Rotten Apples
Deeply depressed as I was after Waterford hurling team falling short yet again, I turned my back to the assembled crowd of whinnying Cork fans in my local pub (I have the misfortune during these dark times of being a Waterford-born man resident in the County of Cork) and muttered to my wife to gather the children and drive me home... please. 2 pints of pain under the belt at that stage, so I couldn't take any chances, you understand.
Anyway, after a good old sulk in the scratcher and a fine square meal at home, I topped off my recovery with bottle of lovely Erdinger Kristall Klaar - beer of beers - and a game of soccer with the lads.
The point is - and I'm slowly getting to it, but it's been a traumatic day for me so bear with it - I was reading this article in the Sunday Tribune about the company called Apple and the fact that there's something rotten going on with it. Here's a company founded on instinctive hippy creativeness many years ago by college dropouts or one colleg dropout and his friend or similar anti-establishment sort of slant. And they're American, of course, like everything important in this world, and the college drop-out headhunted this sharp American-style capitalist bastard from Pepsi-co - just to make sure that Apple became really shit-hot and blew the competition out of the water - and, guess what? The capitalist bastard actually takes over Apple and turfs out the former college drop-out (who, we fear at this stage, has become the quintessential American capitalist by this stage anyway) on his ear on the "sidewalk" (as they say in the States) and, guess what again? Mr. Capitalist-former-Pepsi-bastard, having first fucked out the creative genius behind the company and got comfy in the pdg's chair, now proceeds to actually run the company into the aforementioned "sidewalk". Meanwhile, Jobs gets busy getting incredibly rich on spotting the potential of a little company called Pixar and makes a triumphant return to the company he founded in 1997. Well, there's no point in telling you what happened next. If you haven't heard of the Ipod and all of that, well, stop now and read something else.
So, now that they're really successful, they go and move their factory to China. The things are being made in sweatshops by people being paid a pittance in a country whose human rights record makes Cuba looks like a model of perfection. Quality suffers and so does their image. but, guess what? Apple doesn't really care any more.
I don't have an ipod but I have recently begun buying music on itunes. And, I have to say that I am mystified as to why there is such a poor selection online. They don't actually need a massive warehouse to store all the albums, so they should have a selection to blow all competition in planet earth-type shops way out of the water, so to speak. But, guess what yet again? They don't. The other day , I went looking for the Talking Heads album "Stop Making Sense", having re-discovered an old decrepid tape of the album. They don't have it. They have about 3 Talking Heads albums. This is a well-known, American mainstream group. There wouldn't be any point in looking for anything even remotely obscure and non-American-Brit-mainstream. In fact, I tried to buy Manu Chao's difficult 2nd album (not a patch on the 1st "clandestino", by the way). Not available on the Irish store (where "clandestino" is also conspicuous by its absence) and not available in it's French store. And, guess what? Manu Chao is actually French!
So, Apple doesn't impress me. It had everything at its feet and now it appears to be blowing it through not caring, disinterest, arrogance, and good old-fashioned corporate American greed.
That's it. I'm off to bed for an early night.
Anyway, after a good old sulk in the scratcher and a fine square meal at home, I topped off my recovery with bottle of lovely Erdinger Kristall Klaar - beer of beers - and a game of soccer with the lads.
The point is - and I'm slowly getting to it, but it's been a traumatic day for me so bear with it - I was reading this article in the Sunday Tribune about the company called Apple and the fact that there's something rotten going on with it. Here's a company founded on instinctive hippy creativeness many years ago by college dropouts or one colleg dropout and his friend or similar anti-establishment sort of slant. And they're American, of course, like everything important in this world, and the college drop-out headhunted this sharp American-style capitalist bastard from Pepsi-co - just to make sure that Apple became really shit-hot and blew the competition out of the water - and, guess what? The capitalist bastard actually takes over Apple and turfs out the former college drop-out (who, we fear at this stage, has become the quintessential American capitalist by this stage anyway) on his ear on the "sidewalk" (as they say in the States) and, guess what again? Mr. Capitalist-former-Pepsi-bastard, having first fucked out the creative genius behind the company and got comfy in the pdg's chair, now proceeds to actually run the company into the aforementioned "sidewalk". Meanwhile, Jobs gets busy getting incredibly rich on spotting the potential of a little company called Pixar and makes a triumphant return to the company he founded in 1997. Well, there's no point in telling you what happened next. If you haven't heard of the Ipod and all of that, well, stop now and read something else.
So, now that they're really successful, they go and move their factory to China. The things are being made in sweatshops by people being paid a pittance in a country whose human rights record makes Cuba looks like a model of perfection. Quality suffers and so does their image. but, guess what? Apple doesn't really care any more.
I don't have an ipod but I have recently begun buying music on itunes. And, I have to say that I am mystified as to why there is such a poor selection online. They don't actually need a massive warehouse to store all the albums, so they should have a selection to blow all competition in planet earth-type shops way out of the water, so to speak. But, guess what yet again? They don't. The other day , I went looking for the Talking Heads album "Stop Making Sense", having re-discovered an old decrepid tape of the album. They don't have it. They have about 3 Talking Heads albums. This is a well-known, American mainstream group. There wouldn't be any point in looking for anything even remotely obscure and non-American-Brit-mainstream. In fact, I tried to buy Manu Chao's difficult 2nd album (not a patch on the 1st "clandestino", by the way). Not available on the Irish store (where "clandestino" is also conspicuous by its absence) and not available in it's French store. And, guess what? Manu Chao is actually French!
So, Apple doesn't impress me. It had everything at its feet and now it appears to be blowing it through not caring, disinterest, arrogance, and good old-fashioned corporate American greed.
That's it. I'm off to bed for an early night.
posted by MunsterMad at 8:36 PM
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