Andy Gapin

The Replacements are one of those bands that I can’t seem to go a week without having a conversation about with somebody. It’s usually the same few people, including one of my good friends whom I don’t think that I’ve hung out with in a least a year without them coming up. The other day, him and I were talking about “Answering Machine” which is arguably my favorite Replacements song ever. We were talking about how despite the re-release of Let It Be, kids growing up today will never be able to fully appreciate the words to this song…

1, 2, 3, 4

Try to breathe some life into a letter
Losing hope, never gonna be together
My courage is at it’s peak
You know what I mean
How do say you’re O.K. to
An answering machine?
How do you say good night to
An answering machine?

Big time’s got its losers
Small town’s got its vices
A handful of friends
One needs a match, one needs some ice
Call-waiting phone in another time zone
How do you say I miss you to
An answering machine?
How do say good night to
An answering machine?

I get enough of that

Try to free a slave with ignorance
Try and teach a whore about romance

How do you say I miss you to
An answering machine?
How do you say good night to
An answering machine?
How do you say I’m lonely to
An answering machine?
The message is very plain
Oh, I hate your answering machine
I hate your answering machine
I hate your answering machine…

2-1-2
3-1-3
2-1-2
3-1-3
2-1-2
3-1-3

It’s not even just because the answering machine is a dated and obsolete device either. What it comes down to is that today’s communication technologies make it extremely difficult to not be able to get a hold of someone. With cell phones that have texting and picture messaging, email, IM, twitter, video chat, your favorite social-networking site, etc, there are so many ways to contact someone now that it’s very rare you won’t get through to them. And if you don’t connect to them directly, you can be certain that any message you leave for them will be received within two hours. It used to be when you left a message on an answering machine, you knew that that person wouldn’t get it until they got home and you had to wait until whenever that happened to be. These days, if you don’t hear back, it’s not because that person couldn’t be reached or didn’t get your message, it’s because they didn’t want to be reached.

The song is obviously about being far away from someone that you love and feeling completely helpless because you can’t hear their voice and tell them directly what you’re feeling. And while this certainly isn’t a good thing to feel, I think that it’s an emotion that can be important to feel in a relationship. Not just a romantic relationship, but with family and friends as well. These days, it’s too easy to take for granted that people are always there.

For me this kind of communication can never even come close to touching face-to-face time spent with someone, but more and more, I find that I’m reading articles online about how youth are growing up engaging in more and more electronic communication and less face-to-face communication. When I was growing up, most of my interactions with people were face-to-face. The web was still pretty young and most people didn’t have it so it was either phone or face-to-face. And in those days, there were still long distance charges for calling just a couple towns over.

You spent quality time with people and really connected.

I kind of fear that today’s youth are growing up in this world where everything is right at their fingertips so none of it can be truly appreciated. I know that I can get like this with music. It used to be that to find out about new bands I had to go to shows and watch the openers or read the thank yous in the linear notes for a albums or rummage through a friend’s music collection. When I found a band that I really liked, I felt so accomplished. And to get my own copy of the music I had to actually go out and find a copy of the album to buy. It was a lot of work, but it really meant something.

Now, I get at least 20 new bands a week shoved in my face without even trying. And if I like it, I can have it instantly. I don’t have to go find a place that has the album or anything. It just doesn’t mean as much and the music means less. While there are always going to be the bands and albums that no matter how easily they come, blow me away and that I can’t get enough of, most of it just ends up meaning very little.

And I guess that coming from a person like me that is so into technology and having instant gratification, this may seem a bit hypocritical, but I don’t think I could ever say that I’m not a victim and a part of some things that I think are killing the very things that I feel are important.

Yesterday at about 4:30pm, it seemed like the entire internet got taken over by Heath Ledger’s death. It was only an hour after he was found dead, yet almost every site had something about it. The message board that I post on everyday became pretty consumed by it. There were about a dozen threads. Some were serious discussions about it. Some were discussions about the upcoming Batman movie, Dark Knight, in which Heath Ledger plays the Joker. And then there were the parodies and jokes. CNN.com and MSNBC.com had huge banners at the top of their home pages with the headline.

Honestly, Heath Ledger dying is the most important news from yesterday?!? Nothing else happened? Nothing that might actually affect more than a few people? Anytime someone dies–well, unless they’re a douche–it’s sad and I feel for his family and friends, especially his two year old daughter, but really, he’s just a dude. His death means nothing more or less than anyone else’s death. Being famous shouldn’t mean that everything else stops when you die.

Unfortunately, in America, this is the news that sells. Americans care much more about celebrities’ lives than things that actually matter and affect them and other people around the world. We, as a population, would much rather be entertained than know what’s going on.

Sigh.