On Sunday evenings Jobs and Friedland would go to the Hare Krishna temple on the western edge of Portland, often with Kottke and Holmes in tow. They would dance and sing songs at the top of their lungs. “We would work ourselves into an ecstatic frenzy,” Holmes recalled. “Robert would go insane and dance like crazy. Steve was more subdued, as if he was embarrassed to let loose.” Then they would be treated to paper plates piled high with vegetarian food.
星期天的晚上,乔布斯和弗里德兰会去波特兰西边的哈雷·克里希纳寺,通常科特基和霍姆斯也会去。他们会用尽一切力气唱歌跳舞。“我们会让自己进入一种癫狂的状态,”霍姆斯回忆说,“罗伯特会失去理智一般疯狂地跳舞。史蒂夫则平静很多,完全释放自己似乎会让他觉得尷尬。”之后就会有人给他们奉上堆满了素食的纸盘子。
Friedland had stewardship of a 220-acre apple farm, about forty miles southwest of Portland, that was owned by an eccentric millionaire uncle from Switzerland named Marcel Müller. After Friedland became involved with Eastern spirituality, he turned it into a commune called the All One Farm, and Jobs would spend weekends there with Kottke, Holmes, and like-minded seekers of enlightenment. The farm had a main house, a large barn, and a garden shed, where Kottke and Holmes slept. Jobs took on the task of pruning the Gravenstein apple trees. “Steve ran the apple orchard,” said Friedland. “We were in the organic cider business. Steve’s job was to lead a crew of freaks to prune the orchard and whip it back into shape.”
弗里德兰管理着波特兰西南40英里处一家220英亩的苹果园,果园的主人是他一位来自瑞士的古怪的百万富翁叔叔,名叫马塞尔·穆勒(MarcelMilller),他靠垄断当时罗德西亚①的公制螺纹构件市场而发了财。弗里德兰在迷恋上东方宗教后,把这处果园改造成了一个公社,叫做团结农场(AllOneFarm),乔布斯、科特基和霍姆斯,以及其他一些寻求精神启蒙的人会在那里过周末。农场里有一座主楼,一座大仓库和一间花园小屋,科特基和霍姆斯就睡在花园小屋里。乔布斯和另一个公社成员格雷格·卡尔霍恩负责给格拉文施泰因苹果树剪枝。“史蒂夫管理着苹果园,”弗里德兰说,“我们当时在做有机苹果汁生意。史蒂夫的工作就是带领一群怪人给果树剪枝,然后把果园打扫干净。”
Monks and disciples from the Hare Krishna temple would come and prepare vegetarian feasts redolent of cumin, coriander, and turmeric. “Steve would be starving when he arrived, and he would stuff himself,” Holmes recalled. “Then he would go and purge. For years I thought he was bulimic. It was very upsetting, because we had gone to all that trouble of creating these feasts, and he couldn’t hold it down.”
哈雷·克里希纳寺的僧人和信徒们也会来农场,帮着准备素食盛宴,莳萝、香菜和姜黄的香味四处飘散。“史蒂夫来的时候总是很饿,于是就猛吃一通,”霍姆斯回忆说,“然后他就要去吐掉。很多年我都以为他有贪食症。这让我们非常苦恼,因为我们费尽周折才弄好一顿饭,但他却留不住食物。”
Jobs was also beginning to have a little trouble stomaching Friedland’s cult leader style. “Perhaps he saw a little bit too much of Robert in himself,” said Kottke. Although the commune was supposed to be a refuge from materialism, Friedland began operating it more as a business; his followers were told to chop and sell firewood, make apple presses and wood stoves, and engage in other commercial endeavors for which they were not paid. One night Jobs slept under the table in the kitchen and was amused to notice that people kept coming in and stealing each other’s food from the refrigerator. Communal economics were not for him. “It started to get very materialistic,” Jobs recalled. “Everybody got the idea they were working very hard for Robert’s farm, and one by one they started to leave. I got pretty sick of it.”
乔布斯开始有点儿无法忍受弗里德兰宗教领袖般的行事风格了。“也许他看到了太多弗里德兰的本质。”科特基如是说。尽管这个公社最初的目的是成为逃避物质主义的庇护所,但弗里德兰开始像做买卖一样管理公社。他的信徒们被要求砍柴然后出售柴火,生产苹果榨汁机和柴火炉子,参加各种商业活动但得不到报酬。有一天晚上,乔布斯睡在厨房的桌子下面,看着人们进进出出,从冰箱里偷别人的食物,他都被逗乐了。他不喜欢公社经济。“事情开始变得非常物质主义,”乔布斯回忆说,“每个人都了解到自己在为罗伯特的农场拼命工作,于是大家一个接一个地离开了。这一切让我觉得恶心。”
Many years later, after Friedland had become a billionaire copper and gold mining executive—working out of Vancouver, Singapore, and Mongolia—I met him for drinks in New York. That evening I emailed Jobs and mentioned my encounter. He telephoned me from California within an hour and warned me against listening to Friedland. He said that when Friedland was in trouble because of environmental abuses committed by some of his mines, he had tried to contact Jobs to intervene with Bill Clinton, but Jobs had not responded. “Robert always portrayed himself as a spiritual person, but he crossed the line from being charismatic to being a con man,” Jobs said. “It was a strange thing to have one of the spiritual people in your young life turn out to be, symbolically and in reality, a gold miner.”
很多年以后,弗里德兰已经成为了一名亿万富翁,管理着铜矿和金矿——产业遍及温哥华、新加坡和蒙古——我在纽约与他相约小饮。那天晚上我给乔布斯发了电子邮件,提到了这次相遇。不到一个小时,他就从加州给我打电话,提醒我不要听信弗里德兰的话。他说,弗里德兰因为旗下的几处矿产破坏环境而陷入了麻烦,曾经打电话联系他,请求他与比尔·克林顿交涉,但乔布斯没有回应他。“罗伯特总是标榜自己是个精神至上的人,但他越过了从魅力到欺骗的界限,”乔布斯说,“你年轻的时候认识的某个号称精神至上的人最后变成了彻头彻尾的淘金者,这真是件非常奇怪的事情。”——