Infinite Earths, or the Facebook Effect

My two-week visit to NYC last month made me realize more than ever how many different MMLs I’ve been in my 38 years. If I called it the Facebook Effect then maybe you’ve noticed it about yourself (presuming you’re on Facebook): all the different people you’re connected to from all your different jobs or schools or friends of friends… You’re always just a click away from someone who has a completely different idea of who you are than the next FB friend.

In America weeks ago, I saw dancin-ass singer (and ol college classmate) Mark Darkfeather and my ol Truman High homie Carla up in the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors art exhibit, and ended up at Cafeteria with Carla; ran into old coworkers from Tower Video (I was 19) and Vibe (I was 28) at the Apollo’s Labelle show; had a late dinner with high school chums Reggie and Ivan with Brooklyn renaissance writer emeritus Michael A. Gonzales up in Harlem; saw singer-songwriter Sun Singleton (3x fast?) of the 90s hiphop media clusterfuck, poet Mtkalla Keaton and keyboardist Tjade Graves from the Brooklyn Moon days, and FB delight DJ Crystal Clear all for my Sly Stone reading at Barbès in Park Slope; crossed Oz actor muMs from the old Avant Yard days at Cozy Soup n Burger in the Village (me & the missus were exiting, he was entering) on our collective b’earthday.

I’m normally a pretty segmentary cat. Meaning: I’ve had friends for years who never met each other because I always spent one-on-one time with them and they never crossed paths. Why? Dunno. When my first book release party went down four years ago up in the Bowery Poetry Club, and loads of people from different areas of my life started showing up at Barnes & Noble readings, I felt like I was attending my own funeral. Like how Crisis on Infinite Earths squoze together the superheroes from all the Earth-1/Earth-2/Earth-Z/etc. universes into one adventure? My social life has become the ill-ass mashup.

Anyway, I wouldn’ta blogged about it, but it seems that a lot of people are probably tasting quite a bit of this these days via Facebook. Or MySpace. Or (snicker) Friendster. How does it feel for y’all? Me, I’m just havin a “whoa, I’m 38, I been a buncha different MMLs” moment.