That paranoid feeling

Lately I have been rather worried about a paranoid feeling, an aura, an unspecific sensation, that Steve Jobs wants me -personally- to buy an iPad. I know, it sounds soooo self-centered!!! But it is a feeling similar to the Hinckley-Jodie Foster things that almost killed Ronald Reagan. But, still, Steve’s voice is the self-proclaimed voice of progress and techiness, and I’ve always seen myself as a progressive, so there is a strong sensation of cognitive dissonance; because I just don’t recognize the voice of progress anymore.

It seems that the new progressive injunction is: BUY MORE STUFF!!!! And the first item in this new party line is the iPad. A 10” shopping mall; a shopping mall light enough to rest in your lap. That is not the beginning of progress, that is the beginning of debt and mental slavery.

For from what I’ve read, the iPad does not lend itself to even medium level creative work. Difficult to write in it, photos are better edited in a regular computer, and the devise does not have what it takes to do acceptable levels of music recording. It is a devise for you to play stupid games, surf the internet, buy music, buy movies, buy tv shows, buy apps, buy books, etc. More, more, more.

In truth, I began being extremely concerned since seeing the photo of one Rey Gutierrez, with an Apple tattoo in his hand, in the NYTimes. It has worried me because the trend is clear: to be a hardcore consumer, in debt and a mental slave will become stylish, hip and cool in a very short time.

I have done some serious music recording in a computer. I have edited video. I have built complex websites. I have done serious photoshoping. And I have always used a PC. And the issue is not PC vs. Mac. The issue is between thinking intellectually honest people and posers. I have never understood why ‘creative’ people claim so easily that Macs are obviously better for creative stuff than PC. Not true. They are certainly not worst than PCs. They are just about the same. I prefer a PC, but not because they are better. Simply because I know how to work better in them and (very important) all of my Latin American friends in South America use PCs and file swapping, software piracy, etc. is easier -for me- with a PC. But I have also worked on Macs and they are...the same. It simply depends on what you are doing, how well versed you are in what you are doing, and how new or old the computer is, software system requirements, etc.

I have an instinctual need to ‘see’ and exercise ‘opting out’. No Mac, no PC. These days I am using a Linux-based operating system. And I do some creative work there (like typing this), because it offers many choices and I can tweak and tweak and tweak, and at times I switch back to Windows because I know how to do somethings better in that platform.

But it has come to pass that I have known some people that own a Mac because they want to feel they are intelligent and part of the creative class. And it gives me nausea. Literally, it is a very serious aversion to Mac cult in general, not to Macs as such.

Since when creativity can be had in a supposedly simpler, easier, stylishly designed and VERY expensive machine? How can people be so stupid as to buy that idea? I am not a PC person, I just want the tools that allow me to create freely, that allow me to tweak, to go in-depth into multi-layered options....it is called freedom. The more of it, the better. If Mac offered more of that than a PC, I would own a Mac. But, still, I wouldn’t wait in line for hours to get their latest crap.

I read a few years ago that Apple stores are one of the best places...to meet beautiful people. Wow. Why? -Because it has other Apple users!!! People just like you!!!! And the best place to meet people more similar to you, your own tastes and interests? -Your bathroom mirror.

There is a creepy desire for sameness and that elegant minimalist elitism in Apple’s stuff. There is a worrying laziness in the idea that you can be creative the easy way; that the way to creation, the road to it, is supposed to be easy, stylish and expensive. But now, good God, not even that. Because now here is the iPad. And it is not about being creative anymore (in fact Apple and Adobe, the owners of Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash are in a mud fight right now); now it is about being a stylish consumer, about owning things designed for the use of retarded people, and about feeling hip and in the avant-garde of technology and creativity because you own a 10in shopping mall. It is ironic that many Mac people that I know don’t own a TV set because that is -you know- soooo mainstream, but now they will probably carry a perfectly developed buying machine with them at all times.

It is scary to watch how the world might be on the road to getting even more consumed by consumption, how it might become easier still for posers to get away with their destructive shit (the people driving gentrification in this city? Most of them are mac users!), and how the world of art will become even more inane and irrelevant.

Yes. Because technology and tools make or break an art piece, or an artist. And stupid tools will generally result in stupid art. And artists will get even more stupid and more full of shit and eventually gallery managers and curators will have to do all the talking, because thanks to their closed, ‘easier’ to use and very expensive machines, artist will forget how to say intelligent or relevant things. It is beginning. I have seen it.

And this brings me back home. I like that Latin American ideology of artistic modernism where it is about the raw joy of struggling and giving birth to a product or piece, about being able to get inside things and understand them and either enjoy them as they are or conquer them for the better. It is about engagement. About creating stuff with intelligent and OPEN machines (the reason why all of the musicians I worked with from Latin America, who happen to be some of the best musicians I have ever met or heard, mostly prefer PCs).

Obviously whatever you prefer is perfectly fine with me. But if you prefer to be a Mac user, be specially aware if your other behaviors might be affecting rent prices in your hood (they probably are), and PLEASE don’t get a stupid Apple tattoo.