My Small World (that’s full of dudes in bands)
February 11, 2010
Duncan Watts is too self-deprecating. In his book “Six Degrees: The Science Of A Connected Age”, he talks about how, as a graduate student at Cornell, he struggled through his math courses, learning little and faking his way through grad school. Somehow, this process gained him a Ph.D in theoretical mathematics. Self-deprecation gets on my nerves when it’s coming from really, really smart people.
However, perhaps Watts is simply being consistent when telling us that he is an ordinary dude with an extraordinary education. The topic he tackles in “Six Degrees”, i.e. the theories behind networks and how we’re all connected, is a simple problem with a simple solution that is reached through frighteningly complex processes. Watts tells us, in words we can understand, the basic idea (building a mathematical formula that would predict how networks of people form and grow), then presents us with a bunch of scary charts that show how the phenomenon of everyone being connected to everyone else can be mathematically predicted, then tells us fun stories about Kevin Bacon (you’re familiar with the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, right?). Watts’ writing is like his subject: multilayered.
As I read Watts’ words, I connected some of his complicated theories to examples in my ordinary life. It seems like all my friends are musicians. Now, being in a band is much like being in a romantic relationship: band members have the same petty arguments, lasting attachments, feelings of connection and betrayal. It’s like being married, only to five people at once. This is why most people I know have been in many bands – staying in the same band with the same people for years and years, a la U2, isn’t easy. Some are in several bands at once; others hop from band to band. I’m currently in a band with a bunch of guys who have been in Every Band Ever, and whenever I bring up the name of a local (or national) musician, they’ll tell me a story about how they were in a band with so-and-so who was in a band with them. I was talking about the late Carter Albrecht to our drummer, Chuck; turns out Chuck was in a band with Carter at some point (I can’t remember the name of the band). I thought about whether a game of Six Degrees of Chuck Spurlock would be possible, and I realized that I can probably connect Chuck to every local Dallas musician, ever. “Social networks consist of many small overlapping groups that are densely internally connected,” says Duncan Watts, “and that overlap by virtue of individuals having multiple affiliations.” This certainly applies to musicians: “small overlapping groups” describes bands perfectly. My band overlaps almost completely with early ’80s punk outfit the Howling Dervishes; Chuck, Tom the guitarist, and Bass Chuck the bassist (yeah, there are two Chucks) are all former Dervishes. I like to brag to people that I’m just a couple degrees away from Sid Vicious, as Tom’s other project, the Swingin’ Cornflake Killers, is fronted by Tex Edwards, the singer for the Nervebreakers, who opened for the Sex Pistols once in the ’70s. This is a stretch, as nobody I know actually played in any bands with Sid, but I’m gonna continue bragging about it anyways.
All in all, my musician friends occupy a small world that doesn’t extend far outside of Dallas; it’s more similar to the Watts/Asimov “Caves of Steel” than to a larger network phenomenon like Twitter. A few local folks (e.g. Edie Brickell, Reverend Horton Heat, Dave Abbruzzeze from Pearl Jam) have gone national, which puts us Dallas folk within a few degrees of some very famous people. However, I’m pretty content with being part of a small cavelike collective – as long as I can retain bragging rights for my dubious Sid Vicious connection. I guess I’m Duncan Watts in reverse – I talk a big game but I haven’t done much. Perhaps my small-world connections will help me go far in the future.
