31/01/08
Rage Against The Machine -
Categories: I have spent a stupid amount of time this week trying to put all of my CD collection onto itunes so that my choices for portable music listening will be extended beyond that of a mere mortal's selection. This is a tiresome process because a) I have a sh*teload of CDs, and b) regardless of the advances in technology it is one of the slowest processes known to humankind. Its slower than waiting to buy parking permits at the council town hall, or that crap bit of the M1 when they reduce it to one lane at 3am in the morning leaving queues of lorry drivers and comedians filled with sadness. When Steve Jobs gets up and does his lovely talks about clever Apple products I suspect he has never once thought of just spending a week making itunes a bit faster and allowing obsessive ipod users like myself a bit more time in their lives.
The worst thing about all of this, is that after three days of solid music copying - I have now managed to get into a groove whereby I can do many other things and copy CDs, see who cant multi-task now ladies? - my i-pod broke. Not only did it break, but it waited until half an hour before it was to be used as the Fat Tuesday play list before it froze then repeatedly mocked me with a little lit-up apple sign while I frantically pressed all the few buttons it has in hope of resuscitating it back to life.
I remember that a few years ago I saw most of Dan Clark's brilliant show about losing his i-pod. At the time there was a cynical part of me thinking that I would easily cope without one as I had done most of my life. Who can't handle hearing music everywhere they go? Well, me actually. Suddenly a tube journey I made yesterday was the most boring trip of my life. The gym, already unbearable even with the aid of my own music, became even worse as all I can hear are the grunts of muscle-heads and fat people alike working out while some euro-pop dance trash that sounds like a child accidentally created it using 16 beat on a Casio keyboard, plays over the tannoy.
When did this dependency happen? I didn't used to trawl my Sony Sports Walkman everywhere, although that may have been because it weighed as much as a brick and its difficult to turn a tape over when your on a treadmill. Its not just the i-pod though. I was perfectly capable of using a map or reading from the AA directions to get to gigs until I got a satnav at Christmas. Having a Nintendo Wii means I barely leave the house. I barely speak to anyone thanks to email and the Internet. I've become a recluse thanks to technology and yet if it was all to be taken away I'd suddenly find myself bored and unable to do anything.
Perhaps the Luddites were right, we should have smashed all the machines. Little chance of that now, as even holding a meeting to discuss such things would require the use of mobile phones and email rendering all arguments void. No turning back now I guess. Soon we'll be spoon fed by a giant floating food machine, our muscles will be exercised with small electrodes while we remain prostrate and we will spend our lives living in tiny cubicles never seeing another human except for their Facebook profile, from which we can press a button and our DNA will be combined for test tube cloning/breeding. Or not.
Either way I have only until next Monday when I have a four hour train ride to Edinburgh to work out what to do about lack of personal music system which scares me more that my over-imagination. Better dig out that Sony Sports Walkman.....
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