Cell Phone (romantic musings for a new millennium)

cell phone (romantic musings for the new millennium)

(inspired by a Thursday afternoon trip to an ice cream shop in New Haven, where I was able to sit outside and enjoy myself for a few minutes before hosting a potential volatile meeting with a possible partner firm only to have my ice cream interrupted by three guys on their cell phones, one talking about their strategy for the upcoming meeting with “kane” (me!)
This is dedicated to those who are still ask themselves, “What’s the fucken point of all these toys? This isn’t making my life any better at all!!”)
anyway...


If I abandon my cellular telephone
and my voice mail and e-mail
and my facebook page and twitter account
and junk my laptop
I believe I will soon be forgotten

You can make it happen for you too

We could go away for a few months
but we wouldn’t really have to go far
If we just make ourselves out-of-touch.
my back deck could be hundreds of miles away
or we could even hang out downtown –
within shouting distance to all the people
who would frantically be trying to get in touch with us
And they would never know we just walked right past them

Because without those electronic toys
which creates an electronic steel cage for us
and manufactured – and therefore false - prestige
We don’t really exist
not today
We would be free of a world where people the need to be in constant contact
with someone who wasn’t there

Everyone trying to get in touch with us
would figure we fell off the face of the earth
only to be replaced by someoneelse@someother_e-mail.com
We would be forgotten
out-of-immediate-contact-out-of-mind

There was a time
when a trip to the city
by train from New Haven to New York for the day
meant making a half-dozen phone calls
just to let everyone know
you were not around for the day

and
somehow
we all survived

Imagine stepping off the train
at Grand Central
and walking into the packed streets of NYC
where you are swallowed
into temporary anonymity
blending into a stream of people
where no one was calling
or texting

Imagine jumping off the train
as an excited 16-year-old
heading to Madison Square Garden
to see The Who
Your imagination running wild
from the stories you’ve heard
(because you didn’t have youtue, VHS players, texting, anything to tell you about what you were about to see, except a couple memorable clips from Montery Pop and Woodstock).
You were very much in-touch with everything that mattered (like Life!)
but out of touch – communication wise - with everyone

Without those electronic chains that keep us captive
to a fast paced life
where we feel we need to communicate every move
from traveling to Pittsfield to taking a piss
we could actually interact
face-to-face
with people
human to human
no gimmicks
(you know – like they did in the old days – when people thought about their communications and messages didn’t drop on you like bird turds from a tree)

And after awhile
we could get new cellular phones
and new e-mails and all new toys
and, with that, get our new identities
so we are equipped to function in a modern society
or…
not