Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Facebook And My Private War Against Cable

This is an article that argues that those who refuse to join Facebook are being snooty and refusing to adapt to the future. In December a friend of the family died who had never had either a cell phone, an answering machine, and indeed had only rotary phones in his house. He did not miss them.

So it is with Facebook. Of late many friends and family have implored me to get on Facebook. I have explained that my net prescence is such that anyone can find me by googling my name (if they know it). Moreover, when first asked to join by an over 40 news gatherer I replied "Should I get pierced and acquire a tattoo as well?" Facebook and its accolytes strike me as creepy. Like the Invasion of the Body Snatcher's pod people it is not just that they want to do it but that they insist you do it to. I also am not one who needs old acquaintences popping up unnanounced.

Which leads me to the JJV family's private war against cable. Years ago the cable man came to Greenwich during the dinner hour. My mother was so offended by this (and T.V you had to pay for) that she swore she would never get cable. And we never did.

I adopted this family prejudice and also never got cable. The 70's dissapeared. The 80's came and went. The Bush administration passed. The first Clinton administration was in the rearview mirror. My mother relented and got cable. Years later, for what I thought would be a brief time, I moved in with a friend on the Hill. A man unlikely to deny himself trendy pleasures he inexplicably had cable! (Apparently many people in the voluptuary environs of the midwest where he grew up had cable before it was trendy).

On Saturday mornings, sometimes hungover, I would watch the Cajun Chef, which is very soothing. Medicinal, you might say. There were 24 hour news shows. ESPN beckoned with late night polo matches and and excitable Europeans yelling Gooooooaaaaalllll!!! once during a confusing and boring game of some kind. D.C. did not allow comedy central but there were also always movies on, particulary Ted Turners AMC for which he will be pardoned all sins when he dies. I have never lived without cable since. After twenty years my private war against cable ended.

If Facebook is still around in 20 years, and circumstances conspire against me, perhaps I will again relent. But I will go down fighting. Facebook, non pasan.


Update: The comments will inform you I confused AMC (commercials) with TCM(no commercials). I differ with the blog master on Turner's eternal punishment for colorization given that he desisted in the face of Jimmy Stewart, Katherine Hepburn and a number of classic hollywood types (I believe Maureen O'Hara testified that John Wayne would have had him shot). Here is a statement on what happened on the issue: http://www.bellaonline.com/ArticlesP/art39913.asp

16 comments:

J. said...

I bet you would look hot with a piercing and tattoo (or two), JJV. Maybe a heart with "Reagan" or "Newt"... Sex-ay.

As for Facebook, I resisted, too, for a while, feeling I was too old. Then got lured by a friend who would only post pictures on Facebook. Now I only post my semi-nude photos on Facebook.

Btw, I think you mean TCM = Turner Classic Movies, which I am a big fan of, too, though I think Robert Osborne can be pompous/fatuous.

jjv said...

Yes, TCM late night blogging error. And if you think that's the only place with semi-nude photos of you on the web you are shockingly misinformed.

Dave S. said...

I will go on record to say that JJV's extraordinary network of social contacts renders Facebook usage superfluous to him. Back when we were in the "marrying demographic" there was scarcely a weekend when he was not attending some wedding or another, and not in the Wilson/Vaughn manner either.

For the rest of us, however, it's pretty useful.

J. said...

Wilson/Vaughn? Inside baseball, gents?

And I so know I am going to regret this but, What are you talking about, JJV? The "semi-nude" comment was a JOKE. If there is some website out there with a "semi-nude" picture of me on it, the pic is a fake and the site must be incredibly lame.

Dave S. said...

Not so much inside baseball as Wedding Crashers. Re the second topic, all I can say is that Photoshop has a steeper learning curve than I first thought.

J. said...

I knew "Wilson/Vaughn" sounded familiar. Funny.

As to the second point, wouldn't it have a less steep learning curve if lots of people are using it?

Will await the web list from JJV...

Dave S. said...

Sorry, JJV, Turner's going straight to Hell for colorization. (I'm sure you'll overcome your disappointment.) I tried to figure out which circle he belongs in but there are several possibilities.

jjv said...

Ah, but with the help of Jimmy Stewart and others colorization was stopped in large part, removing the occassion of sin.

Dave S. said...

As a strict Cinema Catholic, I believe that only the intercession of Barry Fitzgerald or Bing Crosby may remove the occasion of sin.

EMM said...

I'm not 100% sold on my life being enhanced by being on Facebook.

I lived for 10 years in my apartment w/out cable and I never felt left out. We did not get cable growing up until I was a sophmore in high school.

If it weren't for cable/MTV, I'd still be a heavy metal girl with big hair...probably never would have left upstate NY. For that I'm grateful.

EMM said...

By grateful, I only mean that I'm grateful to have expanded my musical likes and for no longer having the big hair of my youth. As the future Junior Senator from NY, I did not mean to insult my Upstate people.

Anonymous said...

Lest J be alarmed by the reference to semi-nude photos, I will jump into the gutter from JJV's moral high ground. (It wasn't very far to drop). I assume that JJV is referring to the common understanding that there are two kinds of people: those who appear semi-nude on the internet and those who will. As reference, I cite "passim." Alternatively, you can swing a virtual dead cat and see what turns up.

J. said...

Thanks Anonymous. I think. I tried swinging a live cat once. Wasn't pretty. Hey, as long as the Photoshopper made me look good and gave me breasts, I'm (somewhat) OK with it. ; ) Just curious who would waste his time...

Anonymous said...

It seems the Pope has similar misgivings as JJV re: facebook:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/23/pope-warns-against-obsess_n_160283.html

Anonymous said...

bah - i tried to guess how to code that so the link worked = epic fail. I'm out of my element. Dave, enlighten me!

Anonymous said...

Like JJV (shudder) my mother refused to get cable ("You watch enough television already!") until some years after I graduated from college (which really pissed my sister, brother and I off). I lived cable free, never feeling left out, until my marriage. Wonderful Husband having dragged me out of NYC to South Jersey, I insisted on retaining full cable, even purchasing special sports packages, so that I could watch the St. John's basketball games aired for free in NYC (channel 11, woo hoo!). The infection has gone deeper though -- I now have TIVO also, helping me pull the best of cable offerings out for myself.

BTW, currently reading Obama's Dreams of My Father book. Turns out in junior high/high school, his daily after school routine involved watching cartoons/sitcom reruns until dinner, watching prime time after dinner with his grandfather, and then watching Carson (which aired at 10 in Hawaii) on his bedroom TV. So, as I say to my TV-hating boss, "And he became President!"

MLR (can't remember my google password!!!)