photo by Jeff Burk

RAGING AGAINST THE MACHINE

There are some of us who have made the adjustment to the future easier than others. Today when you do your laundry, you don't use clothes pins. If something big is breaking out, you don't rush to the newspaper; you go to the TV or the computer.

Ahhh, the computer. There's the rub, matey.

Several million people, dare I say billion people, have adjusted their lives in the last two decades or so to include the computer in them. It's as much a part of existence today as toilet paper. You run out of TP, brother you have problems right here in River City. And that's what I did, speaking somewhat symbolically.

I was going to tell you guys about a major drag racing merger that involves millions of dollars and some very high-test people, but my inability to get along with the computer decided to pick this weekend to hit me with a truckload of Mafia cement. So I'm gonna put it all on hold for the moment, while I RANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!against the machine.

Yes, word processors, computers, whatever you call them are irreplaceable now in this modern world. But they damn near, and in fact, are replaceable this weekend at my crib.

Lemme back track a sec.

Burk and I have a deal worked out that on or around the 15th and 30th of every month, I punch out some articles for him. Sliding into the 15th of March, I was at home and decided that evening to get with the program. And I did. Or I tried to "did."

I sat down in front of something called an E Machine monitor and got myself in shape to write. A carafe of the house wine, some Rangoon crepes, some Jamaican Purple, and a some Thai temple balls seemed to do the trick. I hit all the right switches and noticed something funny, as in weird, about the monitor. It was as blank as Tom Ridge's face. Nothing, not a pulse, not a beep.

"Hey, what's the deal?

I slapped the side of the box a few times, and nothing. I had been cut off from the world, or at least DRO Headquarters in O'Fallon, MO. In two words: No story.

It took no time at all for me to realize that I was in over my head. My old pals at NHRA would tell you that me and the computer are like a marriage to Roseanne. Very shaky, indeed. I know nothing about these bastards. So I called my more technically advanced brother Mike.

He would be free in two days.

I could here that little drunken voice in me, you know the one that hassled Tom
Selleck for eight years as "Magnum," say "Chris, you poor pathetic bastard, you won't leave this room before you've set aside a few more ounces of your quickly fading sanity.

Mike came over in two days. The verdict? Monitor is dead.

The solution? Mike had a unit at his house. He couldn't take me on that night, but in two days, I could come by and he would help push my fingers one stroke at a time over his word processor keyboard. Good deal, let's do it.

Two nights later. I'm at Mike's. I forget the name of the unit staring me in the face on his desk, but it hardly matters at this point. Anxious to be as small a pain in the ass as possible, my fingers crackled like castanets over the keyboard. And then, something happened as I neared the end of my project.

The monitor suddenly flashed up those obnoxious ads that everyone has to fight through when they attempt to go online. You know the ones. "Britney announces engagement to Mike Tyson" or "Bush punched out by Bin Laden at local Laundromat."

Hmmmmm ....

"Hey Mike. I don't know what happened, but I hit some key accidentally and this came up. Make it go away."

"Uh dude, that's not supposed to happen. What did you do?"

"I don't know. I was just typing and I obviously hit the wrong key and suddenly it's Non-Entertainment Tonight."

"This isn't good. You may have lost your story."

After five minutes, he failed to bring it back. An hour's work in the crapper. Cause unknown.

RANT ONE
When I become dictator, there will be a competition for those who have the best ways to perform functions on the computer. We will take the most advanced ideas, keep them user friendly and will have ALL COMPUTERS work that way. If anyone manufactures a box where you can conceivably hit one key and lose a day's work, that manufacturer will be boot in C Block at Folsom with the Booty Bandit as his cellmate. Damn, it seems every computer has a different twist that another doesn't. Why not pool the goddam ideas??? Have them all on one friggin' box? Jeezus?

END of rant.

I told Mike to forget it that it wasn't his fault and that I would come up with an alternate plan. (Whatever that was going to be).

I decided to try Kinko's. I heard that you can walk in the front door. Pay a by-the-minute rate, sit down, have some tech help over your shoulder, and write and E-mail.

Would it be that it were true.

The next morning after the blowup at Mike's, I raced over to Kinko's. (What kind of name is Kinko's by the way. You half expected to be greeted by a big German broad in lace-up patent leather boots with a waspwaisted corset and a whip.) I told the guy I needed to a little help, that I was computer illiterate and all I
needed to do was have someone open up the E-Mail file, let me type and I would pay.

No can do. Sir, what's your account number? What is the recipient's number?
Without those, we can't help you.

"You don't understand. I'm on deadline. I'm a professional journalist. I'm ....No, I'm not. Bob Woodward would never allow himself to be humiliated like this. I say, "Sir, do you have any cyanide caps in the store."

I was down to two choices. My other brother Ernie had a computer, but he lived 20 miles away, was having plumbing done on his house, and the added bonus of my three delightful little (as in under 10 years of age, I think) nieces, pulling at my Butthole Surfers T-shirt.

Or, my pal Jay, a retired restaurant owner, who could open his doors for me on
Sunday morning ... early. At 9 a.m. Sunday, the phone rang and he was ready. I was sort of. My Mom had answered the phone, and in her 80-year-old haze to get to the offending item, she rolled down two flights of stairs.

Jeezus.

Anyway, that's where I am right now. And believe it or not, I did hit another
key which cleared the screen. I say to myself, "This is not my computer. No immature histrionics. Let's see if Jay's on better relations with his box than my brother Mike was with his.

Voila.

So there. Five days late and a few dollars short. I'm ready to really go to work on what I had intended to tell you before all the trouble.

Word has it that Don Prudhomme was so touched by Don Garlits' failure to qualify at the recent Mac Tools NHRA Gatornationals, that he is looking at the possibility of ... Oh, I forgot, Jay and his wife have a luncheon. He's at the front door,.38 in hand.

Oh well, I'll tell you later. As you can see, never too busy for you.

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