FACEBOOK

I'm at the kitchen table of the R.V. Which is also Johns convertible bed and the curried rice were hosing down after a 22 mile day is spicy in all the right ways. Were bullshitting, eating while the ripping motors from the 15 zoom constant behind the Valero Gas Station were homed behind for the night. I'm exhausted. We all are. I think it's Sunday but days are losing relevance in the best possible way.

I pour some more hot sauce on my rice, it's the cure all to bad food and a blessing to the good. In tonight's case a blessing. SNL is blaring from Hulu on our Mac Book Pro but our Wireless VZW 5 spot WiFi is too slow because were out of 3G range and the HD runs at too high a rate. God the problems we face traveling across the country.

The crew starts discussing some guy who I know I should know but I don't know who or why I should know him and when I ask I'm met with a glare by all.

"He wrote social network?"

"Oh he did that..." I reply calmly. I'm still on a bet that I make it through the day without making a single joke which is giving me stroke like convulsions at almost every instant. The group is beginning to invent games to distract us on 22 mile days walking through desolation California with the same old poetic train alongside us, keeping it's beauty but losing it's appeal as the tracks again disappear into the horizon at another breathtaking sunset. My head rambles in thoughts of all directions and I think...

There is an evaporating America that no one sees. Tweetless country folk with nothing to update, finding joy in their personal freedoms and could care less who you are or what you do so long as we help each other out.

The weather is an amazing conversation starter in strange areas and an inexplicable means of commonality because who the hell really knows? And if it's hot to you then it is or isn't to me and that is something we can talk about. The winter Mojave is filled with abandoned towns and nothing villages, pieces of places, gas stations that take pride and a struggling fraternity of "what is, is." Its been two weeks and the only kind of people we've encountered are the kind that pull over on the road to ask if you're o.k.

"Yeah were fine. Thank you so much" I say in a tepid pre dusk eve to a man in a mustache with a four wheeler in the back of his neon blue pick up and a dog on his lap, a Docson Chihuahua mix named Bailey. We talk to him for twenty minutes about life, about the film, about old Native American tools found in the desert and he's loving every second of it as much as we are. I run to get the camera. He says his name is Rodger and A.J. Tells him about why we are walking and he takes a breath, puts deodorant on "for the camera" and says something like:

" Now Im not Gay. That's just something I'm not. I cant do it. But I'll tell you what, I have to believe, you don't choose it. You are who you are-Ill tell you, I do business with Gay men, interior designers, and boy are they fantastic. They're the best. so who am I to say that it ain't human?"This is the America I am just beginning to discover.

So, Facebook ( Which should always meta for Twitter, Myspace,IMDB, Friendster, Grinder, Match, Eharmony, okcupid, Adam meet Adam, and all the other literal millions of these social car bombs), The Facebook Movie...

"Yeah I didn't see it."

"it's a good movie"
"yeah really good"

See, I just don't care. I'm lost in my head from the experience I have already had in two weeks walking from Venice Beach to now Baker, which has the worlds largest thermometer for a reason, I'm lost in my thoughts, too much to write, even more to take in. The mind thrives in simple living.

I already know what Facebook is. I do participate. Why? Because I'm not ready to move to a log cabin yet, though a 1996 Ford Tioga 28 Ft RV is becoming pretty close to the same thing. In my profession you have to adapt to the times, even if you feel out of the time like I usually do. I understand the gift of mass messaging, connection, staying in touch, all the yada yada and agreed positives. But what happens in a generation when people don't know how to speak anymore? How to write? Out here I wonder has the love letter gone? Where is that lost art? I think tomorrow is Valentine's day...

Our times? my generation? I don't get it, I don't understand what's going on right now. I know every era is important and taxes were always to high and the president is a moron and he's brilliant but this technology, the rate of information being passed at at near light speed, the dirt being dished, the money being made from it, the on and in and in and in and complexities of it all. Our advancements are happening faster than we are but are so user friendly no one stops to realize what is actually happening. Just one click of a button and you are a different person. It must be understood that Facebook is a tool, a connecting resource, not a lifestyle. And yet with Twitter everyone thinks they are a celebrity. There aren't many places to "check in" out here.

Coast to coast the search for fame...I'll get into that in a bit or maybe later.

Until now I have lived in New York. Movie tickets are at eleven bucks minimum and that's if you buy from the computer at a senior discount weekend rate. So I, like most New Yorkers, shh its our secret, Only go to movies where stuff blows up and the aliens invade and it's in space at the middle of the earth during a zombie holocaust war with disease breaking out and the semi trucks are gigantic robot weapons from outer space trying to discover the fountain of youth which is all a dream inside an insane asylum and the entire time kaboom! With slow motion action scenes and shrieking sound effects starring Angelina Jolie and Justin Bieber and a CGI version of Jeff Bridges twenty five years ago and it's produced by everybody and in IMAX 3D HD. I pay to see stuff blow up. The good stuff? I wait till I can watch in Solace.

Facebook...ugh.

My only interest in seeing the Facebook movie was to set my Blackberry to ring only for Facebook updates, all the while facebooking, which I believe is now an accepted word and will find it's way to Websters. And my Facebooking, causing light and constant noisy response on my phone, would interrupt the rest of the movie experience during this important drama, with the hopeful end result being my removal from The theatre by the security staff, for Facebooking.

I had to work the Friday night it came out. Shame

Facebook...

Ok, With no mention of names, here is the first and most random wall post I can find while scanning my "friends". This message was left on a public profile, for all to see. This is...everything.

I quote Post:


"k sooooo I've been drinking since 11:30am and I AM NOT an alcoholic, so you can imagine what mental state I'm in. I just had a really really rough night and day!!! Ex-BF crap. He was texting taimie over 40 text messages to her alone, with threats. You know how crazy he is and I don't take his threats lightly. My nerves are on end and well....... I've had a few cocktails today. hee hee. We need to have our spaghetti night with miss smelly and roscoe and rilley and kitty.I'm gonna bring my old movies, so you can watch them!! have a great night.....xoxox"

Facebook...