Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do, Part II: The Poem

Welcome to "Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do," a new series here on PoYB. Please first read this blog post I wrote in 2009. There, I listed 22 subjects that I would NEVER write about on this website. Here in 2018, I say: don't fucking tell me what I can't do. For a total of twenty-two posts, I will be blogging about these subjects, in striking defiance of my 20-year-old naiveté.

TODAY'S "FORBIDDEN" SUBJECT: "A poem about how people in my theater group make me sick"

WHY IT WAS FORBIDDEN: It was a joke, because there really was a kid in my theater group who wrote a poem about how his fellow thespians made him sick. It was weird and funny and sad and baffling. The point was that I would never do that, which was the joke, I guess? I dunno, man.

HOW I WILL WRITE ABOUT IT: By posting the poem in question here, and reflecting upon the frenemy who wrote it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Were that my heart was not heavy,
Were that my bile did not rise,
To look upon you.

Shame has no meaning to you,
Nor pride, nor honor, nor glory;
You rest your face calmly in the muck,
And think nothing of it.

Oh! How great You could be,
How great you were, how great you could be yet,
If not for your poison'd will,
Your will that was made weak by Yourself.

Your beginning afar,
Your end is soon,
And You shall know me no more.

Any theater group, no matter the college, is going to be a bizarre melting pot of different types of people. A desire to participate on or behind the stage is a broad enough interest that really anyone can join up and find their place. It's not like the basketball program, because, like, you have to be good at basketball to be part of that team. Any ol' fucker can join theater, especially if you're at a school like La Salle, which was small and generally untalented in any one thing. You wanna be on stage, but you don't have any acting experience? Fuck it, it's La Salle, let's do this shit.

So the point is that there's a lot of weird fucking people in theater (I'll go ahead and include myself in that), and people butt heads, and people fight, and people act like the outrageous teenagers that they are.

We had one kid that was truly an enigma to me personally. A lot of people gave him shit, myself included, because he did a lot of shitty things to people. Trite shit, but still hurtful. Like one time he, for some fucking reason, posted a long screed by the box office, all about my one friend and how she was "unqualified" for an executive board position (yes, our theater program had an "executive board"). It's one thing to have an opinion (my opinion: she was fucking great at the job), but it's another to go out of your way to say mean shit about somebody, ya know?

People are by and large not black-and-white. They are not wholly one thing or another. People have layers. People have great qualities and shitty qualities. It's all quite complicated.

Because, you see, I was lucky enough to see the good sides of this kid as well. We were part of a play in 2010, in which at least half the play, maybe more, was entirely me and him having a dialogue on stage. Rehearsals sometimes were just him and me, honing the craft. And dude, not gonna lie, we fucking pulled that shit off. It was a joint effort, and I sincerely enjoyed working with him.

But during other rehearsals with the whole cast, he would act differently. I dunno. Like there was one time when I guess a bunch of us had been drinking heavily the night before, and maybe it showed at the beginning of rehearsal. This kid, though, says some really snarky bullshit to one of my great friends who was also in the cast. It was totally uncalled for. It was a really uncomfortable day.

I guess here's where the infamous poem comes in. In the Fall of 2009, the Masque was putting on the show Guys and Dolls. Unfortunately, due to family constraints, I wasn't able to be part of the cast, but all my friends were in it, and so I partied with those motherfuckers as much as they rehearsed. The big incident, if you want to call it that, was during the "Fun Run."

A "fun run" takes place in between weekends of the actual show, just a little refresher. No one takes it seriously. The drinkers of the theater program really didn't take it seriously. A fun run in Fall 2008 ended in multiple people throwing up in the theater and a stern talking-to from the seniors; a fun run in Spring 2010 was so blackout I was almost banned from the theater program completely.

I wasn't technically on stage during the Fun Run of Autumn 2009, but I still pregamed the fuck out of it with the cast and went to the theater with them to witness the carnage from the seats. Our star of this blog post was part of the cast, and he was there too, and he was, I guess to say the least, NOT HAPPY. There was no direct confrontation that night, but the next morning, on Facebook, he posted the above poem, and it was pretty fucking clear to all involved whom he was referring to.

The record should be clear that there was no animosity in our drinking that night, nor was there ever, really, when the theater kids drank. It's not like we got drunk and then said terrible things to the kid or anyone else. We were just drunk and acting foolish. Kid stuff. DEFINITELY nothing that would warrant being called "weak" or full of "shame" or having faces "in the muck" or cause "bile to rise." It was a classic, pompous, kind of shitty behind-the-back attack that was completely unwarranted. People didn't take kindly to it.

And I wouldn't even classify the reaction to the poem as extreme or anything of that sort. No one shunned the kid, he wasn't booted out of the theater program, his ass wasn't kicked, nothing like that. The general reaction from everyone was kind of like: "Dude, what the fuck, that is so weird."

So yeah, the kid was an enigma to me. I saw the good in him, and he was clearly doing his best to show his worst to a lot of other people. Either that, or didn't have the ability to make a judgment call as to whether his actions were shitty or not. Some people just don't have a filter.

Making the whole thing even more mysterious, a few months after I graduated, I saw the musical he was in, along with all the other kids younger than me. After the show, me and Pam stuck around a bit, and he came up to me and... apologized. Said something like: "Dude, I know I was shitty to you in the past, and I'm sorry."

Which was kind of weird, because I was the least of all people he needed to apologize to. It hurt when he was shitty to my friends, and I probably cursed his name a few times behind his back because of that and because of his teetotaling. But he never really did anything to me directly that would require an apology. I almost wished he would have instead apologized to some of my other friends more deserving of an apology in the first place, but I suppose that's neither here nor there. It just added another layer to him.

I'm not sure where he is these days. Not in Philly, as far as I know. He's a smart dude, poor social skills notwithstanding, so I'm sure he moved to a different city and is getting his doctorate in something or other. I hope he is doing well. I hope he found a way to connect to people in healthier ways. I hope he hasn't written any Ye Olde-style poems talking shit on people.

I can't say I regret making a joke about the whole situation when I wrote that blog post all those years ago. Posting that poem was the wrong thing to do on his part, and I take out my discomfort in people by making jokes. And on top of that, it gave me the opportunity a decade later to reflect on that whole strange dynamic. College is a weird fucking time. Trust me, I know. I was in the theater program.

Fishtown Bars, a PoYB Top Five List (or Two)

Top Five Bars in Fishtown

Because it's just a Route 15 bus ride away.

5. Saint Lazarus (during the day)

Can't really beat $1 PBR pounders in a dark and dank but friendly dive bar under the El. I feel cooler than I actually am when I slam a few brews at The Saint.

4. Loco Pez

The Mexican food is unimpeachable, the beers are reasonable, and... that's really all you need. It's relaxing at Loco Pez, ya know? Like I feel at home when I'm there.

3. El Bar

Probably the only bar in Fishtown more "divey" than Saint Lazarus, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Like, I've had nights where I'm chilling in their (awesome) backyard area, and the bouncers ask me to please pee in the drain behind a curtain right next to the bar. As long as those same bouncers chill with their constant shushing (as if we're being too loud?!), then I'll keep coming back.

2. Interstate Drafthouse

If you're looking to skip the fancy restaurants and go to a bar for dinner (or lunch, or brunch, or late-night snack), then Interstate Drafthouse is the place to be. I have never had a bad meal. Like Loco Pez, it strikes the perfect balance between that "neighborhood feel" and, like, not being a shithole.

1. Fishtown Tavern

Fishtown's eponymous bar is also its best. There are no frills. It's a shot-and-a-beer type of joint that never feels gross and you never feel unwelcome. When I want to meet people in Fishtown, the first choice is always Fishtown Tavern.

Honorable Mentions: Les and Doreen's (karaoke at its finest), Fette Sau (bangin' BBQ), Murph's (when Pam's not getting kicked out), Kosta's (when it's not too crowded)

Top Five Worst Bars in Fishtown

Because Fishtown is trendy now.

5. Saint Lazarus (at night)

As much as I love The Saint during the day, at night it's just waaaay too much. Cramped, sweaty, rude, loud. Fuck this place.

4. Johnny Brenda's

The bar that "started it all" when it comes to Fishtown's gentrification, so, thanks for that I guess? The problem with Johnny Brenda's is that it's a stuck-up snobby beer bar trying to masquerade as a "dive bar." In trying to split the difference, it fails at everything. The food is consistently disappointing, and the worst concert I've ever seen in my life was on the second floor (didn't help that the bartender stole $20 from Pam and was a huge cunt about it). Nah, leave this place to the tourists who want to believe they are getting the "edgy Philadelphia" experience.

3. Evil Genius

There's a type of person who constantly quotes Will Ferrell lines in an extremely lame attempt to come off as funny. Evil Genius is this type of person in bar form. Do you love Back to the Future memes and expensive, underwhelming beers? Do I have a bar for you!

2. Barcade

"I may have been in a sorority, but guys, I am, like, sooo nerdy too. Let's go to Barcade! And spend $10 on 8 oz. of beer! And try to play a broken Centipede game machine while rubbing up against every fucking meathead I've ever known! LOL."

1. Garage North

Old City is dead. Everyone moved to Frankford and Girard. And they all go to Garage North... that is, after they wait in line for 45 minutes to get in?! Everyone I've ever hated loves Garage North.

Honorable Mentions: Mad Rex (never been, but I have to assume it fucking suuucks), Frankford Hall (I've had too many great times at this fucking awful bar for it to have made the list)

Return to the Pinehive

Esteemed music critic Steven Hyden is dead wrong in his assessment that nothing has been clarified.

First, read this long report from Pitchfork, published today. It's about Pinegrove's rise and fall in the face of sex abuse allegations. The timeline is pretty fucking clear. I will spell it out below for Hyden and anyone else who still feels that they require clarification.

1. Pinegrove was a kick-ass indie rock band.
2. Evan Stephens Hall, the Pinegrove frontman, is a dorky indie rock bookworm who gets in way over his head when it comes to women.
3. Hall hooks up with a girl who he met during a concert. They sleep together. The girl had a boyfriend.
4. The girl, who wishes to remain anonymous, feels uncomfortable about the situation, because she feels that Hall pressured her into having sex. The sex itself was consensual, per the anonymous victim, but the pressure she felt to ultimately cheat on her boyfriend was unwarranted pressure, and for that she felt that Hall had sexually coerced her.
5. (Pause here to say that women should be feel safe to come forward when a guy makes them feel uncomfortable. If this girl really did feel uncomfortable, then she has EVERY RIGHT TO SAY SOMETHING, and I'm glad that she spoke her truth. Anyone who says differently is a fucking neanderthal who needs to get his head out of his ass.)
6. Girl talks with Sheridan Allen, founder of "Punk Talks," an organization whose alleged mission is "to connect touring musicians and music industry workers with free therapy."
7. Allen takes this information, and against the wishes of the anonymous victim, contacts the band, their label, and others, informing them of these allegations, stating that "it has not been an easy time working directly to take down the biggest band in indie right now," and insinuating that there are other victims (there aren't, as far as we know).
8. Allen purported to be a licensed therapist and allegedly indicated confidentiality when she spoke to Hall and the victim, but she is not a licensed therapist, and she abused her stature to, again, "try to take down" Pinegrove.
9. Again, nothing Allen did or didn't do changes the fact that Hall did something to this girl that made her feel uncomfortable. Still, what could have been a private matter between Hall and the victim was aired publicly, which wasn't right either.
10. In late November 2017, Hall posted a confusing and lengthy apology / defense / ??? on Facebook, stating that he has been accused of sexual coercion, that he will be entering therapy, and that their tour (for which I had tickets!) would be canceled.
11. Here's where Pitchfork does indeed clarify some stuff, regardless of what people want to believe. In the article, Hall makes it very clear that he was taken aback by the allegations, but, crucially, he does not deny them.
12. He spent the last ten months getting therapy, reflecting, and, again, CRUCIALLY—working with the victim (through a mediator) to rectify the situation and make things right.
13. Pinegrove, as a band, adhered the victim's wishes to take a year off and stay out of the limelight. It is only with the victim's blessing that they are releasing an album on Friday and possibly setting up some tour dates.

Honestly, the only "puzzle piece" that could possibly be said to be missing is the details about what actually happened between Hall and the victim. But that's none of our business! What this ultimately comes down to is how the victim feels about the situation, and if she believes that Hall has done enough to make amends, then we, the listeners, are allowed to believe the same as well.

This bears little resemblance to the recent Louis C.K. situation. Yes, in both cases, a man abused his power to put women in an uncomfortable situation. Both men disappeared for a while. Here's where the paths diverge. Evan Stephens Hall clearly (if this article and the band's testimony is to be believed) has done his very best to make amends. Therapy was part of it, sure. But there was willing and a following through of taking directives from the VICTIM of the abuse. The VICTIM played a key role in the rehabilitation. It is only after SHE said that he has done enough was Hall able to move forward. Hall respected HER opinions on the matter.

When Louis C.K. appeared back on stage at some fucking comedy club, there were a lot of hot takes, but I didn't see SHIT about what his victims thought or felt or wanted. If C.K. made amends to them behind the scenes, and they made that clear, and were okay with it, then maaaaybe C.K. can start on that road to public forgiveness. But all he fucking did was retreat to his fucking mansion and wait it out. Didn't do shit to make amends. Fuck him.

I stand by an assertion that I've made over and over since all this Pinegrove controversy came to light, and, more broadly, since women started coming forward in droves to say Me Too. ***If there is no evidence to the contrary, then the victim must be believed, and the price must be paid.***

The Pinegrove shit was especially upsetting to me because I feel so strongly about the music, music that is so uplifting and positive that I found it extremely difficult to comprehend that Evan Stephens Hall could be a sexual abuser. I didn't listen to Pinegrove for a while, grappling with how to put aside music that I love so fucking dearly.

So I'm thankful for the clarification today from Jenn Pelly at Pitchfork. There was some shitty behavior by Hall, and he was aghast at his own actions, and he took a break for a while, and he worked with the victim to make amends. MRA scumbags ask the hypothetical question all the time: "What, are these men supposed to just disappear forever?! What do you want them to do!?" The answer, it seems, is following Evan Stephens Hall's example. The victim's rights and opinions and needs are FUCKING PARAMOUNT. That's it. That's the answer.

When I listen to Pinegrove these days, I still feel my heart soar, but it's tinged slightly with feelings of melancholy, knowing that we live in a world that men, including myself, including a bookish soft-spoken indie rock cult hero, men who can't fathom that what they are doing sometimes makes women uncomfortable. That men have the responsibility to self-reflect and acknowledge when they fuck up, and that many, many men refuse to take on that responsibility.

In some ways, all this fucking horrible shit almost deepens Pinegrove's music. Their music is already filled with regret and longing and nostalgia and, to put it childishly, fucking EMO FEELINGS.

I wonder how I'll feel when I listen to the band's new album, Skylight, on Friday (released with the victim's permission, all proceeds to charities). Indeed, the Pitchfork article highlights how eerily the songs, written before the allegations came to light, could nevertheless be taken as a response to the allegations and Hall's reckoning.

I am sickened and dismayed that Evan Stephens Hall made a girl feel like shit, and I am proud that he was at least a decent enough human to come to terms with what he did, and to try his best to make things right, and I'm happy that he seems to be there, finally.

So nah, I don't see what the confusion is here. Pinegrove is back. At the end of the day, I'm happy and relieved, because I am a Pinenut (even though I will probably never get that tattoo), and I fucking love this band, and I can't wait to hear more. But I'm also happy that Evan Stephens Hall, who by his own admission sexually coerced a woman, ultimately made things right.

The Albums That Matter: Are You Serious

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

Are You Serious

Andrew Bird

2016

Back in the late '00s, when I was first getting into Andrew Bird, I was bamboozled by Andrew Bird himself into not taking him seriously. You saw it when I cheated my way through our discussion of his 2005 effort Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs. There, I just copied and pasted a fool's outlook on Bird discography that I had written in 2009, which basically dismissed everything he had ever done before or after Production of Eggs. They were big words for someone who only listened to one other fucking Bird album (see you next time for a real apology for this when we get to Armchair Apocrypha).

But here's where, I think, Andrew Bird's own quotes made young Joe not really delve into his music as much as I should have. Multiple times in old interviews, Bird describes how he doesn't really think to much of his lyrics, and they basically don't mean anything.

Here's a 2009 interview with NPR: "Bird's lyrics often feature archaic language... which he chooses mainly for their sound... When selecting words for lyrics... he's more interested in feel than in exact, specific definitions."

And a 2008 NYT article written by Bird himself: "What is becoming more challenging of late is dealing with so many fully formed melodies that are unwilling to change their shape for any word. So writing lyrics becomes like running multiple code-breaking programs in your head until just the right word with just the right number of syllables, tone of vowel and finally some semblance of meaning all snap into place."

And Bird in a 2009 AVClub interview: "The melodies come out so strong that I'm like, 'Oh, crap.' It's really better if they could both be kind of able to compromise, but the melodies, even more recently, they come out very fully cast and formed. So you've got one thing that's fixed and another thing that sort of has to accommodate the melody."

Okay, okay, you get the point. I'm not even saying that I'm a "lyrics-first" type of music listener. But still, the way that Bird had constantly downplayed his lyrics, insisting that they weren't as important as the melody, the self-deprecation was kind of a turn-off.

All that to say that Andrew Bird finally put out an album that can have its cake and eat it too with the release of 2016's Are You Serious.

My notes for this post say "Are You Serious is Bird getting serious," which is groan-worthy for sure, but still, I don't have a better way of putting it. Go through the lyrics on this album, and a lot of it reads coherently, which is a huge step for Bird. It's actually kind of wild how well everything congeals here. For a guy who has seemingly spent his whole career saying that he is a musician first, whistler second, and lyricist third, it fucking thrilling to see him grow this poetic talent that, let's be honest, we all knew was strong in the first place.

Gone are the mad libs, and in their place are such songs as "Chemical Switches," a ditty using actual chemicals as a stand-in for romantic chemistry; such songs as "Roma Fade," in which the singer loves a women but is also very much aware that he's probably being creepy too; songs such as "Left-Handed Kisses," written as a duet, a self-aware love song questioning the validity of love songs; songs such as the title track, which most likely tells the tale of how Bird met his wife (and which features the line "This is all non-fiction," which is the skeleton key to the whole album, really).

The melodies, obviously, are still here. They've always been here with Andrew Bird. As always, his tunes are simple and fun and joyful. I've never complained that Andrew Bird wasn't catchy. This shit's great! Take the lead single "Capsized," with its alternating bombastic punches vs. slithering coolness, or "The New Saint Jude," which bops along with a sort of top-button-buttoned, Vampire Weekend-esque swagger.

It's just, with Are You Serious, there's something more. It's a whole product, not just a collection of violin hooks. Take the penultimate track, possibly the best thing Bird has ever done, "Valleys of the Young." It features all the hallmarks of Bird's music, like the lurching, eccentric melody, the soaring ghostly whistling, etc. But it also hits you hard with the lyrics, especially if you're like me and are still adjusting to life with a child. It speaks to the rarely-written-about-in-song feelings of fear and apprehension at the idea of having a tiny person who is solely your responsibility. The song asks these questions as the music just fucking soars around you.

It's a great fucking song, and emblematic of heights Andrew Bird can hit when everything is clicking. Are You Serious is the album where he starts hitting those heights way above his average.

~~~~~~~~~~~

If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Capsized"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Stray Observations

• I know last time I said I was going to write about both this album and Armchair Apocrypha at the same time, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. It took me over two months to write about one album, let alone two.
• Andrew Bird dresses really well. I learned in one of those interviews that that is because his wife is a fashion designer for a really well-known company that I've certainly never heard of.
• ALBUM COVER: No evidence online as to what this album cover means, so let us, as we often do here, speculate. The bird, obviously, is a stand-in for Bird. The handshake, I would surmise, is the handshake between melody and lyrics that the bird/Bird finally brings to fruition.
• Andrew Bird charmingly notated his own lyrics for this album on Genius. It works here, because (as if to beat you over the head with this point) his lyrics actually mean something.
• This is the third album in a row where there should be a question mark in the title, but the punctuation mark is conspicuously absent. I guess artists don't want the listeners to think anything but certainty about an album.

NEXT TIME: Armchair Apocrypha by... sigh... Andrew Bird (not sure how I'm going to survive when we have to write about Led Zeppelin four times in a row)

I Don't Eat Jesus

I was at a wedding this past weekend. I usually say "Weddings are always fun," and that maxim held true this weekend for sure. But when I say that, I'm referring to the wedding reception; the wedding ceremony is typically hit or miss. When two people get married in a Catholic church, the ceremony is typically a miss.

I've documented my struggles with Catholicism before, but I took a big step on Friday, at the mass. It was the first time since second grade that I was at Mass and purposefully did not receive Holy Communion. I didn't kneel. I didn't do the sign of the cross or respond "Amen" or say the Lord's Prayer, and so on. I (respectfully) did not participate in the ceremony.

I guess that sounds stupid and ignorant to both sides of the argument, but still, I was proud of myself. It's been years since I've believed the words I was saying, believed that the cracker is actually flesh. But sometimes routines and rituals are soothing, and so I kept doing it during those handful of Masses I attended each year.

And so I get the appeal of religious ceremony and religious belief. It can be a balm when you are troubled. Feeling low? Eat some Jesus, you'll feel better! God is watching over you! If you can bring yourself to believe in magic, you can then believe that there's someone out there who wants to help you, as long as you pray to him.

I think the story of Jesus Christ as presented in the Gospels is a great example of how to live one's life. Love your neighbor as yourself—it's literally the best way to live your life, and it was Jesus' central message to his followers. I try (and very often fail) to live this way, to love my neighbor unconditionally. In this way, I do try to follow Jesus' example, even though, ya know, I'm not doing it because Jesus lived that way.

The problem, though, with the Church is that the institution very often does NOT follow that central tenet. Because, you see, the Catholic Church is the largest secret pedophile ring in history. Not all priests molest children, but many do. I think of priests the same way I do of cops. If you are a police officer who doesn't report bad police officers, then you yourself are a bad police officer. Likewise, if you are a priest who is doing nothing about other priests molesting children, then you are a bad priest.

So yeah, doing the sign of the cross is a habit and could be soothing sometimes to just do it, but why should I watch a bad priest do the sign of the cross, and then follow his lead? Why would anyone? It's easy to say "but I had nothing to do with the child molestations" but if you're still willfully participating in Catholicism in America, you're saying it's okay that children were molested.

It's not a struggle to think this way. It shouldn't be a struggle for anyone to denounce child abuse. The struggle comes in, I guess, when it comes to how to express these opinions in a respectful way. Plenty of people are "Catholics" because they want an excuse for how shitty of a person they are, but plenty of other people are Catholics because they genuinely want to do good in the world. If I truly am trying to spread love in the world, then shitting on people's beliefs just to do it would not achieve that goal.

I don't consider myself an atheist. That whole movement seems weirdly hostile to me. In what other facet of society do we have people so very committed to NOT believing in something? There's no proof that god exists, but there's technically no proof that god doesn't exist. To my scientific mind, a lack of proof is important in determining belief, and if there's no proof of existence, then I don't believe that it exists. But, fuck, who knows, there could be a god. I don't know! Atheism just seems like the other side of the coin. Like Catholics, atheists can't prove what they believe.

But if there is a god up there who chooses his leaders and allows those leaders to rape children, then I want no part of that god. That god, the god that people willfully choose to believe exists, that god can go fuck himself.

Like I said, though, religion is not something I want to be shouting about on corners. There's really no point in trying to prove a believer wrong. It would achieve nothing but sadness. My boss came into work today and told me that her father had a pacemaker put in over the weekend. I told her I'm "praying for her family." I emphatically don't believe that prayer makes a difference one way or the other. I don't believe that prayer would help, but I believe that saying that I would pray would be helpful in that particular conversation. See the difference?

There is also a strong chance that my child(ren) will be attending Catholic school, so I guess these issues won't be going away anytime soon.

A Tale of Mobile Communication in Three Parts

Subtitled: Joe's Hubris in the Age of Expensive Cell Phones

Part I: Death

I debated for the past year whether I should finally give up the ghost and leave my parents' cell phone plan. I don't know how many 30-year-olds are still on their parents' plan. This webpage cites a study that, of all eighteen-and-older humans still on their parents' plan, 32% of those humans were 30 years of age or older. So it's not like I was a freak in hanging on to the cell phone number I've had since I was in high school. Plenty of other people do it.

Still, at the same time... I'm almost thirty. Millennials definitely take their time getting to full-on adulthood, but we get there eventually, and getting my own cell phone bill seemed like the next logical step.

If you can imagine it, up until last summer, I didn't pay for my phone at all. Mom and Dad didn't request money, and it wasn't like I was going to request to pay them, ya know? And just like that time my sister made me look good when she had the misfortune of getting pinched for drugs the same weekend I get cited for public urination, my portion of their family phone bill looked financial chump change next to my sisters', who are on their data-chomping phones all the goddamn time (millennials come in all shapes and sizes).

But that changed last summer. If you'll recall, I did something new every day during the summer of 2017 ("new," i.e. YMMV), and on Day 61, I got a tattoo. If you know my Dad, you'll know that one of his pet peeves is tattoos. This is the same dad who found a baggie of coke after my seventeenth birthday party and didn't have anything significant to say about it, but has threatened me and my siblings multiple times with expulsion from the home if we ever dared to get a tattoo.

But I don't live at home anymore, and I don't particularly plan on doing so for the rest of my life (unless Pam finally snaps and kicks me out), so with only a hint of malice, I drunkenly told my dad about my tattoo, a small unobtrusive mark on a place where he never would've known about it if I hadn't stupidly fucking told him. But so anyway, after I told him, he was the one laughing, not me, because apparently we had made some fucking deal—a deal I have no conscious memory of making—a handshake deal that if I ever got a tattoo, then I would have to start paying my phone bill.

Had I recalled making such a deal, the 15-pt font on my asscheek would've remained a secret from my ancestors until they died. So it goes. It could've been worse. $20/month is nothing to get worried about. Still though, $240/year looks so shitty next to my previous $0/year bill (I know, fucking upper-middle-class problems, right? Shame on me). So my thought process throughout the year was: how can I get rid of this fucking phone bill? (Sidenote: tattoo removal was not an option.)

The solution was with me all along: I had a separate cell phone that was paid for through my job, and as far as I could tell, there was no oversight as to how I used it. Whenever my personal phone acted up, I always had the work phone as a reliable backup. What was stopping me from using the work phone full-time? I guess the only reason I could think of was that I didn't want to go through the trouble of letting everyone know that my phone number had changed. I didn't wanna be that guy.

Still, my year with a phone bill was coming to a close, and I was leaning toward moving to the work phone. As it turns out, my decision was made for me. I was taking a piss at the Cape May Winery and decided to check my personal phone, only to see very bright squiggly lines lit up on the screen. It kind of looked like how those scrambled porn channels used to look when you'd scroll past them on basic cable in the '90s. Suffice it to say, it was unusable, and after trying every trick I could think of (take the battery out and put it back in, let the battery die then fully charge it again, slamming the phone against a ceramic tile floor as hard as I could, etc.), I pronounced it dead, and went the rest of my Wildwood vacation without a phone.

It was a pain in the ass, transferring all my contacts to my work phone, and texting everyone to make sure they knew that I had a new phone number. Not to mention, I also felt like an asshole, texting people to warn them of the number change, because that means I had the presumption that people even want or need to contact me in the first place. I can imagine that many people got texts and were like, "why the fuck would I need Joe K***'s number?"

Nevertheless, I had a new/old phone, and I was back on the grid, and life was fine.

Part II: More Death, Add Insult

I should've mentioned, however, that my work phone was like four years old already, which in Phone Technology Years is, like, a couple decades old at least. So of course, two weeks into my stint with the Samsung Galaxy S4 provided by **** ****, that motherfucker starts conking out on me too. It wasn't a here-one-day-gone-the-next type deal like my previous phone. This one just started to reset by itself, a few times a day, until eventually it would just keep resetting over and over and over until it became unusable.

No sweat, I thought. I'll just get it replaced. I sent an email to the IT department, requesting what I could do, and they told me to bring the phone up to the IT Help Desk and get it examined. Easy peasy.

The first foreboding sign was that the lady at the help desk couldn't give me an exact length of time that it would take to get it examined. It was that stereotypical government worker "It's not my responsibility so I can't give you any information" bullshit. Wednesday turned into Thursday turned into a holiday weekend without any word from the goddamn IT department about replacing my phone. I was assured multiple times that I was eligible for a new phone and that I would be contacted via email when it was ready.

FINALLY, last Tuesday, I got an email, telling me to please come to the IT department to pick up my new phone. There was also a request to do this before 4 PM. I rushed upstairs at 3:30, only to find the whole IT department empty.

Okay.... FINALLY, FINALLY on Wednesday morning, a full week after I handed in my phone to be replaced, I return to the IT Help Desk. "Ah yes, sir, we have your phone for you." He goes into the cabinet, and pulls out... my old phone. I look at him in disbelief. "Is... is it fixed?" "I don't know, I didn't do anything to it personally." "But they didn't give you any notes on what they did to fix it?" "No, I have no idea." I walk out, stunned that it took a full week for someone to just hand me my goddamn phone back. On the elevator back to my floor, the phone reset itself. Twice.

Clearly someone thought it fit to just wait for a week and give me the phone back without doing jackshit to fix it. Honestly, though, at this point all I can do is roll my eyes at the incompetence of my employers. The city government does not hire the best and the brightest. It's like that old "those who teach gym" joke: Those who can't do, work for the city government, and those who can't work for the city government, work for the city government's IT department.

So I wait, again. Wednesday turned into the weekend, another weekend without a phone. On Monday morning, I was pissed, so sent a strongly worded email to the IT department, asking what the FUCK was taking so long. I received this response:

Good Morning Joseph. Per your supervisor's request you mobile device will not be returned to you. We were recently made aware that you are in a position that does not require a mobile device. As a result of that unfortunately your mobile device has been wiped and is currently in the process to be reassigned to another person who may be in need. Thank you, T**** B***

??????????????

Where did this come from? How have I been using a work phone for sixteen months now in a work unit where I'm apparently not supposed to have one? Seriously, I watched the whole fucking series of The Sopranos on that phone using the city's data, and no one said boo, and now all of a sudden I'm not supposed to have one? And okay, if I accept that (which I guess I have to), then how in the world did it take almost TWO WEEKS for someone to tell me that I can't have a phone back?

I know I did this to myself, the whole not-having-a-phone thing, but still. The whole thing was extended to an absurd degree because of the general incompetence of my superiors. Ughhhhhhhhh.

Part III: New Life 

A shiny new Motorola Moto arrived in the mail yesterday, but more on that in a second.

First I want to talk about how fucking FREE I felt without a phone. Guys, it felt fucking great. Sure, about 10% of the time it was a pain in the ass—missed texts, missed appointments, having to print out Google Maps directions for the first time in years—but the other 90% of the time, I felt fucking great. It felt like I was unshackled from the chains of constant communication.

My eyes felt better by the end of the day, now that I wasn't squinting at a tiny screen all the goddamn time. I kicked my habit of looking at my phone every five goddamn seconds. I slept like a fucking log at night, now that the screen wasn't burning a hole in my retina as I looked on in the dark.

I told my father-in-law that I didn't have a phone, so he'd have to call Pam if he had any trouble with the babysitting, and he said, "Well, we all survived without them for years, I think you'll be okay without one for now." And that's so fucking true. Who really needs a phone? I went two whole weeks without one, and I didn't die. I didn't lose any friends. I got by (with a little help from my wife/secretary and from FB messenger).

And now, yes, I have my own personal phone, with yet another new number. And I think I figured out a path to doing the whole thing on the cheap side, as is my m.o. There is a phone service provider called Ting that I signed up for. On Ting, you pay what you use. So if you send 100-1000 texts, you add $5 to the bill, but if you send 1001-5000 texts, you add $8 to the bill. Same with minutes. Same with data (I turned off data completely, because it wouldn't be a Joe K*** frugal endeavor without a little inconvenience!).

All in all, I'll hopefully be paying, at most, $30 a month for phone service. Which, if you go back to the start of this unnecessary essay, you'll see is more than what I started with. I was paying $20 a month and I didn't even have to work for it. Now I'm paying $30 a month, and that's IF I tell my friends to please include their emojis in the same text as their words and not a different text, and IF I don't use my phone to scroll through Twitter while I'm sitting on the bus.

If I would've just kept my fucking mouth shut about the tattoo, if I would've just bought a goddamn battery for my work phone instead of trying to finagle my way into a free new one, if I would've just shut up and gave my parents a twenty every month, I wouldn't be here.

"Here" being adulthood, paying my own bills, which I guess is a silver lining if you want to think about it that way.

Fuck cell phones.