Bio

Keyboard Commands
(or, This Platform that We have been Given)

Command S, I woke up thinking.

Lying in bed considering the ceaseless layers upon layers of evolution built up; the words written and cities built; the carefully constructed pop hooks and laboriously assembled director's cuts; the bottoms belled and wines rioja'd, I began wondering if anyone had hit Command S—either within the last few minutes, or since the Bay of Pigs, or ever. Here with another millennium all done and gone, imagine the tragedy of having accomplished so much and then losing it because no one remembered to hit Command S—no one though to save the world.

I got out of bed, dressed, went into work, turned on my computer and hit Command S. Maybe hitting it just in the nick of time, seconds before armageddon—you never really know. After saving the world, I stretched and then went down the hall to make coffee.

In hindsight, I realized I could have hit Command/Option/S and not just saved the world but done a "Save As." That is, saving the world just as it is, but under another name like Greta or Babar or Murray.

A Kinder-Gentler-Saved-As-Murray world with its own unimaginable potential for evolution, revision, modification or even its own deletion.

I could have hit Command/Shift/S and given the world a drop shadow.

By hitting Command/Shift/W or Command /Option/W I might have either saved the whales or freed Tibet—this all becomes very high tech and prone to user error. Remember that it's a Mac and while I've always liked to think of them as intuitive—they aren't.

I once tried freeing Tibet, but merely ended up italicizing everyone there—as if living under foreign oppression wasn't bad enough without being ruthlessly italicized.

I'm not a god.

I'm not here to offer criticism, I'm not here to improve things or tidy up folders or play Doom. I'm just here to save the world exactly as it is now—Command S.

This way, if push comes to shove; if we crash; if there's a fire or a flood; or if some idiot spills a Diet Coke down the back of everything—at least we'd have this working model saved that we could revert to. Even in its imperfect state, it would at least be there for reference. Something retained that could be built upon—possibly improved upon—and then in turn saved again.

I sipped at my coffee, considering how I might have hit Command/Option/B to make it stronger than it was. There were so many things I would make stronger, so many things I would embolden—were it really my job to do so.

Slowly walking the length of the empty corridor, I flicked on fluorescent lights to reveal industrial beige carpeting still grooved from the previous night's vacuuming. I felt the world was, for the moment, truly prepared for a brand new day—freshly saved and ready for paginating and sorting and collating.

Imagine accomplishing so much and then losing it all—because no one thought to save it. No one thought to hit Command S.

Cake Walk

This is going to be like taking candy from a baby. It's going to be that easy. This is gonna be a Cake Walk. Listen, we're gonna walk in there and take the job, close the place down, take away the cars—hello? We Can Take The Cars Back—we gave them the cars in the first place didn't we? Gave them the jobs, gave them the cars, printed the money—that's our stuff. Question in the back?

Now a baby's gonna cry when you take its candy from it. We all know that. But a baby won't cry if you take its candy slowly. You hear what Iım saying? Gradually—write that down.

Maybe we let them keep their cars, but we start taking the gas. Not all at once, but again gradually. They're so happy to have their cars they won't even notice the gas. Or, maybe we let them keep their cars and a little gas, but we start taking the roads. I mean we gave them the roads in the first place, right? Eisenhower right? Eisenhower built the roads. Let Eisenhower take back unto Eisenhower what is Eisenhower's right?

The bridges—that's how you take back a road—all the big bridges we just go in there and you take them back. The Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, the Columbia, we just go in there and divide them up. You see what we're doing? We divide them up like you would a forest fire. We fight a forest fires with fire breaks. Break the fire up into small fires. Direct the fire where you want it to go, take away what it feeds on. What do you do with a bunch of small hungry fires? You stomp them out. That's right—and there's nothing gradual about it.

From there you can take the smaller bridges. Then the overpasses. Then we barricade the intersections—you see, we can let them keep their cars and keep their gas, because we've made the road shorter and shorter—it's like a leash being pulled in. It's so gradual they're not even crying—they're just standing there.

Look, we let them vote right? Let them fill in the ballot box because we have polls to tell them who to vote for. That worked like a charm didn't it?

We can let them keep their cars, their gas, their plywood candidates—we can let them keep their guns—because we've put the target deeper and deeper into a secured location—this is a thing of beauty—even with their guns they wouldn't know who to shoot. They're just babies. Give them a gun and they just shoot themselves. What do they know? Give them a gun and they just shoot—this is easy. You want easy? This is easy—this is a cake walk. This is the plan: Gradual . . . and then, not so gradual. I say we start with the bridges—I mean, we gave them the bridges in the first place didn't we?