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8 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Basic Black by Arthur Black I love iPods -- yours, I mean I love the iPod. That's a declaration that will stun - perhaps even alarm -- those who know me. They would tell you that I am not an embracer of things technological. I use my computer reluctantly, ignore the bleats of my cell phone constantly and regard my indecipherable, crazy-making 58-button television remote browser with a glare of undisguised hatred. But all that changes when I behold the iPod, that wondrous, little bone-white lozenge that Apple wizard Steve Jobs has put in the hipholsters and soft-wired to the earcanals of millions and millions of customers around the world. The commercial success has been mind-blowing. As of last fall more than 178 million iPods had been sold globally. The device is not even a decade old and it's already the runaway best-selling digital audio player in history. Everyone, it seems, from acquisitive grade-schooler to acnoid teen to arthritic geezer, either owns an iPod or is stingily hoarding shekels (last time I noticed, a 32 GB iPod Touch was going for about $450) in order to do so soon. The iPod is so desirable it has spawned an entire crime genre - the iCrime. That's where street thugs mug - and occasionally kill - bud-wearing strangers on the street so that they can steal their iPods. Last December, four Torontonians, newly divested of their iPods, wound up in hospital after being swarmed by a gang of nine youths, one of them wielding a steel meattenderizing mallet. Last September, a 22-year-old kid was knifed to death on an Ottawa city bus for refusing to surrender his iPod Police advice on how to handle somebody who gets in your face and demands your iPod? Give it up. iPods are cool, but they're not worth a trip to the morgue. Still, some iPodders struggle desperately with thieves to hold on to their machines - far harder than they would to protect their wallet or bicycle or wristwatch. That's because, the experts opine, the thieves are not just stealing their music player. They're stealing their music. "Their music reflects their mood, their attitudes, their values and even their relationships," says Gary Direnfeld, an Ontario social worker. "It's like stealing a part of them. They are exposed. It causes them to feel raped and vulnerable." So how can I, a confessed Luddite, card-carrying Chickenbleep and certified poor guy, jump on the bandwagon for a hunk of hardware that is confusing, constraining, expensive and could get me killed? How can I possibly say I love iPods? That's easy. When I said I love iPods, I meant I love YOUR iPod. I don't own one and have no plans to do so. Even if I could afford an iPod, I wouldn't want it. "But you can carry around your favourite 2,000 tunes," my son exclaims. Two thousand tunes? Listen. There are, tops, two dozen tunes that I would care to hear more than once every few weeks. When I feel like listening to music I have a simpler solution. I turn on my $39:95 Sony bathroom radio to an FM classical station and murmur "Surprise me". I don't need a pre-programmed sound track in my life. It already comes with a whole cacophonous clamour of sound which I never ordered - car horns, airplanes, vacuum cleaners, jackhammers, chain saws, Cuisinearts... That meathead at the corner table in the restaurant jabbering mindlessly into his Blackberry... That's why I love other peoples' iPods. Because thanks to those teensy-weensy ear buds iPod listeners jam in their skulls, I don't have to listen to their top 2,000 songs. That's a big improvement over Ghetto Blasters. Remember them? Suitcasesized so-called 'portable' radios that louts used to bring to the beach, hoist up on a park bench or just carry around on their shoulders shredding the eardrums of everybody within earshot and I mean earshot. You don't see nearly as many Ghetto Blasters around anymore. I attribute that to iPods - and perhaps the odd hernia. Whatever the cause, I commend it. A small portion of my daily soundscape has been reclaimed and I am thankful. And I am reminded of my good fortune every time I pass a blank-eyed iPodder, zombie-plodding down the street, tuned in and zoned out. He's hearing his two thousand favourite tunes and lovin' it. I'm not - and I'm lovin' it too. 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