Building Communities

I have been thinking a lot lately about the idea of "community". When I was four years old, my family moved into a brand new home. It was a "tract" home in a Southern California suburb; the type that were built in the millions during the baby boom period. Everyone moved in at once. All of our neighbors were young families with 1-3 children. All of the men had been in the military. All of the women stayed home with their children.

I can remember all of the men getting together to build fences around the yards, and to pour cement patios for neighborhood gatherings. The whole neighborhood got together every weekend for barbeques and bridge games. The kids played together after school or during the summer every single day. One unfortunate afternoon I managed to pass the mumps to 10 other children who shared the same caramel sucker the day before my face started to swell. I think my mother was afraid we were going to be driven out of the neighborhood for that little episode. Each sick child on our block gave the mumps to their brothers and sisters, and everyone was homebound and miserable for about a month.

Our neighborhood was a real community. Today, I don't see that same type of community in my area of SoCal. There are many single-parent families. Most women work outside the home. Unfortunately, land is at such a premium that most people don't have yards for large gatherings. Kids are in day care and participate in organized activities like dance or sports.

However, the need for "community" seems to be as strong as ever. We are just finding new and creative ways to build them.

My introduction to this movement was when I became a fan of Clay Aiken. During his run on American Idol, I "googled" his name to get information about him. Not only did I find a wealth of information, including links to demo songs he had recorded, I found new virtual communities springing up everywhere. Clay is widely recognized for having a large, ardent and active fanbase, and a great deal of that phenomenon can be attributed to the message boards. Instead of grabbing a cup of coffee and heading for the neighbor's house, thousands of fans head for the computer and log on to check up on Clay and all of their virtual friends.

These communities have expanded far beyond cyberspace. These virtual friends get together for parties before and after concerts. They have banded together to raise money for charity. They have collected funds to send members to conferences, purchase baby gifts, support members affected by Hurricane Katrina and other disasters. A week ago, I went to a SoCal barbecue 2 hours from Los Angeles and found over 50 other Clay fans having a great time. I regularly get together with a group of 10-12 fans and go to other concerts, day spas, plays, brunch, and roll out my sleeping bag for parties that last all weekend. These are groups of like-minded individuals that meet all the criteria for a community. We are diverse in many, many ways...except that we all love Clay Aiken.

There are other creative ways that people are finding each other to form communities. A few months ago one of the Clay Aiken communities that I frequent decided to try a book discussion. We picked a book and once a week we all logged in at the same time and discussed a list of questions on that week's reading assignment. I really enjoyed myself, and started looking online for another book club opportunity. There are a number of different online book discussion sites. I found this great site that gives links to a lot of diverse online book clubs. If you love reading and discussion of books, be sure to check it out here: http://www.book-clubs-resource.com/online/

I joined one of these clubs, but found that I really disliked their discussion format. It was really cumbersome and confusing. So I went back to my search and came up with something completely different. I found this amazing site: http://www.meetup.com/

Meetup.com has formed communities all over the world centered around nearly 5,000 different topics. By using their search tool, you can find a number of groups near where you live that get together to enjoy favorite interests. Because of my great experiences turning virtual friendships into real friendships in the Clay Aiken fan world, I was willing to take a chance on a couple of these groups. Just another example of how my universe has expanded thanks to Clay Aiken!!!

I joined a local knitting group, which have not yet attended. I'm hoping that it will help me to get support on actually completing projects, instead of having 50 started that never turn into anything. I'll let you know how that turns out.

I also joined a local book discussion group that I have now attended twice. This group was a bit of a stretch for me because most of the members are younger than I am, but I went anyway and I love it. They pick a really wide variety of books to read, and the discussions are lively and interesting. I have enjoyed all three books picked so far, and encourage the book lovers out there to check them out:

1. Best Food Writing 2005

2. Stiff: The Secret Life of Cadavers

3. The Time Traveler's Wife

The last one is especially superb.

This is the link to my group, The Long Beach Book Club Meetup Group: http://bookclub.meetup.com/121/. The group meets in a small art gallery once a month. They bring snacks and beverages, and there is usually some type of ice-breaker activity since there are usually new people at each meeting. The discussions are great, with amazing input from the teachers, veterinarian, firefighters, students, artists, medical personnel and others who attend. We take advantage of the art gallery. This month we had a collector talk about the 3 paintings he had loaned for the present exhibition. There was an exhibit that had an interactive video component. Another contained the first Atari video game system, which we tried to master. Last but not least, there was a kareoke system. Yes, these serious bibliophiles got up there and belted out painful renditions of many popular oldies. If you must know, I may have lent my voice to group renditions of "Summer Nights" from Grease and "Take My Breath Away".

Alas, the moment came when a poor misguided man decided to commit a great sacrilege. He sang "Solitaire". Well. Any person who has not been hibernating for the past 3 years knows that Clay Aiken sings the definitive version of "Solitaire".

Neil Sedaka said so himself when Clay sang it during the AI2 competition. He had tears in his eyes as he announced that he had forever lost his song to Clay. Many people were convinced on that night that Clay Aiken was destined to be a star.

That rendition of "Solitaire" was so remarkable, Clay recorded it and it was released as a single in 2004. He returned to American Idol 3 that year and sang a short version of his recorded song. I was lucky enough to be in the studio audience that night, and he just blew the whole place away. The clarity and power of his voice was absolutely awe-inspiring. Plus he looked every inch the returning STAR!!! See???

The song became so popular that Clay included it as the encore for his 2004 Solo Tour

He also included it in the 60's set for the 2005 Jukebox Tour.

Clay's performance of "Solitaire" is not to be missed. If you have never seen it...or if you haven't seen it for a while, here is a performance from the Solo Tour.

Just a word to the wise. It's OK to hum or sing along with Clay in the privacy of your home or automobile, but just step away from the kareoke machine.

Related Tags: Clay Aiken, Neil Sedaka, Solitaire, meetup.com