November 29, 2011
Steve Jobs, (dec’d)
Former (?) Chairman of the Board
Apple Computer Inc
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
Steve,
So… You died after all. God that must piss you off from here to eternity. Hell, it pisses me off every day, and (sadly) I didn’t even know you. It is sincere fact when I say to you (assuming that you are still checking email) that the entire world gasped right along with you upon the exhalation of your last living breath.
Every nook of humanity (*at least 87.221% of the Earth’s population that has access to electricity, according to one scientifically made up study) shuddered at this particularly grim Reapers toll.
Research shows that the remaining 12.779% of digitally-deprived humanity experienced a pronounced, instantaneous mass mood shift that was reportedly attributed as both “mysteriously moving” by Keer Deng, Sudan’s Dinka tribe elder spokesman) and “waasaayyyyy freaky, man” (Riverrock Morningwood, America’s Rainbow Family tribe elder spokesman.)
I guess my point here in enumerating admittedly circumspect data on the worldwide impact and heavy-hearted reaction to your death is to communicate directly to you, perchance that you have not heard elsewhere — and that somehow, some miraculous way this channel remains post-physically opened — that It All mattered. Very, very much so, It mattered., Steve. Far more, I suspect, than any of us even realized it would, and will.
Every sleepless, brain-twisting, perplexingly distant, far-seeing thought that you so painstakingly fathered. Every hurtful, unfair, soul-chilling setback that you experienced, and every waking moment sacrificed to your work was worth it. Yours is a legacy of profound creativity and unwavering drive to move humanity forward through smarter, more useful technology.
Something tells me, though, to suspect that you know this already. And not just through your own late-life, clear-minded assessments of your personal achievements, but actually post-mortem. I was not stunned in the least when I heard that your last living words were “Oh wow…oh wow…oh wow.” Even in the grips of death you expressed an inspiring excitement about the future.
Now that you are up there, literally in The Cloud, I wonder if you might take a moment to consider my Earthly dilemma? What the hell? Maybe, as broadly wired as you were, you discovered a way to keep an ear to the ground. If so, maybejustmaybe you’ve still got some pull down here…In my thinking, seeking favor from a dead genius’ ghost is better than kneeling at any unfounded pew.
I sent you a previous note back in August, detailing the situation that I am still enduring, which, of course, you never answered. How could you? You obviously had more important things to attend to than a random, slightly obtuse letter. For that I don’t blame you at all. It was a fluky, Tebowian long shot anyways to attempt to compel you to help me during your Bad Decline when I frustratedly exclaimed that I “need all of this great shit to work.”
Then, as now, all of my Apple products lie lifeless on ashy shelves. In particular, Blister, my invaluable Macbook Pro laptop from which all income-producing creative work of my own emanates, sits dormant and heartless. The computer repair lady in Glenwood Springs called me at 11 pm on the Sunday night of a holiday weekend to tell me that Blister was not indeed brain dead, as was feared, but lacked a functional Logic Board. After she lithely ducked my pre-prepared volley of insults and accusations that I reserve for anyone with an unregistered number who dares ring me after the second scotch sets in, Bytemark Dana relayed to me that the expensive machine that houses my dream was built too hot to handle its own creative potential.
Metaphorically, I can easily associate with her oddly-timed professional assessment of Blister’s Main Drag: there are not enough fans to keep its internal burners from permanently nuking wiring and circuitry vital to sustaining The Work.
Thanksgiving was bitter sweet this year for the Rocky Mountain Anderson’s. It was exactly a year ago that I drove to my job as Media Director at a struggling marketing company in Chicken Scratch, California only to find that my position – indeed, my entire department (*Population One) had been summarily executed over the holiday weekend.
On the way home from the sad exchange, I decided to take my severance check (the unused vacation time that I had not yet exhausted) and buy a plane ticket to North Carolina, where my wife and I had just decided the day before during a romantic holiday retreat in a toasty yurt at Treebones along the Central California coast that we would hastily move to out of self-preservation if exactly this scenario played out.
Only, when I arrived home, my trusty Macbook refused to boot and thus I could not research plane tickets online. I was driving to the computer repair store when our realtor called to tell us that our only earthly investment, our house in Colorado, had just been foreclosed on by the scum sucking, greedy whore bastards at Wells Fargo Bank Home Mortgage. THEN, of all things, in that same two hour window, my temporary benefactor, Don Bean called me and told me that he wanted me to write and produce his globe-trotting cooking show, news that caused my wife and I to rejoice in our karma, timing and luck, and ditch the plan to move suddenly to North Carolina. But rather to bail out of our Monterey dune-side digs out to the unknown grit and dour economy of the lesser Modesto region. But that is a whole ‘nother story, Steve.
A year later, after The Lodi Disaster played out in all of its harsh nerve butchery, I find myself happily living back in a heavenly log cabin in the clutches of a steep mountain valley in Emma, Colorado. Happy, I say, to be in the mountains again, in a safe place where people know me and have faith in my potential. Unhappy, however, at the continuing plunge of my professional career.
Once again, I am laid off, this time for the seemingly endless fall mountain town “off season”, with no net other than a sympathetic landlord, but he is heavily armed and suffering daily from severe sinus discomfort, and even in his kindest moments I sense a man who might have a firm limit to deadbeatitis.
My point is that now is the perfect opportunity to charge ahead with my dreams, Steve. While I sit here painfully quiet in this groaning cabin, scribbling away, waiting for the next paying day of production work, I could be launching the company that I have long-dreamed of running! I could write copy, manage social media communications for at least ten local businesses that have expressed interest in my abilities to help them reach the networked customer, make stunning videos, record voice over narration for a bevy of friends who need audio work done. I could manage special events for customers who need a hand with making their special suarree turn out to be memorable and effective. I can help to create and publish websites, magazine articles, books, even APP’s. You like those, don’t you? APP’s are the way, eh?
Anyways, enough with the VC pitch. To be honest, I’m not even sure if I know how to do all of the things listed above. But if anything, I am a man of earnest effort and steadfast optimism, except when corralled into a Ludditian, cashless corner, which seems to be the case now.
Thanks to the layoffs and the foreclosure, my credit is shot full of more holes than the argument against legalizing marijuana, so any designs on borrowing start-up capitol are grounded in the reality that I will likely have to type, shoot, edit, and publish my way out of this hole to a position of leverage.
And that is why, now more than ever, I need this goddamned voodoo machine that you so elegantly conceived to spin up once more in glorious ease and remarkable capacity. Bytemark Dana tells me that a new Logic Board is going to run me $850, plus the costs of her labor. For that kind of scratch, assuming that I had it or could attain it in time to have a positive effect on my all-American dream of viable business ownership, I could buy and equip a new PC to do my bidding. But then I’d have to struggle through all of those inane virus updates, drunken snail speeds, random file folder disappearances, and general non-Apple wiggyness that I had hoped to place well in my past.
Well, that is all. There are fresh brutalities to review, and a Heisman debate to attend to, so I had better wrap up. I do hope that somehow you are still receiving incoming messages in one form or another, and that this letter is no empty lament. If there is one thing that we’ve learned from your premature passing, it is to not waste a moment of precious time.
Here is to hoping that you’re incarnate isn’t snuffed in utero by the blunt end of some bored Oakland cop’s truncheon. Let me know if you get this.
Corby Anderson
0300 Vagneur Lane
Cabin A
Basalt, CO
81621
P.S. Apologies on the uncertainty of your job title. Not sure if they let you keep that ad infinitem.
