#125 Cell-ad Greens

When you stop to think about it, the evidence is our culture is getting more and more impersonal. Cellphones, those wonderful instruments that were supposed to bring people together, actually drive humanity apart. Don’t think so? Next time a cellphone caller walks by you on the street shouting to some bar-disabled callee on the other end tell me how you feel. Especially if his shouting interrupts a conversation you’re having with a live human being right there.
Or the next time someone walks into your store or office and they are gesticulating madly and talking at thin air, remember that these days, chances are they’re not a crazy schizophrenic on the loose. Look for a little microphone dangling from their ear before calling the boys with the long-armed white coats.
Schizo-phones, as I call them, are among the most disconcerting of today’s cell-profane society. Especially the new version, the smaller than a Star Trek communicator that actually perches on someone’s ear. You know, the one with that annoying blue light. I keep thinking I should rush down the aisle for a good deal on something. At least it’s that cool blue that you see on tricked-out car bumpers, excuse me, pimped-out car bumpers. The blue that says class, style and wealth. No cheesy cheap yellow light for these cell-folk, cool blue is where it’s at.
But they still look like a cross between a traffic cop and a mime on hallucinogens when they start handsfree talking to their friends while they’re shopping or walking or whatever. I used to think walking down the street with a friend, each of you talking on your respective cellphones to someone else, was the epitome of disconnected connectedness. But at least you could see that the other guy was talking. His hand to his ear was a dead giveaway. But now, with cords, antenna, and microphones hidden under hair, every third cell-gal looks like the bag lady on the corner, shouting alternating streams of profanity and pitiful imprecations at all and sundry.
It’s lucky the men’s hair fashion tends to buzzcuts. We can see the hardware on their noggins, unless they wear a helmet or one of those oversized half-cocked baseball caps all the teams retail. Have I mentioned lately how odd it is that basketball teams put their names on baseball caps? Don’t get me started.
Here’s what I predict. We are about to see the age of the free cellphone. Recognizing that a good part of America spends a great deal of every day on their phone, advertising mavens will conceive the idea of a subsidized phone network—paid for entirely by advertising. You’ll be able to talk any number of minutes, at any time, completely for free, in exchange for listening to a brief ad message each time you dial a number and at periodic intervals through your conversation. No one will force this option on you, but you will be able to elect it in exchange for free phone service.
You’re thinking about it aren’t you?
America, ya gotta love it.