networthing: residue of design.
robin wrote a post on her blog that i am commenting on here because her site offers no comments opportunities. branch rickey, famed baseball executive was on point when he said, “luck is the residue of design.” i have been designing and defining my friendships for a lifetime. luck would have it, i get to play with the incredibles. welcome to part three of the networthing trilogy.
back up. everyone in my family extends themselves to others. i am no different. i treat my friends like i treat my family (and shamefully, sometimes better). my parents are the most gracious hosts. no guest enters my mom’s home without being offered a drink in the first two minutes...a habit i've picked up. mom always has snackage on hand and will cook you a meal if you even mention being hungry. after school, friends tired of instant mac and cheese often hung around till dinnertime. my parents were already feeding five so why not a few others? when guests leave, my parents always thank them for their company and we do this too. out the door the last thing you'll hear from me is, "thanks for coming over to play with us," and i mean it. i’ll thank you for a few other things too like bringing over drinks and whatever else to share. pierre in santa monica has taken this to another level, teasing me when he leaves, thanking me for silly things like quality smokes and clean air.
connect through common ground. i used to collect stickers. from sweet sandra boynton to gross-out garbage pail kids along with powell peralta skate stickers, i used to covet them in photo albums. now that i’m 31, i’m actually peeling them and using them on letters, postcards and note cards. but then…then…they sat in a book i would pull out and often gloat over. i felt a need to communicate my sticker enthusiasm with my first attempt at a zine. i created a sticker zine (mainly xeroxed copy of my stickers) and would send it to pen pals from far away. we would write letters back and forth having found each other in some sticker magazine. as time passed, and interest waned, letters would be more infrequent, eventually coming to an end.
telephone. i was a rabid telephone addict having owned my first mobile phone in 1992. this may explain for some of today's synapse misfires. but now, i save phone conversations for birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. back then i would track you down through your parents if i lost your number. i’d talk to you at least once a year if it killed me. i needed to know how you were growing up. i don't love the phone so much anymore but i still love to hear your voice.
snail mail. grown up with friends stretched far and wide, i would religiously send out newsletters updating you on my life, etc. attached would be a color xerox of recent photos. me in london wearing red vinyl pants and an x-girl fleece top, me at a bar with girlfriends, me, doing stupid me things. i would send you these updates bi-annually.
internet. thanks to the internet i spend part of my day talking to virtual strangers. this phenomenon i have practiced for nearly a decade. without the time lag, we can communicate more frequently and grow together as our old interests fail us. the internet also allows us to find one another. in september, ostap submitted photos to my fakefunk jump project. we briefly talked via email. last week, on a separate occasion, yen ha wrote me a personal email regarding my blog. ostap and yen ha run a super fine design studio in soho. friends and partners found me online through two different websites. we share friends in common but have never met. and we are going to consummate our friendship by celebrating the lunar new year together at the end of the month. small world? mine is.
success in one example: the wayne chain. in 1996 i stumbled upon the very un-pc laugh-outloud skate webzine, blairmag. high off my sassy mag lessons in life, i ended up emailing the founders. it was easy to meet dynamic duo, richard and bryan because they loved attention. through blairmag i eventually met wayne, a contributor. this internet introduction has yielded dr. richard’s writing me a letter of recommendation for my co-op interview and wayne giving me recommendations of a different kind. through wayne i have met peter, heidi, sean, justin and jane and through them i have met alaina, anil, robin, brian, anne, ben, pinky, egg, nick and ryan and through them i have met lulu, atman and jonathan. no doubt this chain is still growing. the exchange also goes both ways with my friends jee, miguel, chris and others-without-websites mingling with the posse above. this is only one chain of dozens. all these people participate in my life today. and it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the internet and our youthful carefree acceptance of others.
the cycle continues. i make new friends at the corner store, the drive-thru, the sidewalk. strangers have been invited over to our home on more occasions than i can remember. i met silvio, my partner-in-crime on a thursday and i invited him over for a friday bbq. he showed up and never left. my nervous friends were concerned that i had given my house keys to someone i barely knew. "what if you come home and all your stuff is stolen?" they asked. my response, "i don't live my life worrying about those kinds of things. shit happens…if it happens, i'll live." it's been nearly 8 years that we've been together. i welcome everybody into my life the same way i welcomed silvio. you wonder, have i ever been burned? sure i have. because there are evil, manipulative motherfuckers out there. i don't worry too much about these people because once you expose yourself for who you truly are, you're out. forever. you're nothing to me and you'll get your payback. and i say this with true socal love, if you're going to put out some bad vibes, that's all you're going to get back. so i spend my time giving out the good stuff.
what and how. stranger. aquaintance. friend. so-called-strangers generally pass the acquaintance stage after our first face-to-face rendezvous and eventually become true friends. it's that simple. seriously, meeting people is easy. it's only as hard as you make it. got a long list of criteria for friendship? you'll have a tougher time. want to talk to everybody about anything? you'll find friendship success in spades.
if you’re meeting someone for insincere reasons you’ll never form a true friendship with that person. living in new york, i meet many people in many places. some want my rolodex and they think they’re being clever. imbeciles. it’s not what you want but how you want it. i will give out my contacts to those who do not ask. and i will help you hoping you will help others. don’t make a friend because you think their going to hook you up somehow. don’t network to build your net worth.
jokingly, i’Il ask friends how many people would bail them out in extraneous circumstances. most say, one to three. i want to believe that all my friends would be there for me should something devastating happen. that’s a quality i look for in everyone i befriend. it’s not instant but it should develop over time. a regular scenario: i had a girlfriend and her boyfriend come over to my house at 4 am to settle a spat. not more than 12 hours later, i was asked to emergency babysit. i am listed as the emergency contact for at least a dozen people and when friends holiday, they leave me their itinerary, cc:d along with their moms! my karma bank is growing and i’ve had to cash in myself. people, this is how it works. don’t go helping others looking for help yourself. do it because you want too and in the end you’ll get it when you need it.
i don't believe in meeting people just to meet them. i want to hear a story from everybody. i want you to help me, find our common ground. i want you to teach me something new. i believe everybody has a story. sean once argued that maybe every story’s not worth telling. although i see some truth in that statement, i feel maybe the story was always good but the delivery was bad. telling stories is a skill. my friend todd is a great storyteller. put him in a room full of strangers and it’s awesome to watch the magic happen. for almost any topic, he has a story to contribute. he trades stories for laughs…todd is looking for new stories to exchange and makes friends doing it. storytellers are the people i seek most. show it to me in your art, in your work, and in your life. show me you are making new stories.
my friendster list is big but not ridiculous. i do reject requests. to be my friendster, you have to possess at least one of these three requirements: 1) be in my cell phone rolodex, 2) have come over for game night, and/or 3) have shared your long-distance life with me for some time (we'll meet eventually). simple rules for a complex life. with a medium like friendster, it’s easy to see who i am connected too. i grow bored with these applications seeking out friendship the traditional way. rather than check list our similarities i look for things i am not knowing of, and hope that you will teach me. or i look for work you've posted online that interests me. again, this is how you build stories.
share. open-minded and open-hearted the people who share my life also share their homes. robin mentioned her want for having a cozy space to let friends feel welcomed, “In many ways, I think I've deliberately designed it to welcome newcomers and to encourage them to return as friends.” word. i couldn’t have said it better. three weeks after i met robin, i was presented with an opportunity to race a toyota scion cross country for tokion magazine. robin, offered us a place to stay should we drive through chicago. bryan, who i’d met the same day as robin, extended his tech knowledge with gps systems.
hotel hp is always booked. we have allowed people to stay in our home we’d only met once…at a party! and those very same people, have in return opened up their homes in faraway lands to us. not only welcoming us, but our friends who traveled at later dates. we rarely spend money on lodging in most of the cities we visit. even in the most cramped spaces, we are told, we are not allowed. jee gives up her apartment entirely when we’re in san francisco. she’ll go shack up somewhere else so we can have her home to ourselves. that’s some serious mi casa sou casa! home is where the heart is.
man, share the wealth and spread the love. can’t wait till we round up.
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