Moore than meets the eye!

Dear Readers (all like 5 of you),

Here is one example of where FB has actually done the world some good. While the details are sketchy on my end (because I suck at actually talking to people), Christopher and Renee Moore had some shit stuff go down in the last week. They had a fire at their house, lost all of their stuff, and their wonderful albeit infamous cat Warpig, who was a bit of a legend in Kalamazoo. During this what I can only imagine is an awful awful experience, something wonderful has happened: people decided to give a shit. Not only that many people have decided to give TWO shits, and actually do something about said shits.

I have known Chris in a cursory manner for years, I was never really in his circle but obviously being one of the Old Guard of Kzoo, we are aware of one another. I have always known him to be a stand up guy, with a pretty fucking hilarious sense of humor. I will just go ahead and assume his wife is much the same. In either case what happened after this turn of events has warmed my black little heart.

I won’t name names of who really got this all going, but at this point I am sure all will agree that the result is what is important, not the people involved in getting it started. There has been a pretty sizeable outpouring of sympathy and donations almost all of which has been generated via FB, and to boot this was all unprompted and organically generated by their actual friends, without their knowledge. I know that no amount of money is going to really fix what has happened, but I also know that if everybody pitches in, even just a little, it will make a couple of decent people have a better time working through a mess that has landed in their lap. That being said, Please please please go here http://goo.gl/WAQHz and drop off some loot. It all helps and if nothing else the gesture will be a little warm blanket for these two as they work to reassemble their lives together.

Nobody gets unfriended today, as I am feeling a little to sunny about FB right now to be objective and selective. You all get a pass, but I full well expect you to donate in return. Best wishes to Chris and Renee, I hope you are doing a little better as every minute passes. You have friends, even if they aren’t on your friends list.

Today is a great day, but tomorrow will be too if we work at it.

Curt

A man Duh!

Dear Amanda,

You definitely fall in to the category of Kzoo folks that I have zero excuses for not knowing better. It really is inexcusable. You are friends with a bunch of my friends, you frequent (or frequented) the same places as I do (have). Not to mention the various interests/habits/proclivities that I am sure we share. Yup, I am just that much of social paranoid, that even someone who is more or less being slammed into my face repeatedly still manages to elude any kind of substantial contact from me.

Although, all hope is not entirely lost. You appear to be still in Kalamazoo, you have not joined a cult, started breeding, gotten married, or started reading a lot of bukowski, so there is a fairly good chance our will paths cross again, and if for no other reason than I made this post, we will be able to talk. One of the lessons I am slowly learning about this little project is that it kind of gives me some social encouragement to be a better (or atleast louder) person in public.

You always struck me as a pragmatist, and obviously the kind of person of which mess around, one would not. Given that my actual interactions with you have hovered on the periphery of cafes and bars, who am I to say what you are like. I can say that you have never peeved me in the slightest, or even so much has thrown a glance my way that didn’t seem friendly. So again, no excuses for my lack of interaction. I guess I am just a shit, and need to quit.

I will see you around town for sure, and I will make an effort, red faced and all that, to make your acquaintance or further it.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Mr. Smith I presume...

Dear Adam,

Man it seems like you have been gone forever. I can’t actually recall the last time I spoke to you, but I can assume it was at the café, at the bar, with Colonel Mustard, and the candlestick. In anycase, I remember meeting you way back when working the overnight at the café. We had some kind of conversation about Bjork and how you just moved here and what not. You had poofy yellow hair if I remember correctly.

You were always the optimist when you were here, quick with a smile and usually politely argumentative. It was always nice to know all I had to do was bring up an ethics based conversation and the game was afoot. Knowing me, most of the time is was some grandiose blanket statement about the nature of humanity, and you would retort in the negative citing exceptions, then I would backtrack a little with a statement like “clearly there are exceptions” and then towards the end “what the hell do I know anyways.”.

I have seen you get frustrated a few times, but as always you managed to rein it in and maintain composure. To be honest I half expected at some point that your head would explode from the effort. The café is always a hot-bed of idiocy, and on good days I got to be King Tard leader of the shit-spreaders. You however always took the side of patience and consideration. That one should understand the nature of the conversation being had, and not respond unless that response was sound and well considered. Frustrating as that may be, to one as bombastic as I, it was always nice to have a Hobbes to my Calvin in these matters.

All in all I still count you as a friend despite the lack of interaction. You were an irritant some days, as I am certain was I, but some of the best friendships are forged in such ways. I have had next to no contact with you through fb, but that is unsurprising. I assume your unfriending will go unnoticed for a few days, but feel free to send me your email just incase so that we may occasionally compare note should we happen to be in the same area for some reason.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

Don't call me wednesday...it's thursday afterall.

Dear Betsy,

I really wish I could remember exactly where we met, I think it was school and somehow Denise related, but it’s all a blur. Being a fellow weird kid I think we roamed in the same circles for so many years that it just seemed appropriate that we were friends on here. Like some big house party that everyone we know is at, but every one is acting like an asshole talking as loud as they can about themselves and how funny they think LOLcats are.

I really can’t remember any specific times we had together, but I seem to remember talking to you a shit ton of times in various public situations, as if you were some how required to go to where ever I was. I am glad to see you are a mom now, as frankly any kid you raise is bound to off set atleast 3 shitty kids other folks are making.

I am certain that you and I never talked on fb, so I am sure unfriending will be fairly painless for you, again if you even notice it. All the same it was nice having this window in what a normal weird kid can do when they put their minds to it. That’s right I said normal weird kid…deal with it. In any case I will more of less see you around (albeit I am sure less frequently than before what with all the child-rearing and whot not) and when I do I will be sure to toss a nod your way and look for an opening in conversation that won’t make my hands sweat.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt

I'm not in love...I am in like.

Dear Chafe,

You are one of those odd people in my life that despite (or maybe because?) our almost non-existent relationship as people, I still like very much. I have seen you around for what seems like a good 15 years and never in all that time have you ever done anything to make me angry, or question whether or not you are a good person. I know that’s one of those “well that is just what normal people do” scenarios, but really it is an anomaly so far as I can tell.

You are in many ways the rarest of breed of folk. I mean if any of you out there are reading this take a second and honestly think, have you ever met someone who it: talented AND humble, smart AND honest, cool AND loyal. I am sure there are people out there who can fill that particular bill, I just don’t know any right off hand. Talented people are for the most part only humble when around people without their particular talent, some people would call this faux humility but I think its more that when people with talent are around other talented people it dismisses the need for humility…I think. Most smart people I know think that actually being honest is a very difficult and often unpleasant thing, so most of them try to be honest but “within reason”. Lastly I have know a lot of “cool” people over the years…(way to many to be honest) but since being loyal is something that is of little value in today’s culture, most cool people (or insert your favorite word for cool here) see loyalty as an option or a concept not as an actual part of life.

Given what I have said about what little personal interaction I have had with you, how could I possibly know these things? Simple: because most people don’t have those traits and gossip a lot and in all that time, in all the various circles I have wandered in, no one has ever said anything bad about you. In 15 years. Gossip cannot be trusted, but lack of gossip I think is an affirmation in many cases. Not to mention everytime I have had contact with you it has been a pleasant experience and you always have nice and constructive things to say to me on the ol’ FB. Which is one reason my MASSIVE massive ego is loathe to unfriend you. Never-the-less here we are.

Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,

Curt