I was a little distracted by one thing and another for a spell and suddenly four or five months flew by without anything being sent out via this communications platform-thing. Now comes the news that said delivery mechanism will be kaput at the end of February. Oops!
So soon I will be downloading all my old Dispatches and exporting the email addresses of you loyal (I’m assuming) readers. Should be a kick! Eventually I’ll find another way of reaching you all, fear not.
Since I last wowed you with true life stories of our dear departed Green Arcade I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking for another bookstore job, or, failing that, something tolerable. I wound up with the second category, selling high-end housewares and other items, including a few books (not many, alas) at a small shop in a heavily touristed area of what various now-dead blues musicians called Mean Old Frisco.
The manager and co-workers at the store are easy enough to get along with, and the work, though kind of straight from dullsville, is generally not taxing. As will happen on jobsites, I’ve experienced a certain disconnect with a fellow tchotchke peddler who over-identifies with the business in question, anguishing excessively over the theft of some pricey items and being profusely apologetic when she was too sick to come to work. Said veteran retail toiler also expressed envy of a sales whiz she once worked with who was a master at chatting with strangers, getting their guards down, and persuading them to spend tremendous amounts of moolah. I didn’t have much to say to that one (I’d already used “gee, that’s nice” in response to an equally alienating bit of conversational fluff), nor could I come up with an acceptable rejoinder after she gushed about a famous corporate consultant she once worked for who was known for his line “there are no bad ideas” — a concept meant to encourage brainstorming among employees to help companies experience exponential growth. I was tempted to provide a list of ideas I’d had that very day which proved the big money idea man’s supposition wrong, but decided not to, which, strangely, was an actual example of a good idea.
Speaking of good ideas, I recently wrote San Francisco Mayor London Breed and suggested she make the ’80s Chicago blues song “Computer Took My Job” an unofficial theme song of her efforts to promote our fair burg as the world HQ of AI. No response yet; perhaps she didn’t appreciate my effort to provide much-needed comic relief to her administration. Early pioneers in the development of alternative intelligence have been expressing dire concerns about this new technology for a while, but even if their fears that bionic super-brains might annihilate the human race (paging Isaac Asimov) prove to be groundless, the whole massive job loss thing is kind of baked into the equation. However Mayor Breed is all in for AI because it’s bringing big money start-ups to the city.
Down on the Embarcadero one of those city-funded urban booster PR posters proudly proclaims, “Today’s generative AI revolution began with the founding of OpenAI in San Francisco in 2016. In eight short years the City has become the global epicenter for AI, with an estimated $11 billion in venture capital being invested in SF startups sin 2013.” Maybe this time the trickle down won’t resemble the scene in Terry Gilliam’s film Jabberwocky showing guards pissing off the top of a castle wall onto peasants below, the thinking seems to go. But to single out one sector of our fucked-up economy, having had many driving jobs in my life (not counting driving family, friends, and acquaintances crazy with my kvetching), I can’t help but wonder what will happen to all those working class folks toiling behind the wheel once driverless vehicles are the norm. Are they supposed to scrounge for entrepreneurial bootstraps to pull themselves up by? Answer me, somebody!
The whole deep fake political video and audio thing also makes me wonder if opening the AI Pandora’s box was worth it. It seems fairly obvious that the ability to produce much more convincing misinformation will prove damaging to the survival of democracy, such as it is, in this country. At least a bunch of billionaires will get richer, which seems to be our society’s primary goal these days.
Wow, who got me started on this? I’m really getting overheated here. Luckily I have discovered ways to calm myself through the kinds of New Agey self-care for sale stuff that California is famous for. For instance, a juice joint (the kind that doesn’t sell booze) not far from where I work has a helpful giant chart in its window explaining the healing properties of what they peddle. Turns out that pineapple is good for keeping your mood on an even keel. No wonder pina colada drinkers are so mellow! Even more impressive, coconut has anti-aging properties, so don’t feel morose the next time you blast Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time.” Just head for the nearest coconut tree and get to climbing! I myself will be purchasing a half gallon of buku (baby coconut) ice cream at Michell’s to help me stop the internal clock without actually croaking myself. And while I’m at it I’d better scarf up some Ginger Snaps, since, according to the juicer’s, ginger “prevents Alzheimer’s.” Nothing like covering your bases!
In another iteration of taking that California trip, I recently spritzed myself with a spray called “Cloud of Protection” that I found in a rather ridiculous emporium not far from North Beach. The bottle’s label explains that it “contains essential oils that fight airborne bacteria & viruses, traditionally used to clear negativity and cleanse the space.” No mention as to whether Covid-19, which after all is still around, was one of the viruses it fought. However, the logo pledged “defense against bad vibes,” which might conceivably be worth twenty bucks, a paltry sum in the grander scheme of things. I haven’t noticed much change on the negativity or bad vibes fronts, but I do reek of eucalyptus.
Of course, the first step to self-help is using your public library card, which I have covered. I’m getting a maintenance dose of civic virtue/eat your vegetables nonfiction by trudging my way through Jonathan Taplin’s The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto and Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. Both are quite good, though it’s probably not advisable to immerse yourself in either of them directly before bedtime.
Fortunately, I’ve also been indulging in alternatives to depressing political books. Thanks to the Library of America’s essential (to me, anyway) Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s, and its companion volume featuring four novels from the ’50s, much of my free time in recent months has been taken up by lady crime novelists those collections got me hooked on. I’ve read a ton of books by men about hard-boiled detectives and criminally-inclined defectives, so it’s nice to take a break from all that testosterone and instead indulge in female crime/mystery/noir (take your pick) authors. I already knew about Dorothy B. Hughes, having read most of her books when I wrote about her for Noir City magazine, but others in the Library of America wrecking crew were unfamiliar to me. I was especially glad to discover Dolores Hitchens and Helen Nielsen, who both wrote page-turners packed with plenty of cheap thrills. I quite enjoyed Hitchens’s Strip For Murder, Footsteps in the Night, and Beat Back the Tide, and Nielsen’s Sing Me a Murder and False Witness provided fun escape on the commute to and from work.
For you high brows who like a little twisted cackling with your non-genre literature, I highly recommend Dawn Powell, my current go-to comic novelist. Powell doesn’t pull any punches, a tendency she shares with another late, great American writer, her friend and fan Gore Vidal. She also rivals Vidal’s facility with the English language.
A Time To Be Born is one of my favorites of the Powell novels I’ve read so far. It’s a hilarious, savage satire of New York high society circa 1942. Two of the characters are suspiciously similar to Time/Life head honcho Henry Luce and his social climbing columnist wife, Clare Boothe Luce, a big selling point for yours truly since my parents met when they were both working for the Luce empire.
Here’s a choice passage from A Time to Be Born, which ought to whet your appetite for more: “Thinking of how to describe to Ethel Carey this thrilling debut into New York life, Vicky looked carefully at the men. There must be someone among them on whom she could fasten as a possible suitor, mentally if not in reality. She hadn’t really expected, after the weeping, worry and fatigue of packing of the last few weeks, to look her best, but she expected to get at least a polite flicker of interest. Up to the second round of liquers no one had fallen at her feet, and Vicky was obliged to console herself with the thought that they were mostly so old that such a fall might prove fatal anyway, and no girl’s charm is enhanced by a flock of elderly corpses around her hem.”
Another great sentence from A Time to Be Born: “‘I know why she doesn’t invite me to parties,’ Ethel said, attacking her dainty squab with a savagery that might indicate the bird had pulled a knife on her first.”
Before winding this up I also feel compelled to include part of a message received from a “member services” representative of my health insurance gougers, Anthem Blue Cross.
After being repeatedly put on hold while the Anthem rep checked why charges from a specialist who had previously been “in network” were denied, I was informed that the problem was that there were multiple phone numbers for my blood doc. Sounded like that could be cleared up without too much trouble; the Anthem underling said he’d pursue my claim further and get back to me.
Here’s the end of his follow-up email: “Our Second Level Review Team denied my request because your provider is not in the network. If you confirm that your provider is in network you need to inform them that they need to submit there [sic] credentials to there [sic] credentialling [sic] department for them to be tagged as in network. Thank you.”
Clear enough!
After encouraging me to download the company’s AI app which connects to Sydney, a “personal health ally,” the signature line read, “We’re here for you.”
Naturally, I had a few things I wanted to say in response. Alas, and not surprisingly really, the bottom of the message read thusly:
**DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE**
This is an unmonitored e-mail address.
We are able to process your request by fax or mail.
More fun in the modern world! See you in the funny pages. I’m here for you!