DEAD (?) HORSES ARE FOR BEATING

Here I sit on a Saturday morning with nothing but a title, waiting for a plumber who will never come, as images of a long-ago train ride deep into Mexico slowly rise to the surface of my consciousness. . .

It was so long ago, in fact, that riding on that train from Ojinaga to Los Mochis spared me the sight of Mayor Daley's finest bloodying their batons on the skulls of my contemporaries in Chicago. It was just as well, because I'd already had about as much as anyone could stand (unless you came of age during that time, there's really no way for to imagine the outrage and injustice one confronted every day). When the chance came to take a trip to the Pacific Coast of Mexico, especially one that only cost $19 (roundtrip!) for four whole days on a train, we took it.

"Oh, Mex-i-co..."
My impressions from that time are a strange mixture of poverty, charm, and cruelty. The Chihuahuan landscape was starkly beautiful in the afternoon sun as we started off, the people hopping off the train to steal from trackside shantytown gardens were not. The waterfalls and parrots flying through the coastal rain forests were gorgeous and soothing, the nervous teenaged soldiers with submachine guns who boarded the train at every stop were not. (These carried photos of bandits or revolutionaries and walked through every car, scanning all our faces and desperately hoping not to find a match. . .)

I learned a lesson in rural economics when the train stopped high in the mountains at the Copper Canyon overlook (this is still a place from which you can hike into the back country and encounter people for whom even the Third World is an impossible fantasy). Tarahumara women sat cross-legged by the tracks, selling anything they could put together: pieces of quartz in a basket, "chichimocos" (chipmunks) imprisoned inside makeshift Coke can cages, and crude wooden fiddles strung with old guitar strings. A few offered mystery meat tacos or cold tortillas. Their clothes were strikingly colorful, their faces blank or anxious. I soon discovered that the only Spanish they spoke was "si!" By gesturing or holding out pesos, I tried to inquire what each thing cost, but "si!" was their only reply. In other words, they took whatever you would offer!

I put a few coins in one woman's hand and picked up a dusty quartz crystal: "si!" Picking up several more, I gave her a quizzical look. "Si!" was all she said, and no outstretched hand, either. Embarrassed and catching on, I put all the pieces back except one (which I still have to this day), nodded my agreement, and moved on. Many of my fellow passengers were not so gentle and bragged to each other when we reboarded, showing off their loot.

Tall, Pink, and Handsome
At the time, the boarding system in effect at the Mexican railway stations was equally brutal. More than a matter of first-come, first-served, it was usually a case of shove-hard-or-be-left-behind! This young gringo towered over the clamoring throng of short brown people waving their money or "reservations" at the ticket agents behind their glassed-in barricades, and I could always get a seat. (God knows how the rest ever got to where they were going!) I was desperately afraid of being left behind, and the ticket agents were happier dealing with educated Mexicans or tourists than with Indians or peasants.

But the most lasting image from this trip comes from a scene in a hot, dusty, station platform in the middle of nowhere: outside my window, maybe 20 feet away, stood a small boy of 5 or 6, barefoot, runny-nosed, looking rather lost and unhappy, holding a long slim stick and listessly thumping an apparently dead brown dog over and over. . . Now to be fair, the dog may not have been dead but merely sleeping. A dog in those parts might have put up with quite a lot, even taken a beating, just to be allowed to spend a few hours in the shade. My recollection, though, is that of a kid beating a bloated brown bow-wow. It's hard to forget that sort of thing, and I guess I never did.

Hit 'Em Again, Hit 'Em Again...
All of which brings us, finally, to the dead horse I was thinking of before I sat down to wait for the plumber. After my last few columns here and at MacAddict, a very good friend wrote from Maryland to comment thusly:

"You know, John, at the risk of of being brusque and blunt, I have to tell you that I think this whole Mac web stuff is a tempest in a teapot. Frankly, my dear, WHO CARES?! You ARE absolutely justified in your disenchantment and disgust because - come on - the Web has become nothing but another marketing medium. A mercenaries game. And journalism promoting a computer platform - it seems so irrelevant to me. Mac, PC, IBM, Compaq - screw it. . . How can you be impassioned and evangelistic about capitalistic goods? You can't and therein lies the crux of the matter. The core of your alienation."

A few years ago when it looked like there wouldn't be any more Macintoshes, I fought like a drowning man. I evangelized day and night. I wrote one "Microsoft sucks!" piece after another, and the crowd roared! Nowadays, though (speaking as a writer, not a news editor!) I find that a corporation whose CEO has his own jetliner, whose directors pull down hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock options and other benefits, does not need cheerleaders any more! Apple is a corporation, not a life. . . (And please note: I am not saying there isn't a need for Mac sites like this one, product news, sources of information, and places where enthusiasts can gather to trade tips and exchange knowledge. The Macintosh community is a fine thing, so by all means, have at it. Everything you need to know about Macs is right here at Applelinks, too!)

Sensible investors already know where to go for hard facts on AAPL, I'll tell you whatever hits the wire services, and everything else we can leave to Jack Miller at AtAT. What the hell else is there? ["Thwack! Thwack!"]

(There now, don't you feel better? I sure do.)

...Harder, Harder!

To demonstrate the danger of where the confusion of corporate and personal identity can lead, I offer this image (above) scanned from an advertisement in a recent Mac magazine (the surrounding text, urging us to envision the possibilites of wireless networking, has been obliterated). Please take a long, slow look. The image is "cool," perhaps (and I say this as one who has been known to wear skinny little sunglasses after dark), but what is it really saying? The hairless, eyeless model is stripped of any individuality, like a fresh Army recruit. He actually appears to be blind, and the "vision" is essentially a blank: faintly visible within the lenses are phrases from the advertising copy, but nothing shows through. Either he sees only what the advertiser wants him to see or nothing at all! This picture frightens and depresses me. It has exactly the opposite effect from that which its creators intended. I want nothing to do with any enterprise that shuts me off from the reality around me, and neither should you.

I'm really not sure what, if anything, this has to do with a trip to Mexico 32 years ago. I do know that there's an awful lot going on that needs observing, reporting, and remembering, both in and out of the world of Macintosh. Write about that, ye pushers of paragraphs! All I'm suggesting is a little perspective, a broader, independent viewpoint. And if you turn a corner and find your way blocked by a familiar dead quadruped, don't worry: just pick up a stick and whack that sucker AGAIN!

I thought I saw him move, anyway.

John H. Farr edits the news for Applelinks.com and invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past two years' worth of columns. John also writes his WebFaust column for MacAddict.com and a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM.

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Big Brother Photo Credit: are you nuts?! They'd sue us! (Note to lawyers with nothing better to do: just send me a threatening letter and I'll yank it toot sweet. Damn thing's ugly, anyway.)

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January 08, 2009