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2001-08-18 - 5:42 p.m. - yer digital cell phones hate my analog walkman (for laura)

About a week ago I was at a show in Dayton with my good friend Laura and her old roommate Kate. As we were sitting there she reached over and handed me a photocopied article from a book by David Sedaris. THe essay she gave me was about Mr. Sedaris's fear of technology (or hatred, not fear as he insists) most specifically, computers. Laura said the article reminded her of me because of my fascination with all things lo-fi, hands on and analog. I read the article, I was amused, i felt sympathetic.

The other day i was on the tube here in England listening to a tape with a bunch of my favorite bands who live with 2 hours of where i live: Lovesick, Aloha, THe White Stripes, Ten DOllar Typewriter, etc. etc. All of a sudden my walkman was possesed by a horrible burst of sound that was not unlike the sound made by the probe droid at the beginning of "The Empire Strikes Back" (you know the one Han and Chewiw blow up at the very beginning before Luke gets lost). I freaked out because i had just purchased a new set of headphones (the hip city headphones that wrap around the back of yer head and you look super cool while wearing, kind of like Bono but backwards) because when this sound occured the day before i thought it was because the headphones were old.

The sound kept occuring and i kept getting annoyed. then all of a sudden the sound stopped and i was happy rocking along to the new version of "Hearts by their Names."

The train stopped and I got out and headed up the stairs to the street so i could buy records or eat food or some random activity i do to fill days here.

In between songs, as i was climbing the stairs i heard somebody's cellphone ring (and i use the word 'ring' liberally because how many cell phones actually ring anymore, to be more accurate i should say it played a loud annoying song.) The woman in front of me pulled a phone out of her pocket and activated it, as soon as she did, which in a strange coincidence was just at the beginning of the old version of "Hearts by their names" the evil sound of empirial probe droids pulsed through my head and, probably, caused my ears and brain (and heart) to internally (eternally) bleed.

It was the fucking cellphones.

Tony later explained to me that the cellphones here are digital which is just starting to catch on in the states.so soon, i could look forward to the disruption of my analog dreams with digital nightmares in the states too.

I guess my biggest problem with this is that everything digital is very oppresive. why can't digital co-exist with that which is not digital. it seems very reminiscent to our country's racist history where one group shows up, thinks there the shit, then proceeds to assimilate and destroy everything beautiful that was there before.

lets allow digital and analog to hold hands and walk peacefully.

if im ever listening to records in the states and i hear probe droids. im coming for you.

xoxo

listen to: aloha, lovesick, the locust, badly drawn boy, arab strap, the white stripes, love.

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