Trying Social Suicide

Posted on April 30, 2009

This morning, I decided that I was sick of dealing with the microcosmic world of Facebook. After having decided to delete my account, I got to thinking about how tiring it is to have everyone know everything about you and be able to comment on everything you do.

Seriously… I do realize that I wilfully inscribe all of that information on the popular website, but really, which part of it is done out of compusion and what is really done in a desire to bring the world closer to our own? Truth is, I think a great number of us have become addicted to the interworld. It has become so easy to make ALL of our friends part of our daily life: we can change our status as often as we want to let them into our heads, post our pictures, invite them to events, message them, and we can even do live-chats with them as we “fake-work” at our desks.

In fact, it has become SO EASY to reach out to everyone, I think it’s starting to have a bit of the opposite effect on our social lives. Instead of calling our good friends to invite them for coffee, we message them or write on their walls. Instead of making private invites to our favorite concerts, we click a few times to share the happenings. Could it BE any less personal? Seriously. I can’t remember the last time a friend actually CALLED me. People don’t invite you to parties, they just expect you to come. Personally, if I get one of those invites to a private party, I’m not very likely to go for the simple reason that I don’t feel that the person inviting me really cares enough about my presence to incite me to go in person… so I figure it’s not really worth much more than a click to “maybe attending”, which usually doesn’t even deserve their bother to twist my arm and convince me to come.

Maybe I ask for too much out of my relationships. That’s actually quite possible and I’m willing to take the blame for that. But really, it’s got me wondering how much of my life is going on virtually. I’m virtually friends with 291 people who can’t even be bothered to call me every once in a while to hear the lovely tone of my voice. I pay a ridiculous amount of money every month just to keep that damn phone active, yet it rarely rings (save one person who actually does call every once in a while because she prefers a 2 minute phone conversation to 15 minutes on FB chat).

Another friend I’ve been trying to chase down for weeks, months even… all she ever does is “poke” me. We never see each other, we never have coffee or beers, we never talk or even so much as cross each other on the street. Are we really friends? Real life friends? Facebook friends? Is there a difference? Because these days I feel like I’m not actually living. I don’t feel lonely because Facebook proves to me every day that I’m not alone and that people actually care about me because they notice my thoughts by clicking that they “like” it, or ask for more info about my strange status updates. However, when I actually want to go out and have a good time, NOTHING. In fact, I think what Facebook really does is that it numbs the loneliness and isolation that we live in, but I don’t feel it actually does anything good to our actual lives because we forget too often that Facebook living is not ACTUALLY living, it’s only VIRTUALLY living.

Why don’t we try to ACTUALLY live anymore? If we’re only living and connecting virtually, we’re not actually living OR connecting with each other. Body language, actual appearance, glances, graciousness of the actual physical being, they’re all lost in that world. All we ever physically see each other for anymore is for sex and booze. Has our world really come to that? And if our worlds are merely words on computer screens anymore, why can’t we even be bothered to spell these words correctly and bless them with the full subtlety of their proper letters (but that’s another matter I won’t get into right now)?

My beef is that in our current “relationships” with the world right now, it has become WAY too easy to not reply, to ignore, to watch and not respond… it’s all so disgustingly passive. Would we really just sit there in front of a friend over a pint of beer and remain absolutely unresponsive to what they’re saying? No, because that would be rude. We need to engage a bit more in order to make these things work, and I think the same delicatesse is definitely required to actual living. I’m not saying that Facebook is wrong, but I AM saying that it’s not life. It lacks so much of all that is essential and delighful about it. And there’s only so much you can experience from the interweb. All I know is that I don’t want my life to be virtual anymore. I want it to be real, to feel real.

So, in an effort to make that happen, I’m saying goodbye to Facebook today. I just hope that the people who really care will still be bright and resourceful enough to find ways to get my phone number or email adress and that they won’t stay numb and limp to my sudden disappearance. After all, if they’re my Facebook friends, it’s because they’ve been my real friends at one point, and I don’t want to shortchange anyone in saying they’re unable to actually do that… I’m just telling them to work a little harder and to live a little before they die. I think I CAN do that, and I hope they will too and decide to join me in the human world.

Elvis Perkins in Dearland @ Il Motore last night

Posted on April 28, 2009

Have you guys noticed how there’s no spring in Montreal? Just winter, then summer. This is a show review, but I take the opportunity to wish you all a happy summer! What’s most fantastic about this time of year is without a doubt the fact that it’s the high point for all you show lovers out there. Maybe you’re a student like me and feel like you’re coming out of a long social coma after all of the exams and papers. To celebrate the arrival of the season, I went to check out Elvis Perkins in Dearland at Il Motore last night. Unfortunately, I got there a little late. It’s a real shame considering how great it was for what I actually saw.

A friend of mine told me about this artist a while back while I was in Moncton. I hadn’t gotten the chance to really listen to his older record I had (Ash Wednesday) until yesterday. Honestly, I had to listen to it at least 5 times to truly understand how great it was. With that I figured it’d be a nice show, but I certainly didn’t expect to walk into a festive packed venue last night. Clearly, I’m the only one who wasn’t aware of this guy’s greatness (if that’s also the case for you, do yourself a favor and pick up his record).

Perkins has a lovely voice and a particular way to shape his vocals. It’s a bit throaty but masterfully controlled and vibrating with a certain lightness that strays for any annoyance this may cause. Though the style certainly isn’t the same, he sort of reminds me of Jeff Buckley, minus all of the defunct’s heart tearing grace. Perkins’ music is passionate, but definitely not shadowed by a deep sadness, hence the style difference between the two. His music is sometimes groovy, sometimes festive, sometimes softer. It’s very original and interesting to hear. Overall, it’s more on the side of Folk-Rock, but with many influences blending into the ordeal.

I’m always a bit uneasy about Folk-Rock shows. I mean it is the type of music I tend to like the most, but as far as live performances go, it usually translates to more stripped down versions of what you’ll hear on the records. That being said, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it takes one heck of a musician to satisfy a public under such circumstances. Since Ash Wednesday, Perkins has taken on the fellowship of Dearland, an excellent group of musicians as well, who spice up the great songwriting with a lot of musically intelligent additions. The result of this is a music that appears to be heavily influenced by the soulful tones of the southern states. While incorporating a variety of sounds and horn instruments as well as superb backup vocals, the show was festive and ended with a carnivalesque song where musicians spilled out of the stage and into the crowd of enthusiastic fans. It felt sort of like a Mardis Gras ending, which left me wanting more.

I’m still terribly sad that I didn’t get to see the whole thing. Would it really be so hard for venues like Il Motore to clearly announce the starting time of their concerts on their website? Sometimes I get there at 9:30 and I’m there way too early, and others I get there at 10:30 and miss most of the show. Perhaps it was announced and I just missed it since a roomful of people clearly didn’t make the same mistake I did.