During the heyday of social media, I grudgingly opened a series of accounts online to reserve spots with my name on them, for sometime in the future when I had more time to devote to it, at the urging of a young acquisitions editor at the small Jewish publishing firm I worked for back then. Why not? It was summer hours, and I was already exploring commenting on websites and posting photography through this site you are now reading. I didn't know what to do with "social" media, but like any other social endeavor, most of it involves family grudges, drunk bitches posting crazy shit online with their ounce of "Dutch courage", some cyber-stalking, and good old-fashioned dating.
Like I've written before, it's a lot like "life" itself, because I've often said that social engagements online are like those first few introductions you make at a cocktail party: you want to be polite, make socially acceptable small talk, and avoid taboo topics like sex, religion, and politics. Of course, after several drinks in, the gloves come off conversationally-speaking (whether in person or online), as those partners somewhat engaged with you on social media conveniently forget that media is my world, and every time you hit the "post" button or "publish" tab, you are in my world, and this is where I rule.
But, that doesn't stop people from trying to pretend that they are on the cusp of a brave new world with no rules, like our initial explorations with the Internet as highly savvy media designers working in the famous Flatiron building of Manhattan on a DOS screen. Wow...sexy. Before more intuitive interfaces were built for the layperson, we used technology like that as a lark to our main business of making books, the benefits of which you reap today by reading my content for free.
Back then, we were just tossing digital bottles into a large, dark, empty ocean that was devoid of the normal human warmth you might find meeting people in the flesh, like whether that dick hanging around the studio with his designer girlfriend really did meet some "hot chick" online, or it was just some balding older dude fucking with him, because it looked like this:
As I explored my online options with this new world of "online media" that now included nice things that are easy to understand, like pictures and photos with captions, I found the usual human suspects, including: that guy from high school who always wanted to date you but was too scared to ask you out, and his friend-of-a-friend who wants to meet you because you look "hot" in your profile pic, and your drunk redneck bitch of a cousin who not-so-secretly hates you for being prettier and more talented than her and her arty husband (whatever that means). Shit like that. Really common, easy stuff. And it did work. I briefly dated a guy I knew since junior high school days, a guy who knew an old co-worker of mine from my first job at SMP, and a former boss of mine from Denver, now back east again and dating as a rather new divorcee. Same type of stuff.
On the more professionally-geared social site, I met up with a few alumni looking to network and expand their projects through a less dating-themed kind of way that was too casual for their business worlds, which is also an obvious part of my life, too. And so, after a few casual emails traded on this corporate social site, I met up with an older alum who had his own small architecture firm on Long Island. We met at a casual burger-and-beer joint downtown when he told me upfront that he was married. Ah...good! He was balding and pleasant, but definitely not the type of guy I date. No pressure, then. We can just hang out and talk.
We got along well, as two RISD alumni working in the city as professionals, and he assured me that his wife would have no problem with our new acquaintance, because he often mentored younger alumni and attended alumni-based functions in the city socially on his own. Wonderful! I love clarity like that in conversations, especially with our very small pool of incredibly gifted working artists. Save us a lot of time to have that kind of speed, intellectually-speaking. Easy to understand, and easy to follow. Let's drink! You know? You don't want weird shit hanging over your head when you just want to relax and enjoy after-work drinks with a colleague.
After that first meeting, he invited me to an art book signing in "The Village" at an arty retail bookstore that catered to more rarefied artist books and large coffee-table editions with expensive photographic reproductions. In short, I knew I was walking into "Art Fag Central" upfront, but to what exact extent, I did not know, and that was part of the fun for my new alumni friend. He laughingly told me as we walked over there that we were going to meet a couple of mental patients he knew, through a young woman he met at another type of signing that was geared towards sexual content and explicit nudity. Okay...this, on the walk over there.
Oh, and also, you should know, that at this book-signing will be the "artist" herself, promoting her new book of stupid photos about her dumb adventures as an S&M-themed cougar with severe emotional problems. Ah...so, fucking with me on a RISD-sized scale. Kudos! It wasn't exactly a heart-pounding request to build a DaVinci flying machine during studio class with only paper clips and rubber bands and a 1/2 hour time limit, but it was solid enough as an outing with rather extreme social tensions built directly into it. At first we did normal things, like tour the two-level store looking at weirdo books made about weirdo things, with overly-wrought covers that had weirdo thingamabobs stuck onto them, like a bad crafts project that retails for $400. So, basically, crazy rich white man shit. Got it.
We went back upstairs for the obligatory white wine and cheese course of the evening, served by suitably arty-looking waiters and waitresses, with the requisite "hipster" retail sales staff on-hand, in case you suddenly got the urge to buy an ugly book about an ugly woman who wants to have sex practically in your face for money. Like, a hooker. You know, just your average Wednesday night after-work kind of thing. And to make it even more awkward, she stood in front of the long table set up with a display of her horrible book dressed in a hooker outfit, with a really bad feather boa around her shoulders. Her hungry eyes that searched the room desperately for a social connection freaked me right the fuck out, but after a few drinks, "Fee" finally worked up the nerve to buy her book, ask her to sign it, and then engage her in conversation dressed like your grandmother in a Halloween outfit for a crazy "Times Square" hooker from the 70s that I could barely look at. Ugh...
So, I actually turned back to the two outpatients my friend had introduced me to when they first arrived at the book-signing, and that's social life in the city on any given night, folks: the "artist" at the opening was wayyy weirder than the two mental patients on curfew I was talking to. You see, dear readers, in addition to their mandatory check-in at their housing facility for the insane, they also had (of course) a keen, shiny-eyed interest in weirdo sex that more often included beatings over any actual human contact. The small Asian girl thought she could talk me into it, and at the point, I was like, what the fuck? I'm already here. Sure, weirdo! I gave her my cellphone number so she could send me outrageous text messages that I could show people, because at that point, I was already close to changing numbers from the harassing texts that every ex-boyfriend or male mate I'd ever been with had already sent me.
And that's it. That's our grand future that involves you, your mental disorder, and society. We will provide you with supported housing that has mandatory check-in times with the on-site staff that includes social workers and professional healthcare aides, medical charts with your medication times (because you totally forget that, girl), and key-card access while you recover and rehabilitate from your serious illness(es). With or without the feather boa(s). That's optional, folks. And what a beautiful world it will be. Healthcare and healing, guided by the same two people you love you the best: me, and Your Loving Holy Father. Amen to you, on this perfect late Spring day, New Yorkers. We've earned it. Really.
