iPod therefore iAm

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? You know like.....wait, I won't do that to you. But you know what I mean. A song in your head that interrupts the background noise of your life. It may even be a song that you like. Anyway this stuck song thing got me to thinking about background music. To be specific, the background music of my life.

I remember a comic strip, probably from the '60's called Mr. Abernathy, in one particular strip, he is exiting a movie theater and comments that he thinks all of life should have background music, just like the movies. Well, most of my life I have created my own background music, humming or whistling tunes I like. And then in my work life came Muzak, the tunes you can't escape. The background music of movies you never saw, or bands you never listened to all pumped into your life. All my years of working in retail stores, a person got so used to the loop of music being played, that you anticipated what the next song was. It was extremely annoying,... wait, next is the instrumental version of, .. wait for it... "Hey Jude" or some other rock song. But it just didn't sound quite right.

With all this music floating around and a huge choice of radio stations, and the tech advance to a CD where you can pick the sound you want to listen to without rewinding the tape of having to wait until the song comes up, everyone should have background music. But, I guess it wasn't enough. Welcome to the iPod world.

I received an iPod for Christmas, well, honestly, I asked for it. And now, wow, I can create my own background music for anytime, any occasion and any kind of music.

The prevalence of the iPod nation has been amazing to me, and yet, now that I have an iPod, I have seen an inkling of the obsessiveness. In the world of "me, mine and personal space" the iPod has taken that all to a new inner level. Mr. Abernathy's background music is fed directly to my ears, anytime, anyplace. iPod will even help you understand where you need this background music.

I was surprised when I downloaded my first music that there was a play list already waiting to be filled titled "Running Music" and one "On the Go" indicating that iPod understood and anticipated that I would not always be sitting still while engaged in the iPod mode. It seems that a majority of runners or walkers are sporting wires from their ears, even when running with someone else.

At a recent organized trail run on a 22 degree January day, many people had wires leaking out from under their stocking caps. As I looked around at these people I saw one young man with wires had actually taped his "buds" to his ears with black electrical tape. iPod has become, motivator, coach and guru of escape. I am defined by my play list, and recognized by my status of wiredness. It seems, iPod, therefore I am in my own little world, is where the culture is headed.

I experienced a disheartening example of iPod behavior last spring at the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. This marathon was established to remember those who died in the terrorist attack of the federal building on April 19, 1995. Each race starts with the national anthem and a time of silence to remember those who died. My first year there I was amazed and moved, that over 1000 people could be that quiet for over 60 seconds. It is very moving. This year it was a cold miserable rainy morning,( this all starts at 6am). As the race started and we began running I heard a iPod wired guy bragging to his running buddy, "Hey, you know during that national anthem and the silence time thing, man, I was rocking out to Guns and Roses." How sadly disrespectful, I wanted to trip the guy, he would never had heard me coming, there in his own sad little iPod world.

iPeace