The Celling of the Southland

In the beginning, man grunted. Then he learned to holler, wave, beat drums, blow horns, send smoke signals, jump up and down, make obscene gestures, and finally to talk. Which brings us, in abbreviated form, to cell phones.

I didn’t resent them at first when their presence was a charming but limited means of wireless communication. I even got one of my own to show the world that guys like me could flash a little status along with everyone else on Sunset Boulevard.

But today, they’re in everyone’s ear. What began in 1983 as a modest experiment has exploded into a bloody nuisance. It was once predicted that by the year 2000 there would be 900,000 cell phones in use. That figure has been upgraded to 90 million due to the fact that 66 million of us already have them. Most, I’m sure, are right here in the City of Talk.

What brings this to mind, in addition to the fact that I’ve been ill and have a lot of time to think and grouse, is an incident that occurred in a public bathroom.

I was washing my hands when I heard music coming from one of the stalls. It wasn’t piped-in stuff but someone singing, followed by talking. Then there was a flushing sound, the door opened and a guy came out holding a cell phone to his ear. He washed his hands, pressing the phone to his head with his shoulder, and disappeared out the door, still talking and singing.

And I’m thinking, even in the toilet?

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The man was probably a songwriter. He had that kind of dreamy, faraway look in his eyes characteristic of the breed. But pitching a tune in a toilet seemed, at best, inappropriate.

They’re everywhere, these cell-phone users. I have seen them on horseback, at a coffin retailer store, on skateboards, in movie theaters, on barber chairs having their hair done, on buses, in cars, in supermarket lines, on roller coasters and even lolling on a surfboard bobbing in the waves.

In one incident, while on jury duty waiting to be called on a panel, I was across from a man and woman sitting side by side talking on separate cell phones. They were together, but she was about 15 years older than her guy, a form of coupling which, if you believe People magazine, is becoming more prevalent. Like Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate.”

They were holding separate conversations loud enough for everyone to hear. She spoke in clear, grammatical terms, while he communicated in the grunting, uh-huh-y’know-yeah-cool argot characteristic of lower male primates. Then suddenly, he handed the phone to the woman and said, “It’s for you.”

She took his phone and said, “Hey, dude,” and began speaking in the native tongue of her stupid friend. It was as though by taking his call she had suddenly shed 25 IQ points and her ability to speak clearly. Amazing.

What I was witnessing was the use of a cell phone as a cultural equalizer, an instrument of homogeneity that makes us all one. I wish I could say it worked in reverse and that the man, taking her phone, began speaking in the civilized idiom of an Oxford don, but that wasn’t the case. He stayed stupid.

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If I were king I would create a set of rules regulating the use of cellular telephones. When Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call in 1876--”Mr. Watson, come here, I need you”--he never anticipated that what he’d created would drive everyone crazy.

I am not usually in favor of social regulations. If I were, women would never be allowed to wear overalls in public unless they were on a prison chain gang or baling hay in Omaha, but I feel that certain conditions are necessary to protect the rest of us from the outrageous use of cell phones.

For instance, they should not be used in cars, in churches, at funerals, in restaurants, on bicycles, in free fall or in any other situation where silence and safety are required or necessary. Westel, a service provider, also suggests they not be used during surgery. Good idea.

Where they might be used is alone in an alley making a drug deal, or on death row with new evidence that could delay one’s pending execution.

But I don’t seriously believe that rules will ever be applied to regulate the use of cell phones. Mindless talk will continue to pollute the air worse than any form of smog. One communications expert foresees “households with a cell phone for every family member but the dog.” And, trust me, he’s next.

Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com