Arizona Canyon Blues

Arizona, Rt. 89A, June 4

Hey out there (no more ‘Hi folks’),

My plan to post an ‘important’ essay on evolution didn’t… evolve as planned, obviously. In fact, the way it’s gone I almost decided to scrap this whole blog concept altogether and just pretty much dematerialize. Who’d notice? A few of you, okay, but not very many of you and not for long. Meaning that your noticement of my absence would be very temporary.

I’d save money ($100 or so per month to do this, counting Banditobooks.com) and you’d probably dodge some aggravation.

But we’ll see. I’m teetering on the brink of shutting the F up. Lemme teeter a bit longer.

A very brief summation of the events of late. I in fact did write a kick ass essay on evolution. Took a good week, maybe longer.  Hard to remember, it was so long ago.

 

I’m feeling pretty smug about the essay: I nailed that asshole Jan Irvin again – a pompous, clueless blowhard – and in a really slinky and smart backhanded way… a ‘Who me?’ kinda way. You all would have been proud…

Picture me feeling really smug.

Now picture me at the sink, about to rinse a glass for a rum and OJ sundowner. This is back at the beach at Port Aransas, Texas, so I have a great water view. Boy and I feeling smug; I really don’t like this guy Jan Irvin. (If you can stand it see my latest with the asshole in the comments section at this link.)  I turn on my sink tap and there’s air in the line so it spits a bit. I’d meant to top off the water tank but forgot (absentminded!).

Then it spits like a sonafabitch. It spits on the glass I’m rinsing and the water jet hits the glass at some exact angle and heads directly for the MacBook keyboard I used to have. Not the one I’m using now; one like it. Right. One splash of water and poof, no more MacBook. No more essay.

Here’s a theory, but, like gravity, it’s a pretty solid theory. See what you think. A computer keyboard is just a bunch of switches, right? On – off. One or the other. Very simple. It would be very easy to design a keyboard so it’s water-resistant. In fact, water-proof would be easy. But water-resistant is a piece of cake. Even I could design such a system. On-off. No holes for water to seep down into the guts of the machine, the computer (a Mac in my case).

But they didn’t. ‘They’ being… them. The people that make decisions like: ‘Let’s make it easy for the average person to fuck up his/her computer with even a little water on it. The warranty doesn’t cover it and so they’ll have to pay, say, $800 for the tiny bit of damage that results. Most will buy a new computer.’ This is the thought process at the top of Apple or MicroSoft, whoever. All of ‘em.

The reasoning of these bastards: Maybe one in twenty computers will get drinks spilled on them at some point. Let’s say we sell 100 million units in a year. Bottom line: If we make the keyboards water resistant we lose 5 million potential sales of replaced/damaged computers. At close to $1,000 gross profit per unit, that’s… you do the math.

Very important in their thinking: Anyone who spills water on their keyboard is going to blame themselves. Completely. Who is gonna blame Apple for his own clumsiness?

If you don’t think some sort of reasoning like this is at the bottom of why a small splash of H2O can ruin a computer, I can only suggest you wake up.

Anyway, it took me two weeks to get another MacBook. No, wait. More than two weeks, way more. First I took it to a ‘Mom and Pop’ shop to see if they could save my goddamn essay – right, I hadn’t backed it up yet. I know. Stupid. I was about to.

‘I can’t fix this! Looks like it’s been underwater!’ The asshole says. (He really was an asshole, by the way.)

The jet of water that hit the keyboard was maybe two eyedropper-fulls. And I was right on it, mopping, turning it upside down, screaming ‘No no no please no!’ as a few drops of water destroyed my Mac, my work. I even put it in the microwave for a few minutes. I read somewhere that that works.

 

The Mom and Pop thing took a full week. I’m hunkered at a Loves Truck Stop this whole time. Gus hates truck stops. Big diesel engines freak her out. But I have an old computer that works about half the time and Loves has wifi. (Why didn’t I get in touch with you then? You ask. Because I LOST THE GODDAMN ESSAY AND WAS DEPRESSED. ALL RIGHT?)

 

This is in El Paso. I call the Apple store in El Paso. Here’s how it works with Apple: Your Mac breaks down, which is why you’re calling Apple, right? What they tell you (a recorded message of course) is to go online to make an appointment to get your Mac fixed. They actually say ‘This is the only way we’re making appointments.’ Online. I’m calling because my Mac is down AND I CAN’T GET FUCKING ONLINE.

I know, this is ‘this day and age’ so what do I expect? But do you understand the level of stupidity involved in telling you to go online to solve the problem if the problem is your computer needs fixing?

Need I even say that they couldn’t save my hard drive, so the essay is lost? And I ain’t gonna rewrite it either. Fuck that. All I’d get would be a slew of Unsubscribes….

It got worse, in a sense. While in El Paso I go to see a doctor I’d come across last year who happened to be there (in El Paso) and whom I like. I’m at Love’s Truck Stop for like three weeks, plus at the El Paso West RV Park for another week (to give Gus a break from the trucks), so I figure I might as well go see the Doc. Fill some prescriptions (blood thinner, plus some… what’s the difference?). I also wanted to talk to him about my goddamn absent-mindedness, which is another reason I haven’t been blogging.

Listen. I’m worried about stringing words properly. I use the thesaurus way more than I used to, plus I can’t seem to remember certain words. Just out of nowhere I’ll not remember a goddamn simple word. Like right now I can’t remember a simple word that I can’t remember, so as to give you an example. Whoa. See what I mean?

Okay. I know it’s too late but I’ll try to make a long story short. (The next time some jerk says to you ‘To make a long story short,’ yell in his face ‘Too late!’)

 

My back up Mac was a day off in the date and time deal at the top right corner, right? I dunno why, it just was. A day behind. Wait. I was a day ahead? Which way was it? Never mind. I use the goddamn MacBook for a week before my doctor appointment. I’m a day off, a day wrong for a week. I go to the doctor’s office at the appointed time, 1:30 PM. The office is locked up. I look around. The streets are deserted. Other offices are… well, they look abandoned. 

It does not occur to me that it’s Sunday – my appointment was for Monday, which I think it is. I mean it’s been drummed into me for a week that the day was a day that it wasn’t. (See what I mean by ‘stringing words together properly’?)

I hadn’t spoken to anyone or listened to a newscast or gone online for over 24 hours, right? This occurs to me. If been reading books, book after book about the origins of mankind, the verified stuff, the occulted (hidden from us) stuff, the stuff we don’t hear about (you’ll hear more about this if I get around to it).

No matter which one of the books is right, the earth has undergone at least one major catastrophe that wiped out most of our species. A high civilization to boot.

Point being that it then occurs to me that some sort of catastrophe might have gone down in the last 24 hours. I don’t know what, but… something.

Takes me five minutes to get back to the rig – luckily I don’t run into anyone on the deserted streets that I can ask about catastrophes (lucky for him/her).

I turn on the radio. Okay. There are plenty of catastrophes all right but not of the sort I envisioned (like a solar EMP flare on the East Coast).

When I finally do see my doctor I forget to ask about my absentmindedness.

All right. Enough.

Jan Irvin. His trivium and his quadrivium and his logical fallacies and how he couldn’t critical think his way out of a damp paper bag. This is the essay I’m going to write. I dunno when you’ll get it. Hang in.

Here’s a Postcard from the road from two nights ago, lit by the full moon.

Allan

Those of you who have cancelled your $3.25 monthly gas donation: I don’t blame you. I’m leaving your initials on my gas cap ‘thank you.’ Here it is:

 

One more thing. Check out my buddy Logan McCulloch’s ‘Trek for Truth.’ The crazy sonofabitch is walking across the U.S. of A. Bless him, help him out if you’re so inclined.