He was the only one not on his phone

I got on a call a while back with an artist who wanted to share an idea for a release.

Twenty minutes in he'd forgotten all about it and was telling me about a sandwich shop instead.

He'd had a rough day. Bought himself a bottle of cologne, which he never does, then went to get a sandwich.

He's standing in line. One family ahead of him. Another family already up at the counter.

The kid at the counter asks his dad for a cookie. Dad says no, put it back, we can't today.

The guy working the register looks up and says I got your food today, don't worry about it.

And the dad starts crying.

The kid has no idea what just happened. He gets his cookie and wanders off to fill his drink, and the dad stands there watching his son fill up a cup.

Meanwhile the family in front of him are working out what they want for dinner. They saw none of it. Two feet away.

On the way out he told the guy he'd seen what he did. Guy said he didn't do it for anyone to see.

So he walked over to the dad, took everything out of his wallet, handed it over and left.

The kindness isn't the story though.

A room full of people, and one of them was watching. That's the story.

He wasn't on his phone. He was paying attention to the life going on around him.

He'd been sitting on that idea for about a year and kept shelving it. When I'm bigger. When I've got more out.

That sandwich shop didn't hand him the idea. It gave him permission to stop putting it off.

We talk about creativity like it's an output problem. Better plugin, better hook, better prompt.

It isn't. It's an input problem. You can't write about people if you never look at them.

One person paying attention in a sandwich shop was enough to start a whole project.

Imagine what a room full of them does.

You don't need a better idea.

You need to look up.

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When did you last stand somewhere with your phone in your pocket and actually watch what was going on?

Hit reply with what you saw.

Jimi

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v4 changes (2026-08-22, from the writing-sweep audit)

• Cut the event paragraph, from "So what do you do with a moment like that?" to "Then play, if you want to play." 110 words. It was a second issue inside this one (afternoon events, record stores, selling prints), and #9 argues small rooms a fortnight earlier. Banked below for an ADE or events issue. Note Jimi corrected the DJ line in this block on 2026-08-05, so putting it back is his call.
• Cut "in the moment," from "He was in the moment, paying attention to the life going on around him." The rest of the sentence already says it.
• "a couple of weeks back" swapped to "a while back". The call was early August; by 15 Sep it's six weeks. Same trap as the Gawx draft's "two weeks ago".
• "Imagine what a room full of them does" now lands on people paying attention rather than on an event. Reads cleaner.

Banked paragraph (cut from v4)

So what do you do with a moment like that?

The reflex in our corner is to book a night. You finish something, so you play it at midnight to a room that came out for something else, and by Sunday it's gone.

I'm not saying stop DJing. I'm saying stop leading with it.

The set is a foundation. Build on top of it.

An afternoon, not a late night. An art gallery, a record store, a coffee shop, some retail space that's struggling and could use the people. Small enough to talk to everyone who turns up. Sell something while they're there, prints, cassettes, a vinyl pressing. Then play, if you want to play.