Thursday, December 29, 2011

My (Brief) Life As Steve Jobs

Less is...less
   I rose early and went downstairs. The first thing I noticed was that we had too much furniture, so I began removing it piece by piece. It was all junk and clutter. Our closest neighbors were away and I had the keys to their house and garage, so I put a lot of it in both. Then, I put some of it in another neighbor's back yard and garage. They all had terrible taste anyway and deserved having even more bad stuff around.

   The emptiness enveloped me.

   I had recently showered, about three days before, and I could still smell the remnants of Irish Spring upon me. I took a solemn vow to get rid of this by not showering for at least a month. I began to feel pure and well on my way to enlightenment.

   Then, I looked in the refrigerator and was horrified to find that most of what had accumulated in there came from animals: cold cuts, bacon, eggs, and, as disgusting as it may sound, butter. I threw it all away and made a note to get to Whole Foods that afternoon to get some healthy vegan food in the house. I wanted to feel like I had, when I had tramped around India in the corporate jet fifteen years ago, when I ate only peeled fruit and some seeds.

Bozo phones. Morons.
   Then, I called the head of the company for whom I was selling on commission and told him he was a complete bozo and that their products were s@*t and that, if they didn't shape up quickly, I would leave. When he reminded me that they had never hired me, and, in fact, didn't owe me a dime or anything else, since I had not yet sold squat, I quit. This is what geniuses must do.

   As soon as I hung up, my daughter called. She had not called me to say she loved me since the previous day, an extreme betrayal of my devotion to her. So I immediately hung up and said I wouldn't speak to her for a year.

   After meditating, I went to my desk and decided to make something that would change the world and be insanely great. A four-week presidential campaign? Never work. An inkjet printer that works more than two days a month? Impossible even for me. Buy a piece of the Mets and win a Series? Oy.

  What would be worthy of my unique combination of an artist's sensibility, a designing eye, an engineer's obsession with precision, not to mention an Olympic-sized ego, unbridled arrogance, and an ability to burst into tears an instant after being slighted by bozos who make s#@t stuff?

   As usual, I was all alone in my hour of need, abandoned once more by those who could not love me enough, because they could not see that I was smarter, more creative, richer, smellier and meaner than just about anybody.

   I went for a long walk with my editor and tried to manipulate her into accepting the stories I'd submitted, which she had hurtfully and summarily rejected. We walked and walked in my neighborhood, while I told her how much I admired her and her little paper. Feeling kind and compassionate, as the Buddha has taught us, I didn't even mention that my column had saved her whole enterprise. After a couple of hours, even I was exhausted. So, I took a shortcut home and called the Publisher and said that he had to get rid of her, and mentioned that I was not available to replace her, because she was a friend. This is what great friends do for each other. If he begs, I will have to take the job.

SJ's Hero
   By now it was dinner time and I had forgotten to go to Whole Foods. My wife, who was sitting on the floor in our living room, asked why the fridge was emptied and what were we going to have for supper. I immediately forbade her from ever calling dinner supper again and said that there was a head of iceberg lettuce left, which, together with some purified water, would make an excellent purge of a meal. She got her car keys and left in a huff, or maybe went to get a cheeseburger. Once again, I was alone, unloved, misunderstood, and, I must admit, really hungry.

   Being left alone in the house gave me an opportunity to get rid of the beds and most of the upstairs furniture, which I put by the curb for people with no taste to pick-over and take home to their imperfectly designed houses. I slept on the mattress just as my Indian teachers had done many years before during the time I was learning to hide my superiority by being a world class jackass.

   Gratefully, I woke up for real, with my wife sleeping beside me and all of the furniture in place. Alas, it was all a dream, and I was, once again, just another bozo, but felt much better for it, and was hungry for a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich and a long shower.

Ed Note: Disclosure: I have a Macbook, an iphone, and an iPad and am an admirer of Apple and, to a certain extent, of Steve Jobs. While reading Walter Isaacson's book, Steve Jobs (I do not consider it to be a real biography, but think it's a long profile), I had a frightening thought: will parents force their children to read this book and expect that the kids will use deceit, dishonesty, meanness, greed, and manipulation, as Jobs did, in addition to his finely-honed intuition, creativity, and great communications skills? Will those young people believe that you can't be a genius and be a well-mannered, truthful and mature adult? Consequently, I thought it would be good for at least one person to poke fun at St. Steve. Perhaps, as many reviewers have suggested,  Jobs had a bit of Einstein and Franklin in him, two other lives Isaacson has chronicled. But, we would do well to recall that Jobs also had a lot in common with another one of Isaacson's subjects: Henry Kissinger. That is not a compliment.

 

 



 

 


Monday, December 19, 2011

Holiday This

   Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!

   There, I've said it out loud, sort of: the two little words which you will never hear uttered by network or cable TV Holiday-heads, or retailers, who have banished the words, "Merry Christmas," without the need for any explanation.

   Do they all believe that separation of church and state extends to them, even though they are not government organizations? Do they really believe that citizens who do not celebrate Christmas will be deeply offended by these words of good will in an age in which true nuttiness extends across the borders of politics, media, academia, business, and, yes, religion itself?

   Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas, Feliz Navidad! Go ahead, sue me.

   And, while we're at it: Happy Hanukka! Happy Chanukah!

   While researching a story recently, I was stunned to find a web site wishing me (don't let the kids see this) Merry Christmas (http://www.globetrotter1897.com/). The site showed Santa descending to earth in a hot-air balloon, and, as amazing as this sounds, I was not the least offended by this depiction, nor did I drop dead of fright. And why would I, since a "belief" in jolly old St. Nick requires little in the way of religious commitment. Imagine if they had shown a manger scene? The shame of such a thing!

   Please.

   It has come to this: the mavens who run our media and retail domains, believe that it is entirely appropriate that we watch every minute of the Kardashians' lives, and live every moment of Newt Gingrich's quest, and think Black Friday is a really good idea. But they will employ any means, invest whatever it takes, to keep us from hearing or seeing the words "Merry Christmas."

   Soon, we may have to watch censors' versions of Bing in White Holiday, enjoy the Piece of Good Fortune on 34th Street, and watch It's A Wonderful Life revolve around an unnamed set of "holidays."

   I am not embarrassed to say in public that I am not giving a single "holiday" present this year. I respond to every shop clerk and telephone solicitor wishing me a "Happy Holiday" with a resounding "Merry Christmas." They are shocked, of course, and will probably report me to the Holiday Authorities.

   Let them come and get me and hear me sing O Come All Ye Faithless!

   I am going to bop them on the head with another thing that scares them to death...

   ...Peace on Earth.

 

 

 

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Where The Suns Don't Shine

 Hole
   The constellation called Coma is 336 million light years away from Earth. It is the brightest galaxy in a huge swirl of galaxies. In it lies a humongous "black hole," in which could fit 21 billion Suns. That, Mr. Buffet, is a real billionaire.

   Another monster black hole lies in Leo constellation, near a galaxy knowns as NGC 3842. This one could have eaten 9.7 billion suns. That's real hunger, folks.

   Why do I bother telling you this? Well, for one thing, the Sports section of my paper of choice is featuring an illustrated story about a hockey player's brain; and, while I think this is worthwhile effort to stem the Canadian tendency to drop gloves and start a fistfight over the last dregs of a Labatt's Blue or a vintage Leonard Cohen LP, I have a decided disinterest in it. No offense to the brain or the player.

Original Newt, Isaac
   Also, amazing as it may sound, I can only take so many Newt Gingrich stories. I definitely remember maxing out on these back in 1998 or so. It is a testament to the intellectual powers of Gov. Perry and the "alleged"romantic adventures of Mr. Cain that we now have to deal once more in a semi-serious way with Newt. He is everywhere, and the same paper of choice never tires of pointing out his shortcomings. For them, Newt is an industry.

   Frankly, I prefer reading about black holes, the real kind, and not just metaphors for the places where Greek debt and our taxes get to.

   According to the Times, "Astronomers also think the supermassive black holes in galaxies could be the missing link between the early universe and today..." I hope not. For their sake, I do no think they or any other phenomena would want to be blamed for today. Instead, I am beginning to think that we might be a massive black hole, except that we cannot see that, since we are here and not out in galaxy NGC 4889 looking down on Earth, which would take 336 million light years, about the same length as the Republican primary season.

   Talk about coma.

   I mean, why worry, when there are phenomenal things happening out there that are much more important than whether poor children should become janitors in schools, rather than waste their time on Astronomy or Physics; this is the newest bright idea to emerge from the distant galaxy know as Newt's Brain, near the Rod Serling constellation.

Whole
   Isn't it somehow comforting to think that someday soon, universally speaking, our Sun will burn out and our solar system and Galaxy will be sucked into one of these Super-Dyson-like black holes? This is something that has happened billions of times already, and that makes me feel very small indeed.

  It's just such a comforting thought. Makes you want to take the day off from the thoughts of European central bankers or boring political commentators and go fishing, start reading Proust again, or cuddle up with the dog and watch Jules Et Jim for the soixantieme time.   


Ed Note: We wish to thank Dennis Overbye for his fine reporting about black holes, which you can find here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/space/astronomers-find-biggest-black-holes-yet.html?scp=1&sq=dennis%20overbye/black%20holes&st=cse