Face-to-Face vs. Facebook

Facebook might help you connect with the people in your life, but it’s also a huge party with a bunch of people that lasts forever.  There's the nervousness over how you present and what people will think of you.  There are background folks you barely notice, the person who won’t stop talking your ear off, the klatch of recent marrieds and recent parents, the people you really want to talk to but hook up with all too briefly.

There's also Becky's father.  Becky's sister set his profile up for him.  When Papa Q discovered Facebook took actual time, he said no way.  This gives him a certain mystique in the virtual world.  A profile people can approach for friendship that will never answer, because the password is a distant memory.  He is the Garbo of Facebook, discussed on my blog, bandied about on updates, tagged in our pictures, but never glimpsed directly.

This approach could work for me.  

Virtual identity is supposed to be great for a writer because you can use your strongest asset to present yourself.  Little did I know, no matter the distance between what I write and who's reading it, the distance from myself to myself is the same; all the insecurities and social awkwardness I feel in life follow me online.

I see the future, the distance from neighbors and family, the little cocoons built around individual lives, or couples or families, the growing suspicion of the Other.  We make friends safely online and forget how to interact in person.  The mechanism between mind and verbal communication which creates charm will atrophy.  Face-to-face interactions will become stilted, uncomfortable, borderline creepy.  A smile from a stranger will become a thing of suspicion, greetings something to ridicule.  

Given how crazy the world can be, some people see this as self-preservation.  Given how lovely the world can be, I think Stranger Danger should never overshadow the Kindness of Strangers.

Anyway, why not find me on Facebook and friend me?  When publishers are trying to decide whether to take a chance on this unknown writer, I'll need body count.  

Living el Libro Loca

In 2007, I worked the Bill Clinton signing at Books & Books.  

My Forrest Gump impression.

The crowd of hundreds was calm, respectful, and orderly.  

Nine months ago, I saw the Lauren Conrad signing.  The crowd of hundreds screamed like she was the fifth Beatle (although I doubt most of them were alive when John Lennon got shot) but they never got out of hand.  

This week I worked Ricky Martin, and I'm glad I survived.

The guys are having a beard contest; I'm losing.
PS: That's Becky's chin growing from Ricky's neck.

We should have known there'd be problems Friday afternoon.  After months of assurances that he would stay until every last person had a book signed, his people told us we'd get two hours with Ricky Martin's bon bon.

When the crowd gathered Saturday, having over a thousand books suddenly looked sparse (although we haven't sold a thousand books at single-title event since Bill Clinton's My Life).  Ricky Martin's people probably saved us from running out.  We had plenty of stock, but we had to cut people off because of the time limit.  


After months of telling and tweeting "come one, come all," folks didn't react well to hearing that we couldn't sell any more vouchers to get in the signing line.  Never mind that you could have bought a voucher weeks ago, I drove all this way to see Ricky Martin and I'm seeing Ricky Dancing-in-the-Goddamned-Rain Martin.

One woman couldn't get over the fact that our website hadn't been updated to reflect the sold-out status.  After some back-and-forth, she and Becky started to get into it.  And by get into it, I mean shout.  Using the customer service axiom which has served me for decades - namely that an irate customer will spew venom all over the first employee who helps them but be sweet as pie to the second - I asked if I could be of some assistance.

After some back-and-forth, I started to get into it with the customer as well.  And by get into it, I mean yelling.  You have to be a certain kind of bitter to bring seasoned professionals like Becky and myself to the boiling point; this woman was that kind of bitter with a side of cuntface.  


I passed her along to Cristina, our Marketing and Events Coordinator, thinking that surely the woman would be mollified by speaking to the person who put the whole event together.  Instead, Cristina and the customer got into it.  In Spanish.

The woman refused to leave, preferring to pepper abuse on Becky and I while we helped customers who had paid long in advance.  

"You can't update your website?" the woman railed.  

"No, we can't," Becky said.  

"So you sell out of books, and you don't put it online?  You don't care about your customers.  That's what you're saying?  Books & Books doesn't care about their customers."

"Lady, do you see this crowd?"  Becky gestured to the throng of people wrapped around the block, hindering traffic, standing on the window sills, trampling our flower beds to get a glimpse of their idol (who hadn't even arrived).  "When are we supposed to update the website?"

"Oh, please.  You don't have someone who takes care of that for you?  Books & Books?  Please."

"Wow, I'm glad you think so highly of us," I said.  "We have two people in charge of our website.  One of them is over there."  I pointed to Debra, co-Marketing and Events Coordinator Pluperfect, making sure boxes of Me and Yo were flapped to the signing page so folks wouldn't be delayed picking up their books en route to Ricky.  "The other one is over there."  I pointed to Noah, receiving dude Bar None, manning the front gate.  "That's it.  That's all we got."

For all the impact it made on her behavior, I might as well have given a two-year-old directions on baking chocolate cake.  

Ricky of Ricky's Bakery, the best Cuban bakery in Miami, with a Ricky Martin cake

This woman - one of several who pushed her way inside with the media to take pictures on her camera phone and got irate when asked to leave - will have to represent the whole of folks who would have been controllable only with a timely elbow to the jaw.  This post has got to end at some point.

Ricky Martin gave us over four hours, taking two breaks (during one, he peed into a bottle because the men's room was unreachable; email your Ebay jokes to Microscopiconsideration@gmail.com; the best one will win something special).  For the most part, everyone was happy.  With so few staff members helping a crowd of thousands, this is something of a miracle.  He was amazing, upbeat and friendly the entire time.  Also, a gorgeous-looking guy.

One thing about the crowd irked me.  Seventy percent of this crowd was too busy trying to come up with the perfect Facebook update to even realize where they were.  That's no way to live.  I had to practically push people to the signing table because they were too busy memorializing the moment to actually meet him.  They'd hang back,  ignoring his greeting while trying to get the perfect shot.  If you want pictures, Google him; you'll find millions.  Instead of focusing on what you'll say about it later, why not be fully present and engaged while you talk with this man you adore?  

Thankfully, the powers that be at Books & Books decided to make this one-book, one-ticket so we could make some money off the crowds for once.  Hey, you're excited you got to see Ricky.  I don't blame you.

I'm excited I got a paycheck this week.  

Facebook: Profiles in Anger

"You ain't my friend, palooka."

I can’t get his profile picture out of my mind.  He’s filled out since high school, a rugged man replacing the scrawny boy I remember.  He needed the extra pounds, but he was supposed to get fat.  He was supposed to grow old and ugly, this smiling man fishing with his children, grinning ear-to-ear as he holds a huge lake trout up for the camera.  

As a boy, this man helped make my boyhood miserable.  He's not supposed to be happy.  High school was supposed to be the best time of his life, and Facebook should give me pictorial evidence of his slow disintegration into fat, impotent, bitter baldness.  This grinning man with the dancing eyes mocks me, as he ever did.

Along with Fish Man, Facebook shows me more people I might want to “friend.”  Fat Bad Teeth.  Ratface.  Nice Guy Who is Cruel by Association.  Roley-Poley.  The boys who made high school hell.

There are women, too.  Snide Remark.  Nose Wrinkler.  Friend One Minute Cruel the Next.  Can’t See You.  You Are Invisible.  Look Through You.

You have 85 mutual friends.

Truthfully, many of them have gained weight, just not enough to suit me.  A good start would be along the lines of, “The unemployment line starts over there, where that twenty-foot pile of demi-sentient lard is quivering.”  Triple that and you approach the misery thier lives should be, in proportion to the misery they caused.

If there is one piece of evidence suggesting that their best years are behind them, it's reunion pictures.  

Five year, ten year, fifteen year, are you kidding me?  I thought reunions were supposed to meet each decade, but I guess that wouldn’t be enough for the popular crowd.  I look at those pictures and see all the folks who made me feel inadequate.  These people are super-excited for the 20-year reunion because Facebook makes it so easy for everyone to be in touch that it will be the biggest reunion ever.   

Okay, okay, I know they only tormented me because they had issues, too, and the pain of school might be the main reason I became a writer, and popularity comes with its own set of problems, and from suffering comes art, and blah-blah-blah please mix me a damn martini.  

But seeing this handsome guy smile, winning at life, it sets my teeth on edge.  Aren’t selfish bullies supposed to get punished?  Or am I confusing life with movies written by my dorky writer brethren?  

I'm living well; the best revenge, as they say.  I know what I’m here to do, I’m doing it, and my journey is my own.  I have a girlfriend who fills my heart to bursting, and she has a boy who I deeply love.  We aren't swimming in money, but life is savory.  

Smile away, Fish Man.  The water’s pretty fine down my way, too.

(Still, don't think I'm gonna friend you.)

                

Cyber Stalking

Poring over the yearbook during summer break, I’d look at the pictures of the girls in our class and imagine their camera-pasted smiles directed toward me. Bonus if I found a candid shot of Tiffany Hile hanging out in the cafeteria or Ellen Hemmerlein bumping a volleyball. How these girls felt about me in real life didn’t matter; rendered in two dimensions, they found a home in my imagination.

Now it’s online. Everyone is a friend of a friend, someone Facebook thinks you should get to know. You read their profile, learn about the best version of themselves. You tag their pictures, wondering how you could have missed them at this or that party. You check their Twitter and their Blog, you Google them and find out they ran a 5K fundraiser for AIDS research.  You don’t need junior high gossip about how so-and-so is easy or has a psycho older brother or only dates blondes, you get virtual truth instead. 

This digital image is compelling, filled with friends, fun, inside jokes, and witty banter. Even the sweaty, lazy-eyed, drunken shots she begs her friends to delete are oddly charming. Click the mouse and imagine whole relationships with near strangers.

I’ve regressed to seventh grade.