Interview with Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey

Several years ago I came to the realization that I do not know what to do with my ideas or understandings. I had, for decades, been thinking I could figure it all out and make some good decisions about how to live my life well. It never happened. I never got it. Maybe I should have waited longer, but I decided I wanted to know, once and for all, the answers to my deepest questions about life. I realized it was ridiculous to put it all on me to figure it out. As egocentric as I am I lack the delusions necessary to maintain a belief that I am the greatest human being who has ever lived or will ever live.

I first thought of asking a man for the answers and I thought that man might be Steve Jobs. But then I thought that perhaps I should go to a woman for all the answers and I figured Oprah would be that woman. I could not decide whether a man or a woman held all the answers, but I was sure it was either Steve or Oprah so I decided to interview both of them. Together. At a Denny’s off an Interstate exit ramp heading south out of Portland, Oregon.

The following is the transcript from that interview:

ME: Thank you, Steve and Oprah, for joining me. I hope you don’t mind me casually addressing you by your first names.

OPRAH: Of course.

STEVE: I mind. Call me Mr. Jobs.

ME: Fair enough. I’ve asked you to meet with me here at this Denny’s just off the Interstate because I want answers about life, about America, about what is really possible and what is not, and more, much more. I thought this setting seemed perfect because of the juxtaposition between the grandiosity of each of your romanticized versions of contemporary American life and the reality of it. There’s the beautiful music that comes pouring from your iPods, Mr. Jobs, and there’s your magazine giving all of us hope in Hope, Oprah, but then there are our bodies, the physical actualities of them that exist beyond the dreams and beyond the sounds emanating from tiny earplugs. It seems to me, Mr. Jobs, that your technological gizmos are little more than blinders preventing me from despairing as I and others lose access to more and more land, liberty, and leisure. And it seems to me, Oprah, that your pie-in-the-sky dreams hide the dismal truth of our Nows by clothing the future in full-figured fashions.

We have been living in an age of romanticism, haven’t we? For maybe thirty or more years? A post-Vietnam romantic period of hyper-consumption, the gluttonous beast of American middle-class appetites fatting itself on the shiny objects and happy thinking the likes of which the two of you have been dishing out relentlessly, both of you haloed by the media now and then as Jesus come to save us or the Virgin Mary to intercede on our behalf. It seems a tried and true formula, that one. Messiahs. As such, I was wondering if you could answer a few questions.

Oprah: Sure.

Steve: I could buy you, ship you to China, sell you to a contractor, and watch as they turn you into packaging for an iPad.

ME: I’ll take that as a “yes.” Okay, first question. Let’s say you were a workaday single mother of three, forty-two years old, overweight, addicted to cigarettes, burdened by diabetes, no high school diploma, holding a full-time job at Jack in the Box and a part-time job at Wal-Mart while receiving government assistance to help with rent and food. You have an anxiety disorder, your oldest daughter is eleven, just had her first period and is also having sex, your father died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack, your mother is clinically depressed and may deteriorate rapidly now without your father, a nursing home is beyond your budget so she might need to move in with you if she’s unable to live alone, and your youngest son has autism which is exhausting and heartbreaking and infuriating even with special assistance from schools and government programs. You have no siblings and no close, trustworthy friends, just a couple of hit-or-miss friends who, in a pinch, might rush you to the hospital if needed but otherwise won’t be there for you over the long haul if you’re in real trouble.

If that’s who you were, do you believe you would benefit most from (a) an iPod, (b) a facial, (c) psychotherapy, (d) sex, or (e) an enormous donation of cash?

Steve: You’re an asshole.

Me: Excellent.

Oprah: I’d say sex and cash.

ME: Only one answer, please.

Oprah: Oh. Then cash. And sex.

ME: Very good. Next question: What is the meaning of life?

Steve: It means whatever I say it means.

ME: What does that mean?

Steve: It means that I’m a genius and you’re not. I doubt we are of the same species. I speak in English only because your puny brain requires verbal language for communication. If you had a greater capacity for awareness you could read my aura and absorb the entire history of not just my thought but of all thoughts along my genetic lineage dating back to the very first thought ever thought. I have read your aura and found your history as pedestrian as that of any other human. You disgust me even though I relish the fortune I’ve made by persuading many like you to pay huge sums of money for things you don’t really need. I also despise you because I feel like I’m a well-paid court jester squandering my genius entertaining slack-jawed dullards. I hate all of you for being my creative and entrepreneurial inferiors. I am the Lord thy God and you shall worship no other god but Me!

ME: Thank you for your answer, Mr. Jobs. Oprah?

Oprah: What was the question?

ME: Meaning of life.

Oprah: Oh, yes. Now, is this another multiple choice question like the first one?

ME: No, it is not.

Oprah: Oh. I like multiple choice questions because when you can’t think of anything then maybe one of the answers is right anyway. And you guess that answer. That’s what I would do.

ME: Oh come on!

Oprah: Sorry. I was just joshing around, quoting Sarah Palin. She was asked why she favors standardized testing.

ME: Funny stuff. Scary woman. So, do you have a real answer?

Oprah: I really don’t. I just tried to become famous and make a lot of money. That’s worked out pretty well for me. People really love me, too. They don’t actually know me, but they love the idea of me and it makes me feel good that people love the person I’ve publicly projected myself to be over the years because it means I’m still a money-making powerhouse. The fame is great, but it’s really about the money. Fame without money? Think it’s any consolation to Jeffrey Dahmer that he’s famous?

ME: I suppose not. He’s dead, anyway. Thank you for your answer, Oprah.

Oprah: You’re welcome. You’re very well-mannered, by the way. Soft-spoken. I appreciate that.

ME: Thank you, Oprah.

Oprah: You’re welcome, Anti-Dada. You’re genuinely genteel.

ME: No reason not to be civil. I’m mostly here to ask questions and listen.

Oprah: Well, you’re very kind and I thought you should know that. You’re special, you know? We’re all special.

ME: Okay, let’s move on. Both of you are big believers in belief, especially in the belief of the possible. You focus attention on what is possible. Mr. Jobs, your beliefs lead to investment in imagination and innovation. Oprah, your dreams of making the impossible possible led to an entertainment kingdom as you launched the celebrity of countless others, they your knights and nobles, you their queenly benefactor. The problem is that your respective beliefs are ridiculous for the majority of people. In other words, your beliefs function well in the context of being billionaires and, even before becoming billionaires, possessing relentless ambition, sense of self, intelligence, vision, inspirational talents, access to resources, and so on.

What I’m getting at is that all men and women are not created equal. You’re obviously aware of this, Mr. Jobs, as you employ among the most gifted and talented individuals in their respective fields. And you, Oprah, chose guests based on amazing abilities, skills, talents, experiences, resiliency, etc. You sometimes pluck the plain and sprinkle some dust on them to make them look different but even then you’re focusing attention on making what is ordinary … extraordinary.

Now, if I’ve been out of a job for a couple years and I’ve run out of unemployment benefits should I keep looking for work or focus my attention on my dreams, using my imagination to create a better situation for myself and bolstering my self-image with thoughtful affirmations?

Steve: Stop being a douchebag and use your brain, you fucking idiot!

Oprah: I think you can make your work your dream and your dream your work. It’s all a matter of looking at things from the top down and then from the bottom up.

ME: Any more clichés, Oprah?

Oprah: No, that’s all for now.

ME: Why is it still necessary for people to work given how advanced technology has become? If we have the resources to feed and shelter everyone then why don’t we? If money is the adversary then abolish money. After all, if you’re both saying that anything is possible then why do we need money? Shouldn’t we all just believe that things would be better without money and then … they would be … because we’d have thought positively about a world without money long enough to figure out how to create it?

Oprah: I believe in the power of thinking positively about money.

Steve: Your questions are shit. I got geniuses working for me, loser. Geniuses. I dwarf all of them with my infinite mind, my iMind. I shit Mozarts and Einsteins while you’re trying to figure out how to pull your thumb out of your ass.