September is over. Go wake up Green Day.
Oh, and today is my birthday.
I’m booked tomorrow afternoon in Philadelphia, so I have to travel today. The flight is on time and my show bag is the first bag to slide down the ramp at baggage claim. I grab my suitcase and walk to the curb. It’s not until I’m on the shuttle that I realize I just lifted a bag with my right arm for the first time since surgery. I hadn’t even thought about it.
Progress.
I wait over an hour for a rental car, which is quickly becoming a theme of travel this fall. It's past midnight when my car is finally ready and I can drive to the hotel.
I have a headache, my feet hurt, and I’m tired. I guess this is what it feels like to be 35.
On to Las Vegas for a corporate event. Today will be an easy gig - I’ve been hired to stroll around a corporate reception, dazzling people up close with some mysteries of the mind.
I spend the entire day at the Cosmopolitan, watching people come and go. A day in Vegas is a microcosm of the entire pandemic. People begin the morning with masks on, keeping their distance and following the rules. But by the time my gig is over people have moved on, reverting back to their pre-lockdown ways.
I’ve never liked Las Vegas. I treat it the way I handle a visit with certain family members, with a self-imposed 48 hour rule. Get in and get out before it drives me too crazy.
But somehow tonight feels different. I stand on my balcony, feeling like Danny Ocean as I watch the Bellagio Fountain reach for the sky twenty floors beneath me. I’ll be here less than twenty-four hours but for a brief moment I’m not thinking about what comes next; I’m just enjoying the view.
Your phone is ruining my life.
Everywhere I go, every line I stand in, every sidewalk, every store, every show I perform — there’s always a phone messing it up.
You have to understand: I could be doing a show for a hundred people and there might be 99 people leaning forward, smiling and enjoying the show. But all I can see is the one lone person checking their texts in the third row.
The phone shines on your face like a lighthouse beckoning a ship to shore. It’s distracting and annoying and easily the worst part about performing live shows in 2021.
One time another performer gave me some unsolicited advice: “It’s your job to keep them off their phones.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Phones are perhaps the first piece of tech in history that actively controls the user. They’re designed to keep us addicted, coming back again and again for another micro-dose of likes and shares. It shouldn’t be my job to de-program Silicon Valley’s grasp on your psyche in the short hour I spend onstage. I’m not going to fight the algorithm.
It’s not just my show either. A few years back I took my wife to see Hamilton downtown. We waited years for the show to arrive in Chicago and looked forward to it with eager anticipation. The show was great but the experience was soured by a person in front of us, using their phone throughout the show.
Who would pay over $500 for a ticket just to spend the show on their phone? I’ll never understand.
It’s the same at concerts and movies and plays. From Broadway to Hollywood, phones are ruining everything.
That’s not to say that experiences are anything special these days either. Most things I go to are very forgettable. Movies, restaurants, live shows, museums, and more. None of these establishments seem to care about my experience. They herd me through like cattle, only stopping to collect my data or encourage me to promote their venue online.
I feel that a lot of performers think the experience starts when the curtain goes up, but that’s not true. The audience’s experience starts when they buy the ticket or the babysitter knocks on the door. They think about the show all day, get dressed up, and go out to dinner. If anything goes wrong along the way, those small disasters can start to compound until the entire night becomes a disappointment. So, the show itself can’t just be pretty good. It needs to be absolutely jaw-dropping. It needs to be out-of-this-world, take my breath away, crazy good. The performer has to strive to give us the best experience we’ve ever had, so they can overcome anything negative that might have happened to us leading up to the show itself.
For my birthday I bought tickets to see comedian Hasan Minhaj in Milwaukee. I’ve been wanting to see him live for a long time, having been a big fan of his first comedy special and his Netflix show. We drive north and I’m cautiously excited, fully prepared to be let down.
I park five blocks away and have to walk to will-call to get our parking pass and back to the car to place it in the windshield.
Strike one.
We have to line up around the building to show our vaccination cards and get a wristband for proof of entry. It’s raining and the line moves slowly. The show is going to start late.
Strike two.
But wait, what do we have here? They’re locking up our phones. We slip them into pouches and the pouch is sealed with some kind of magic I’m not familiar with. I’ll still have my phone with me all night but I won’t be able to look at it unless I make my way out to the lobby.
Suddenly I’m thrust into a room of 1500 phone-less people, all of whom are excitedly buzzing about the show. The lights dim and Hasan Minhaj is here.
The show is phenomenal. Not just because of his writing and performance, but because no one is distracted by a phone or smartwatch. They have no choice but to become fully invested in the show. We forget about the rain and our masks and the parking lot and the delays. For the first time in a decade I get so lost in something that I never want it to end. It’s the best show I’ve seen in quite some time.
As we leave the theater an usher removes my phone from the pouch and hands it back to me. I feel a small pang of disappointment. I wish it could stay locked up forever.