Right in the middle of a Very Important Music Festival my new phone broke. It was minding its own business, charging on my windowsill, while I drifted off to sleep listening to the rain terrorize all the poor saps stuck outside and dreaming about all the pretty OK up-and-coming bands I had just seen.
I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to see more. I reached for my phone to publish this very important information to my followers ('I'm ready to see more pretty OK up-and-coming bands today!') and discovered it was bobbing in a puddle. What had happened was: 1. I left my window open the night before. 2. The rain came in. 3. It killed my phone. Should I shoulder some of the responsibility for resting my electrical device near an open window during a storm? No. I blame the rain.
I still had a couple nights left of the Very Important Music Festival (also known as 'Sign 'Em Or Decline 'Em Time' to some Music Industry guy, probably) and no working phone. Oh sure, the actual phone part of the phone I could handle. I had nobody to call and nobody ever calls me (my contact list is currently accepting open enrollment with plenty of prime spots available should you be interested). However, phones do quite a bit more than phone people these days. Could I even go see show in 2014 AD without one? I wasn't sure I'd even be able to do it, it had been so long. But it was worth a try. Goddamn it, it was worth at least a try. And anyway, I didn't really have a choice. I'm not financially ready to fix a digital screen right now.
At first, not having my phone was fine. I left my office that's also my bedroom in my peeling Brooklyn brownstone (proud renter) and stepped into the early evening. Things were good. I was feeling nice. I was lighter without my phone weighing me down and walked with a snappy pace. I two-stepped stairs down to the subway. I let an elderly woman have my seat on the train and felt really great about myself for that. And getting off the train I giggled at this really grumpy guy wearing a fedora. Wanna get in a better mood, dude? Wear a better hat. Nope. No problems not having my phone. Not yet.
It was after I rose from the underground into glittering rich Manhattan when I first felt the loss of not having my phone with me. My walk to the venue was sort of spectacular and I wanted to take some filtered pics, hashtag the shit out of them, and quickly publish for the enjoyment of family I never see and successful acquaintances I've never met. I randomly passed all sorts of iconic snap worthy stuff. That's where Bob Dylan first played. Click. Woody Allen got his start there. Clack. The Beats really dug the boom boom zooms of that old bebop place. Snip. Will Smith wasn't the true star of I Am Legend (2007 AD), this park with the arch was. Snap. So many cool spots I passed, so many missed opportunities for digital interfacing. Wish you could've seen it, Aunt Karen (and BTW, thank you for sending that ceramic angel without a face for my b-day, I love him/her/it).
I then started to get very concerned about the time. I needed my phone to tell me that because I'm pretty sure the last time I wore a watch was sixth grade (you could play a black and white version of Super Mario Bros. on it too. NBD). I don't know why it became so crucial for me to know the time. Nobody does. Phone withdrawal is still being studied and the researchers keep getting distracted posting status updates. I wasn't running late. I was almost positive of that. I just didn't know how early I was. I debated taking out money I didn't have from an ATM machine (short for 'Automated Teller Machine machine') using my PIN number ('Personal Identification Number number') just so I could see the timestamp on the receipt. After a couple of tense moments weighing the risks/rewards of potential account overdraft, I ultimately settled on a better solution. I peeked over the shoulder of a stranger on the street doing something probably really important with his phone. I was relieved to discover I was still on track to get to the show 14 minutes early. I had dodged another bullet.
I decided to slow up my pace and try to enjoy the journey. Maybe look and think and listen and really see where I was going for a change instead of refreshing my screen to tell me things I already knew while dancing with death at every crosswalk. I used to do a lot of aimless walking around New York like this before my phone got smart-checking out people and places and feeling the scenery didn't cost me a dime to appreciate. I picked it right back up. 'What's that guy's deal,' I thought as I walked by some dude screaming obscenities at his screen. 'What are her dreams?' I reflected as I passed a mother holding her young daughter's hand while wearing headphones and apparently listening to some really big time beats. 'Would I rather fall down one of those street-level basement shafts or have a manhole cover explode in my face?' Just wondering while wandering, you know? It was nice.
I might have even taken a less economical route during this meditative state. My phone probably could have saved me 15 seconds or less by switching some cross streets on me and telling me exactly when to turn and where. But I just had my inner New Yorker honing device to guide me, built with the blood from all those hours walking around a big new town with a small dumb phone. And though long since used, that honing thing fired right up somewhere within me and got me to the show with 12 minutes to spare. (I lost a couple more minutes watching a group of prospective students in the middle of a campus tour and thinking, 'I would rather have a manhole cover explode in my face causing me to fall down a basement shaft and wrestle with rats than have to start college again.')
When I got to the show, the up-and-coming band before the up-and-coming band I was there to see hadn't even gone on yet. They were still checking their wires, buttons, and levers, while making unreasonable demands from their monitors even though they only had a self-released streaming seven-inch in their digital discography. I wanted to tweet 'ugh' as it perfectly encapsulated what I was feeling about practicing patience at a rock show but, as mentioned, the rain broke my phone.
Obviously, most people in the room were using this downtime to stay in touch with their phones. Many of the others were flirting with cancer outside. I didn't have mine and I don't smoke (tobacco) and I wasn't sure what to do. So I trusted my training and did what I often do best-nothing. I excel at doing nothing. I'm the Michael Jordan of doing nothing. The time I laid on my couch and watched my ceiling for over three hours is equivalent to MJ's famous 'flu' game in my mind. I stood and stared while the band set up. It was a fine way to pass the time. Finally, the band started to play an actual song with real live notes and that old need of 'I really want to take a dark picture of this for posterity' flared up. But by the band's second song, that feeling subsided and I was left only with the pleasantly ambivalent feeling that comes whenever one sees an up-and-coming band who is pretty OK.
After that, I had to run to another show across town (it's one of those cool music festivals where nothing is really close to each other-cool). I was meeting up there with some new people who were maybe auditioning me to be their friend and I didn't want to blow it. They didn't know that my phone sailed away on the sill to sweeter shores the night before so I wasn't sure how we were going to exchange typical pre-meeting texting pleasantries as I've done with other potential friends like, 'almost there!' and 'here!' and 'where u guys at?' and 'r u bailing?' Luckily, we casually remarked in advance about the place we were going to go and the time we were going to do so a few days before. These plans weren't not made using digital interface but in real life so I wasn't sure if that still made them binding but I decided to rush over and hope for the best.
Amazingly, we all arrived at my next show right around the same time. Everybody greeted each other warmly and we all seemed to be feeling rather pleasant. The friend audition was starting well. My potential pals (fingers crossed) felt bad after they learned I didn't have a phone ('sail on, silver phone... sail on by') so in between sets (the up-and-coming bands we saw were pretty OK, BTW) they too put down their phones and instead peppered me with friendly questions to keep my spirits up. Regular shooting the shit stuff like, 'Wait. How much did you say they raised your rent this year?' and 'Seems like a good chance you rode the same subway car with that Ebola guy,' and 'Fucking ISIS.' Afterwards, we all got reubens and milkshakes at a diner and before we split up they said we should do it again sometime and I said, 'Definitely I'm free every night always.'
I headed back to the subway for home. I was tired and I think it was pretty late, but since I didn't have my phone I couldn't be sure. The train wasn't crowded and I scored a good seat to sit and do nothing. I reflected about all the up-and-coming pretty OK bands I saw, the cool new people I had just met, and all the analog adventures I experienced that night. Would my perfectly pleasant evening have gone even better if I had my phone? Off the record, I doubt it. But on the record, I couldn't definitively say and I was too tired to sort through hypotheticals and take an official point of view. Maybe I'd have more clarity on modern man's reliance on technology in the morning.
Two stops before mine, the subway emerged from the depths to temporarily become an elevated train. It rumbled alongside the broken BQE, over the rotting Gowanus Canal, and past the downtown Brooklyn clock tower that looks like a giant penis. I've lived in New York for 14 years and during this brief respite in the open air, I still liked looking out my window and seeing the Statue of Liberty. It's still so cool to see her standing there and I'm not afraid to admit it (please don't tell anyone). That night, the moon was full and bright and made me see the lady and the harbor and the skyline in a particularly pretty light. I desperately wanted to capture it forever with my phone. But, of course, I couldn't. So I just sat there and watched the city glow. And then we headed back underground into the darkness once more.
I slept well that night. I actually got my full-sized futon to fold out correctly, my sheets were fairly clean, and the late October breeze coming in from my window was cool. It didn't rain. I knew it wouldn't. The newspaper I found in the trash can on my walk home told me the forecast was clear.
UPDATE: I researched on the World Wide Intrasphere on how to repair a wet phone and learned if you leave your wet phone submerged in dry rice for 1-3-7 days it might work itself out or something. I guess I'll give it a try and let you know. But I'm cool with whatever happens, either way. Patrick McNamara runs a show listings blog called OhMyRockness where you can find out about the hottest pretty OK bands. He won't see your tweets until he gets home - @ohmyrockness Entities 0 Name: New York Count: 2 1 Name: Brooklyn Count: 2 2 Name: Michael Jordan Count: 1 3 Name: BQE Count: 1 4 Name: Manhattan Count: 1 5 Name: Bob Dylan Count: 1 6 Name: Patrick McNamara Count: 1 7 Name: Aunt Karen Count: 1 8 Name: MJ Count: 1 9 Name: Woody Allen Count: 1 10 Name: Clack Count: 1 11 Name: Statue of Liberty Count: 1 12 Name: Mario Bros. Count: 1 13 Name: moon Count: 1 Related Keywords 0 Name: phone Score: 120 1 Name: up-and-coming Score: 70 2 Name: bands Score: 51 3 Name: pretty Score: 34 4 Name: didn Score: 28 5 Name: see Score: 28 6 Name: subway Score: 27 7 Name: cool Score: 26 8 Name: really Score: 25 9 Name: wasn Score: 24 Authors Media Images 0
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