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A town by any other name
As has already been made clear, I didn't go to Mingus. Mingus is a town in West Texas, a long-ago oasis of sin where reckless Texicans could go to buy a little brew. If you don't know what "dry counties" are, there isn't much use in my saying any more. If you do, the fact that the title of this piece is actually taken from a song called "The Road to Mingus" by John Clay should be of intense and long-abiding interest:

"They went on a trip to Mingus,
where the water tower's for beer;
each of them drank down about half a quart
and then they started back here."

I won't reprint all the lyrics, as they are no doubt copyrighted and John needs the recognition, so if you know who I'm talking about, John Clay of Stamford, Texas, he of John Clay and the Lost Austin Band, for God's sakes go look him up and bring him something to eat! -- the last I heard, he was living in an old school bus out near Lake Travis. Not everyone who deserves a monument gets one, dammit, but if John Clay ever wrote a book about growing up in West Texas, living in Austin during the '60's & '70s, and just half of every other thing that ever happened to him, it would win a Pulitzer Prize. I just hope the guy is still alive. At any rate, here's the end of the song:

"Three bodies by the side of the road,
and a mashed-up '39 Ford;
the car held part of their bodies,
and the rest lay up-on the ground.

On the road to Mingus where the blood and guts roll,
to those sinful old beer joints where you lose your soul;
repent, dear brothers, while you still have time,
and I wish I were sober so I knew the right line;
three bodies by the side of the road,
and a mashed-up '39 Ford!"

That's my Memorial Day speech. And now on with the show...

The essence of a place, a person, a thing
Most people reading this column know that Austin, Texas is one helluva high-tech mecca and a mighty fine (big!) town. Some of you might also know that there's a big bronze statue of Davy Crockett in the state capitol building and an equally fine one of Stevie Ray Vaughn down by the lake, which to me kinda says it all. John Clay's alcoholic trek through hell and Texas was due in part to the way certain isolated West Texas towns mangled the souls of the sensitive back in the '50s and probably still do. I knew a guy from another such place whose mother belonged to a fundamentalist church that believed UFOs were fiery chariots of the Lord come to wreak vengeance on us poor sinners. They used to go out in the boonies, sing hymns, and watch the sky, all of which pretty much paints a picture of that time and place.

Where I did go this weekend is a place I'm not naming, but you can guess from the pictures. There are lots of artists and craftspeople in residence, everybody seems to get along, and there's even a little river that greens the joint up and allows for irrigated orchards and fields. In this part of the world, that's life and death. The place was suggested to me as an alternative to good ole Taos, whose name in Tewa means "Place Where 20,000 Harley Riders Pass Through on Memorial Day Weekend." Don't get me wrong, I like motorcycles and hope to have one soon. See my friends? They look happy. Me want one too.(That's Taos, by the way.) And now back to our tale.

The town I visited has decent vibes, a few cows and sheep, and a couple of overpriced old adobe farmhouses for sale. These old adobe houses aren't like anything else you'll find in the U.S. of A, that's for sure. Imagine 1,000 square feet, three rooms, and no closets. That's because in the old days, all anybody had was two suits of clothes: the one they wore to church and the one they wore the rest of the time. You might find two or three wooden pegs on the back of a door, but that's about it. Adobe is great stuff for building, though. I love these places, and so would you, but bankers don't -- can you say "no foundation" and "no central heat"? That's right, no foundation, just stack the adobe bricks right on the ground and build your house. But they feel really nice and snug inside, solid as the earth they're standing on. They feel like an extension of the earth, because that's what they are, of course. That's the important thing, other than all the money you'd have to spend to upgrade for the next buyer's mortgage lender. There's an intangible something about them that no "conventional" house can have. By the way: the house below is 10 times better than the one across the street I was looking at. (C'est la vie. It probably has four rooms!)

Cruelty of the geeks?
For some reason this reminded me of an incident this week where a reader objected to the rather snotty, in-your-face title of a Photoshop 7 on OS X seminar out in Californ-i-a. At the time I posted the press release, I added a line or two about liking the attitude, etc., but I lied. I didn't like the attitude. The truth is, I was having a bad day and felt the need to be Cupertinically correct. So much for objectivity, eh? (Imagine early Jerry Lewis: "Awright, awright, don't hit me, don't hit me!')

The last time I saw the figures, out of maybe 25 million regular Mac users in the world, only about 1.5 million were using OS X. I'm still not although I'd love to, but I flog this perfectly good 8600 eight to 12 hours a day and I really don't have any time to screw around with installing OS X on an "unsupported" machine. I really, really, really want to be using OS X, and if I ever get fired and have some time on my hands, I'll go ahead and install it. There isn't a weekend that I don't say, "Hey, maybe tomorrow I'll..." and then I don't do it, because I need to use the machine. Pre-installed would be fabulous, and I'll get a new Mac as soon as I clear my credit cards (hahaha). Something tells me I'm not alone, either.

Macs being more than mere "things," it's weird to think of getting rid of the "Big Guy." Just like old adobe houses, there's something intangible about these machines that doesn't apply to all those other computing appliances. I wonder if Apple really knows what's going on here, at the top management levels, I mean. By declaring that the operating system that most of their customers use is "dead," they're inflicting emotional and technological distress on millions of loyal friends. I'm totally for everyone using OS X and feel like crap for not using it myself -- but see, that's the problem! You don't want your customers to feel like idiots or second-class citizens. We don't need new computers, we need counseling!

I'll do anything you want, but first you have to say you love me.

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr also does JHFarr.com and Fotofeed. There are probably a few more but those are where the big money comes from.

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May 20: "Creative Procrastination" May 13: "It's Ten O'clock!" May 6: "Sagebrush Saga" Apr. 29 "Universe of Lies" Apr. 22: "Earth Day All the Time" Apr. 15: "Oh, THOSE Taxes!" Apr. 8: "Turn Left at the Llamas" Apr. 1: "April Drool" Mar. 25: "Tuzas on the Curb" Mar. 18: "Holy Ghostbeak" Mar. 11: "Lord of the Turkeys" Mar. 4: "The Heart of the Matter" Feb. 25: "New Stuff: Browsers, Servers, etc." Feb. 18: "Mascot Lore & More" Feb. 11: "Killer Email & Wiccan PotLuck" Feb. 4: "Meanies, Guerillas, & Subscription Copycats" Jan. 28: "Full Moon Frenzy, w/ PowerMacs" Jan. 21: "iMacs & Webmaster Schadenfreude" Jan. 14: "Was It Only a Week Ago?" Jan. 7: "Useless Column" Dec. 31, '01: "I Want a Refund"

AUDIO CREDIT: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms.

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