Rodney's gone and that's a fact. Scroll
all the way down...
Rodney,
Zappa, and Mac Lit Rodney O. Lain was the first person I know to
write about "Mac literature," and he was perfectly serious.
I didn't know him at the time, but I immediately responded
with a FARR SITE column called "Help,
I'm an Art Form!" The title came from the first Mothers
of Invention album, wherein Frank Zappa and the Mothers
intoned, "Help, I'm a rock," over and over. It seemed to me
at the time to describe a kind of existential awareness of a
basic condition or state of being that one could never
escape from or ignore. That pretty much describes how it
felt to be elevated to the postion of creating "literature"
for Mac users, kind of like: "What do you mean, this
is my body and I'm stuck with it?"
At the time I was in the self-centered throes of packing
and moving, but Rodney had nailed it -- and given it a big
kick in the ass! For about a year and a half after that,
there was a vigorous period of excellence and
experimentation in Mac writing on the Internet. If I tried
to name everyone involved, I'd surely leave some out, but
Lain, Martellaro, Miller, Lock and others come to mind. Many
found a home at Applelinks, which for a time resembled a
columnists' salon of sorts. That's all history now. The rare
time of grace and beauty came and went, and with it a good
deal of our innocence.
Macworld San Francisco 2000 was pivotal, inaugurating a
turbulent time of hype, hope, and betrayal. There was
melodrama on the Mac Web that January, Rodney fired or
quitting (I never did get that straight) over an editorial
dispute, he and Tim Robertson in a hotel room high over the
city putting the story out for all the world to see. Shortly
afterwards, Rodney and I were both hired as online
columnists for MacAddict.com, he as "iBrotha" and I
as "WebFaust." During our time there, Rodney wrote
some of the most ambitious, lewd, punch-in-the-stomach
pieces I have ever read. Through the ensuing chaos, broken
promises, and our eventually being tossed out with the fish
bones and old newspapers, Rodney and I corresponded
frequently and profanely. When I look back on it, that was
the best part of the entire experience.
[shifting gears]
See
this hole? I took the picture below at a place called Wild
Horse Mesa in southern Colorado. I don't mind telling you
where it is because 99.9 percent of you will never see the
place, and most of the .1 percent who do will flee in
terror. This isn't bragging, just the truth. It's a place
more isolated than most of us can imagine. When you finally
get to the top of the mountain, you find yourself surrounded
by a 360 degree panorama that countains not a single shred
of anything you're used to. There isn't any electricity,
either, and you can mostly forget about drilling a well.
There are properties for sale there, and some people try to
make a home, but living hours away from a post office,
supermarket, or library and having to have all your water
brought in by cowboys driving tank trucks doesn't sit well
with most folks. At any given time of the year, realtors
here in Taos have several half-completed houses listed for
sale up on Wild Horse Mesa. It seems that people start to
build, hang out there a while, then find their souls sucked
up into the big blue mystery dome above their heads. There
really isn't much you can do about that except to run the
hell back to wherever you can get a fix of whatever you miss
most. Personally, I love the place, but it scares me
too.
But back to the hole. The rock formation that makes up
the core of the mesa is formed of vertically-tilted layers
of mostly volcanic rock, like layered lava flows that later
buckled or broke. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I'm no
geologist. But there's rock underneath your feet and it's
cracked in long running lines everywhere you look. Over the
years some of these small fissures have become minature
gorges, very dangerous deep rock trenches you could easily
fall into and not get out of. Rain and melting snow have
carved out numerous caves and pockets, too. The hole in the
picture appears to be the uppermost extension of just such a
cave. It's barely large enough to put your foot through and
doesn't have a discernible bottom. I aimed a light down
inside once and couldn't see a thing. If there's a cave down
below, it must be very old as well. At the bottom there's
probably a conical mound of thousands of skeletons from all
the critters that have slipped through and fallen to their
deaths. I'd give anything to be able to poke around inside,
if another entrance could ever be found.
The point is that such a thing is really spooky and
unknowable, the Void itself in microcosm. It's not just
scary, but exciting too. You could drop something
down inside and never see it again. On the other hand, if
you located an entry passage from the side, maybe from one
of the deeper fissures I mentioned earlier, you might be
able to put your hands on all the things that other
people dropped and never saw again: flashlights,
daggers, spear points and the like. Who knows? (I just want
the skulls.) The void is both the end of and the beginning
of all things. If I had that piece of land up on Wild Horse
Mesa, that hole would be the life and the death of me, I'm
sure, and God knows where the cat would end up.
[back again]
And
now the pain I don't know why he did it and I don't
care -- the doing of it is the main thing. What I
mean is, I've been there all too often. The so-called
"reasons," such as they may be, are unimportant and defy
rational analysis. What matters is the pain, the
overwhelming pain. You hurt so much you never think about
what would happen to a world without you in it. You hurt so
much you think the ones who love you would be better off
without you, as crazy as that may sound. You hurt so
much you can't do, think, or feel anything except how much
you hurt. And that's about as much as I can say, except that
I would never own a handgun, ever. I know myself too
well.
If there's meaning here, it's what you give it. That's
why I wrote about the hole. I've hardly ever had anyone
I know die on me, much less blow themselves away. Rest in
peace, man. I wish the damn thing had misfired and you'd
have had another chance. What a column that would
have made. Next time, bro'.
* * * * * * * * *
Finally, I urge everyone to read the following
commentaries at MyMac.com. The people noted below are all
well known to me and what they have to say about Rodney
comes from the heart. The MyMac media alert is reproduced
here in its entirety:
June 17, 2002- Reflections from the
MyMac.com Staff: Rodney O. Lain
Rodney O. Lain --Tim Robertson pauses to remember his
friendship with Rodney and questions this shocking turn
of events. Please be advised of the use of adult language
in this article. http://www.mymac.com/robertson/6.17.02.shtml
The Mac web unites people that might not otherwise
meet. Some of us at MyMac.com were fortunate enough to
know Rodney O. Lain personally, but we all knew the
impact of his writing. Our deepest condolences to
Rodney's family in this confusing and tragic time.
"Grack!"
Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John
H. Farr wants everyone to live large and not to be
afraid of anything.
GRACK
Update List
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GRACK! 2001
archives are HERE. (Current
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