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At least it's easier to pack
I'm sitting here this Sunday afternoon without a single thing to say about Apple Computer, Microsoft, or anything of the kind. I don't know dink about the latest software updates, couldn't care less about who has what chip or how digitized my lifestyle is. I don't own a cell phone, a DVD player, an iPod, a PDA, or anything of the sort. Someday, maybe. But being de-mediafied has its advantages, you know.

What's especially nice is that I haven't watched more than 30 seconds of a major network newscast in over three years. It took about a year before I stopped thinking, "6:30, time for Peter Jennings ..." but trust me, after you're weaned, your life will be so full that you will not believe you ever found time to sit still and watch this stuff. It's really amazing. The other revelatory effect of disengaging from the media machine is that should you encounter say, a Newsweek magazine in your dentist's office, or walk into a neighbor's house while Tom Brokaw is standing there in his oh-so-serious black suit and tie, you will be overcome with astonishment at how shallow and stupid the coverage actually is.

I'm not a Luddite or a hermit, either. I've used a Mac since 1984. I keep up with selective news on the Internet, by reading, in other words: no talking heads! I love my digital camera and enjoy working on my own Web sites. The best thing about computers from my point of view is that there's always something new to learn, and with Macs, it's usually pure joy. Someday I'll own a cell phone and a DVD player, I have no doubt. I'm sure I'd like an iPod, too. I just don't live for this stuff. Maybe if I had online calendars to mark out my hours and a phone in every pocket, I could rule the world, but I rather think my own universe will be much improved by more attention to things like imagining a better future for myself and everyone I love.

Recently I read a piece at News.com or wherever about a digital lifestyle heaven supposedly waiting just around the corner. In this paean to inanity, the protagonist was watching a movie or a TV show in his living room, got tired waiting for the scintillating conclusion, and pressed a button to transfer the video to his bedroom. For good measure, he pressed another button that sent the thing to his mother-in-law and several friends. (All this without knowing how it came out, mind you.) The point being that in our glorious, high-bandwidth future, we'll all be able to pass around DV the way people send jokes by email. If this is love, then sign me up. On the other hand, if it's what I think it is, I may have to wean myself from the Internet as well.

The preacher is in
I don't care about building up equity, saving for retirement, bringing democracy to the natives, or what the neighbors think. Maybe I'm crazy or maybe I'm partly free. The thing is, we're all gonna die anyway, no matter how many toys we have, but how we play with what we've got might make a difference. One of the most fun things you can do is fight injustice without actually hurting anyone. For example, I knew a guy who used to walk around Austin planting sunflower seeds in the cracks in the sidewalks. As for me, if I can poke a stick into the spokes of the wheels of whatever fascist nature-hating theocracy crawls out of the swamp, I certainly will. Not that too many will notice, but I'll feel better.

And speaking of poking sticks into spokes (a multi-dimensional metaphor in this case), I sure miss Rodney. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, and I hope the people who loved him have found a way to wrap their hearts around the whole experience. Whenever I think of that shiny-headed sumbitch, I can hardly believe he's gone, though there have been times in the past year when I know exactly what I would have done if I woke up and found a pistol in my lap. Forgive my bluntness please, but there's a time to think about insurance policies and a time to "just say no," period. It isn't weakness, either, more like perceived inevitability. What becomes suprisingly easy to overlook at these moments is that anything that hurts so bad is probably contra-indicated. Just last week someone we know lost a 20-year-old son this way. That's the strangest thing of all to me. I mean, I both understand and don't understand.

Not on my watch, if I can help it
Outside my window now are oh, maybe three dozen mongrel sparrows, scarfing up sunflower seeds as fast as they can get away with it. (While we live in town, these qualify as "birds of the field" for the purpose of the moment.) In between furious bouts of peckity-peck--peck-FLEE, peckity-peck-peck-FLEE, large numbers of them visit the terra-cotta Mexican birdbath I usually forget to empty each night. Miraculously, it hasn't cracked yet and neither have the sparrows. These are just the sort of harmless creatures you'd expect to be making out like bandits under the eyes of a watchful and benevolent supreme being, and I ask your indulgence in imagining that all of this is true, or could be. The birds, at any rate, are doing just fine. Kinda makes me wonder if I'm buying salted sunflower seeds, but no matter. The only thing is, it wasn't any omnipotent universal force for good that filled that birdbath. Or was it?!?

What I'm trying to say here, for want of any gossip about silly things nobody needs, is that I really do believe there is a purpose to being alive, now, in this place. And contrary to what's fashionable in certain quarters these days, I think it has to do with affirming life and taking care of everything. If I had Palestinians, U.S. Marines, bin laden's son (who by the way is just a little boy), or even George W. hisself lining up at my birdbath to get a drink, I'd go right outside with a bucketful of water and keep it filled. I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say here, but I think I just did.

Awright, I'm done. Anyway, it's time for margaritas and belly-dance music at the Adobe Bar. No cover charge, either.

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr most assuredly did go to the Taos Inn that very evening, verdad!

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