The Ghosts in James's Old Room
by Fly Girl
There are moments in your life that change you forever but you don't know it
at the time. Such a moment occurred when I first walked into James's old
room on Cortes Street four years ago. He lived in a rooming house for men,
shared a kitchen and bathroom. Each inch of space from floor to ceiling was designed to perform a function,
and all the functions worked together as a whole. His room was a system. The
components were whatever he could scrape off the street and some stuff he
got after a divorce. The sun shone through a small window outside of which, there was a bird
feeder. James knew all the regular pigeons. Net's bird cage hung from the
ceiling. Net knew all the pigeons, too. James taught his cockatiel to sing
the theme from Andy Griffith's old TV show because he was an Opie look-alike
as a kid. Tissues were in a box nailed under his desk, one hand-reach away when he was
working on his computer. A TV was on a rack near the ceiling. He designed
and made a bed that folded out from the wall so he would have space to be
during the day, but a full-sized bed at night. The chairs had their legs cut
off so they would fit under the bed when it was down, and a piece of
exercise equipment hung from other hooks over the dresser. Shelves were
built everywhere, when he could get wood. There was peace in that room, an order that provided a safe haven from the
lack of creativity imposed by the outside world. From his chair, James could dream. And he had that computer, "the piece-of-
shit NEC" as he calls it. The internet didn't say no. It just turned on. He
argued for gun control with NRA members in chat rooms. He called into radio
talk shows. He wrote editorials. Then he built the radio kit and turned on the transmitter. Then the FCC
threatened him. Then I came into the picture with the virtual community
idea. I think I decided to work with him because of that room. Mixing stereo, computer components, microphones, mixing boards, and plugs,
he created an original instrument, the system that runs the RFM broadcast. I
call it an instrument because the digital jockey who runs it has power over
the production, and because each piece has a function. Every function is
designed to release creative expression and works together to form a greater
whole, just like that room. When I looked around it that first day I thought, there is an intelligence
here that has not been given a chance. Roger now lives there and hears
ghosts. | 
