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OREGON S LGBTO NEWSMAGAZINE
MARCH 4, 2011
«J•:
Talk is Cheap.
After four long years o f waiting, my wife
and I have finally acquired iPhones, thanks to
Verizon. A friend fondly refers to hers as “The
JesusPhone” and I concur. If I believed in God,
I would be certain that S/H e had something to
do with the miracle that I now carefully cradle
in my hand at all times, often staring at it like a
new mother waiting to see what her baby may
do next. I’m fairly sure I’ve spent the equivalent
of my next paycheck downloading apps, songs,
books and ringtones; luckily my paycheck isn’t
that large and I have a wife who keeps the
family in groceries or the children would have
to skip a few meals this month.
Now that Verizon and A T & T are both car­
rying the most amazing device known to hu­
mankind, I suspect the commercials will get
quite interesting— maybe even someday lifting
the contract of indentured cell-vitude that’s
enslaved me and bringing down costs.
Before iPhones and cell phones I loved ac­
tually talking on the phone. When I was a
smoker, I started each morning with coffee, a
cigarette and a call to someone— usually my
best friend at the time. I would puff away, sip­
ping my cuppa and gossiping or laughing about
something or someone, catching up or making
plans. It was my ritual and even after I quit to­
bacco and had to take care o f babies, I kept my
call as a part of my daily routine. I’m not so
old, but today we live in a different culture—
Ewl
living ou
BY K A TH R YN M A R T IN I
and although iPhones and applications aren’t
free, the communication aspect has become
pretty darn cheap.
I moved to Oregon in 1992, leaving family
and friends on the East Coast. Keeping in
contact with them was my only connection to
home. I would write letters but it was more
important to me to actually talk to them, which
I did quite often, even though the long-dis­
tance phone calls were often cost-prohibitive.
During the 1990s, it was a common occur­
rence to receive solicitations from long-dis­
tance companies offering incentives to switch
carriers. This new competition was due to the
break up of “M a Bell,” which virtually con­
trolled U.S. telecommunications for more than
100 years. Bell Communications could no lon­
ger legally monopolize long-distance service,
forcing consumers to have a local service (a
“Baby Bell”) and a long-distance provider. The
three main long-distance companies, M CI,
A T & T and Sprint, fought for customers.
I convinced my mother and grandparents to
switch to M CI for their “Friends and Family”
program— a plan that offered cheaper per min­
ute calls to people who had M CI as their carri­
er—40 cents a minute on weekdays, later com­
ing down to 25 cents a minute. I remember
watching the clock, counting my quarters as I
chatted, not looking forward to what I knew
would be (still) a huge phone bill.
My research on the Intertubes found that
WorldCom acquired M CI, Verizon acquired
WorldCom, A T& T became A T& T and, really,
who worries about long-distance calls any­
more? It’s included in most cellular and home
service plans, and those who still want to speak
with friends and family far away can just use
their 4Gs (fourth generation cell phones).
I honestly don’t remember when my morn­
ing coffee and call ritual came to an end but
somewhere along the way A O L stopped charg­
ing for Internet service by the hour, cell phone
plans included unlimited texting and my
morning routine was replaced by blog reading,
Twitter and Facebook status updates. Even
emails seem a bit tedious these days unless I’m
trying to avoid a difficult face-to-face conver­
sation with someone generally unpleasant.
Including our two JesusPhones, we have five
devices on our plan and share 1,400 minutes
each month with unlimited text and data us­ K a th r y n M a r t i n i is a freelance blogger and
age. Last month, we used only 800 minutes of •writer. Find her at kathrynmartini.com, facebook.
talk time. We did, however, use more than com/kathrynmartini or @KLMartini.
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20,000 text messages and 360 megabytes o f
data, with 12,000 of those text messages made
by my 12-year-old daughter, all of them con­
sisting of one or two word messages sent back
and forth hundreds o f times.
A few years ago, I would have surpassed 800
minutes myself, but even with my lack o f actual
vocal conversation, I don’t feel as though I’ve
become disconnected with people. I f anything
I feel more entangled and less autonomous
than ever. I’m expected— and I expect— to re­
turn an email, text message or phone call im­
mediately because I know the other person
knows that I have it in my hand. There’s no
more hiding behind “the answering machine
must have erased your message.” And most
people don’t even leave messages anymore (the
JesusPhone shows who left the message, elimi­
nating the need to even retrieve it— brilliant.)
I can’t imagine what’s next—but I do know
that, today, it’s a busy world out there filled with
lots of rapid-fire information. I no longer talk
on the phone with relatives on Sundays or dread
the long-distance bill. Twitter is free, Facebook
is free, Scrabble is free and talk is definitely .
cheap. Unfortunately, data plans are not—but
that just may be the next thing to go. J#]
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