Thursday September 30, 2004 Brooklyn Mississippi

Thursday September 30, 2004 Brooklyn Mississippi

Brooklyn, Mississippi, now if that name doesn’t conjure polar opposites in your mind nothing will. Perhaps, that accounts for the split personality in me and my father as well. He was born by midwife on the family homestead just outside of Brooklyn, a small, I mean really small, town halfway between Gulfport, right on the Gulf of Mexico, and Hattiesburg, just under 100 miles north. I spent my adolescent years on that farm. Well actually on the farm and in a place we rented in Biloxi.

My earliest recollection was of my grandmother and some of our neighbors in Biloxi arguing politics during the campaign of Dewey and Harry S. Truman. Back then, the south was a bastion of the democrats. When I put my mind to it, I can clearly see both our home in Brooklyn and the rental house in Biloxi. The farm was remote and I can remember some wonderful times there. One recollection is of a pig that I would ride for fun until he grew up and made it plain that his days of service as my horse had come to an end. Another was of gathering the eggs early in the morning and bringing them to my grandmother to make breakfast.

Breakfast in that time was a pretty substantial meal. Eggs and bacon or sausage purchased at the small grocery store in Brooklyn or in the larger store in Hattiesburg. I remembered the store in Hattiesburg because of the wonderfully aromatic smell of coffee that came from the coffee grinder that produced half or full pound bags of coffee. My grandmother loved coffee and from a young age, I was given half coffee and half condensed milk every morning with breakfast. Besides bacon and eggs, breakfast came with a big plate of grits—ground up hominy boiled until soft with the consistency and appearance of cream of wheat, but with a more savory flavor than the sweeter wheat cereal. The way you ate grits was to salt and pepper the glob on your plate then mix them with a good measure of butter—a couple of heaping tablespoons. Now you were ready to mix in your eggs and eat the mixture. From the time I can first remember eating at the breakfast table, that’s what I had for breakfast.

Living in Brooklyn in the middle of the last century was not the convenience-filled existence we enjoy today. Our water came from a well that we pumped by hand—we later got an electric pump. We had an outdoor toilet located walking distance from the house. Baths were once a week affairs as it required a large galvanized steel tub filled with water heated on a wood-burning stove. Baths happened Saturday night so that you were clean and presentable for going to church on Sunday, a small Baptist church a few miles from our place. The cemetery of that church is the final resting place for a number of my family including my lovely grandma. The church is gone and the cemetery is slowly being abandoned. I’m reminded of a Thomas Hardy poem but for the life of me cannot remember the title.

During the day, the one sound that echoed through the house was a radio tuned to a station broadcasting out of New Orleans playing Billie Holliday, and the big bands of that era. It was magical for me, hearing the sound of someone that far away, hearing the beat of music streaming though the house making you want to jump up and dance, something my grandma would do at the drop of the hat when the mood struck her. The nights though were scary for me. The one thing about that little farm was its isolation. It was nearly a mile from our closest neighbor. When there was no moon, the night became completely black. You could not see your hand in front of your face. And all around you were the sounds of nocturnal creatures.

That was home until my 7tth year when I joined my mother and father and three sisters in Texas and Mississippi became a drive of three or more days that happened between moves from one army assignment to the next. My father was in the service and we moved about every three years. A few years back, my father sold the small farm to his cousin and he hasn’t been back since. For me it’s been nearly 40 years since I’ve been back. The farmhouse that was once home to my family and me burned down 15 or so years ago under mysterious circumstances. Our 90-plus year old aunt was found dead outside the smoldering structure. My father was sure it was a robbery and homicide but there was no investigation and my aunt went to her final rest at the little church cemetery shortly before the little church joined the fate of those in the cemetery. God I wish I could remember that Thomas Hardy poem.

Wednesday 9-29-04 “That Time of Year…”

Wednesday 9-29-04 “That Time of Year…”

In the collection of Shakespeare’s collection of Sonnets, it’s numbered 73 (LXXIII). It begins
“That time of year, though mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves or none or few do hang
Upon those boughs that shake against the cold…”

It’s very appropriate for the mood I’ve been in for the past week or so. I’ve been transcribing some tapes that I no doubt transcribed 15 years or so ago when I made the recordings. The tapes are of conversations I had with Don Steele, who passed away some years back. To be truthful, I cannot remember which year. My mind does not handle time very well—particularly dates of significant happenings, birthdays, funerals, all the milestones that mark a life.

I was particularly fond of Don, who at the time I met him was easily a generation and a half my senior, born right after the turn of the century into a Latter Day Saints family, somewhere in Montana or perhaps it was Wyoming. The details elude me. He was full of life at the time I met him and affected an innate "joie de vivre". He needed a freelance writer that understood technology to accompany him to a new client he had just acquired in Silicon Valley, a start-up with a Nobel Laureate on the board and a bunch of PhDs running the company. Don convinced them that not only did they need to be visible in the trade press; they needed a splash in Business Week. He got them the half-page story. Don knew the publisher of Business Week, who had some outstanding favors due.

Don lived in San Francisco on a hill in the North Beach section of the city. As you walked in the front door you could look back and see Washington Square Park. As you entered the living room up a short flight of stairs you had a panoramic view of San Francisco Bay. I learned only after a couple of visits that he rented the home. This was the early 1980s. Other clients included Geyser Peak Winery—they were intent on marketing wine in a can, another feature Don got placed in Business Week, though this story made it on its merits rather than on any overdue indebtedness. For a naïve trade press editor, I was dazzled by the life this man led, but over the years I knew him, I began to see that he was walking a delicate tightrope. The words of Shakespeare’s Sonnet resonate:
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west;

You see Don made his living every day. When the company was billing $10s of thousands a month he lived well, when he wasn't, he lived poorly. I met him at his peak and watched over time as the billings began to wane and the large clients he had relied upon slowly abandoned his small shop. Though his shop was small, he belonged to a network of agencies located worldwide that he could tap into for assistance with PR in their particular region. Most of these shops were run by men and women of Don’s age. But increasingly the world around him was becoming unfamiliar with his network. His contemporaries in that world were surrendering their power to a next generation. Don’s remaining base of support was his Japanese clients, huge multinationals with easily recognizable names. The Japanese respect for age and its innate wisdom kept him in business and comfortable.
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

He was the sort of guy who could walk into just about any place in San Francisco and get a table for dinner. He had that many outstanding favors. He knew hotel doormen, bellmen, and elevator operators until all were replaced by smart elevators. He was just as comfortable talking with a doorman as he was chatting with that Nobel Laureate on the board of the start-up I mentioned earlier. And each of those guys genuinely liked talking with Don. He was that warm and engaging that he charmed you with wit and an attentiveness that you sensed he was really interested in what you had to say. He was walking by a hotel one evening when he was suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness. He was taken to the hospital and they diagnosed him as having a mild stroke. I saw him shortly after the brief stay in hospital. The lingering affects of the stroke weren’t obvious but you could tell that the swiftness and precise movement that made him appear much younger than his age had been affected. I could sense an incredible will operating in him to regain the control he once had over himself.
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

During the evening I visited him, we were sitting on a couch at his house sipping wine and he turned to me and said. I still owe you for the job you referred me to when I was particularly lost for work. In Don’s world you paid a percentage to anyone who referred work your way. My generation this was a favor compensated by a round of drinks or at most lunch at a nice restaurant. I told Don as much and in that regard I told him I was far more indebted to him than he to me. That did not seem to balance the books. He saw a monetary debt. I saw intangible value he had given that was for me more valuable. I told him as much and cited the countless kindnesses he and his wife had shown to my wife, two daughters, and me. I finally had extracted from him the acknowledgement that the books were balanced between him and me.

I had written a profile of Don for a magazine called “The San Franciscan,” a small literary magazine published by one man who’s daytime job was working in a print shop and his evening job was writing articles and stories for his magazine. He would find the occasional writer who had a story to tell and only wanted it published and it usually found a place in “The San Franciscan.” The story was supposed to have run but I never got a copy. I’m now returning to the original source for the story to flesh out a larger piece.

Tuesday September 28, 2004 Deal Flow

Tuesday September 28, 2004 Deal Flow

It's 11:35 on Tuesday morning, accelerating smoothly from Embarcadero Road onto the southbound on-ramp of Highway 101 in Palo Alto; I take aim for the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose right off 101 at North First Street. I'm going to meet two guys, modern day gold diggers in the best tradition of Silicon Valley. The have found the equivalent of gold and they want someone to turn it into wealth. I think I know someone and they want to tell me enough about what they have that I can convince the modern day Merlin to work his magic for them.

The DoubleTree Hotel is one of those hotels that are like an oasis at the center of a number of trade routes. It is near the junction of Interstate 880—what used to be California Highway 17, and Highway 101, the modern day "Camino Real"—some of its length passes over the original North-South Spanish road though today it carries 21st-century kings, captains of industry commuting from their Palo Alto, Hillsborough, Los Altos digs to their high-rise offices in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and increasingly San Jose.

One of the guys I'm meeting, JL, I've known for several years—since the late 1990s. His friend, AP, is new to me. We meet in the coffee shop of the DoubleTree and are seated immediately. No sooner are we settled than a familiar face approaches our table. I haven't seen TS for a couple of years—since the last party my company threw in Anaheim at the House Of Blues. He comes up and we shake hands and he looks at AP and the two of them immediately know one another. None of us has called the other by name, each of us desperately trying to remember the other's—the effects of old age becoming glaringly apparent. TS is in town raising another round of funding. He's moved to Austin to head up a company making big ticket test equipment for the electronics industry. The VCs brought him in to turn things around. "We're making money, not a lot but we're making progress and this second round looks good," TS says. AP and I wish him well and he runs to catch up with his guests.

AP and I look at each other and we both start to rhyme off companies we know TS has been at, one where he and AP worked together. I tell him I'll remember the guy's name and we go on about our business. JL and AP start describing their golden nugget. It's much more valuable, this nugget of gold in China than in the U.S. The nugget these guys have is plentiful here but virtually nonexistent in China. As we're talking I feel a hand on my shoulder as a tall moustached fellow walks past and I look up to recognize GS, who I did some work for ages ago when he had a market research company. He doesn't stop but rather waves. I'll have to send him an e-mail. I've lost his contact info but I know where his daughter works and she can pass it along.

The two guys I'm sitting across from at this rectangular table are both engineers as you might have guessed. We order. Both of them have the $8.00-hamburger. I opt for the soup and salad at the lunch buffet. I can have dessert, the waitress reminds me, but I offer it to her instead and she declines. We talk about the amount of networking going on in the room, not to mention the amount of snooping. They tell me more of their venture, heedless of those around us who might be listening in. The details are sparse but they convey the concept my lunch mates are developing. In a nutshell they have a piece of intellectual property they would like to convert into silicon. They want someone who is willing to invest the money needed for them to complete their development and pay for the cost of a finished silicon chip, about $1 to $1.5 million, not a large sum by VC investment standards in Silicon Valley. An angel investor with a few hundred million in the bank could pick up the tab by himself.

(“TS” I say to AP and his face immediately registers the recognition of face and name. We both recount more of TS’s career from the late 1980s to his move from California to Texas where his new company is based. “Who would have guessed TS would leave Silicon Valley?” AP asks, a question often voiced of late in the current state of depression the valley finds itself in.)

China would like to have the intellectual property these two guys have in the same abundance it’s found in the West. However, the Chinese must either pay the steep price to buy the rights from U.S. companies or develop it themselves, an undesirable alternative for a nation impatient to have everything its Western neighbors have immediately. The one option the two guys across from me offer is the know-how to quickly create this property for the Chinese and get them to where they want to be at the relatively modest cost of enriching five guys—I learn there are others in the larger design team.

Everyone in Silicon Valley has an idea that needs funding, knows someone with the money to fund the idea, or can act as the bridge to bring the two together. I’m a pretty rickety bridge, but I do know someone that is tied into the government bureaucracy in China. There are countless numbers who I’m sure can make the same claim. But the guy I know, BW, is with a company based in Shanghai that has the charter to help bring ideas to China’s new production facilities to get turned into silicon.

It was BW who over lunch one day described the Chinese government’s plan for acquiring just the kind of property my two associates across the table are developing. My whole life before my present job was spent as a trade magazine journalist and I would go from one office building to the next in this valley listening to companies talking about what they had and what they needed. What I found mostly was the enormous amount of work being done to produce the same end result. It’s even more apparent today, with video games, cell phones, DVD players, etc. It’s the equivalent of thousands of miners all looking for a rich lode of gold until one of them finds it, like the first HP Inkjet printer or the Apple iPod.

The Greeks had a word for this relentless pursuit: "arete"—striving for excellence. If you look around Silicon Valley you can clearly see that ancient culture in its fullest realization. Here is an unapologetic meritocracy where excellence is rewarded handsomely and failure is just as otherwise extreme. The most graphic visual can be seen in the stock transactions of any high tech company located in Silicon Valley: a quarter of exceptional growth gets rewarded handsomely. A quarter of average growth produces extraordinary downside.

Both of the guys I’m having lunch with believe their idea has merit. It remains to be seen if that belief has merit. Maybe I can help.

Monday September 27, 2004 A Morning of Queues

Monday September 27, 2004 A Morning of Queues

Today, I made the journey to my doctor's office at 9:30 AM from work. The trip was uneventful, though I was quite surprised to see the level of traffic along Highway 101 and Highway 85 for late in the morning. The former was moving at the limit but still crowded with cars. The latter was slow-and-go in all three lanes from its junction with 101 and its junction with 280. The congestion could most probably be blamed on the construction at the 101-85 interchange.

I arrived at Dr. M...'s office on National Avenue in San Jose right at the border with Los Gatos its higher rent western neighbor. M...' is your typical general practitioner, a steady stream of health insurance patients with the ailments associated with aging-most of the patients he was seeing today were the 50-something baby boomers. Their ailments included high blood pressure, borderline diabetes, thyroid maladies, and the occasional injury such as the pulled muscle I was there to complain about today.

The injury was easy to diagnose. I had pulled a left calf muscle two Sundays ago, had rested the leg for all of three days and had begun to run on Wednesday convinced the muscle was now sufficiently healed to stand the stress of a six-mile run-I was taking it easy, but then on Thursday, at the bottom on an overpass on Branham Lane that passes over the light rail just before Branham's intersection with Pearl, I noticed the calf muscle beginning to complain. I began trying to use other muscles in the leg to compensate and halfway up the hill I turned the left foot outward as I came down and there was a sharp pain lower in the left leg near where the Achilles tendon attaches to the muscle. This pain was sufficiently strong to make me aware that I would be walking for at least a week and the journey home was one agonizing step, every other footfall. It was now five days later and the muscle continued to complain at the least exertion.

M...' ordered x-rays of the leg to see if there was any damage to the bone though he doubted it since the swelling was modest. I left M...' office and headed for the x-ray lab across Samaritan Drive a block south of where National Avenue T's into Samaritan. 8531 was the address, a brand new multi-story medical building with the lab on the ground floor. The lab's lobby was busy with a small line at the blond-wood reception desk, an elderly man in pajamas and a calf-length house coat in for x-rays was holding up the line of three people-with me being the third. He completed his paperwork then was told to wait behind the reception desk for one of the attendants at a circular blond wood counter that faced the main entrance. The counter resembled a line of tellers at a bank; only it was waist high not chest high and was curved with five or six teller stations separated by blond wood partitions. A computer terminal and keyboard occupied each station with clerks dressed in pressed hospital scrubs behind each. After waiting too long-I could tell by the impatience the old man exhibited as he looked from one station to another anticipating one would finish serving the current patient and send them on their way-the old man was finally called to a station to begin the process of entering all the data he and his doctor had completed on the paperwork he carried with him to the counter.

The next person in line was a young man who looked Indian or Pakistani who was there to complete the paperwork for his mother. She sat in the waiting area to the left of the entrance. The area contained six rows of four Danish Modern armchairs. The first row faced the reception desk at the right of the entrance. The second row of dark blue upholstered low-backed, blond-wood arm chairs faced away from the reception desk looking directly at the third row which faced the reception desk. The remaining three rows continued the pattern to the wall furthest left of the entrance. Low-backed two-person couches situated between the second and third and fourth and fifth rows rested against the wall housing the entrance.

After asking his mother to produce an insurance card for the receptionist, the son provided the last of the information needed to move him and his mother to the next step in the work flow process, completing forms. I advanced providing both my insurance card and my driver's license obeying the sign requesting a picture ID and proof of insurance. The receptionist, a modestly attractive woman of my age group, smiled and said her maiden name was the same as my last name. In between keying in data into her computer she asked if I'd been to Scotland. I acknowledged that I had. She asked me to complete the patient information form and acknowledge the legal liabilities that my medical records were subject to and return the forms to her. I retired to a chair in the waiting area noticing as I did that the impatient old man had been taken. The young man and his mother who had gone before me had returned the forms to the receptionist and were now standing in the line vacated by the old man.

I returned the completed signed form to the receptionist. She had no one else in line so she took her time completing her processing of my information. She offered that she too had been to Scotland but only briefly after spending most of their vacation in Germany. I asked if she had visited Isle of Skye during her brief stay. She said no and asked why I had asked. I explained that Skye was the home of the Clan McLeod, specifically Dunvegan Castle at the northern end of the island. She said she would make a point on the next visit, which she and her husband planned for next year. She thanked me and provided the paperwork that would move me to occupy the spot in line vacated by mother and son. I waited about the length of time to get an open teller in a bank during the week. The lady who took my forms asked again for my insurance card and picture ID. She asked what part of my body was being x-rayed. I said the left leg between knee and ankle.

She directed me back to the waiting area as a lab technician called the mother and son for the final stage in the process. The old man had completed his time in the lab and was making his way out of the back as the mother and son were entering. I watched him travel the length of the gray carpeted floor-with its thin white strips spaced about an inch apart and running in parallel from the entrance of the lobby to the doorway leading into the lab itself on the grayish-purple wall directly opposite the entrance. The walls at right angles to this wall housing the lab entrance were painted a lighter gray color.

An elderly woman followed the old man. Both had metal canes. As the elderly woman exited the lab, a younger woman who could pass for the other's twin hurried to take the other's cane and replace it with her right arm. The two slowly made their way to the entrance while around them others moved at nearly twice their speed. A young Asian mother with her six or seven year old daughter had been called to the lab. She had told the daughter to wait in the waiting area and not to leave her seat only to be called to her mother's side moments later as the lab technician told the mother to bring her daughter.

I was called next by a young woman technician. She directed me into a small area with dressing rooms similar to the ones found at the Gap but with full length doors with slide locks on the inside. I was given the extra large blue paper shorts and told to remove my pants and shoes and dress in the shorts and bring my valuable out of the dressing room with me but to leave my pants on the chair to let others know that the room was occupied. As soon as I got changed and emerged from the room, the lab technician appeared again and asked me to follow her to the x-ray room. I was asked to lie on my back beneath a large camera hovering over the area where my legs rested. The technician laid a rectangular plate beneath my left calf and asked that I keep my leg still. She placed a lead blanket over my genitals and stomach then ran behind a shield where she exposed the x-ray film. She returned and positioned me on by left side to get a profile shot of the calf and ankle area. The third shot was identical to the first except the camera was aimed lower on my leg, in the area just above the ankle. It was all over in less than three minutes and I was getting dressed and walking out of the lab back to my car.

The terrible thing about modern life is that everything we do with anyone providing service requires getting in a queue. You want Starbuck Latte, you stand in line to order, and then you stand in another line to get you coffee. I had been in four queues to get my leg X-rayed. I counted the two encounters with the Scottish receptionist as two queues. However, the beauty of queues is they give you the illusion of progress. You finally ordered your latte and you are halfway to drinking it.

Sunday September 26, 2004 Politics as Usual

Sunday September 26, 2004

How has Kerry screwed up his chances of a successful bid against the incumbent Bush? Here was a man who emerged among all the Democratic hopefuls with a clear mandate before the Democratic Convention in Boston. There were a number of signs of weakness that begun almost from the start of the primary campaign. It began with a slow start, after Howard Dean had set the pace and the tactics of the campaign: aggressive money raising via the Internet and attacking the president head on for a foolhardy, misguided, and unprepared rush to war. Had Dean more to recommend him than being Governor of Maine, and a more centrist record of administration of that state, he might have become the standard bearer. But, as he got outside of the region of the country that understood his politics, he had no substantial constituency to provide support. The large liberal bloc big labor that could be relied on to bring votes backed Kerry. He was a man they knew and knew how to influence. Kerry also stumbled in his early fund raising efforts as well as the management of his campaign with high-level defections and operational confusion.

Kerry seemed to rebound from these setbacks and eventually took the initiative from the pack. The next stumble came in the selection of a vice president. The process was drawn out and had the appearance of being clumsy-the leaks of Kerry's attempts to get John McCain to come on the ticket as vice president, showed weakness-he wasn't able to make it happen and appealing to a republican rather than picking a democrat. Then the selection of John Edwards, though late in coming seemed to take some of the sting from the failed McCain efforts. Then came the convention where Kerry again made a blunder by trying to orchestrate himself that, he hoped, would make him more appealing to the electorate. He revived his military service attempting to paint himself as leader, who had experienced war and had led men into battle rather than send them into battle as Bush had. The only problem was that Kerry's record in Viet Nam was a double-edged sword. After serving he then became an ardent anti-war critic putting himself in the position of opening up a wound that split his one base of support military veterans, a good percentage of them viewing Kerry in the same boat as those anti-war protesters demonstrating in the streets-the same protesters that had shunned those who served. (Curiously, it was a Republican, Ronald Reagan, who reached back to undo this disservice all those veterans felt had been done to them by recognizing and lauding their Viet Nam era service with a memorial and the belated gratitude of a grateful nation.)

None of the spokespeople who articulated Kerry's position on issues have been able to answer to specify what Kerry would do to extricate the U.S. from the quagmire-the Viet Nam in the Middle East-that Bush has gotten the country into. They suggest somehow that Kerry will convince the U.N., the European Community, and NATO to help solve the problem, when Bush has not. The U.S. has gotten itself into this mess and the rest of the World is quite happy to see the arrogant bully get its due. Meanwhile, the economic strength of the U.S. is being depleted by a wasteful war that seems to benefit no one except Halliburton and the rest of the government contractors feeding off the lavish expenditures the U.S. are making prosecuting this war.

If the average life of a great empire is three hundred years, this nation has probably peaked. And the most glaring symbol of its having done so is its inability to produce leaders that have a vision for carrying on the great enterprise of a great nation. Like any living organism a nation reaches old age and the U.S. has every sign of having done so. Age in humans is marked by deterioration in mental facilities and certainly our current head of state is a clear example of this reality. What's even more telling is that the nation for the past two elections have not been able to field a candidate that demonstrated any greater mental acuity. The previous rival had the misguided belief that he created the Internet.

Friday, September 24, 2004 Measure of a day

Friday, September 24, 2004

How do you measure the worth of a day? How do you determine if you received full measure for the effort you exerted on any particular day? I got up this morning an hour later than is my usual time, 6:24 AM—but my alarm clock is five minutes advanced so it was 6:19 AM. I have been delaying the time I rise each morning owning to an injury to my left leg sustained while jogging last Sunday. I had been running at a reduced pace to facilitate the recovery of a mishap the previous Thursday. The earlier injury had been a pulled muscle in the middle of my calf. The most recent one was a pulled muscle closer to the ankle. Both annoyed me no end since both reduced my ability to jog each morning and I was getting impatient to resume my daily regimen.

I could conclude that my inability to conduct a morning ritual had reduced the quality of the past eight days. But I realize that because I had stopped my morning run I had begun to write on a daily basis, hence the journal recorded for the past several days. I noticed too that I had deliberately begun to take more notice of the world around me. I had completed the James Campbell book Exiled in Paris. I had resumed listening to the recorded lectures on ancient Greek and Roman culture. The two most recent lectures discussed Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Virgil.

Plato and Socrates provide one worldview and Aristotle and Virgil each added another dimension to the view. Socrates and Plato attempt to arrive at an understanding of the world through rigorous analytical questioning. They describe the individual as having a basic set of needs—Eros, which comprise the need to satisfy hunger, lust, comfort, etc. If a community can be likened to a human, then the Eros would include farmers, artists, and others that provide for the social needs of the community. Above Eros the individual and community also have a more developed need called nomos—the need for self-preservation and self-assertion. In the community, this would be the equivalent of the police force and army. Finally, above all of this is the need to make sense of the world the individual inhabits. This Plato and Socrates described as the need for reason in the individual, enlightened leadership based on reason for the community.

Through reason, both philosophers sought to replace the arbitrary Greek deities as the model for how mankind should behave.

Through reason, Plato and Socrates examined the way in which individuals achieved an understanding of the world they inhabited. From the earliest time, the individual categorizes every sensory perception he has: a chair, a bird, the sound of bird songs, the sound of a trumpet, the sound of a harp, the feel of ice, the feel of fur, the taste of bitter, the taste of sweet, the smell of rosemary, the smell of humans, the smell of cats, etc. He categorizes behavior; aggression, anger, cowardice, etc.; as well as states of being; good, bad, indifferent, etc. Everyone has within his/her mind created categories for everything that he/she has learned, experienced or otherwise acquired. Plato contends that there exists within each of us idealized forms for every one of these categories we’ve created: the form of a chair, the form for aggressive behavior, the form for the taste of sour, etc. By examining these manifested versions of these forms through rigorous logical processes, each individual can arrive at a more enlightened understanding of the true form of, for example, “good,” “bad,” “truth,” etc.

Thursday September 23nd, 2004 Trade Show Life

Thursday September 23, 2004.

It’s 11:45 and I’m back at the company’s booth for the last day of this conference. There is still candy—well over half of what we brought—though the folks in the adjoining booths have occasionally dropped by to nibble. This is not a good sign since people will eat your proffered sweets, suggesting that no one takes the time to notice the available candy or that they do not want to engage with you that they ignore you. I've gotten so bored that I'm now taking entirely too much interest in the people walking about my booth.

I’m watching a middle aged woman walk down the aisle at the right side of our booth, half expecting her to go to the lady’s restroom on the other side of the aisle from our booth. She’s in her early to mid 40s gauging by her body shape—spreading in the hips with a slightly drooping posterior. I want to say she wore glasses but it’s a detail I cannot conjure clearly in my mind. I take notice of her because of what she is doing: talking apparently to herself but upon closer inspection, I suspect she is talking on a hands free cell phone. The sight of her walking and talking seemingly to no one stirred a thought for a story.

What would happen if the narrator followed this person as she walked down a busy crowded urban boulevard—down fifth avenue in midtown. The narrator is recounting her side of this one-sided conversation as he describes the surroundings both he and the cell phone lady are walking through—it would work in a busy shopping mall, though, Rockefeller Center in Manhattan or Union Square in San Francisco might be a better setting since the shopping mall is more intimate where people tend to be more aware of those around them. The homogeneity of the crowd—affluent consumers—makes anyone who does not fit this category stand out. In a busy downtown metropolitan area, the crowds are entirely heterogeneous and the wealthy are represented in equal number as the destitute street person.

Now the premise of the story is the narrator follows this woman around downtown for several blocks recording her part of this conversation. It seems no different than the conversation you're overhearing from the woman pacing close by your booth. "Mr. W... regarding the quote I e-mailed you early this week, did you receive it?" Pause as she waits for a reply for the other end. "Is that your only concern with what we're proposing?" Another pause, her eyes intent on the words coming into her ears. "Mr. W... I'll have to take your counterproposal back to my manager." A look of exasperation washes over her face, though none of this anguish is being conveyed in her voice as she listens for more from her earpiece. "Can I call you back in say an hour after I've run your proposal by my boss?" She pauses again, a more hopeful eager expression on her face now. "Will you still be at this number or shall I call you somewhere else?" Pause, I wish she would get off the phone and check with her boss. I want to see her make this sale. "That's great. I'll call you in an hour, Good Bye." The right hand brings the phone to chest level to locate the appropriate selection in the speed dial menu. She punches the "send" button and starts to walk off as she waits for the line to pick up. Pity, I wanted to see this transaction complete.

However, in the fictional account the narrator following the woman discovers she is talking to herself, holding a lucid conversation with some imaginary soul inside her own head. Now, the question this should pose, without actually asking it, is "how different is the lady’s conversation with her imaginary partner and that of a woman conversing on her phone. Both are hearing a voice one aided by an electronic device the other by her imagination. You could argue that we know that the woman on the street is not really conversing with a real person at the end of a wireless telephone connection. Nevertheless the narrator on the street, until he becomes wiser, believes the woman he is trailing is listening to someone and she is responding. One is the act of a sane person using an acceptable medium to talk to a disemboweled voice while the other is neurotic hearing an auto generated voice conversing with her. Or perhaps she is a sane person who has no signal and can't stand not to be talking on the phone.

God I wish this conference would be over, three hours to go.

Wednesday September 22nd, 2004 Trade Show Life

Life at a trade show:

I’m at the computer conference in San Francisco at the South Hall of the Moscone Conference Center on 3rd Street and Howard Street. I’ve been standing at a small booth at the back of the conference center, which is located two floors below street level. It’s about 1:30 PM on Wednesday September 22nd and I’m bored and my left leg hurts from an injury sustained over the Labor Day weekend. I’ve aggravated the injury by walking excessively—a substitute for the morning run that I’ve not done since Sunday when the injury occurred. Compounding the agony is the long stretch of standing on concrete with only rubber-soled shoes and the thinnest of carpet between bare feet and cement. I refuse to sit in the bar-stool type chair provided with the exhibit booth we’ve rented for this event—sitting makes the time drag and standing gives me the ability to keep moving, which helps assuage the boredom.

This could read like a Samuel Beckett novel and in many ways standing for three hours in an exhibition hall with very few people showing any interest in what you are exhibiting can be just as absurd. Attendee walks up to the booth, looks intently at the first sign on our back wall, then looks intently at second sign. “Can I interest you in my product,” I say. “No, I’m just looking,” he says. “What I really would like is to have some of the candy you have in that bowl behind you.” I say, “sure,” offering him the bowl of finger size candy bars. He studies the bowl intently first picking one candy, then another, then another, fearful of making the wrong choice. “Take more than one,” I encourage. He beams, “thanks, that makes it easier.” He takes a handful and scurries off, immensely pleased with himself.

Each visitor is similar, though some decline the candy preferring instead the giveaway pen or the sunglass holder each marked with the company’s logo. I figure either way I’ve scored. With the candy, I’ve created an indebtedness in the recipient while with the other giveaways the recipients become walking billboards for the company’s name. The marketing term is branding—what ranchers do to their livestock. Some of those who spend a few seconds with me—most encounters all take place in under a minute—listen attentively to my description, ask a polite question, then take their giveaway, thank me and leave.

There is one visitor who came to the booth that stood out and I called him the power attendee. I watched him move from booth to booth as he approached my section of the exhibit hall. His eyes were in constant movement taking in everything around him even as he asked a question and listened to the answer. The speaker is obviously dismayed, as the listener seems to be oblivious of what the speaker is saying—too distracted to take in the information being proffered. But I go through the motions trying to imbue my pitch with something that will draw him in. But you can see he’s intent on me getting through my pitch as quickly as possible. I comply. He senses the silence I fall into after saying my piece. It takes him a second to recognize that I’ve stopped speaking. He provides a perfunctory smile, shakes my hand, and then is away. Like a Tourette's syndrome sufferer, he has to perform this ritual at each booth in the hall, driven by a nervous tic, he can’t control.

I’m getting too old for this shit. So I take a Hershey’s candy bar—the small bar in the gold package with the almond inside. I’m good for the rest of the afternoon.

Tuesday 9-21-04 South of Market

Tuesday 9-21-04 South of Market

San Francisco, Tuesday afternoon about 4:00 PM. I’ve just driven up from Palo Alto. The journey northward was uneventful. Embarcadero on-ramp to 101, then 12 to 15 miles north to California Highway 92 west to Interstate Highway 280—the four-lane freeway north to San Francisco ending literally at 4th Street in the city at China Basin, the home of the Giants baseball park, initially named Pacbell Park, now in deference to Pacbell’s owner, SBC Park. Left on 3rd Avenue and north through the area now called South of Mission because of all the condominium development of the past 15 years gentrifying a blighted warehouse district with yuppie living places and businesses to serve these urban neighborhoods, grocers, restaurants—fast food to fine dining, drug stores, dry cleaners, coffee shops and Kinko’s copy stops. Everything suburbanites find strung out in strip malls and accessible by car, South of Mission provides, within walking distance of most $400,000-plus, 1100-square foot condos. The city might have cleaned up some of the buildings, but the streets are no different than they were 30 years ago, today’s uneven bumpy surface paved over with successive layers of asphalt. The derelict concrete of the 101-overpass a reminder that the beauty may have had a facelift, but the arteries feeding this body are decrepit and in need of bypass surgery or at least a good Angioplasty.

The other element that has defied beautification is the homeless lurking in the shadows of the 101 overpass and in every nook and cranny they have not been evicted from by angry property owners. They are as constant as the City by the Bay, the flotsam and jetsam of a meritocracy that rewards the brightest and best and tolerates the dullest and the worst. They wander the streets, having given up on the go-go world around them, escaping into the comforting world of drugs and alcohol to become as oblivious of the world around them as the world around is oblivious of them. I try to turn a blind eye to these nameless forms, fearful that their lot could become my own. It is this fear that keeps me running to keep up with the herd of intellectual wildebeest galloping along this modern man’s Serengeti. I’m getting older, nearing the age of retirement. In the natural world, your reflexes slow, your endurance diminishes, your body becomes brittle and one day your natural predator takes you out and your body provides a bounty for the new life struggling to establish itself in this hostile terrain. In the modern world, your mind begins to slow, in the worst case you lapse into dementia and forget all you knew—complete intellectual meltdown, the equivalent to complete physical paralysis in the physical world, where a predator would put you out of your misery. In the intellectual world you vegetate consuming resources and in the end dying a humiliating death after having lost all control of your bodily functions. Death by predator, perhaps struggling to make a dignified exit, is a far more humane and distinguished departure.

I'm here to attend an electronics trade show; now you know why I'm in such a morbid mood.