• by Jack Feuer , April 8, 2009

I have a long commute, which is hard on the bladder. So every morning when I get to the office, the first thing I do is go to the bathroom. And that's when I hear the ghost.

I never see it. I only hear it. Every morning, when I hit the men's room, this creepy noise starts up behind the door to the big stall. Which is always locked.

I call out -- there's never any answer.

The door never opens.

I only hear the sound of a newspaper rustling, rustling.

The first week or so this happened, I said to myself, "reading the newspaper on the throne? Must be an old guy." But every day, week after week? At 6:30 in the morning? And never a sigh, a grunt or even a little water action?

No, never. Just the same sound over and over again. The sound of a newspaper rustling.

And now I know: There's nobody in that stall. It's emptier than the wall at Variety that used to be filled with pictures of Peter Bart and famous people.

What we have here is a bathroom haunting.

I'm being visited by an apparition from a bygone world, raised from the realm of dead things to make a sound nobody under 30 has ever heard. And soon, nobody of any age will ever hear again.

Some weird shit goes down in Westwood. But I understand the spook's sense of urgency. Because when I look at my own media habits, it's clear I'm being co-opted.

I'm tweeting with the enemy.

You can be young and born into it, or you can be old and slowly infected by it. But sooner or later, the voracious digital disease will eat you alive. No matter how loud the newspaper ghost rustles in the men's room on the 9th floor. No matter how desperately it moans "read all about it, for the love of God!" at the top of its spectral lungs, it won't make any difference.

Old media is dead to me.

I'm increasingly bored and dissatisfied with print of any kind. Even reading the Sunday paper over coffee and a bagel is too slow, too cumbersome -- too, well, old. Newspapers and magazines have become second-class platforms for my entertainment or edification. (Well, except for Hustler, but that's a special case.)

Here's another thing. After a lifetime in two dimensions, I find myself responding more viscerally to visual stimuli now. Show me, don't tell me. And I've acclimated to hearing, reading and absorbing content in very short, compressed bits. I no longer need substance, accuracy or truth. Just make it quick and make it snappy, and I'm good.

Technology has grasped me by my digitally rendered huevos -- and it won't let go. It's like being bitten by a vampire. Once the fangs draw blood, you're Facebook food. If this can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. So let this serve as a warning.

And for the love of all that's holy, stay out of the bathroom before dawn.