Ok, so the title has a dual meaning:

a) a tongue-in-cheek reference to the one and only Social D., the only band worth listening to while downing a liter of cheap vodka (not that I would know such things);
b) the dizzy feeling one experiences while travelling in numerous social networks (more on this later)

But first, I want to talk about my bed. Oh yeah, baby, MY super-comfy, overstuffed, pillow-top havin’, custom-made-sheets needin’  Kingsdown mattress, bought on Ebay from a guy in Newport News for $400 when the Mattress Giant down the road was asking a ridiculous $1600. All that was needed was some patience, a cargo van, enlisting the help of my dad and my brother, and some deft maneuvering to get it up three flights of stairs, and now every evening I’m sleeping in bliss and waking up well-rested. To hell with those silly chiropractors and their hard-ass mattress recommendations. We’re talking maximal REM, regenerative sleep. I don’t think my back is turning into a pretzel anytime soon. Anyway it can’t be worse than my old mattress — Oh — my — gawd.

Also bought an MP3 player — NOT an iPod (a heresy, I know, Steve Jobs will have my head) — I got a Creative Zen Touch, 40 GB. Haven’t used it much yet, still looking for a chunk of time to upload my music.

I got an invitation from Sonya this weekend to join the Friendster network, sort of a six-degrees-of KevinBacon thing where you link up to a social network, friends-of-friends-of-friends and then what I’m not too sure? But it was pretty cool to find some people I haven’t talked to in a while, particularly the Hightstown, NJ-area crew from high school days (Andy, Corinne, Dan, Jeff, Pam, Paul — if you make your way to here — welcome and read this post — you were all in my heart when I wrote it).

I then read up on Friendster itself, some commentary, reviews etc. and all of them mentioned its nearest competitor, MySpace. I know MySpace because my brother’s band, the Hero Pattern (ROCKS) has a site there (with new music checkitout!!) and so I signed up for that too.

So now I have a sort of AIM-ICQ-MSN-Friendster-MySpace-Typepad-blogosphere-Sidekick-email-snail-mail- telephone-telegraph hyper-linked hyper-connected full-on social distortion. And I love it. It’s a great ride, if a wee bit nauseating afterwards, but what great rides aren’t?  Paris Hilton eat your heart out.

In my last post, I referenced 10 other blogs via Blogger’s "Next page" feature. Of course, I hyperlinked as well, which led to a chance encounter with Joao ("Exacto") from Portugal, who saw my post and replied on his blog ("10 segundas da fama"). Which was cool. It’s nice to feel a part of something larger, global even, though it’s a personal thing at its heart. So it’s global and personal at the same time. Kinda sweet. I need to reach out more. Traverse the blogosphere at the speed of fiber-optic matter. And bring on the Social D. In vertigo I shall be …

"Good morning. And if I don’t see you again … good afternoon, good evening, and good night."

I’m sitting here on Sunday night watching the Truman Show on TBS. And just thinking about the phenomenon of broadcasting one’s life to the entire world. Isn’t that what bloggers involuntarily do to ourselves? No great mass media gods pulling our strings, but we still trasmit the details our lives for the entire world to see. The difference, of course, is in distribution. While millions of people watched Truman Burbank go through the motions, how many people read praxis88? I don’t know exactly. Maybe 5-10 people regularly, then whoever gets referenced from another place (Shelly’s imintexas, for example) and then whoever happens upon the space, — one space among literally millions all over the networked world.

Want to do something fun? Give someone their 15 seconds of fame? Go to any blog hosted by Blogger (these generally have the URL "[whatever].blogspot.com" — I recommend Shelly’s of course) and click on the button on the right hand side of the bar running across the top of the page called "Next Blog." Do this 10 times and see what comes up …

Here’s what I got:

1) Wacana Latihan Guru (http://mamcom.blogspot.com) — does anyone in the house read Malay? Anyone? OK, next.
2) Aaron Heath Blog (http://aaronheath.com/blogs/aaronheath) — from Adelaide, Australia. Aaron likes WWE wrestling, Formula 1, Green Day, and his iPod.
3) Chapter Thirteen (http://chapterthirteen13.blogspot.com) — "Tomato" seems like your average kid, talking about school and summer camp. But I think this kid’s from Singapore?  Judging by some of his references and contacts.
4) ??? (http://renedecarteshk.blogspot.com) — in Chinese, I assume. A nice cityscape of Hong Kong halfway down the page.
5) Year of Rat (http://morenursingnotes.blogspot.com) — The first non-Australasian page, from good ol’ St. Louis USA in fact, and it’s called "Year of Rat." Go figure.
6) you are my biggest fan … (http://divabella.blogspot.com) — Probably the nicest one so far. A music student in Toronto. Cute too.
7) AnnieG (http://anniegdreams.blogspot.com) — This girl seems pretty interesting. A filmmaker. Speaks Italian too? Also from Canada.
8) Exacto (http://exacto.blogspot.com) — João from Portugal. A man who likes wine, women, and song. Not necessarily in that order :-)
9) Forward Ever (http://forwardever.blogpsot.com) — Tomas, an activist from San Francisco who exposes "Runner’s World" magazine, among other things.
10) Homespun Headlines (http://homespunheadlines.blogspot.com) — Ralph, forester from Colorado. Check out this guy’s post about stealing condiment cups from restaurants. Funny …

Wow. That was fun. I’ve been doing this for three hours. Truman Show ended an hour ago. Jim Carrey has found the door at the end of the ocean. And I’m safe in the knowledge that I’m a mere speck in the global blogosphere, where we all get 15 seconds to let our dim lights shine.

I remember it being around 1979. I was six years old. My family had just moved from Illinois to New Jersey and the two-story house was still new and immense. Everything was decked out in 70’s orange and brown. My dad occupied a small room in the corner of the downstairs, where he kept his office desk, his beer, and most important, his record player and albums. I remember being told not to touch them. It did seem like a fragile apparatus, the mechanized swing arm that brought the needle onto the disc at just the right spot in the grooves. I also remember two records that were played quite often. The first was the Beatles’ Help! The second was Judy Collins. I remember hearing that thing more often than I could count. I don’t remember if I actually liked it. I didn’t know what I liked in music at that point. I only knew what I knew, what was familiar to me in this house in the suburbs. It was only later that I would get a cassette player of my own (the coolest thing ever by the way, because you could make your own cassettes, something you couldn’t do with records) and joined Columbia House 12 for 1 and ended up with all the 80’s top 40, Steve Winwood, Billy Ocean, and Wang Chung money could buy. And onward from there into cheese metal, thrash, ska, punk, techno, etc etc … but it all started with Judy Collins. Of all people.

So how bizarre was it to walk into the Safeway at 1:00 AM on Saturday night, looking for a late-night snack, and to hear the night crew piping in AOR radio over the loudspeakers, treating my ears to a rendition of "Send in the Clowns" by god-knows-who-hack-cover-artist while I pored over asparagus spears in the produce aisle? I made a mental note, Rick, go home, fire up Rhapsody, and reclaim your Judy Collins as it is rightfully yours. So, to make a long story short, I’ve been playing her Best of CD in my car at a clip that would wear down the stylus on my dad’s record player, or cause a mere cassette tape to be mercilessly eaten. And I must admit she has the best damn voice I’ve ever heard. Apologies to Sinead, Patti and Joni, et al. You just weren’t there. It’s like the orange walls, the ugly brown rug, or the faded Time-Life books in the back hallway. You just had to be there.