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| Down in the (Silicon) Valley John Tinker © 2000 Current I am residing in the South San Francisco Bay Area known as Silicon Valley. This is in contrast to my previous tenure as native and long time resident of Iowa, where I lived in basements, a truck, a barn and an old storefront. For many years I was "self-unemployed", a term I coined to describe the mixture of odd jobs I undertook to avoid normal employment, which I deemed an affront to nature’s plan. The point here is not to record the details of my life path, but to suggest that some of the generalizations I make later come from rather large translations in points of view. For the past two years I have been moving into – and settling into -- my new home in Fayette, Missouri. I bought the old brick school building there, situated on a lovely piece of ground two blocks from the town square. I also enjoy having a large garden and lawn. I look forward to residing there again when this job in California is done. The school is a wonderful resource. I am so happy to have space to set up workshops and the library and music room. I have a nice living situation, with hot running water, a shower, a kitchen, the works. There are 12 classrooms and a gym, so it is a perfect building in which to practice my particular brand of eclecticism. For me it is a dream come true. I mention this only to show that I am a visitor to the Bay Area. I haven't moved to California. Flashback Wapello, in southeastern Iowa where our family lived when I was born, was my first experience in small town living, but we moved away when I was three. I returned to Wapello later as a visitor at the age of five. That summer I lived with Otto, Mary, and their friend Elmer, all retired, who taught me the pleasures of homemade bread, apple butter, large shady trees, and hanging out on the front porch watching the world drift slowly by. I bought my own knife from a kid down the block for 35 cents (of course quarters and dimes were silver back then). Elmer and Otto showed me how to sharpen it and I had fun whittling. Otto sawed round checker pieces from small tree limbs and taught me to play the game. In hutches in the back yard he raised rabbits for food. I won’t describe the butchering process, but I watched it happen. In her kitchen, which had a low ceiling and seemed once have been a porch, Mary made apple butter and bread. Elmer had lost a leg to corn picker. He and I played a lot of checkers. Fast Forward It is the middle of winter, the middle of the night. I am in an airplane with a hundred other sleepy people flying from St. Louis, Missouri to San Jose, California at 35 thousand feet. The air outside is cold, probably 40 below. I’m wondering what the wind chill would be at 450 miles an hour. I stare in wonder out the window. The stars are brightly shining. The air is as clear as can be imagined. The scene is absolutely beautiful. We are flying above a large mountain peak covered with snow, in Utah or western Colorado. The lights from towns and cities twinkle in the distance. Below, the highways are just barely visible from the strings of headlights flowing along them. I have accepted a temporary job in Silicon Valley, home of high-tech electronic, computer and defense industries. The San Francisco Bay Area evokes exotic images in the mind of a Midwesterner who decided to stay in Iowa during the counter-cultural migrations of the 1960s. I am eager to see the place, but I have taken this job with mixed emotions. Partly I am wistful because I will be away from my friends and my home in the Midwest. And part of my hesitation is because I do not believe in technological salvation, which is how Silicon Valley is often presented in the media. However this job, as a software system analyst for a large telecommunication company, is an opportunity I cannot resist. It is a chance to check out the cultural scene on the coast. At the same time I get to see the inside of a real corporation. For a guy who has lived on the fringes of the empire, suddenly trading that in for a middle class lifestyle is like going to the zoo. To top it off I receive a regular pay-check and all expenses paid. So I am not only traveling through geographical space, but I am also exploring financial solvency. The flight itself is a revelation and a meditation on the power of this culture and its technology. I’ve been surrounded by it, argued and fought with it, but now I am seeing it again for the first time. I wonder if everyone on the plane has experienced the same sense of astonishment? From 35 thousand feet, it is all quite plain. The shining semi-quadratic cities and towns – connected by tendrils of road, highway, power line and pipe line -- grow like some new life form in an electrified petri dish. Something new is happening on this ball of rock, earth, water and air that we call home. It is quite clear that Western Civilization is up to something -- maybe exciting, maybe frightening. I’m not sure which, but I keep trying to figure it out. The Best Place on Earth? I’m lying in bed in my tiny "apartment", which is like a very secure dormitory room. Video cameras in the hallways record all activity on a 24 hour tape, so that vandalism, theft or worse will be documented. A neighbor told me about recovering – thanks to the tape -- a pair of jeans stolen from the laundry by another resident. I’m watching the morning news on a local station. They continually refer to the Bay Area as "the best place on Earth." I am new here and slightly homesick for a quiet street. Of course people congratulate each other for being themselves all the time. It spreads happy feelings and garners goodwill. Yet when a Midwesterner hears for the first time that the Bay area is the best place on earth, it might be confusing. They say this often during segue from news to the commercials. Since we’ve just heard the local news, we already know it isn’t the best place on Earth. I think they are referring to the dramatic landscape, the impressive bridges and friendly climate.. People in Fayette discussed for months the last murder we had there. In the Bay Area, that wouldn’t be possible. It seems like every day there are murders, rapes or "hostage situations" to be reported. A few days ago a bicyclist was run over by a bus and the focus of the news report was the traffic delay it caused. In the rural Midwest we get more chance to talk about tragedies between occurrences. The West Coast’s View of the Midwest When I was in Nicaragua, one of the things I learned is that Nicaraguans know more about us than we do about them. I think the same relationship holds true between California and the Midwest. People in the Midwest know more about the culture of California than vice versa. One of the big differences between the rural Midwest and the West Coast is the racial mix. Although Iowa City attracts people from all over the world, in Olin I was a WASP among WASPs. There are small Hispanic populations in Southeastern Iowa. Fayette has a sizable black population, descendants of slaves. But the West Coast is much more cosmopolitan. There are many more Asians, Hispanics and Europeans. A rural Midwestern WASP might think that here minorities are the majority. Californians are mostly interested in California, though a number of them look south to Mexico or west to Asia. So when Midwesterners look to the West Coast, likely as not they will see just the backs of people’s heads. In other words, the Midwest appears approximately invisible from the West Coast. And so the Midwest, as an invisible thing, lends itself to hallucination. Here the common opinion of the Midwest is that it is populated by hicks. Ironically I heard a report on the radio about the top California high school academic team. They had made it to the national finals of some brain bowl type contest only to be beaten by some kids from Iowa. Much of the culture that comes into the Midwest via television, radio and newspapers, and now the web, emanates from the coasts. From the other direction the flow of cultural information is much less. Part of the reason for the discrepancy may be the larger local media markets associated with metropolitan areas. In the Bay Area, the media broadcast local content more frequently, partly because national events often happen here. One seems to be near the center of the culture, rather than at the edge of it. City of Toleration San Francisco is an old sea port town. The Golden Gate passage into the harbor of San Francisco Bay early formed it as a North American city with many connections to Asia. Today it has a reputation as a city of diversity and tolerance, a Mecca for minorities. This is a broad generalization, but with truth in it. These minorities include racial, economic, sexual proclivity, political belief, religious practice, or any of the other realms within which people find their identities. Many kinds of people are at home here. Chinatown in San Francisco is a vital part of the city. It is exotic and interesting. Socially, the Bay Area is liberal. In some neighborhoods one could easily be shocked by odd affectations, costumes and behaviors. There are subcultures here that positively delight in being outlandish -- affecting new hairdos, higher heels, odder duds, or a greater number of metallic attachments to the face. Downtown San Francisco is comprised of some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. The height of the skyscrapers are amazing to contemplate in light of the major earthquake fault line runs under the sea just west of town. They are offices for insurance companies, banks and international corporations. At night downtown San Francisco turns into a party town for the upper crust and the yuppies. They dress up for it in all sorts of costumes, but mostly suits, ties tight skirts and high heels. Live theatre, opera, fine restaurants – all are available. San Francisco is an archetype of civilized culture. The Other Side of the Coin Street people, pan-handling in their worn-out dirty clothes, are a contrast to this high living. I am not sure what the policies are in other cities, but in San Francisco a street person can sleep in almost any doorway if the owner hasn’t posted a warning explicitly prohibiting it. So in this city it seems that liberals have accomplished certain meager gains on behalf of the homeless. Many doorways downtown have someone sleeping in them after the businesses close. I know this from first hand knowledge gained one night after I realized that I had locked the keys in my car. It being a modern car, and me not a modern car thief, I practiced being middle class and asked a passing policeman to break into it for me. He declined, saying that they no longer carry the necessary tools because modern cars can be damaged by breaking into them. Of course -- the lock is now computer controlled. My 1981 Dodge van may easily be opened with only a Swiss Army knife, if one has the need and knows how. I am probably the only person who has ever wanted to break into that van. Anyway, since the weather was nice, I decided to sleep on the wonderful park bench nearby, so I could guard the car. In the wee hours a street person came by and walked back and forth several times. I was watching him out of the corner of my almost closed eye, trying to decide if he was a problem. He stopped and was just standing there, about ten feet away. I had been pretending to be asleep, but now I thought I would pretend to be awake, so I sat up. He asked me for a cigarette and I told him I didn’t smoke. Even though I was sleeping on a park bench, to him I probably didn’t resemble a street person -- rather more like a middle class guy from the Midwest who had locked his keys in a rental car. Whatever we might have looked like to each other, it seemed clear that neither of us was especially dangerous, so we started talking and trading life stories. To sum up his story, it was easier for him to live on the street than to hassle with a job. He was depressive and had a buyer’s card at the local medical marijuana outlet, which is quasi-legal in California. He didn’t have any with him, so I can still tell the story in a family publication. I asked him if he knew a place where I could find some food. He said that there was a place about eight blocks away. I offered to buy supper, breakfast, or whatever you call a meal at three a.m. We walked toward downtown and soon were among the skyscrapers with the homeless people sleeping in the doorways. I was working overtime trying to understand it. I was impressed that it is not prohibited, but to be homeless must be the worst way to experience a city. Living out of a backpack in the woods, you are camping out. If you do the same thing in the city, you’re homeless, at the bottom of the heap. There always have been beggars wherever needs go begging. I’ve seen quite a bit of it in Mexico and Central America, often old women, the disabled or semi-starving kids. But here in the land of milk and honey, the homeless are often able-bodied young men. Often the need seems to be spiritual more often than physical. Cultural Homogenation In one sense, the Midwest and the West Coast are different flavors of the same place, America. We are in a big mixer. The media blend our culture. Cliches of language and image reach from sea to shining sea. As a nation, our greatest differences, in my opinion, happen across boundaries of economic class, not geographical areas. The distances that separate us are not best measured in miles, but in dollars. Our communities are not bounded by physical space, but by class distinctions, standards of comfort, manners, habits and motivation. Flowers in Their Hair The Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco is still full of hippies, bless their hearts. Haight Ashbury is what happens when you take youthful rebellion, add commercial culture with its selling of product and life-style, mix in self-induced toxic trances of various types and combinations, surround it with auto traffic and sprinkle well with the acrid odors of human necessity where there are no public toilets. For motivation, add the coin of the realm and the longing for human contact. Immerse all this in a light mist at a temperature of about 55 degrees. Add dogs, and don’t clean the sidewalks too often. Current fashion on Haight street calls for very high platform shoes, tattoos, and lots of metal inserted in various parts of the face. It is neither Kansas, nor Munchkinland. Influenced by after-images of the sixties, and determined that I was going to be a street musician for the evening, I took my fiddle case from the trunk of my shiny car and slung it over my back, looking for someone to play music with. I ended up playing by myself, mostly for homeless people and hippies, who seemed to appreciate it. Incongruously, an upscale night crowd hangs out in the pubs, bars and restaurants. These yuppie types walking down Haight street are tolerant, of course. They tend to totally ignore the hippies and homeless. They walk by, click clack clunking in their platform clogs. Males and females alike display clothes, coiffure and primp. To that the ladies add gloss, shine and bangles. Playing the violin on the sidewalk on Haight street, you have license to watch all this passing in front of you. Later, walking down Haight street, I was handed a sand dollar by a hungry looking scruffy fellow in his mid-40s. He had a plastic sack with a bunch of them, still damp from the beach where he had collected them. Some of them he has painted with magic markers. He said, "Want a dollar?" as he handed one to me. A yuppie ahead of me had just replied to the same question with, "Would you like a poke in the mouth?" I took the sand dollar and gave him back 50 cents. I talked with him for a few minutes even though obviously he was drunk. He lives at the beach just a few miles to the west and he wanted to tell me a story. He told it in the style of a professional storyteller. It was about two boys who decide to fool a wise old woman who always seemed to know the truth. They have caught a small bird and decide to play a trick her. They will ask her whether the bird is alive or dead, and have conspired to make her wrong, however she answers. If she says that the bird is dead, they will show her that it is alive. If she says it is alive, the boy holding it will quickly break its neck, then show her that it is in fact dead. They go up to her house and knock on her door. She comes out and they ask her whether the bird is alive or dead. She looks at them and sees the mischief in their eyes. "The answer is in your hands," she says. The moral is that we each can make a difference. Perhaps Jokester Life has set it up so the sand dollar man cannot see that his life is also his own hands, but I can’t judge that. He has spread the sand dollars on the sidewalk, colorful and happy. He points out that they are not being sold, but given away. With him, everything is a gift. He tries to fix me with his eye and tell me another profound story, but I am too busy watching him to pay much attention to his plot or theme. He has formulated poetic recitations of the truths he has discovered in his wanderings. I’m seeing an Ancient Mariner, modern version. |
| Systems People When I first started working as a real programmer for a real corporation, I thought I would be among "suits" or nerds. This reflects the prejudices of my counter-cultural ignorance. Instead, I find myself among very human people, albeit tending toward a technical mentality. There are many races and cultures represented. They tend to be bright, and I have to struggle to keep up. They also tend not to have serious hobbies or outside interests. They simply don’t have time. They are well paid and they enjoy life. One spring day we took off work and went skiing in the mountains. I am unable to find any profound distinction between these new friends and my old friends, except perhaps in the amount of time that the latter have for pursuits other than work. The people I work with like what they do, which is to build complex information systems. This can be more interesting than would be apparent to the average non-technical person, because nobody really understands these systems completely. They are complex like a jungle -- somewhat biological in that sense. Quite challenging. To be honest, a little more challenging than I prefer. A little too abstract and unrelated to anything personally meaningful to me. I’m not sure the level of specialization that is required to construct these systems is such a great idea. But I like these folks. They are friendly and keep me on my toes. Rather it is the implications of the complexity of these systems that concerns me. Also I don’t believe that the polarization of wealth that comes from such specialization is healthy for society generally. To quote Jonathan Swift: "There is nothing so difficult as for those who abound in riches to conceive that others could be in want." Recently I was downtown having keys made. While the man made my new keys, I wandered around looking for an interesting place to have lunch. I found a Thai restaurant not far down the street. Almond chicken, spicy, with green peppers, served with tofu soup. The foursome at the next table was discussing the features of this year’s Mercedes Benz. She was in shoulder pads and a English looking sport jacket I took to be wool. Her natural leather moccasins seemed incongruous. She was talking about lease arrangements on the car. She liked its sporty suspension; I couldn’t believe it. It sounded as though she watched Motor Trend on PBS Sunday mornings. In San Jose it’s safe to guess that there is high tech money involved in the lifestyle I was witnessing. I would love to see these minds working on problems of social justice. My fear is that there would be something self-contradictory about that. A few days later I was in a donut shop to eat some gooey pastry type things and drink coffee. The folks were talking about fishing. They were friendly and I struck up a conversation with Mike, a black man about my age. He came here 16 years ago from Mississippi and he wanted to go back. He said that there are too many laws here and the people just don’t care about other people. Also the rents are way too high. The other people agreed. They were members of the working class. I think what they are referring to is the flip side of the hot cars, the style federations and mutual admiration societies. And I don’t think professional technicians alone make the world go around. Counter-Culture Approaching the Mainstream The public television channel is puffing a show called "Affluensa," a sarcastic label. A litany of recycling, simple living, and appropriate technology concepts are being woven into a documentary of the American lifestyle in the last years of the twentieth century. The show is about consuming less for all the right reasons. The cast illustrating the principles involved is perhaps a bit more straight than the simple living folks I have known, but they seem like nice people. Their clothes are a bit too middle class, perhaps, to qualify as counter-culture. But the rhetoric is all in place. Reuse, recycle, don’t go into debt, you get more time for the really valuable things if you ease off on your career. People say things like "But there was something missing in life" and "Chickens humanize the city." In Fayette, MO, my brother-in-law raises chickens in the back yard, but he lives on the edge of the law. The new progressive mayor wants to clean up Fayette's image, presumably in order to attract yuppies to the community. We need a television show in Missouri to help show the neighbors how fashionable chickens really are. In Northern California one will notice that environmental lobbies have had some impact. Public transportation is available. City buses have bicycle racks on their front bumpers. A beautiful and large wind farm with hundreds of giant windmills crests the hills east of Oakland. The swamps at the southern end of San Francisco bay are protected wildlife areas, and large holding ponds are used to assure that the salinity of the bay is less diluted by runoff from the city streets. But, contrary to an image that Midwesterners may have of the Bay Area or California in general, it is not entirely politically correct when it comes to the environment, though it might wish to be. For one thing this place drinks gasoline like there will be no tomorrow. Roadside litter -- as an indicator of environmental awareness -- puts California not much above Missouri, and considerably below Iowa. Cities Designed by the Automotive Industry Driving here can seem like a video game, only one has a greater stake in the outcome of the play. Anything can happen, and does -- hopefully somewhere else. Every day perhaps a dozen accidents somewhere on the highway system circling San Francisco Bay are reported live from a helicopter. Usually there is not much else to do but wait for traffic to move again. One evening I spent 45 minutes on what normally is a four minute drive through city streets, because of a 57 car pile-up ten miles away on the interstate. Another day there was a 20-some car pileup on Interstate Five in Sacramento, where seven people died in an inferno. The rescue people had a problem getting to the victims because the plastic parts of the cars had melted the huge plastic wreckage together as one mass. What impresses this Midwesterner is that people don’t want to talk about it; they accept that type of event as part of the normal risk of existence, like earthquakes or El Ni?o. |
| Western Industrial Empire There is no doubt that I am in one of the centers of the empire. . There are three large airports. The planes fly in and out all day long. New buildings are sprouting up everywhere -- office buildings with shiny blue and gold windows and pretty fountains. There’s money out here, big time. Two Air Force and several Navy bases are nearby. I assume these are requisite to support our disproportionate use of global resources. The Blue Angel precision flight team performed at an air show here. They spent a good part of the day making pseudo-strafing runs along the streets of San Francisco. Very impressive, but maybe in a different way than it was intended to be. For me it put the Gulf War in more distinct context. The Activists The part of the 1960s culture that could be co-opted by commercial interests -- the style, the accessories -- were co-opted. The part of the 1960s that wasn’t style and wasn’t vanity -- in my opinion, the part that wasn’t profitable and therefore couldn’t or wouldn’t be co-opted -- turned into a continuing social movement that simply hasn’t quit. In the Bay Area -- San Francisco and Berkeley especially -- one will find social activists and social artists of all types. Berkeley sometimes gets the nickname of "Bizerkley". For example, the city council felt called upon to pass an ordinance against public nudism, after that became an issue. I also get a kick out of the anarchists in who removed most of the parking meters from the downtown area. But these examples are ephemeral. For substance, check out the farmer’s market. This represents real social change, in my opinion: great food and great prices. San Francisco, among centers of cultural activity, is one of the most active, tolerant and diverse. With that toleration comes a feeling of welcome to many people. San Francisco is well known as a gay and lesbian friendly town. People who are concerned about these issues feel comfortable setting up support offices within the neighborhoods. The diversity is refreshing. An Aesthetic of Meaning One of the most beautiful San Francisco places actually is in an office building in one of the working class parts of town, the Mission district. There, on the third floor of an old building, are located the offices of Global Exchange. This non-profit organization is an eloquent statement of compassion and maturity by the people who have managed to put it together and make it work. To see the beauty of the place you have to overlook the small dingy elevator, with its odor of electric motor windings running too hot. Also, best ignore the system of locks and keys that keep thieves from destroying the offices or the sanitary facilities. The crack dealers, pimps and prostitutes on the sidewalks let us know that it is a low rent district. But for me, the offices of Global Exchange are beautiful. Lately I am learning to see beauty more in the meaning of things. Here we have a group of people who come together to try to support the rights of indigenous people in developing countries. I first got to know Global Exchange when I went with them to Mexico to observe elections. They also have what they call "reality tours," so people can get to know other people, to see how other people live. In their offices there is an aesthetic that I recognize and have always found attractive. It’s the aesthetic that you’ll often see in health food stores, especially cooperative ones. There is the sense that things are being done thoughtfully, or "mindfully." The meaning of such a place is rich and complex. The bulletin boards are active. The bookshelves are loaded, the copiers are humming. They have e-mail web pages, and an intra-office computer network. They do a pretty good job of staying on the scene and getting to the scoop. My Hopes In my opinion, allowing commercial or industrial interests to design our cultural norms is a huge failure of our democratic society. And to the degree that we have allowed military industrial interests to shape our history, it is an even greater failure. There are huge dynamic forces at play in the world today. We should not expect power to be paternalistic or even on our side. Indeed we should expect the opposite. As we try to find a clear path to a livable future, we will face confusions, loss of both perspective and sense of scale. We must struggle to understand what is happening. We cannot close our eyes and drift along blissfully. We must mine the past for it truth and wisdom, then see to it that it gets passed forward. Madison Avenue will not do this for us. Neither will Wall Street, Washington D.C. or Rome. Technology will not save us, neither will fashion or style. I suspect the answer has to do with a willingness to continue the conversation, to find ways to respect each other. I believe that much of the emptiness and negative values that we find in our culture can be traced to the part of it that encourages us to see each other as potential marks to be to be taken advantage of. It is the same part that encourages us to believe that we will find spiritual fulfillment by buying something. Selfish materialism remains hollow in any guise, technological or not. I am neither a techno-phobe nor a techno-prophet. I think we often obscure the real issues when we claim that technology per se is the problem, or the answer. Certainly technology is used by forces of greed and injustice. But also it is used by movements toward community. Extremely complex technologies seem dangerous in the long run. I believe that it is important for people to have some understanding of the tools they use. But I do not blame technology itself for our problems. I believe that if the human issues are dealt with, the technological issues will become more clearly defined and straightforward. The world is a big place. I am in awe at human industry but I often do not share in its goals. In olden days we had ourselves, our friends and families, the earth, the sun and rain, the stars, flora and fauna, and our myths and gods. As humans we inherit a legacy of what our ancestors thought and how they made things work. We try to improve the knowledge and pass it to future generations. Our generation will be answering questions of how well we wish to understand the artifacts of our own creation. We will be working out the relationships between pleasure, meaning, comfort and how much of the natural world we will permit to survive. In the final analysis what I would like to see is people making their world healthier and more interesting everywhere. I like to see better ways of doing things, city or country. And I like to see things done well, with skill and care. I like to see evidence that people care about the future. Small towns should not become smug and think that they are immune to the problems of the cities. In many ways small towns in America are simply clients of the cities. I will see hope for the small town that recognizes that the Madison Avenue aesthetic is one of dependence on the industrial capital of the cities. Give me chickens in the back yard and old cars that people keep fixing up. I want to see local economic production, not local franchises of multi-national chains. Don’t try to make the small towns too pretty – they’ll become sterile. Develop an aesthetic of meaning. Think about the implications of things. Get beneath the surface. Most important, let the small towns become centers of creativity. I like cities for the experience of watching humanity being proud and full of itself. I recognize part of myself in the city. But I also love quiet places where I can relax, read, dig in the garden, putter and think about the big picture. I don’t want factories to do everything for me. I want a more balanced life. I like to make things and fix things with my own hands. I view a well-made patch as a work of art. When this gig is over for me in Silicon Valley and I move back to the Midwest, back to my eclectic dream house school building, I hope friends will come visit. I hope they're not in a hurry. And I hope they bring their musical instruments. |
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