BUT FIRST, what’s the deal with Substack comments? I have comments turned on, but you can’t leave comments. Here I thought you were all just quiet people when, in fact, I wasn’t letting you tell me what movies you want to watch. Which is quite the bummer.
Fiddling around with that movie post, I got it so you can leave comments now (please do!) but I couldn’t get them turned on on another post where I wanted to leave a post (which is how I realized this is STILL happening even though I’ve fixed it over and over; why is this not happening on other Substacks?).
Anyway, the thing I wanted to say about that other post is that I was wrong. It wasn’t Helmut Newton who said that thing about payphones. It was a guy named Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. And this is the photograph:
(If you click on the photo, you can see the issue of American Photo it came from. I was right that it was no later than 1998 but my assumption that it was exactly 1998 was off by five years. You can see Helmut Newton’s photo there (his wife eating breakfast with her breasts out) and, um, a bunch more of “the world’s finest photographers...selecting the images they made that, they feel, provide the best answer” to the question “What is erotic?”
In case you’re wondering, they did not all choose telephones.
I found this issue quite by accident. I selected songs from our collection that had the word city in the title, one of which was Vertical Horizon’s “Life in the City” (which I didn’t know we owned and which sounds way different from how I think Vertical Horizon sounds). Anyway, curious if Vertical Horizon was still around in 2026, I looked them up on Wikipedia then I got curious if their albums all looked similar (kinda) which led to me learning the name of the photographer of their most famous album cover which led me to her Wikipedia page where I learned she made all those famous Betty Page photos once of which is what you’ll see first if you click on that sexy photo above. You’ll have to scroll down from there for the Newton or the phone-photo page. Anyway, how wild to see that photo for the first time in almost thirty years—accidentally!—just a week after I spent almost an hour looking for it.
But back to the comments, I’m going to try something different WHILE POSTING this lil essay thing and see if that doesn’t get the comments a-working. Please go to Thubstack and say Polo if it works. Thanks.
Marco!
Anyway, on to the post promised by the title...:
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I was recently “doxxed” by an old acquaintance in the comments to an old blogpost. Scarequotes because anyone who reads this blog and doesn’t know my legal name and place of employment probably doesn’t care. I’m hardly hidden. As an exercise, I encourage you to uncover my middle initial right now and put your time in the comments. My guess is no one will take longer than ten minutes and most people will clock in around two. (This guess is partially based on the assumption that my readers are old enough [ie, not Gens Z or α] to know how to find things on the internet.)
Anyway, the doxxer in question is a narcissist and probable sociopath. Deeply charming upon first meeting, I grant you, but he was forced to leave our shared environment because, after three years, literally everyone refused to associate with him. He called that a victory and went on to greater things.
I don’t know what he’s up to now (I have chosen to do no research) but I always assumed he would soon be wealthy, boldly living life at the edge of white-collar crime. But, if he’s reading old posts of mine and identifying himself in anecdotes, maybe things aren’t going so well? Or perhaps this is normal behavior for narcissists / probable sociopaths. I mean, I wasn’t that surprised he popped up. Perhaps, when bored at home, such people look for old enemies to rage against.
But it’s hilarious (-ly narcissistic) to consider me an enemy. You might need to be a sociopath to interpret our past that way.
Anyway. Carly Simon.
Whenever I heard this song as a kid I would get apoplectic and demand of my mother well isn’t it? ISN’T this song about him???
I'm not sure what mine is, but I can tell you that this is most-anticipated-to-watch-with-my-wife and this is most-anticipated-to-watch-with-my-9yrold and this is most-anticipated-science-fiction and this is most-anticipated-superhero and this is my most-anticipated-sequel and this is my most-anticipated-period-piece and this is my most-anticipated-movie-sorta-based-on-a-book-I-often-teach and this is my most-anticipated-bicentenniel-tie-in and this is my most-anticipated-auteur-entry and this is my most anticipated horror and this is my most-anticipated-short-film and this is my most-anticipated-IP-resurrection, but, the truth is, I haven't really looked to see what's coming out yet, so I may be missing the most exciting possibilities.
In the spring I’d listened to a handful of YouTuber’s talk about why Jim Croce’s “Operator” has some of the best lyrics in rock/pop history, analyzing the one-sided conversation and the narrator opens his heart to the operator he’s asking to place a call.
(There are tons of them and I watched at least three, but this is the only one I could find in my history.)
Then, over the course of about a day, I heard two of the other four songs below. And I realized
holy crap
maybe I just really really love songs that are half of a telephone conversation?
Because I love all these songs and they are all one half of a telephone conversation.
Let’s discuss them all briefly, shall we? By order of original release.
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Jim Croce: “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” — August 1972
Even as a kid, I had a thing for lost-love songs. A plaintive voice bemoaning the love who left without closing the door never to be seen again or bumping into someone with whom things can never be the same (still a year-end must for me) or, more realistically for wee me, a love that never happened in the first place.
Anyway, of these, Jim Croce’s “Operator” is one of the best, and its point of view—of a man talking to an unseen stranger through his longing for a lost path—allows him to work through the various stages of loss until he arrives at something like peace. It’s a resolution (if not quite a redemption).
But the key moment in the song is when the narrator says, “You can keep the dime”—rhymed with time and kind—he recognizes the kindness and catharsis he’s received from someone who owed him nothing. He’s released. He doesn’t need to make that call. He’s already made the call that mattered.
Two humans meeting and finding each other—anonymously, never to speak again—and yet having a connection, a shared meaning, within one, single, human moment. It’s wonderful.
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England Dan & John Ford Coley: “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” — May 1976
One thing writing this will do is reveal how, from a very early age, I was primed for heartbreak and lost love. Now here I am almost halfway through a century and I still haven’t had a single breakup and yet these songs still speak loudly to me. Let’s blame the human allegiance to metaphor, shall we?
Anyway, here we are. They’ve broken up. This time he gets her on the phone and…what does he say?
For a long time, I’ve assumed he’s saying, “I’m not talkin’ ‘bout the live-in,” ie, he’s not suggesting the get back together permanently, that he move his stuff in. Online lyrics sites are split between “I’m not talkin’ ‘bout movin’ in” (which he’s definitely not saying) and “I’m not talkin’ ‘bout the linen.” The latter one sounds the most right of the three and it could be a fun play on words with the next line (“And I don’t want to change your life”), so I think I’m going with it.
Regardless, he misses her. And while he says he’s only calling because “there’s a warm wind blowing and the stars are out” you and I both know that what he really wants is a chance to believe she might still love him ever so slightly—and that that flame might rise again if only, you know, she’d “take a drive along the beach / Or stay at home and watch TV / You see, it really doesn't matter much to me.”
This song isn’t actually taking place over the phone.
It’s taking place entirely within the narrator’s mind. This is unrequited love. (In the official video, he’s a drama professor in love with a blind student. I’m assuming professional ethics are what keep him from approaching her directly?)
More likely, he’s holding the phone in his hand. His other hand is maybe holding down the receiver or possibly he’s listening to the dial tone and the song ends when it gifts up and starts blaring at him and he’s forced to admit to himself that he’s not dialing that number.
Not today, anyway.
So yes, he’s on the phone, but no one is on the line.
It’s very sad.
And I am revealing a lot about young Theric today, aren’t I?
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Stevie Wonder: “I Just Called to Say I Love You“ — August 1984
If you ever pick up a copy of Rolling Stone you’ll know that Stevie Wonder is a) one of the least sentimental most hardcore musicians who has ever lived and b) this song is the most saccharine piece of bubblegum ever inflicted on the American public.
Okay, Rolling Stone.
Anyway, he’s some kind of songsmith. This is an easy song to pull out of the ol’ internal jukebox and it works for almost every day. It the “Very Merry Unbirthday“ of holiday songs!
It’s also the first (and last) song on this list that’s genuinely happy. This narrator’s in a good place, lovewise. Here’s the opening:
No New Year's Day to celebrate No chocolate-covered candy hearts to give away No first of spring, no song to sing In fact, here's just another ordinary day
But how wonderful when your ordinary is utterly infused with a lifetime love.
Nicole Atkins: “The Worst Hangover” — (never released as a single but 2014)
This is perhaps my favorite song (it’s competitive) off one of my favorite albums from the last fifteen years. Which means it’s not filled with childhood nostalgia and angst like the above four, but the real reason it’s only an honorable mention is because I’m not sure the verses are delivered on the phone. The chorus most certainly is. And the “I’m dy-y-y-ing” fadeout at the end is one of my most quoted bits of songery. I sing it, like, literally all the time. And no one knows what I’m quoting because Nicole Atkins has not has a Stevie Wonder–like career. But even so, most critics and fans seem to have written Slow Phaser off as being unlike her other work and therefore less worthy of consideration which is BANANAS because THIS ALBUM IS GREAT.
(Caveat: one song on the album I’ve never listened to because the opening notes prove it an ultimate earworm and . . . I’m nervous having it in my head all the time.)
Nicole, if you’re reading this, I WILL COME TO THE SLOW PHASER ANNIVERSARY TOUR. Don’t miss the Bay Area. Even if it’s just me and you there it will be the best night ever. I can’t wait.
(Unquestionably, this will be the best way for me to hear “Sin Song” for the first time.)
Also, Nicole, if you’re here, is your narrator on the phone the whole time? I think not but cannot say with absolute certainty.
In other phone news I wanted to illustrate this essay with a photo of a payphone receiver hanging off its cord. The photo I have in mind was taken by Helmut Newton and appeared in an edition of I think American Photo circa 1998 (certainly no later than that). The issue was filled with single photos by famous photographers selected by the famous photographers themselves. I’ve never forgotten this photo, mostly because of what Newton said about his photo. He said that nothing is sexier than a telephone. Except a pay telephone.
Anyway, I couldn’t find the photo, but that information should help you interpret this sexy Newton payphone photo if you feel like clicking on it. Warning: sexy Newton payphone photo.
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