Little write up where the author talks to people about what they did before cell phones and the internet. One story I have is one of my band was playing with someone in their 20s and they were asking what it was like to play music in the 90s. To them, it was this magical time where you could play a show shitty, get wasted out in public, do all sorts of stupid shit and it was gone the next day. And it was. To them, every show, every time they go out, they have to be ON because everything is recorded. Fuck up one show, and thats all the exists about you. Get drunk and pass out at the bar? That’s the image every saves of you on their damn phones. They were literally getting teary eyed hearing us talk about what hellions we were in bands back then. Anyways, get off my porch.
“Recently, a number of my younger coworkers expressed shock that I was able to complete a master’s degree while I held a full-time job. It was easy: I worked at a literary agency during the day, I got off work at 5 p.m., and I studied at night. The key was that this was just after the turn of the millennium. “But what would you do when you had work emails?” these coworkers asked. “I didn’t get work emails,” I said. “I barely had the internet in my apartment.”
“Sean: We really would just drive to someone’s house and see what they were doing. You and a couple people would be in the car and you’d be like, “Let’s go by Brian and Mike’s.”
Matt: Either we’d made plans or we’d just go to the same few places. During the week it was the Front Page in Dupont and GG Flips, or on Thursdays or Fridays it was Lulu’s on M Street. Someone I knew would be there.
Sean: There were only six places you’d go and someone would be there. Birds and La Poubelle, across from the Scientology Celebrity Centre. And then like four other places.”
Sally: Sometimes you’d do a 30, 45-minute call with someone. That’s a big part of your night.
Dan: You’d tuck the phone under your chin while you wandered the apartment.
Matt: If you couldn’t find the handset, you’d push a button on the base so it beeped.
Nicole: I was definitely a phone person. I could stay on the phone with a friend while we were both doing chores, whatever.
Sally: Now, if someone calls me on the phone, I’m like, “How violent of you to call me.”
