Opinion: Give peace – and quite – a chance

That’s why I’m getting into IT (intrusive technology), the same stuff that lets 16-year-olds break windows four blocks away with their car radios.

I am going to equip my Camry with the latest sound system, the kind that blasts bass notes low enough to make your chest hurt, and then pull up at the light and blow other cars onto the curb just like those rude rap music dudes.

Except, I’ll play classical music. Really LOUD classical music. Better yet, I think I’ll play OPERA, like what I call “Fru Tutti-a-Rooti,” arguably the worst opera ever written.

“Fru Tutti” incorporates the distasteful theme of maternal sex, just like a lot of the rap numbers I’m forced to listen to while waiting for the light to change.

You and I witness intrusive technology countless times every day. Rap infested intersections, casino-level noise at the mall, car dealers hawking product in the supermarket, pop-ups on the Internet, crawling messages at the bottom of screens that distract from the main story, infomercials that pretend to be entertainment, yammering lawyers, and whining TV evangelists are some of the ways IT happens.

We pay eight bucks to watch TV spots on the movie screen at Cine 16, after which they play that wacky Wehrenberg jingle, a piece almost as entertaining as garbage trucks backing up.

I thought peeing on chipped ice was entertaining until I stepped into the men’s room at a local bar recently and was greeted by a full color, stereophonic, condom commercial radiating from the flat screen TV monitor mounted on the wall over the urinal!

Cell phones are probably the ultimate evil tools of intrusive technology. Recently, while seated in the stands at Hammons Field, a cell phone rang out to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Naturally, people nearby giggled in amusement.

“Hello, this is Tamara. (Pause) Oh, hi! (Pause) Gosh, Brenda, lots of girls get that. Let me tell you how to treat it.”

Tamara spent the bottom of the third discoursing the cure. I managed to move to another seat a few sections away, but inescapably, the guy sitting next to me answered his cell when it started playing “Anchors Away.”

“Hi! Doctor Vernon speaking. (Pause) Yes, Brenda, what can I do for you? (Pause) Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s a few other things you might try first, but I don’t recommend the duck fat.”

OK, I made up the details on that one, but you get the idea.

Passengers on commercial flights are permitted to talk on cell phones right up to the time the plane starts taxiing to the runway, so there’s a lot of yakking going on prior to takeoff.

Recently, one particular fellow made a couple of fundamental mistakes while he spoke to his office from the comfort of his assigned seat on a flight from Atlanta to Jackson, Miss.

1. He rudely dressed down one of his employees over the phone, ranting about the employee’s mistake and, from time to time, intimating that the employee may be a product of questionable lineage.

2. His second mistake was sitting in the seat directly behind my friend, Anne, who is a known cell-phone etiquette expert and a defender of the downtrodden in general.

Anne stood up and calmly explained that she had no intention of tolerating the man’s rude behavior toward his employee. She asked him to hang up and take care of the matter after the flight ended. Other nearby passengers applauded. The man hung up and, as quickly as he could, moved to another section of the plane.

A sales rep broke into my office to try to sell me something, recently. His cell phone kept ringing during his presentation and HE ACTUALLY ANSWERED IT every time it rang, which made his pitch about as effective as a session of Congress. So, I asked him why he allowed his cell phone to interrupt the meeting between the two of us.

“Are you kidding?” he asked. “It might be somebody calling to buy something!”

Cell phone intrusive technology is here to stay unless (and, I don’t recommend this) you grab the offending person’s phone and throw it hard into the nearest brick wall.

Maybe it’s time to enact the 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not encumber others with your stupid cell phone conversations.” Think about IT.

Meanwhile, there is one application of technology that could help when rappers turn up at intersections. It’s sound-detection technology, the kind of stuff that makes lamps go on and off when you clap your hands.

I think the city should install sound detection technology that turns the light green if more than four bars of “rap” music is detected by the monitor. That’s one way we can get away from IT.

Bob May is former managing partner of five local radio properties and is now engaged as a southwest Missouri sales consultant.