A few years ago, when I went to work for Dantz, I had to learn how to use a Mac. To my great surprise, I found that I actually liked the things, even when they ran the ancient and now officially denigrated OS 9. I suffered, like everybody else, through the horrendous 10.0 and 10.1 releases, before arriving at the stable, zen-like computing Nirvana that is 10.2 and its successors.

At any rate, as I began to drink increasing amounts of the Cupertino Kool-Aid, I remembered that I had a half-dozen old Apple stickers buried in a box in my closet. I’d held on to these things forever, for no particular reason at all. I was a big-time PC man, after all. They’d originally shipped with a Mac IIcx, and had lain disused for a little over a decade in my possession. I decided to throw a small one on the back window of my car, to, well, flash the colors, yo. Not only could I consider myself a publicly declared member of this computing cognoscenti, but the old-style logo allowed me to put on some old school airs, since I’d cut my teeth on 8.6. Proper.

The problem was that, almost immediately, I began to take shit from friends and family over it. Not because it was an Apple logo (though some of my geek acquaintances did roll their eyes), but because of its many colors. I’m talking about the fact that many of our queerest citizens have adopted a rainbow flag as their rallying banner. I hear all sorts of crap like "Gay for Macs, now, huh?" or "I like your sticker" (said with a swagger and a lilt). My beloved curmudgeon of a father suggested that I was "spending too much time with that lesbian" (a reference to former colleague from Dantz, who, if she’s reading this, I would like to point out to that she never fucking bothers to write me any more).

The last straw was today, when my neighbor made some lame comment about how hard it is to type on a keyboard with limp wrists, even if the machine itself was, well, the favorite of artists and writers, you know? That was it. I’d had enough, and made a rather crude and overmacho comment regarding his wife, mother, and any potential female siblings he might have, which was probably a bit much, considering he has only just dumped his wife for sleeping around. Still, though, you can fuck with a geek’s machismo, virility, or masculinity, but don’t keep talking shit about my machines, bitch.

To make a long story short, the old (and somewhat faded) rainbow sticker is finally going to come off this weekend, to be replaced by a brand-new, Steve-approved, plain white Apple logo. As admirable as it would be to keep flying that rainbow flag for all the boys and girls and boygirls and girlboys in the Castro, it’s old and tired, and it’s time for it to go. It’s looking rather… quaint out there in the Apple parking lot, anyway.

…And I’d better not hear any smack talk about the new one, or I’ll hold you down and fuck you in the ass.