Mike Daisey goes after Apple, the late Steve Jobs
Mike Daisey goes after Apple in his new monologue and takes on Steve Jobs' legacy
NEW YORK (AP) -- Normally, the launch of a new Apple device such as the iPhone 4S would make Mike Daisey salivate. But not this year.
Daisey, a monologuist in the vein of Spalding Gray and a recovering "Apple fanboy," hasn't upgraded his phone since flying to China to investigate how those smooth, beautifully designed hand-held gizmos are made.
What he found was horrific labor conditions, impossibly long hours and the use of crippling, repetitive motions. He met very young factory workers whose joints in their hands were damaged because they performed the same action thousands of times a shift.
"I was woefully ignorant most of my life. Even though I love the devices deeply, I never had any idea how they were made and never thought about it in the least," says Daisey, who had assumed robots put together his iPad and iPhone.
"I know that people in charge know about these things and chose not to address them," he adds. "And that's hard to swallow when you see the damage it does and you know how little it would take to ameliorate a high degree of human suffering."
Daisey's undercover investigation forms the backbone of his latest monologue, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," which he began working on 16 months ago and has had to alter to acknowledge the death this month of the Apple co-founder.
"In a profound way, this will reinvent the monologue," Daisey says. "The context of it shifts so much that it will be like blowing a wind through it. I think it's going to stir up a lot of things."
While the piece specifically targets Apple, most of what he discovered is applicable to all high-tech manufacturers. Daisey has performed the new monologue for some 50,000 people from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and it is now at The Public Theater until mid-November.
The death of Jobs hasn't prompted Daisey to pull any punches. While he considers the man a visionary, he also calls him a "brutal tyrant" who "failed to think different about anything."
"When the design is really good, it connects to the human and actually creates empathy with the devices, so it's really absurd how there's no empathy between the people running the company and their own workers," says Daisey.
Jean-Michele Gregory, Daisey's frequent director and also his wife, says her husband's sense of betrayal is heightened by his great respect for Apple and his belief that Jobs could have fundamentally changed the lives of his workers but chose not to.
Full story: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mike-D...036183637.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Normally, the launch of a new Apple device such as the iPhone 4S would make Mike Daisey salivate. But not this year.
Daisey, a monologuist in the vein of Spalding Gray and a recovering "Apple fanboy," hasn't upgraded his phone since flying to China to investigate how those smooth, beautifully designed hand-held gizmos are made.
What he found was horrific labor conditions, impossibly long hours and the use of crippling, repetitive motions. He met very young factory workers whose joints in their hands were damaged because they performed the same action thousands of times a shift.
"I was woefully ignorant most of my life. Even though I love the devices deeply, I never had any idea how they were made and never thought about it in the least," says Daisey, who had assumed robots put together his iPad and iPhone.
"I know that people in charge know about these things and chose not to address them," he adds. "And that's hard to swallow when you see the damage it does and you know how little it would take to ameliorate a high degree of human suffering."
Daisey's undercover investigation forms the backbone of his latest monologue, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," which he began working on 16 months ago and has had to alter to acknowledge the death this month of the Apple co-founder.
"In a profound way, this will reinvent the monologue," Daisey says. "The context of it shifts so much that it will be like blowing a wind through it. I think it's going to stir up a lot of things."
While the piece specifically targets Apple, most of what he discovered is applicable to all high-tech manufacturers. Daisey has performed the new monologue for some 50,000 people from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and it is now at The Public Theater until mid-November.
The death of Jobs hasn't prompted Daisey to pull any punches. While he considers the man a visionary, he also calls him a "brutal tyrant" who "failed to think different about anything."
"When the design is really good, it connects to the human and actually creates empathy with the devices, so it's really absurd how there's no empathy between the people running the company and their own workers," says Daisey.
Jean-Michele Gregory, Daisey's frequent director and also his wife, says her husband's sense of betrayal is heightened by his great respect for Apple and his belief that Jobs could have fundamentally changed the lives of his workers but chose not to.
Full story: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mike-D...036183637.html