On the radio

September 25, 2008 - 7:06 PM by Jessica

cell phones.jpg I’ve discovered my latest pet Israeli peeve: People (yes, mostly teenagers) who use their cellphones with MP3 player ability to play the music they have downloaded on their phones, out loud, for all of us to hear. It’s noise pollution at its worst, because it’s not even obviously blasting out of one’s car radio, or some boom box (circa 1985) sitting on a park bench. It idles out, not so tinnily, emerging from the slim rectangles that we all carry around. It can happen anywhere.

Now it’s one thing when one’s cellphone ring is a song, clearly beloved by the owner, that plays every time the phone rings. I personally have James Taylor’s “Carolina In My Mind” on mine, which isn’t exactly a favorite song, but I liked it more than the tunes my Nokia was offering. Now, however, six months later, I’m heartily sick of “Carolina In My Mind,” and need to find a substitute. And I am aware that I’m forcing others to hear it whenever I do, and they are clearly forming an opinion of me and my musical tastes whenever my phone rings. But that’s not as bad as those who force you to hear a song when you call them, which is another kind of torture, or, those who walk around listening to the music on their phone, out loud, on the speaker.

I’ve been grumbling about this to myself for several weeks now, but hadn’t had the opportunity to take anyone to task for it. And then, on the bus the other day, a kid was sitting opposite me in one of the four-seater sections, and he began ‘playing’ his phone.

I bided my time, thinking maybe he wasn’t going to play it for the entire ride, but it kept on going from one song into the next. Granted, he wasn’t playing any of my favorites, more of a Galgalatz run-through, but I was wondering if anyone else was going to say something to him. By song #3, I said, “You know, it’s not so polite to make everyone listen to your music when you’re in public.” He looked at me quizzically, and responded, “How’s it any different than the bus driver making all of us listen to the radio?” I didn’t have an answer, but I also couldn’t remember the last time I’d hear a radio playing on the bus. I acknowledged that it’s a similar concept, but the bus is the driver’s domain, whereas he’s another rider like the rest of us.

Then he asked me if it would make any difference if I liked the music he was playing. Yeah, maybe, I said. But not necessarily. He nodded. And then, he took a set of earphones out of his pocket, plugged them into his phone and his ears, and shrugged. It was a typical Israeli shrug, the one learned by children in kindergarten, that can mean, “No, don’t feel like it,” or, “Sure, not sure why you’re making such a big deal of it, but it’s fine.”

I think he meant the latter. And I’m not sure, but it felt like a victory.

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