A Happy Independence Day - and the Downside of Being a Pirate
(Photo of Steve "Shanghai" Brown, publisher of The Sun Runner, at his band, There Be Pirates!' CD release party at Danby Castle, England, 2010. Photo by Ian Harland.)
First, it is only appropriate to wish all our readers a happy Independence Day. I celebrate this day by reading the Declaration of Independence and wondering why we're not still a bit more of a revolutionary nation, given our roots.
But I don't ponder that too long before fixing myself the drink named after my piratical alter-ego, Shanghai Brown. And this Independence Day, I will toast the customer "service" staff (using the term "service" in a vague and unsatisfactory way) of Facebook, with the classic pirate's toast:
Here's to you, and here's to me
And here's to life on the rolling sea,
But if it comes 'tween you and me,
Then to hell with you,
And here's to me!
Friends and fans of The Sun Runner, Southwest Stories with Steve Brown, The Real Route 66, and even There Be Pirates! on Facebook, may have noticed that it all went dark this week. My apologies if you attempted to contact the magazine, TV shows, or the band via Facebook and did not receive a reply. It is, no doubt, my fault.
It all goes back to when I first joined Facebook. I was joining it on behalf of There Be Pirates!, my pirate jam band, and I was frankly surprised by Facebook's requirement that I could not merely create a There Be Pirates! Facebook page, but I had to create a personal Facebook page first. Since I was doing all of this in support of the band, and since Shanghai Brown is the name I have used in the band for the better part of a decade (the name was given to me more than 25 years ago by a Canadian shantyman who said it suited my character, and no, I'm not certain that's a compliment), and since there are roughly 2.7 million Steve Browns across the world, I selected Shanghai Brown as my Facebook name.
Evidently, this is a cardinal sin in Facebooklandia. Not for any reason they will give you. The real reason they care about making certain you use your "real" name, is that they want to sell your personal information, and when they sell it, they want it to be correct.
So, earlier this week, I was informed that my Facebook name was deemed to be invalid, and was immediately banned from posting or managing any of the Facebook pages associated with my personal account. I have written to Facebook explaining how the various pages associated with my personal account served to notify people of things such as mandatory evacuations during out of control wildfires, only to be enmeshed in the thrall of bureaucratic bozoism, where no one can apparently read for comprehension, or can do anything other than send you stock responses and continue to ban you.
It is anti-social media at its best.
So, if and when I get them to allow me to once again rejoin the hallowed halls of Facebook, it will be as one of 2.7 million Steve Browns, if they accept my drivers license as valid ID, that is. They are most certainly off this weekend for a long holiday weekend, so it will not likely be before sometime mid-week next week.
If you do want to reach us, you can, of course, contact us via the normal human means - telephone, e-mail, etc. In the meantime, have a wonderful Independence Day, be careful with fireworks (we've had enough wildfire for one summer already), and we'll be back on Facebook when it's sorted.
Update: After a little more than a week of trying to sort this out with Facebook, sending them a copy of my drivers license, etc., we're back online with Facebook.