Closed windows
The cable guy is on the roof. Chunky young guy with a bad mustache. When I call up there and ask how it’s going, he just smiles. Without warning, a week before, my modem died. Lights just disappeared. Only the power light and a flashing receive light remained functioning. I had just finished writing a review of someone’s CD and wanted quotes from it posted on their web site. This is my thing now – having hundreds of important performers quoting me on their web sites. Of course, I’d only be able to write positive stuff, but that never piqued my conscience before.
So I shut down my Windows Me, called tech and was told to yank out the power cord and replace it 30 seconds later, which I did and nothing happened. "I can give you three weeks from now for a home appointment," he informed me. I screamed. He found an opening a week hence. A week minus E-mail, Patricia Velasquez and Sophie Marceau web sites (which is really why I bought the thing two months ago), a week in limbo. I would have to see people, go out, make conversation, smile at bad jokes, all the things I’d prayed having a PC would eliminate from my life.
So I decided to watch some TV. Snow appeared where Kelsey Grammar’s face should have been. Same with all channels. It was one continuous Andy Williams Christmas special, fuzz, flipping, white specs. More loud noises from me. No computer, no TV, no way out except, gasp, books, which I keep ordering, stuff like actress Mimi Kennedy’s life story, pretty good actually, but no substitute for dozens of Diane Lane pinups.
Finally, a week later, cable guy with his immaculate Optimum van and his reassuring wires and pliers, cutters and nifty red T-shirt, is wrapping up one and a half hours of wire changing. I made sure I’d taken down my Meg Ryan poster before he entered my apartment. I didn’t want him to think I was horny and desperate for the unattainable. I fixed my sheet and mattress cover, which usually resembled a tent city after a hurricane. I swept under the bed, discovering dust balls the size of Mimi Kennedy.
At last he does some final wire switching. My modem lights up, my TV clears up, I am online, I need no one. I slip him $5, shake his hand, rush him out the door, scurry upstairs to my shrine to Bill Gates and turn that baby on.
Sixteen messages in my "in" box! Sixteen! Voraciously I run through them. Maybe Belinda Carlyle got my in-depth analysis of both her work with The Go-Gos and her solo efforts.
My expression goes into droop mode as I click on each missive. Columbia House Video and Music two-for-one sales, jokes from a friend, updates from various performers on their concert schedules. A virus warning. On and on.
Here is e-mail’s dirty little not-so-secret secret: Most of it is impersonal, useless, self-serving, not life-enhancing. What’s more, you discover quickly who your real friends are. I sent e-mails to people informing them of my presence on-line. Some responded, some did not. Worse, I sent others my e-mail address, expecting a reply containing theirs. People I’ve known for years, whom I’ve never had an argument with, failed to respond. Message: You’re not worth my time, I don’t want you to have my e-mail, don’t ever contact me again. Within 10 days, fully 40 percent of those I thought I was friends with became officially invisible to me. If it weren’t for e-mail, I’d have never known, behind the smiles and handshakes, existed nothing, no basis for contact. I don’t rush to my PC anymore. Lots of books here to keep me busy. – Joe Del Priore
We’d like to give you Joe Del Priore’s e-mail address, but he didn’t give it to us. Apparently we just don’t rate. Still, tell him how much you liked this piece by writing. Current@hudsonreporter.com.