Apple Kool-Aid
Techno Tim was fit to be tied and I don’t mean he’d just watched 50 Shades of Gray. We were grubbing trail, all us volunteers, at the park the county doesn’t have the money to maintain, so we do it for free. Our last county commissioner, an avowed Tea Party anti-government yahoo duly elected by us citizens, proposed selling these parks we’ve put thousands of hours into — but that’s another kettle of fish for another time. T.T. was arguing with our artist of the group, Anabelle the watercolorist who’d matter-of-factly informed him he ought to use an Apple computer, not the PC he told her he owned.
Tim’s an electrical engineer, newly retired, and he had been arguing about a quarter of a mile up the newly cleared trail back into the nettle jungle that there wasn’t much difference between an Apple and a PC. Anabelle wouldn’t buy a word of it. “It’s way friendlier,” she maintained with renewed vehemence. “I tried to use my brother’s PC and I couldn’t make heads or tails.” Tim said they were the same, just different words for the commands. “It’s not like Apple has pictures, Anabelle. It’s got the same keyboard, the same interface. Bits and bytes. You use the same programs I do. Photoshop is Photoshop. Word is Word. There’s no difference.”
Anabelle didn’t beg to differ. She insisted. “I could barely turn my brother’s PC on!” she cried and took her fury out on a salmonberry bold enough to block her way, whack whack with her machete. Tim stepped back three steps. He knew, the way we all did, he could be next on that chopping block. “What IS it with you Apple people?” he asked. “It’s like a cult. It’s like Steve Jobs handed out the Kool-Aid spiked with fairy dust. It’s just a machine, Anabelle. Not a God.”
Anabelle turned, machete glinting a primeval light through the ferns and the firs. “Ask any artist,” she said through clenched teeth. “They’re not the same. Apples are for us. Stick with your PC, see if I care, but you’d think different if you were an artist.”
Tim threw up his hands. “Okay, Anabelle, okay. Let’s agree to disagree.”
You might think we’d argue the merits of a Pulaski vs a hoe, a machete vs a weed whacker, but these are modern times on the frisky South End and only a fool argues with a True Believer. Life down here is tough enough.
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Many decades ago, I assisted a 90 year old portrait artist with his daily activities for a period of time. I delivered groceries to him, bought him “The Korbel,” changed his light bulbs, and helped him to record his memoirs on cassette tape. After a particularly productive recording session he would offer me his highest praise, “Rick… you are a genius with the cassette tapes. You… should have been… a brain surgeon!
However, things did not always go so well. When he became frustrated, or disappointed, he would lash out at me with his cruelest possible criticism. He would narrow his eyes, look deep into my soul and growl, “Rick… you are NOT an artist. You… are a BUSINESSMAN!
Some things sting worse than mature nettle leaves. And an artist with or without a machete is not to be trifled with.
Ah yes, the scorn of the Pure Artist, with a tongue like a scalpel and a total disdain for the filthy business of, well, Business. Tough to be one, though, in a capitalist country, I’m sure your geriatric Van Gogh knew. I have a father-in-law who pretty much holds a contrarian opinion, nothing much worse than being an artist. Course, I happen to be the only one in the family who has a business license, files a Schedule C to the IRS and actually runs, albeit half-assedly, a Business. Ah, the sweet sad Irony….