I think there might be more truth to this than any one of us realize. Things seem so big these days, the sense of community is fading in ways. I came to Hubski cause Reddit is massive. I only go to cars and coffee on rainy and cold days cause it's easier to talk about the ten cars that showed up than it is to wander around and gawk at the 70+ that show up on a good day. Churches in this city are seemingly huge and impersonal. On and on it goes. Can you imagine how some people must feel, to long for a sense of community and not known that that's what they're looking for? Makes me wish someone could create some kind of LFG database modeled after a dating website or something.
That's really well put. So many of us long for that solidarity. Recently Michael Chabon, an author, in an entirely unrelated topic, concludes an essay with what I think is relevant to your point. Context: the author's thirteen year old son Abe wound up enjoying Paris's Fashion Week way more than his dad, who was the one supposed to be covering it. The trip is ending, and his son is mysteriously upset: Two days and five shows later Abe arrived, late, for the Off-White show. He had been melancholy all day, and now, as we arrived to find the show halfway over, he sank even further. I felt badly; I had kept us too long at the previous show, Paul Smith. After the show ended, Abe caught sight of Virgil Abloh backstage, but the designer was surrounded by press and fans. He nodded and smiled at Abe, but they didn't get the chance to speak again. Fashion Week was over. It was time to go home. “I don't want to go home,” Abe said. “I know,” I said. “Paris is fun.” “It's not that.” “It's been so exciting for you,” I suggested. “You don't want it to end.” “Yeah. No, it's not that.” “What's wrong?” I said. “Tell me, buddy.” But he didn't want to talk about it. We rode in a taxi back to our rented apartment in the 12th Arrondissement. Abe slowly packed up his clothes and laid out the jeans and T-shirt that he planned to wear on the flight home. He grew more silent and sank even deeper into whatever was eating him. He grew tearful. We had an argument. I was tired of fashion and fashion shows. I could only feel that I had had enough and that I wanted to leave and be done. It was hard for me to imagine feeling any other way. “We had a good time,” I said. “You got to do a lot of fun things and meet cool people. You got some nice things to wear. You were in Paris. Now it's time to go home. Come on.” “I don't want to go back,” he said. “We'll come back to Paris. When you grow up, you can live here.” “It's not Paris. It's not the clothes.” “What is it?” “The Pigalle show,” he said. “That was your favorite. I wish I'd gone.” He looked at me, a funny expression on his face. I realized that the reason he'd had such a great time that night was because I had not been present. I had not been his father, or his friend, this past week. I had only been his minder. I was a drag to have around a fashion show, and because I could not enter fully into the spirit of the occasion, neither could Abe. He was worrying about me, watching me, wondering if I was having a good time or not, if I thought the shaggy Muppet pants, for example, were as stupid as the look on my face seemed to suggest. “It wasn't the show, really,” I suggested as his eyes filled with tears. “Was it? It was the people you were with, the GQ guys, the buyers, that dude who owns Wild Style.” “They get it,” he said. “They know everything about all the designers, and the house, and that's what they care about. They love to talk about clothes. They love clothes.” You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you and if you are lucky they even, on occasion, manage to understand you. And that ought to be enough. But it is never enough. Abe had not been dressing up, styling himself, for all these years because he was trying to prove how different he was from everyone else. He did it in the hope of attracting the attention of somebody else—somewhere, someday—who was the same. He was not flying his freak flag; he was sending up a flare, hoping for rescue, for company in the solitude of his passion. “You were with your people. You found them,” I said. He nodded. “That's good,” I said. “You're early.”Can you imagine how some people must feel, to long for a sense of community and not known that that's what they're looking for?
Something I've noticed: My grandparents (b. 1910s) and their generation were big joiners. Masons, DAR, you name it. Church, obviously. My parents (b. 1940s) and their generation were less so. I mean, lots of participation in college - Peace Corps, SDS - but it dropped off to nothing as they get older. My generation (b. 1970s) joined fuckall. Sure - Younglife, CCC in HS and college but after that there's almost nothing outside of maybe that fantasy football league. nothing. We are loners and we are sad and that's just the fucking way it is. Clubs are those things your grandparents did. Pesky whipper snappers (b. 1990s) appear to be turning it around. I mean, meetup.com was an attempt to monetize an urge that my generation would have fucking starved on the vine. You're younger than me by a fair sight and here you are, longing to be a part of something enough to ask after it. Us GenXers? That's something pussies do. I think the pendulum is starting to swing the other way. I'm still too goddamn ironic to appreciate a "record club." But guys young enough I could be their dad? They're fuckin' into it and they don't even feel self-conscious about it. I've got an open invitation to join a motorcycle club. Maybe I oughtta.
I've been thinking of starting a record club out of my apartment for months now. Record nights are the best. Or just, physical media nights in general. Ahhh remembering when Hubski would have turntable.fm sessions. Those were fun.
the dream that wasn't When I first started pointing towards moving to LA I thought I was going to go to the Peter Stark Producer's Program at USC. Which would have worked out okay - $180k in debt notwithstanding - because my buddy had an apartment at 29th and Western, deep in the 'hood (a shallower 'hood than my current 'hood but there are still boards up from the LA Riots of '91), part of a weird, sprawling complex owned by one of his buddies who sometimes showed up on Lost. The unit I was going to occupy had no windows, but it was huge. Probably 30 feet by 100 feet. One giant open hole, brick walls, total darkness. That was gonna be my movie club. I had the projector. I had the speakers. I had the processor. It was going to be a big, righteous hang-out place for all my new student buddies, something with a big screen and a popcorn machine and a soda machine full of beer sold at cost. And I was going to screen a movie or two a week and invite anyone and everyone and that would be my new social group, all the young movers and shakers of hollywood, all our bright futures combined together, and it was going to be awesome. And then I didn't get into the Stark, and then the apartment went to a friend of the actor, and then I ended up hanging out with the people who would have hired those fresh'n'shiny new Stark graduates and I saved $180k. I lived in a shithole in North Hollywood but drive-bys and gang wars notwithstanding it was an objectively better neighborhood. But I still want that room. And I still want to do movies. All I need is an excuse. The birth center has a 55" screen and a 5.1 system. It'll only seat a dozen or so but I have every intention of organizing "new parents" evenings of sports or movies or whatever with little young'uns crashed out in the offices. Of course, that'll be for them, not for me.
It's hard to pinpoint what feelings that's bringing up. Has it been disappointing to you that that room hasn't been realized yet? Or won't in the way you originally envisioned? Going back to steve's 3 Questions about not being afraid to do something, or really just the things that stop somebody from doing something, why not start that room and club out of the shithole in North Hollywood? This is turning into me interviewing you for #thehumancondition so, sorry about that.
... There's a part of me that mourns the future that died. I mean, "run off and go to film school" was a plan that would have allowed me to have the college experience I wanted - one with subjects that weren't boring, with classes full of people who spoke English, with subjects that might have even had a girl or two. And it was a pedigree into a new industry that would have allowed me to pursue artistic and rewarding projects from the top down - I mean, you can't beat that degree in Hollywood, or so I thought. My first week working in Hollywood I found out that the PA who made the coffee had a Master's from the Stark and he's long since gone so in the end, I dodged a mutherfucker of a bullet. But I never made those friends. And I never had those evenings. And here's the thing - a college student among college students is one thing. I mean I would have been outgunned outclassed and outmanned by the whole of the student body of USC because nobody poor goes there. Period. But my peers without the "school" connection? They own horses. They collect motorcycles. I ended up meeting the folx that have been succeeding in Hollywood for 20 years, not the guys just getting started last week, and they sure as fuck aren't going to suffer through some shitty movie night in some shitty apartment in fuckin' North Hollywood. My peeps have pools, son. But they're my peeps. They came to my housewarming. We ride motorcycles. We eat steaks. And they're all in LA. Most everyone I knew in Seattle moved away while I was gone. My peer group is much diminished. And gentle reminder - Seattle is the city where our fuckin' hubski meetup fell through. It's one thing to join a group. It's a whole 'nuther thing to found one. And I can dream and I can plan but no matter how much of a social maestro I pretend to be, I'm also handicapped by the fact that I'm not even going to fucking be there for half the year. Sometimes "aloof" is more than a state of mind. It's a logistical necessity.
I'm gonna head to that part of town this week, the one with the bars and coffee shops all the students go to, where the wife and I used to go before we realized how nice a regimented sleep schedule really is. I'll check their bulletin boards. Maybe I'll find something. That motorcycle club? It might have a dude or two that would love your insight on their new to them '90s Honda. :)