M. David Hornbuckle

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  • Road Trip Days 8-10

    Oxford, MS is Mecca, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s been far too long since my last pilgrimage there. Naturally, my first stop was Square Books, where, I’m quite thrilled to announce, my book is now on the shelf. It was a shitty rainy day, though, so I hunkered down at High Point Coffee to take advantage of the wi-fi and get a little work done.

    Eventually, I satisfied my obligation to “the man” and spent the next 2.5 days hanging out and catching up with old friends Melanie Thomas Dobbs and Parrish Baker. On the second night, I played a couple of sets at Parrish’s bar, during which Parrish challenged me to play songs that he expected I hadn’t played since high school. Needless to say, perhaps, I met and exceeded this challenge.

    And of course, I paid my respects to Mr. Faulkner at Rowan Oak. Because if Oxford is my Mecca, Rowan Oak is my Ka’bah.

    To top it off, I had what I can only describe as a mighty fine plate of catfish, friend okra, and cheese grits at Ajax Diner.

    Next stop, Birmingham, AL where I’ll crash with my parents for a few days.

  • Road Trip Day 7

    This was my day in Memphis. And no, I didn’t visit Sun Studios or Graceland while I was there. But I did visit with three old friends, none of whom I’d seen in about fifteen years. Two were friends from high school, Sydnie Simms and Kathy Babilon. The third was Don Thomas, who was the drummer in my band Crazy Treehead when I was in college at UAB.

    We all met up at Young Ave Deli and then later moved along to Boscos. Both were excellent places to hang out and catch up, and many beverages and fried food delights were consumed.

    I crashed at Don’s house. Here’s Don. There are drums in pretty much every room of the house.

    Don is a bit of hesitant to catch up to the times. Not only does he only have dial-up internet at his house. He also has a rotary telephone. His house is filled with other beatiful antiques also. Here are some pictures of those.

    Don also collects and refurbishes antique cars. There are five at his house, including two ’64 Dodge Darts.

    I slept well, and after Don made some pancakes, we rocked out in his basement for a little bit before I hit the road for Oxford, MS. More on that later…

  • Roadtrip Days 5-6

    On the plane into Richmond, I sat next to a very nice lady who kindly chatted with me throughout the flight about the stories in the Reader’s Digest that she had with her and even quizzed me on the vocabulary in the “WordPower” section. She was a hoot, and she promised to pick up a copy of my book when she got to Charlottesville.

    After landing, it was back to the highways to see my old bandmate Angela DiPaolo in Wake Forest, NC. Another old music friend, Crystal Dawn, is also living there. The three of us joined up with Angela’s friend Will to play some music at Gigi’s House Bistro. We played for about three hours, all sitting in on each others’ sets, whether we knew the songs or not. It was really almost too much fun. I crashed at Angela’s. By the time I remembered to take my camera out, everyone was in pajamas and refused to have their picture taken. So here is a picture of Angela’s cat, Lyric.

    In the morning, Crystal (who also stayed over, as did her dog Lucy) made bacon, eggs, and biscuits. Then I shot some hoops with Angela’s three boys. Again, almost too much fun–especially since the goal was set low enough for me to dunk.

    Finally, I had to hit the road again. I had about a 7.5 hour drive to Murfreesboro, TN to visit college friends Holly and Brian. I passed this Adam&Eve outlet store along the way, and if you know what Adam&Eve sells, you know why I think this is hilarious. Yes, those are lingerie mannequins in the window.

    I got to Murfreesboro just in time for dinner. Brian made some really awesome Italian wedding soup and sweet tea (of course), which I consumed in copious amounts. Tomorrow is Memphis.

  • Roadtrip Days 2-4

    On Day 2, I headed off to Charlottesville to meet up with Mark Rock, aka Peter Markush. I stopped in the exurbs between Baltimore and DC for the first of what will probably be many Chick-fil-a sandwiches consumed on this trip. I also took the first picture with my new camera. As you can see, I was not able to refrain from consuming the sandwich before taking a picture of it.

    I found my way to Random Row Books, where I was set to perform with Mark Rock and a very good guitar/cello duo called Barling and Collins. It was cold and rainy out,  so the event was sparsely attended. Barling, Collins, and we all sat in with Mark Rock, and during my set, Mark Rock accompanied me on piano as I read “The Boy Who Cried Wolves” (which, incidentally, was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize).

    That afternoon, I got bad news about Poly, so I decided to drive to Richmond early in the morning and catch a flight back to NYC. By the evening of Day 3, however, we got good news from Poly’s biopsy. The tumor doesn’t appear to be malignant, so the immediate threat is not as serious as we feared. She will probably be okay.

    Day 4, I shared some bacon and eggs with Poly, did some dayjob work, ran some errands, and watched TV. That night I attended Jonathan Letham’s reading in at Book Court in Brooklyn. It was pretty good, but not as good as the Big Buford sandwich I had at Checkers on the way there. After the reading, I packed my things to prepare for an early flight back to Virginia to pick up where I left off.

  • My Friend Poly

    Poly is a cat. She is very sick, and I am very worried. I have another dispatch to post from my road trip, but my heart is not in it. I don’t even want to read/sing tonight.

  • Road Trip: Day 1

    My trip started out on a melancholy note because one of the cats I’ve lived with for the past eight years is sick, and the vet doesn’t know what’s wrong. Tonight, there are reports that she is improving though, and she has a sonogram scheduled for tomorrow, so I’m thinking positive thoughts for a quick recovery.

    In the meantime, I’m in Philadelphia. The first order of business was to meet my friend and sometimes songwriting partner George Mostoller for dinner. On the way down, I listened to a mix tape that George made me in 1994. It is still one of my favorite mixes.

    George took me to Brauhaus Schmitz on South Street. The waitstaff all wear traditional Bavarian outfits. I had two very large, delicious sausages. The pictures on their website really don’t do the place justice. I should have taken some pictures, but I haven’t taken my new camera out of the box yet. But in lieu of that, here is a cell phone picture of a cat at a pet store.

    George is kind of a hermit these days, so it’s up to me to keep his songs in circulation. Here is a video of me performing one of those songs.

    I’m staying the night with Jason Fagone, author of Horsemen of the Esophogus. We discussed the state of contemporary short stories and Rick Moody’s Twitter story before watching Obama’s speech, followed by So You Think You Can Dance, which I’ve never seen before tonight.

    I’m getting up early tomorrow to drive to Charlottesville, VA.

  • Holiday Project Update 2

    Since I started the project, my friend list has gone up modestly from 626 to 632–still well within the scope of possibility. I believe I’ve sent messages to about 360 people, and many, many of them have written back. Some people have asked me what interesting things I’ve learned about my “friends” from this, and although people have told me some fun facts about themselves and some wacky anecdotes, the real value is not something reportable; it’s the connection itself. It isn’t about what I’ve learned so much as it’s about what I’ve felt, and it varies from person to person because each contact is different and has its own flavor.

    The Internet makes some people extra protective of their personal boundaries, just as it reduces boundaries for others. Some people reply but with a tone that essentially says, “Thanks for sharing, but I know you about as well as I want to already” and that’s fine. Others have been very open, and we’ve talked about life and love and things that matter to us. This has been especially wonderful with people with whom I was once close but haven’t seen in a very long time.

    So I’m not going to fill this blog with lists of “cool” things that I’ve learned about people, though when it’s all done, I may have some things I’ve learned about myself.

  • Subway Graffiti Triptych

    Subway Graffiti Triptych

    I found this amusing graffito with Facebook-themed meta-graffito in the 23rd Street F station this afternoon. I kind of hope that this trend of writing “Like!” on things catches on.

     

  • Facebook Holiday Project Update 1

    At this point, I’ve contacted about 200 of my 629 Facebook friends. I looked at each person’s profile, looking for some information I didn’t know or could ask them about. Or I tried to focus on how I met the person, or if I hadn’t met the person, how we came to be Facebook friends. In any case, I tried to come up with at least one or two things I could say in a personal message. I also attached a blurb and link to my original blog post about the project as follows:

    So I have this project for the holidays–really it is a sort of crusade to reach out personally to people on Facebook and make it more the kind of social outlet that it was when I first started using it. I hope to hear back from you. And if you think this is a good idea, please pass along the blog post.

    https://mdavidhornbuckle.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/project-for-the-holidays-make-facebook-personal-again/

    Of the roughly 200 people I’ve contacted so far, I’d say about 60% have written back to me. In a lot of cases, one or two messages back and forth have been all I needed to feel like the connection was satisfied for a while. Some of these people told me they actually don’t use Facebook much, or that they really joined it for professional reasons. For folks like this, there isn’t much to talk about besides just saying hello. In other cases, conversations have continued for days–about old memories, family, friends, past and current creative activities. A lot of the connections have turned out to be very interesting and satisfying.

    There are some days when I really don’t feel like doing it, or I’m pressed for time. I’m afraid that a few of my outgoing messages have been “phoned in,” especially when it was a person I didn’t actually know well. But even so, I have to say that the experiment has been more successful than I imagined it would be in the sense that more people have written back than I expected. Also, while I can’t say that the whole thing has gone “viral” I have seen that my blog post was re-posted by some people I knew and re-posted again by friends of theirs that I did  NOT know. So people seem to like the idea and are passing it around.

    So far so good. I’ll continue to post updates as it goes on.

  • Project for the Holidays – Make Facebook Personal Again

    When I first joined Facebook in the early summer of 2007, only a handful of people I knew were using it. Unlike Myspace or Friendster (remember Friendster?) I was really impressed with the ways it actually could be used as a social tool. I found people I hadn’t talked to since high school or college, and I had meaningful communications with them on a regular basis. I was able to keep in touch with people I rarely saw as if we still lived on the same block, and to me that is the entire purpose of social networking. The “networking” aspect is misleading.  The “social” part is what I think is most important.

    For that reason, at first I vowed to keep my FB “friends” only to people I was actually friends with, or at least had been at one time. But then something happened later that Fall that sort of ruined that. I published a book. Now that I had a product to push, I was willing to friend anybody and everybody on the offhand chance that I’d make another two dollars of royalties as  result. It’s ludicrous. I probably set status updates for 75% of them to “ignore” so I wouldn’t have to look at pictures of their babies or whatever else they had to say that had nothing to do with me.

    I could still use Facebook to keep up with the people that mattered most to me. I made “friend groups” so I could filter status updates based on who I was interested in hearing from or interacting with at any given time. This is useful, but it’s gradually gotten so it’s hard to tell if anyone is really paying attention to anything anybody else does on there. I know I’m missing a lot of interesting things that other people post because it’s harder and harder to sift out the content. So mostly I either feel like I’m missing something or I’m speaking into a vacuum.

    So this is what I’m proposing–between now and Christmas, I plan to leave a personal message for each of the 626 (and growing) friends I have on Facebook. Just a quick connection, which I hope will spur a lasting conversation. If it’s somebody I don’t really know, I hope to learn something interesting about them. If it’s someone I rarely see or talk to, I hope to reconnect in some meaningful way. If it’s someone I see all the time anyway, no harm in saying hello.

    I guess I will approach this systematically, contacting my friends in alphabetical order. I’ll need to contact about 15 people a day to finish by Dec. 25. I don’t know if I’ll use the wall or send private messages. That may depend on the person. Anyway, I hope that this will catch on and others will have a desire to make Facebook about positive social interaction.