Big Mike: Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk…,

November 3rd, 2009

For years, I’d been resisting coming clean about my feelings, fearing that people would think I’m a Luddite or, worse, old. I was afraid what I’m about to write would brand me forever and ever as a mean, curmudgeonly and, yes, old bastard. Now, I can say it.

I’ve never given a holy shit about what anyone writes on Facebook or Twitter.

I held out for a long time against signing up for either of these social networking sites. About a year and a half ago, I finally created accounts and found them so tedious that I let them both lay dormant for long months. Then Benny Jay and I started The Third City and I figured we could use them to get the word out, so I started posting little alerts about my blog bits. Now I’ve been sucked into these two dull little worlds.

I’ve got dozens of friends now. Whoopee. I get dozens of messages a day. Yahoo.

I’m still holding out against text messaging. Number one, my spatulated thumbs make texting a near physical impossibility for me. Number two, I have little to say to anybody most of the time. Finally, number three, there’s pretty much nothing anybody can say to me that would cause even a half dozen of my neurons to fire.

You might think it’s strange that a guy who writes on two separate blogs would admit to having little to say. But it’s true. What I write in my blogs is the result of hours of thought and work. I’ve been a professional writer for more than 25 years. The written word is as precious to me as the iPhone is to the young woman who was texting upon it Sunday afternoon — as she was driving and consequently nearly T-boning me and the Prius.

So each day, I try to have a couple of cogent, considered things to say that I’ll carefully craft into separate thousand-word essays. That’s it. On any given day, I’ll have a couple — meaning two — pronouncements.

All the other people in the world are chattering like meth freaks. That is, when they’re not texting each other.

I noticed this gabbiness taking hold in the ‘90s when cell phones came on the scene. Cell phones are a great idea. I love them. I don’t even have a land line anymore. Why should I? The only drawback to cell phones is that it has become almost impossible to lie to people and tell them you missed their call or didn’t get their message.

My poor mother would say, again and again, “Mike, I tried calling you three times last week. What happened?”

Me: “You did? I didn’t hear the phone? Why didn’t you leave a message?”

Ma: “I did. All three times.”

Me: “Damn that cell phone company! I’m gonna have to call them up and find out what’s going on.”

Ma: “You’d better. What if I need you in an emergency?”

But Ma got wise. She began to notice that whenever my cell phone would buzz while I was at her house I’d check the number by habit. “Ah, I don’t wanna talk to this person,” I’d say.

The jig was up one Sunday afternoon when I looked up from my phone and saw Ma staring at me through narrowed eyes. “Aha!” she said. “You do that thing …, you know, whatchamacallit…, you screen your calls! That’s what you do when I call.”

Me: “Huh? What? Me? No. What’s that again?”

Ma [triumphantly]: “Yes you do! You’d better answer your phone next time I call.”

Now, whenever she’s in the mood to gab about some long-forgotten cousin’s bout with colitis, I have no choice but to endure it. I guess it’s the least I can do; she did give birth to me.

Anyway, back in those early days, whenever I’d be out on the road in the morning, I’d see half the other drivers yacking at their cell phones. I wondered, What in the hell can they be talking about? At 7:30 in the morning I hate the whole of humanity. There’s not a single thing I want to say to anybody other than Leave me alone, Shut up, or Could you go sit over there? Yet these drivers were happily chirping like magpies.

Then texting came along. My brother’s three boys text from morning till night as if they’re colonels transmitting orders to the front line. One day I asked them flat out: “What are you guys saying to all these people.” You’d have thought I’d just asked them why they don’t walk uphill three miles to school everyday in two feet of snow the way I did. The mere act of asking the question grayed my hair and stooped my shoulders.

After ridiculing me for the better part of an hour, one of them finally replied, “I just wanna know what everybody’s doing.”

I must be the oldest bastard on Earth. I don’t care what anybody I know is doing. I love Benny Jay like a brother but I still don’t care what he’s up to at this very moment. Milo’s hanging on for dear life after being cracked open like a lobster to have his heart jerry-rigged. Yet I have no need to know this second what he’s doing. It can wait until tomorrow.

But much of my anti-new-communications-technology bile subsided yesterday. I used Facebook to actually do something worthwhile. An old pal and I became estranged about eight years ago. I steeled myself and sent an apology her way after I discovered her Facebook page. I was fully prepared to get a message back telling me to to take a hike. Happily, she was more eager to reconnect than I could have imagined. I shed a tear when I read her response.

Finally, someone had something worthwhile to say on Facebook. So I promise to stop railing against the chattering. That is, until the next person sends me a message telling me how much they dread doing homework.

One more thing. Do yourself a favor — buy Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s new book, “Encyclopedia of An Ordinary Life.” Then Tweet about it and tell all your Facebook friends.