For the past two months, it has been, get up at 5:AM so that I can be in San Jose at 6:55 AM with a hard hat and orange vest on, standing around with union carpenters, electricians, iron workers, drinking instant coffee in styrofoam, and preparing for (complaining about) another day.

It has only been in the past two weeks that the construction phase has finally ended, and I am now able to ditch the hardhat and roll in at the decent hour of 8:30. But, now that the building has been built, is time for the technology to be delivered, and so I have been working overtime.

It’s a multimedia job. Brand new corporate campus. Rear projection rooms, satellite linked video conference rooms, towering, seamless LCD wall displays such as this one:

The technology is all state of the art, and it has been a pleasure to work with. The video in the displays above is delivered from the equipment room over fiber. The content is dynamic, highlighting the company, while also including CNN news briefs and a plethora of other eye catching goodies. It’s a giant message from Corporate God as you enter, saying “Welcome to Corporate Heaven.”

The rear projection rooms have been fun too. Vast robotic projectors placed in totally black rooms, pointing at huge $5k, tunable,  first surface mirrors. Here is a shot I got of one such mirror before me, the vast piece of glass we project upon behind me:

The video technology is not the only interesting part of the new campus. But somehow it feels purer than the rest. Maybe it is because I helped build it, and so I like it the best. But still I have to wonder if it is going to be the heaven they are looking for.

The place is built like a space station, so that workers never have to leave. There are cafes, a huge cafeteria, dry cleaning, game rooms, a gym. The list goes on. But it all feels so isolated from the world I know. And while that, in itself is no evil, this isolated world feels, well, plastic. Which, to be honest, can best be demonstrated here, in the following image:

What you are seeing here are the landscapers of the future. These men are hard at work stapling down a PLASTIC LAWN. probably a 1/4 acre of green plastic grass, that looks remarkable just like the real thing.

Of course sitting on the stuff one instantly realizes that it is not the real thing. The sun heats it up like you might expect a huge plastic carpet would, and you feel surrounded by off-gassing petroleum product. If it has a redeeming quality, it would be the amount of water it saves (which is important I suppose), but still, it lends strongly to an overall feeling of impurity that permeates the entire new shining complex. It all  feels just a bit phony.

While I am sure that these silicon valley tech workers get paid quite well to live on their sparkling new spaceship,  I am glad that in a couple of weeks I can move on to the next adventure, some other city, some other way of life, undoubtedly.

It’s actually a street phenomenon that may have been going on for many decades (?). The vent pipes that get painted are common to many buildings here, and have been around for ever. Certainly, numerous artists get inspired to put their stamp on the familiar prank. Here’s some that someone took a particularly good amount of time with (considering).

It’s nice that the city still has some magic in it, and that it all hasn’t moved to Oakland, chased away by the $1000 strollers.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Thanks John Heenan for the word up!

Here is a video of a live show on Queen’s Night in Amsterdam that they did in conjunction with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra:

I can say that the show we just saw was in every way as inspiring. Another gorgeous showing of two sisters and their handpicked cronies, all dripping with talent and creativity. Another full house that wanted nothing more than to scream the walls down with adoration when the music ended.

But the profound, fuzzy-warm feeling I came home with was wasn’t entirely due to the band. While we were waiting for the music to start, entering the venue, filling in with the other concert goers, Juniper and I started to notice something. The crowd was for the most part, entirely younger than we were.

The venue was the stately Regency Ballroom. We made our way into the huge, dimly lit room hearing and feeling the pre-concert buzz. As we looked around, we saw younger and younger looking people. There were teens of every age and stature, sporting fashions of every scene. There was an eighties contingent. There were some goths. There were some sharply dressed swing kids. There were two girls, probably fourteen years old, with painted mustaches (caught later by Juniper as they generously poured a flask into their coke). As I walked, memories of some of my first concerts flooded in. I was elated.

So yes, there were many “kids”, and it was a joy to see them so excited. But it brought up a question in my mind. Juniper and I are not exactly old fogies. In our thirties, we still totally enjoy going out to see live music, and of all the times we have in the last few years, this was the first time we felt older. So what does this say about the music?

To be fair, CocoRosie is an oughts band, formed in ‘03, seven years old. Many of the bands that we love have been around for longer. And I have to admit that I love seeing a band that I have known and loved since it’s heyday. But why would that mean that people like us aren’t enjoying the new stuff? The heyday of today. Is there some kind of limit to the amount of heyday people like to have in their life? I wonder.

One of my favorite heydays was that of the noise music scene in Denver Colorado in the late 90s. It was probably 1999, the setting was a small storefront on legendary Coflax Avenue, and aside from being a stone’s throw from the State Capitol and the Denver Basilica, it was unarguably East Colfax, home to junkies, hookers,  and crack heads. But unknown to both Riffraff and Authority, there thrived, in the basement darkness of a one room gallery, one of the most terrifyingly cool arrangements of dark noise-rife music ever.

The space was the Chernobyl Tone Gallery, and the artist was a Mr. j.frede. On hot and electric nights in Denver, an eclectic collection of heads would gather to hear j.frede and other local noise musicians play. The gallery itself was respectable, curated, lit, and hung in a manner that could most always pass as legitimate in the “art world”. But the shows were held in the basement. After walking past the paintings or sculptures of the gallery, fans of the noise scene would be ushered through a trap door, down a rickety century old staircase, and into the damp and hidden basement.

Upon arrival subterranean,  feelings of professionalism and legitimacy became moot. The otherwise exposed brick walls were clad floor to ceiling in black plastic. The furniture was hand crafted out of raw bed springs; couches, and chairs you could see right through, and still sit quite comfortably in. And then there was the music. Employing seriously amplified samples and loops run through heavily digitalized effects, the artists who played this venue (often in complete darkness, sans a few LEDs or equipment display panels, which themselves lent the slightest stage lighting to the performer’s disembodied face) cranked forth exceptional, intentional, and psychologically marginal sound scapes into the ears and minds of the captive crowd. We were enamored by this and a handful of other scenes going on in Denver in those days. We felt so terribly fortunate to be there.

The music of j.frede of course was much more extreme than that of CocoRosie. I wouldn’t call it inaccessible, because the shows were open to anyone, but not many people would ever choose to access it. This being as it may, I feel like there is still a similarity between the two. That of the age groups. Equally, in Chernobyl Tone as at CocoRosie’s latest, I felt the average age was early twenties. Equally there were people far younger at both. And equally, there were a handful of fans who were older. Just not many. Which brings me to my point.

When I was sitting in the dark of the noise shows of my twenties, there was a certain oldster who always seemed to know were the good shows were, despite his obvious age difference. I would see this guy filtering in with the “kids” at noise shows, and many other underground concerts.  As it turns out, I became very good friends with this guy eventually, and we are still in touch today (although, yes Dave, I owe you a letter! you traditional bastard). But certainly one of the main reasons I ever got to know him to begin with, was that I was totally inspired that he had made the decision to keep up with what was going on.

Maybe it isn’t something that most of us even want to do, after a point. Maybe, for many, other parts of life that correspond better to our particular age group become more interesting. But I remember, clearly, sitting in that scene that I loved so much, feeling the buzz of excitement around me, seeing this 50-something cool dude hanging with the younger crowd (unafraid of any labels that could be assigned), and I thought to myself: I really want to keep up with what’s cool, because, let’s face it, music doesn’t stop getting good. There will always be new and better music.

I am glad I said that to myself back then, and I am glad that I still, from time to time, find myself among the oldsters. I feel like I have decades of it to look forward to.

If you have never been, you are either a homophobe (you should look into that) or you are just plain  missing out. It is a beautiful and happy thing that lightens any day.

In San Francisco it is a part of our heritage. The Police Commissioner, the Sheriff, The Fire department, and the Mayor all march. The mayor even looks a little gay himself as he skips along ahead of his armored car taking every opportunity to let his city know he is still “that progressive guy”. But I think it really means something, just the same.

And in a larger context, Pride means something socially. I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation of two Tenderloin street urchins who had come down to see what all the fuss was about. Pride was obviously not their thing, and they treated it like spectators, but they still knew what it was about, and were enjoying it just for the spectacle of it. They kept reveling in the constant surprise of who was gay.

“Oh, look at that guy with the cigar and the tutu! Oh check her out!” (Whistles and hoots at a large topless lesbian who is more than happy to return the glee).

The very interesting thing to me was that when you put homosexuality in the context of being accepted — for here we were amongst hundreds of thousands who had assembled to enjoy it — then its really not that big of a deal for anybody, including those who might otherwise choose to snub it.

If anything, Pride is a reminder to us all that love is at the core of lovemaking, whoever is doing that loving. And seriously, we have bigger issues to worry about as a people than who is shacking up with who.