In recent months a number of deaths and obituaries seem similar however with a deeper reading there are crossovers and differences that are part of the obituary formality.
The recent death of Al Davis, and Steve Jobs is both intrigueing and revealing, their obituaries are similar. Both made fortunes in different ways but Jobs was based upon objects “gadgets” wrote The Economist, while NFL-AFL unification and the creation of the “Super Bowl” for Davis.
As a cultural worker, or one who sees junk food as deleterious as junk culture the gadgets and the brutal football spectacle produced millions for Al Davis’s group and billions for Steve Jobs group. The amount of money piled up for the gadgets is so impressive to the capitalist journal The Economist they have to declare how dedicated Jobs was to perfection, which is to say making gadgets (their term) that people may not have needed but now apparently find indispensable. The US newspapers also consider Al Davis “the maverick” never to be seen again, the only one, the only apple in the barrel. Was Steve Jobs the only apple in the barrel too? Al Davis said of himself, “He had tunnel vision, and really wasn’t a part of society.” That statement like Jobs dedication to gadgets, marketing, promotional presentations and the like are all part of the fuss and cover. Both did a bit of good old cheating, using the systems win-win cheating within itself, as the system demands. Al Davis slowly took over the Raiders, introducing the outsider, gangsterish, tough guy, ruff “bump and run” players doing as much damage to the other team as possible. Not only breaking the neck of one, but a big picture of Joe Namath hit “so hard that the Jets quarterback’s helmet spun several yards away” was in the Raider office. (NYT.11/9/11:4). Heh, this is the winning rule.
Jobs produced a very thin titanium laptop that could burn CD’s thereby “borrow,” “steal” able to copy intellectual property. (Imagine that for a term!?) A friend gave me a ticket for the San Francisco showing of the titanium laptop. There were 500 or more apple heads, waiting to see what Jobs offered. On stage in jeans and black turtleneck Jobs received the laptop. It came sidewise to him — on an electronic table — no visible means of arrival. Magic flat silver gleaning item. The kicker was not the wonders of the lightness of being or the snazzy design, homey and personal rather the ability of the new computer was able to copy anything on line you wanted. It could burn a disc of all that music or stuff to copy. My Apple didn’t have that capacity. Wow, I thought oh, oh, it’s a crooks tool, just using the system like a Xerox machine, it could do for the masses what the Reds and Anarchists couldn’t do — steal private property. Wow — well , zowee and the 500 apple groupies wet in their eyes and pants to get one of those $5000-wonders — to be able to snatch anything, give it away, use it or sell it to the street kids or the Asians.
Al Davis’s genius (he liked the word to be used when referring to himself) was also the master of hiring rejected characters who understood the slogan “Just Win, Baby” but he also sold players like property, and hired the first this and that identity people like President George Bush, black, brown footballers and a female business manager. Machos in all colors and genders.
How wonderful a true maverick, in making millions from selling his players, moving the Oakland team to Los Angeles for more loot, then back to Oakland for even more tax payer loot.
Al Davis a true maverick only in millions ($761 million Raider net). While Steve Jobs a genius, (and Buddhist) a true billionaire ($8.3 billion personal net).
The bioregionalist Peter Berg died recently, who was also irascible and dedicated to tunnel vision on his subject, only his vision was ecologically tuned, and less capitalistic then the more famous mavericks and irascible focused commercial figures. I prefer the Berg use of his egomania wherein he emphasized human habitat protection rather then junk gadget culture and brutal junk sports. Each figure was we are told a unique maverick, a genius, a one and only. How could all three be so unique and still have the same qualities? Must be the moon in retrograde or their DNA or as some used to think the greed and viciousness in the US financial cultural code. Berg escaped some of it by going to Ecuador in 1999 and creating a Planet Drum project called Eco-City in Bahia de Carrequez.
Song:
Lets’ all go to Ec—ua—door
And drink Rum and CocaColooor.
Where they showed the US Air Force the door
Ohhhhh Ba- hi-aaa, an eco life is installed. (2x)
R.G.Davis working on revising the text of his PhD Dissertation “Ecological Aesthetics” U.C.Davis, 2009, and coincidently a distant cousin of one of the figures above.
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