Inside Tyler and Alex’ ‘Post No Bills’ ‘zine I was privileged to publish a shortened version of this article.
You can browse it over, but below is the full-fledged, extended, original version.

Vendors of Violence

East 9th Street in New York’s Lower East Side is a vortex. It feels a bit like a sitcom, and we should sell you the movie rights.

Yesterday, we were called ‘VENDORS OF VIOLENCE.’ It was written n watercolors and red capital letters on cardboard signs tied to my store; among others, some f-words accompanied the pro-acclaimed activists’ social media posts. NOT HERE, NOT NOW. The protest was random but tightly organized. It’s a ‘Christian Coalition, ‘ says the lady checking out the store, and the pastor had endorsed the protest, then she righteously stomped out. When they find themselves with idle time, one can see them handing out free food that has been donated to the church or, in this case, protecting us from Chinese gun companies. their IG spells ‘CommUnity’ with a capital “U.”

I run a graphic design studio in the back part of the store. The front third is a store opening onto a quiet neighborhood street. Sometimes, I have pop-up stores use the space for a month or two because I don’t have the time or energy to run both the studio and the store. The latest of these vendors is a Chinese company. They hired a girl called Sisi to find a suitable store in New York to introduce their products to the US market. Sisi said it was a line of bags. The company didn’t have a website then, but Sisi showed me pictures of bags and gear used for paintball games, camping, and hunting. It’s not my style, but it’s not illegal, no weapons, no drugs, and no loud parties; what could go wrong? Some people like camouflage. The girls running the pop-up store, Sunjian and Sisi, are lovely, unintimidating, and polite. Before their promotional event for the company’s website relaunch, they left brownies on my desk to apologize for any inconvenience.

As pop-up shops, we had people selling costumes with polyester tassels and a street wear guy who thought he was oh so cool but couldn’t read the room on how the rest of the studio was annoyed by his ten songs of gangster rap on an infinitely looped playlist. The winter before that, there was a guy selling coats, a smooth-talking salesman over a shot from the magnum Henney, and anti-gun violence rappers selling out a fashion line at an event commemorating a friend who was shot; their mom brought cookies; dad made burgers for everyone. We had fanzine releases and car crash picture paintings in a more sophisticated gallery, an Australian influencer with a million followers. Still, let’s get back to this pop-up store. The company is based in China, and its new website looks intimidating, with pictures of people carrying fake assault rifles playing paintball, I have been told. I don’t like games that include shooting anyone, even with rays of sunshine, but I am also indifferent to people who enjoy this. The Chinese company’s perception of the US market might be more suitable to Texas than New York.

“That’s a cool gun” is a sentence I never said.

This is how the protest unfolded, featuring a central figure named Lenny. He often stopped by the store, giving us free lunch from the church donations. We are friends through the local community garden. A few days before, Sunjian came to a typography design event we organize every month called TypeThursday. Lenny knows a lot of people, so when our original venue got canceled, I reached out to him. He straightaway offered us the public area of a co-working space where he works. It was a great success –Sunjian was inspired to show her own project about a language only Chinese women speak. Sunjian also met Lenny; they talked and became friends, and he was excited to promote neighborhood stores and their website launch event, with 50 free tactical gear bags, one for him. Lenny and his neighborhood friends like the tactical gear look. He shared a video of Sunjian announcing the free bags, and it became the talk of the town.

Lenny also partners with the “CommUnity.” He aspires to be a local politician, and his post startled some of his ‘CommUnity’ friends because, besides paintball and hunting gear, the new website features dudes crawling around in the mud in military gear with replica assault rifles playing war games. On their Instagram, the hunters pose in militia outfits like right-wing cosplayers mimicking combat scenarios. It does look scary; the bags have halters for hand grenades. The images triggered the “CommUnity” so strongly that they organized this protest around Sunjian’s store.

EV Grieve, a popular Lower East Side blog, ran a story on the protest titled Community members speak out against a tactical gear pop-up shop on 9th Street. It mentioned that the store lied and broke its bargain not to hold the free bag giveaway event. We are even more confused. What do they mean by that? Luckily, the “CommUnity” is not the mafia, and protection money doesn’t have to be paid. To Lenny, to his dubious other goFundMe campaigns? The store simply closed because the company wanted to avoid conflict. The article is linked to the company’s website. Since the protest, the homepage had this statement posted: “At 1TG Tactical, we offer a range of products and services designed to promote safety, education, and responsible gun use.”

Unlike the Lower East Side “CommUnity,” Sisi and Sunjian were surprised and explained that the Chinese are raised to respect, maybe even adore, military personnel, police, and authority. Staging a protest would be highly illegal in China. They had grown to love the neighborhood’s quirky characters frequenting the community garden, predictably sitting on the stoop, wasting time and keeping an eye on things like in the old TV series The A-team. When the protesters came to the store, Sunjian at first thought they were customers, and explained in detail the merits of their products, but their minds were already made that camouflage means guns, which are destroying other peoples’ kids’ futures. Sunjian called the police to explain that none of her gear was military-grade or bulletproof and that she was not selling any weapons as that would be illegal in NYC. Policemen and women love her bags as they are very practical for carrying all their accessories, but they also explained that the protest is within the “CommUnity” ‘s rights as long as they stay three feet from the store. From the pictures I saw on Lenny’s social media, the protest seemed to last briefly, with people standing before the closed store. Lenny wears glasses and crosses his arms like he is in the FBI.

The day before, I returned from teaching and didn’t take all the commotion seriously. I am so confused. I don’t have time for that; they don’t sell guns. Lenny would handle and cancel the protest, so I hoped —until it blew up. Sunjian started crying that day after discovering someone had stolen her food delivery. She didn’t know why she was being targeted while the criminals stole her food. Lenny flipped and didn’t hail the neighborhood store anymore but posted flyers promoting the protest. So, the store girls decided to call off the event and close for the day. I went on a date.

Sisi and Sunjian often consulted a Feng Shui master. That’s how they settled on the location of my store as their pop-up to start with. The key idea behind Feng Shui is dealing with Chi. Chi represents energy. Sisi and the master often communicate and Sisi drew this diagram of the store. Outside and above the drawing, the street acts like a river, but it runs uphill one way. Underneath our road runs an actual river, the old drainage from Tompkins Square Park, flowing in the opposite direction towards the East River. As a foreign company, this counterflow unlocks opportunity. Secondly, across the street looms an empty school building called Charas or EL Bohio, once a bustling community center. Since it is a monument that stands empty, it attracts unwanted energy. However, even negative energy can benefit businesses, further increasing opportunities and profits. Sunjian said: “The 3rd bad thing is the street light, which stands right before our main entrance. The Feng Shui master said that it is a giant poking needle, which means people will talk about and judge us behind our backs.” (The sketch of a Feng Shui diagram shows the three parts of the shop. The front third is the pop-up, the middle is my graphic design studio, and the back is the kitchenette bathroom and printing)

The day after the protest was the most successful sales day since they opened. A dozen of Lenny’s friends showed up in support on their souped-up electrical bikes, asking to buy bags; they love the masks, too. They are the original Puerto Ricans who grew up in this neighborhood. They wanted to protect the girls while keeping a vigilant watch over the WASP ladies. Quite a few were talking about their time in the military and how they served the country, spending half of their lives dressed in camouflage. I met Maureen and her friend June, who grew up in this neighborhood. After this, they plan to sell their clothing line as a pop-up in the shop.

Sunjian says this episode helped her better understand Americans. She had arrived in the United States but had stayed mostly with her Chinese community. She hardly had to speak English anywhere. Now, she has to argue with protesters and defend the company for which she works. She understands that assumptions are not the truth and that truth changes depending on the viewpoint, like a coin having two sides. They also have that expression in China that you need to accept both sides once you take that coin.

A few days later, Lenny asked for the free bag. We thought he was being ironic, but he included his address. There is a bit more dirt on Lenny as well. Rumor has it he embezzled church money. A GoFundMe set up by Linda (another community garden lady) was meant to rent a live camel for the Three Kings’ Day pageant, a big day for Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic Catholics. Now, they are forced to hold it at a much less desirable location –minus the camel, which was really what everybody came to see.

Sisi’s friend has a sideline of raunchy fetish fishnet lingerie. It would be so nice if they would decorate our window as a mesh-up to resolve the issue. Both the gentrifying self-righteous do-gooders and the army gun nuts will be riled up. We’ll do a Christmas market and have an impromptu punk band called “Vendors of Violence.”

*names were changed

Inspired by this song:

“I wish I were 55 already” is a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever say. Yet T-Mobile has a very affordable plan for seniors 55 and over, which caught me by surprise.

I’ll put on my classic, seasoned face for this: I was an adult before cell phones existed. At that time —to me— the greatest luxury was not wearing a watch, seizing the day, living the way one feels, and engaging in the moment without planning or watching the time. I had come to New York to study with a suitcase full of art supplies, and this dislike of wearing a watch probably was a form of revolt, being a punk shedding my Germanness, fleeing a society genetically prone to punctuality and efficiency. While I was fashionably late for some college courses, I am unsure if I can ever allow myself to be unpunctual. But this is about my love/hate relationship with my shit phone.

These days, I carry a ‘smart’ phone like everyone else. It is the first thing we look at when we wake up and the last thing to hold to the cradle at night and tucking it into its charger. Its constant notifications are annoying, always asking for attention. I block out most news these days. Bricks control this society we carry in front of us like zombies. We eagerly pay 1000s of dollars to be always reachable, to be distracted from where we are, to take and share countless pix of things that will sink into the detritus of a data cloud, to let others change or cancel plans on a whim, and —I am giving up in exasperation— of course, it has a built-in watch, goodbye carpe diem.

If you knew me, you would agree that I am a meticulous planner, reliable, and, yeah, dependably on time. Being late insults me; I would certainly never do that to you. As a freelance Graphic Designer, I have never worked a traditional 9–5 job, but I love this freedom above all. if I felt like it, I could say TGIF on a Tuesday—not that I would ever have time for that.

These days, I carry a mobile phone like everyone else. It is the first thing to look at when we wake up and last when tucking it into its charger at night. At large, its notifications are annoying. I block out most news these days. But it’s comical how we carry these bricks around in front of us like zombies. We eagerly pay 1000s of dollars to be always reachable, to distract us from where we are, take and share countless pointless pix of things that will sink into the detritus of our data cloud. We let others change or cancel plans on a whim, and —I am giving up in exasperation— of course, it has a built-in watch, goodbye carpe diem.

Yet, apparently, the day of reckoning is close. I will soon be tucking in my tail like a dog and taking the mammoth, life-changing purchase decision: what new phone will it be? Can I contemplate paying lots of money to a company I dislike for something that looks like shit and causes me anger? I even considered bundling it with an Apple watch—hard stop, record scratch sound: This doesn’t feel like me anymore; it’s a betrayal of numerous firmly entrenched values.

I don’t value this phone; it’s my teenage daughter’s old iPhone 6 in rose gold. Apps crash, the battery life is crap, and it’s ugly. I like that it tells me to bring an umbrella courtesy of the weather app. The health app is cool, but my rating of this phone still stands at minus four stars. I dislike using it; I don’t answer most calls as I can’t figure out how to turn on the ringtone. I wouldn’t even mind the social suicide of not having a phone since my texting skills are borderline pathetic. I don’t connect through social media unless it’s a job. And please don’t ask me to remix or post your story in any way or form. From experience, I promise you, it will be a trainwreck.

Or, I could be that rebel. When the iPhone came out in 2010, I stood my ground with a weird Nokia flip phone with a hole into which one can strap a charm. Mine was a Japanese Cewpee mayonnaise doll, mildly Weebly in hindsight. Yes, it’s a dumb phone and makes answering texts even more of a punishment, and didn’t they say it would deform our thumbs?

goop, Gwenneth Paltrow’s lifestyle and wellness brand, makes a slick-looking phone. The satin screen looks like a Kindle. The website is minimalist, black and white, well, hmm, trendy. The logo resembles Chobany yogurt, a fat Caslon-style serif, in lowercase, fitting its rich understatement. The only description on the website is that this phone’s primary functions are calling, texting, navigation, music, podcasts, and an alarm clock. No refunds. It does look pretty slick, earning it a thumbs up in the consumer’s initial visceral-reaction stage. I kind of wish I could attach a camera, but the rest of the functionality checks out in the behavioral user experience. Its pretentious arrogance does reflect my personal style; are we a match? My hunch: this will be discontinued.

As of the time of writing, I have forgotten to charge my phone, which is at 1%. And, honestly, I couldn’t care less. Your best bet to reach me is in person: come by my studio and talk; I have an excellent coffee machine. You might want to send me a quick email to ensure I am here; I will respond because I am a puppet master of the computer, reliably reachable. And if you are here, your phone won’t matter because, as Erykah Badu knows:
You ain’t gonna text no one when you with me
I can make you put your phone down
I can make you put your phone down…

Lyrics of the song (for my students, just so they can put the phone down with their close friends), we can’t lose a generation to be Zombies glued to a brick:

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
As we cruise through the city
I can make you put your phone down
You ain’t gonna text
no one when you wit me
I can make you put your phone down
So you can show me attention
And I’ll cut mine off too
Boy that’ll help when I listen
I can make you put your phone down
Baby we don’t need it
Every time you get a message
Act like you don’t see it
I can make you put your phone down
Tell me do you copy
I can make you put your phone down
Boy that ain’t gon’ stop me

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
Make you not wanna check that again
I could make you put your phone down
Ridin’ in a drop hair
blowin’ in the wind
Baby I will put my phone down
‘Cause when you talk Imma listen
I can make you put your phone down
Leave it at the crib guarantee
you wouldn’t miss it
I could make you put your phone down
And it wouldn’t leave your pocket
I can make you put your phone down
Probably wouldn’t even
know how to unlock it
I could make you put your phone down
I see your friend callin but forget em’

I can make you put your phone down
Your mama probably think
you out there missin’

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you

I can make you put your phone

Inside Tyler and Alex’ ‘Post No Bills’ ‘zine I was privileged to publish a shortened version of this article.
You can browse it over, but below is the full-fledged, extended, original version.

Vendors of Violence

East 9th Street in New York’s Lower East Side is a vortex. It feels a bit like a sitcom, and we should sell you the movie rights.

Yesterday, we were called ‘VENDORS OF VIOLENCE.’ It was written n watercolors and red capital letters on cardboard signs tied to my store; among others, some f-words accompanied the pro-acclaimed activists’ social media posts. NOT HERE, NOT NOW. The protest was random but tightly organized. It’s a ‘Christian Coalition, ‘ says the lady checking out the store, and the pastor had endorsed the protest, then she righteously stomped out. When they find themselves with idle time, one can see them handing out free food that has been donated to the church or, in this case, protecting us from Chinese gun companies. their IG spells ‘CommUnity’ with a capital “U.”

I run a graphic design studio in the back part of the store. The front third is a store opening onto a quiet neighborhood street. Sometimes, I have pop-up stores use the space for a month or two because I don’t have the time or energy to run both the studio and the store. The latest of these vendors is a Chinese company. They hired a girl called Sisi to find a suitable store in New York to introduce their products to the US market. Sisi said it was a line of bags. The company didn’t have a website then, but Sisi showed me pictures of bags and gear used for paintball games, camping, and hunting. It’s not my style, but it’s not illegal, no weapons, no drugs, and no loud parties; what could go wrong? Some people like camouflage. The girls running the pop-up store, Sunjian and Sisi, are lovely, unintimidating, and polite. Before their promotional event for the company’s website relaunch, they left brownies on my desk to apologize for any inconvenience.

As pop-up shops, we had people selling costumes with polyester tassels and a street wear guy who thought he was oh so cool but couldn’t read the room on how the rest of the studio was annoyed by his ten songs of gangster rap on an infinitely looped playlist. The winter before that, there was a guy selling coats, a smooth-talking salesman over a shot from the magnum Henney, and anti-gun violence rappers selling out a fashion line at an event commemorating a friend who was shot; their mom brought cookies; dad made burgers for everyone. We had fanzine releases and car crash picture paintings in a more sophisticated gallery, an Australian influencer with a million followers. Still, let’s get back to this pop-up store. The company is based in China, and its new website looks intimidating, with pictures of people carrying fake assault rifles playing paintball, I have been told. I don’t like games that include shooting anyone, even with rays of sunshine, but I am also indifferent to people who enjoy this. The Chinese company’s perception of the US market might be more suitable to Texas than New York.

“That’s a cool gun” is a sentence I never said.

This is how the protest unfolded, featuring a central figure named Lenny. He often stopped by the store, giving us free lunch from the church donations. We are friends through the local community garden. A few days before, Sunjian came to a typography design event we organize every month called TypeThursday. Lenny knows a lot of people, so when our original venue got canceled, I reached out to him. He straightaway offered us the public area of a co-working space where he works. It was a great success –Sunjian was inspired to show her own project about a language only Chinese women speak. Sunjian also met Lenny; they talked and became friends, and he was excited to promote neighborhood stores and their website launch event, with 50 free tactical gear bags, one for him. Lenny and his neighborhood friends like the tactical gear look. He shared a video of Sunjian announcing the free bags, and it became the talk of the town.

Lenny also partners with the “CommUnity.” He aspires to be a local politician, and his post startled some of his ‘CommUnity’ friends because, besides paintball and hunting gear, the new website features dudes crawling around in the mud in military gear with replica assault rifles playing war games. On their Instagram, the hunters pose in militia outfits like right-wing cosplayers mimicking combat scenarios. It does look scary; the bags have halters for hand grenades. The images triggered the “CommUnity” so strongly that they organized this protest around Sunjian’s store.

EV Grieve, a popular Lower East Side blog, ran a story on the protest titled Community members speak out against a tactical gear pop-up shop on 9th Street. It mentioned that the store lied and broke its bargain not to hold the free bag giveaway event. We are even more confused. What do they mean by that? Luckily, the “CommUnity” is not the mafia, and protection money doesn’t have to be paid. To Lenny, to his dubious other goFundMe campaigns? The store simply closed because the company wanted to avoid conflict. The article is linked to the company’s website. Since the protest, the homepage had this statement posted: “At 1TG Tactical, we offer a range of products and services designed to promote safety, education, and responsible gun use.”

Unlike the Lower East Side “CommUnity,” Sisi and Sunjian were surprised and explained that the Chinese are raised to respect, maybe even adore, military personnel, police, and authority. Staging a protest would be highly illegal in China. They had grown to love the neighborhood’s quirky characters frequenting the community garden, predictably sitting on the stoop, wasting time and keeping an eye on things like in the old TV series The A-team. When the protesters came to the store, Sunjian at first thought they were customers, and explained in detail the merits of their products, but their minds were already made that camouflage means guns, which are destroying other peoples’ kids’ futures. Sunjian called the police to explain that none of her gear was military-grade or bulletproof and that she was not selling any weapons as that would be illegal in NYC. Policemen and women love her bags as they are very practical for carrying all their accessories, but they also explained that the protest is within the “CommUnity” ‘s rights as long as they stay three feet from the store. From the pictures I saw on Lenny’s social media, the protest seemed to last briefly, with people standing before the closed store. Lenny wears glasses and crosses his arms like he is in the FBI.

The day before, I returned from teaching and didn’t take all the commotion seriously. I am so confused. I don’t have time for that; they don’t sell guns. Lenny would handle and cancel the protest, so I hoped —until it blew up. Sunjian started crying that day after discovering someone had stolen her food delivery. She didn’t know why she was being targeted while the criminals stole her food. Lenny flipped and didn’t hail the neighborhood store anymore but posted flyers promoting the protest. So, the store girls decided to call off the event and close for the day. I went on a date.

Sisi and Sunjian often consulted a Feng Shui master. That’s how they settled on the location of my store as their pop-up to start with. The key idea behind Feng Shui is dealing with Chi. Chi represents energy. Sisi and the master often communicate and Sisi drew this diagram of the store. Outside and above the drawing, the street acts like a river, but it runs uphill one way. Underneath our road runs an actual river, the old drainage from Tompkins Square Park, flowing in the opposite direction towards the East River. As a foreign company, this counterflow unlocks opportunity. Secondly, across the street looms an empty school building called Charas or EL Bohio, once a bustling community center. Since it is a monument that stands empty, it attracts unwanted energy. However, even negative energy can benefit businesses, further increasing opportunities and profits. Sunjian said: “The 3rd bad thing is the street light, which stands right before our main entrance. The Feng Shui master said that it is a giant poking needle, which means people will talk about and judge us behind our backs.” (The sketch of a Feng Shui diagram shows the three parts of the shop. The front third is the pop-up, the middle is my graphic design studio, and the back is the kitchenette bathroom and printing)

The day after the protest was the most successful sales day since they opened. A dozen of Lenny’s friends showed up in support on their souped-up electrical bikes, asking to buy bags; they love the masks, too. They are the original Puerto Ricans who grew up in this neighborhood. They wanted to protect the girls while keeping a vigilant watch over the WASP ladies. Quite a few were talking about their time in the military and how they served the country, spending half of their lives dressed in camouflage. I met Maureen and her friend June, who grew up in this neighborhood. After this, they plan to sell their clothing line as a pop-up in the shop.

Sunjian says this episode helped her better understand Americans. She had arrived in the United States but had stayed mostly with her Chinese community. She hardly had to speak English anywhere. Now, she has to argue with protesters and defend the company for which she works. She understands that assumptions are not the truth and that truth changes depending on the viewpoint, like a coin having two sides. They also have that expression in China that you need to accept both sides once you take that coin.

A few days later, Lenny asked for the free bag. We thought he was being ironic, but he included his address. There is a bit more dirt on Lenny as well. Rumor has it he embezzled church money. A GoFundMe set up by Linda (another community garden lady) was meant to rent a live camel for the Three Kings’ Day pageant, a big day for Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic Catholics. Now, they are forced to hold it at a much less desirable location –minus the camel, which was really what everybody came to see.

Sisi’s friend has a sideline of raunchy fetish fishnet lingerie. It would be so nice if they would decorate our window as a mesh-up to resolve the issue. Both the gentrifying self-righteous do-gooders and the army gun nuts will be riled up. We’ll do a Christmas market and have an impromptu punk band called “Vendors of Violence.”

*names were changed

Inspired by this song:

“I wish I were 55 already” is a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever say. Yet T-Mobile has a very affordable plan for seniors 55 and over, which caught me by surprise.

I’ll put on my classic, seasoned face for this: I was an adult before cell phones existed. At that time —to me— the greatest luxury was not wearing a watch, seizing the day, living the way one feels, and engaging in the moment without planning or watching the time. I had come to New York to study with a suitcase full of art supplies, and this dislike of wearing a watch probably was a form of revolt, being a punk shedding my Germanness, fleeing a society genetically prone to punctuality and efficiency. While I was fashionably late for some college courses, I am unsure if I can ever allow myself to be unpunctual. But this is about my love/hate relationship with my shit phone.

These days, I carry a ‘smart’ phone like everyone else. It is the first thing we look at when we wake up and the last thing to hold to the cradle at night and tucking it into its charger. Its constant notifications are annoying, always asking for attention. I block out most news these days. Bricks control this society we carry in front of us like zombies. We eagerly pay 1000s of dollars to be always reachable, to be distracted from where we are, to take and share countless pix of things that will sink into the detritus of a data cloud, to let others change or cancel plans on a whim, and —I am giving up in exasperation— of course, it has a built-in watch, goodbye carpe diem.

If you knew me, you would agree that I am a meticulous planner, reliable, and, yeah, dependably on time. Being late insults me; I would certainly never do that to you. As a freelance Graphic Designer, I have never worked a traditional 9–5 job, but I love this freedom above all. if I felt like it, I could say TGIF on a Tuesday—not that I would ever have time for that.

These days, I carry a mobile phone like everyone else. It is the first thing to look at when we wake up and last when tucking it into its charger at night. At large, its notifications are annoying. I block out most news these days. But it’s comical how we carry these bricks around in front of us like zombies. We eagerly pay 1000s of dollars to be always reachable, to distract us from where we are, take and share countless pointless pix of things that will sink into the detritus of our data cloud. We let others change or cancel plans on a whim, and —I am giving up in exasperation— of course, it has a built-in watch, goodbye carpe diem.

Yet, apparently, the day of reckoning is close. I will soon be tucking in my tail like a dog and taking the mammoth, life-changing purchase decision: what new phone will it be? Can I contemplate paying lots of money to a company I dislike for something that looks like shit and causes me anger? I even considered bundling it with an Apple watch—hard stop, record scratch sound: This doesn’t feel like me anymore; it’s a betrayal of numerous firmly entrenched values.

I don’t value this phone; it’s my teenage daughter’s old iPhone 6 in rose gold. Apps crash, the battery life is crap, and it’s ugly. I like that it tells me to bring an umbrella courtesy of the weather app. The health app is cool, but my rating of this phone still stands at minus four stars. I dislike using it; I don’t answer most calls as I can’t figure out how to turn on the ringtone. I wouldn’t even mind the social suicide of not having a phone since my texting skills are borderline pathetic. I don’t connect through social media unless it’s a job. And please don’t ask me to remix or post your story in any way or form. From experience, I promise you, it will be a trainwreck.

Or, I could be that rebel. When the iPhone came out in 2010, I stood my ground with a weird Nokia flip phone with a hole into which one can strap a charm. Mine was a Japanese Cewpee mayonnaise doll, mildly Weebly in hindsight. Yes, it’s a dumb phone and makes answering texts even more of a punishment, and didn’t they say it would deform our thumbs?

goop, Gwenneth Paltrow’s lifestyle and wellness brand, makes a slick-looking phone. The satin screen looks like a Kindle. The website is minimalist, black and white, well, hmm, trendy. The logo resembles Chobany yogurt, a fat Caslon-style serif, in lowercase, fitting its rich understatement. The only description on the website is that this phone’s primary functions are calling, texting, navigation, music, podcasts, and an alarm clock. No refunds. It does look pretty slick, earning it a thumbs up in the consumer’s initial visceral-reaction stage. I kind of wish I could attach a camera, but the rest of the functionality checks out in the behavioral user experience. Its pretentious arrogance does reflect my personal style; are we a match? My hunch: this will be discontinued.

As of the time of writing, I have forgotten to charge my phone, which is at 1%. And, honestly, I couldn’t care less. Your best bet to reach me is in person: come by my studio and talk; I have an excellent coffee machine. You might want to send me a quick email to ensure I am here; I will respond because I am a puppet master of the computer, reliably reachable. And if you are here, your phone won’t matter because, as Erykah Badu knows:
You ain’t gonna text no one when you with me
I can make you put your phone down
I can make you put your phone down…

Lyrics of the song (for my students, just so they can put the phone down with their close friends), we can’t lose a generation to be Zombies glued to a brick:

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
As we cruise through the city
I can make you put your phone down
You ain’t gonna text
no one when you wit me
I can make you put your phone down
So you can show me attention
And I’ll cut mine off too
Boy that’ll help when I listen
I can make you put your phone down
Baby we don’t need it
Every time you get a message
Act like you don’t see it
I can make you put your phone down
Tell me do you copy
I can make you put your phone down
Boy that ain’t gon’ stop me

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
Make you not wanna check that again
I could make you put your phone down
Ridin’ in a drop hair
blowin’ in the wind
Baby I will put my phone down
‘Cause when you talk Imma listen
I can make you put your phone down
Leave it at the crib guarantee
you wouldn’t miss it
I could make you put your phone down
And it wouldn’t leave your pocket
I can make you put your phone down
Probably wouldn’t even
know how to unlock it
I could make you put your phone down
I see your friend callin but forget em’

I can make you put your phone down
Your mama probably think
you out there missin’

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you
I can make you put your phone down

I can make you put your phone down
I can make you, I can make you

I can make you put your phone