knew that I have pretty much no desire to reconnect with. I'm glad they don't know how to spell my name. Eventually I suppose everything will get sorted out & they'll find and "friend" me, but for now I'm enjoying the invisibility.

On the one hand, I'm glad to be remaking some connections, on the other I'm apprehensive about others. It's odd to see who's "friended" me, then never actually *said* anything.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Until my book contract was finalized I was still "Gordon Zola" so no one could find me. I added my real name recently. Hence the exploration.

[rochdale.livejournal.com]

I co worker of mine and I were commenting on it. We agreed that it offers the ability to keep up with friends you don't see much or have lost touch with at just the right level. However, it is amazing what the status lines can convey and the other bizarreness. I was the first of my workplace and high school class to get on board and now its crowded. It is weird to link up with people who might not have had the time of day for me in high school, but still shared that odd spot of teenage angst in the same place and time. The most bizarre moment was when my older brother "unfriended" me. It was actually quite liberating because I've never really wanted to talk to him anyway. So Facebook has its good points.

[jillbertini.livejournal.com]

I find FB to be very much like what you describe. A way to keep tabs on folks and quickly interact with people I haven't heard from for 20 years before the excitement subsides and we all return to whatever it was we were doing. I, like you, am finding this sort of reconnect very fulfilling. Although there are a bunch of people I apparently went to high school with that I have no recollection of. They keep trying to add me; I just ignore them. That's the only downside that I have experienced.

[gypsypunkgirl.livejournal.com]

I was just going to write you this morning to make sure you'd heard the news about Young, but I'd figured you had given the old photos on Facebook.

I suppose I'm one of those friends you're talking about...and I can't decide if I feel resigned or wistful about that statement. I know what you mean. And I will also say that I am glad to be back in touch and knowing what you're up to.

Anyway, in line with that, I wanted to say thanks for putting up this photo. The few I have of Young are kind of blurry or didn't really represent her personality too well--except for one extremely poorly taken shot, where you can barely see her face because the photo's taken at a weird angle, but *I* know it's a shot of her laughing and throwing a whole bunch of gift wrapping and ribbon and styrofoam peanuts up in the air and letting it all rain down over her like a little kid.

But this photo you posted really gets to the heart of what her personality was like back then. I hadn't talked to her for ages, either, but like you said in the post, I liked knowing she was out there, continuing on, living life and being her unique self. It gives us all heart, knowing that. The news about her hit me quite hard.

Oh, and I avoided Facebook for years, but am actually finding it an incredibly useful tool for keeping track of what's going on with friends around the country and making plans with groups of friends and finding out what's going on around town in my local area. I think it works far better in this way than myspace.

P.S. You still owe me a scan of that banner...

[gypsypunkgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I will also say that some people from my high school have requested "friending" that I barely knew in high school more than to just know their name and say hi to them. They seem to want to be added yet don't want to commnicate--they don't write notes or say hi, just ask for an add. Which I don't get, but am more comfortable with that than pretending we were ever really close.

But it's weird. Why add me then?

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

nah, I actually didn't mean you. I figure we will probably see each other one of these days. but it's not like I (or anyone at our age really) have the time to keep up with every person from high school who friends us, ya know? The ones who are in the area I might go out for a beer with but drifting happens even with people with a fondness for each other. You're a little different being ripped from our community way back when... ;)

and yeah, I love that picture of Young. of everyone in that pic really. We were kids!

and yes, the banner. I will try to remember next week.

[gypsypunkgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's funny, I always remember thinking Jon looked really mature for his age and kind of broad, too, but in this photo he really does look like a baby-faced, skinny kid. Strange how perspective changes over time.