A tsunami of tech is engulfing our nation, and in the process, redecorating communities like a family of grizzly bears locked in a Volkswagen Van. A family of obscenely paid bespectacled grizzly bears with a taste for artisanal toast.
Remember back in high school when the freaks and geeks and nerds were ostracized and used as objects of scorn and derision? Well, pull out the yearbooks, pom poms and letter sweaters because those halcyon days are back. Although a lot of us will be skipping gym class. Atomic wedgies all around.
The nerds have come full circle, shedding their recently acquired soft, fuzzy status as lovable underdogs to once again be reviled, this time as hipster locusts laying waste to traditional neighborhoods with their voracious appetite for kale, quinoa and six-dollar cups of aged Sumatran eggnog macchiatos. With a free trade, shade grown cinnamon rinse of course.
Here in the Bay Area, Google has become the early adopter of cascading contempt through such high profile projects as Google Glass, the eyeglass computer only available to the precious invited few and Google Buses, reserved for the precious fewer. These luxury roach coaches hijack and misuse municipal infrastructures to ferry the pork pied Masters of the Universe 2.0 from deep dark cities central to idyllic oases in Silicon Valley. Where they are fed free gum and candy.
Stretching their motto of “don’t be evil” into elastic threads, Google recently constructed a large barge in the middle of San Francisco Bay, refusing to tell the public or government officials its intended use. Facing an ultimatum to reveal the purpose or move, the barge was floated under the cover of darkness to Stockton. Another is moored in Portland, Maine; both suspiciously equidistant from Omaha, Nebraska. Doesn’t bode well for Warren Buffett.
Known simply as Glass, the computerized spectacles look like something out of the Borg accessory catalogue and double down on those blue tooth earpieces that make it difficult to distinguish between investment bankers and the crazed homeless. Like there’s a difference.
All men are created equal, but some are more equal than others and those desiring to appear most equal are shelling out 1,500 dollars for this strap-on symbol of techie privilege. Ostensibly still in beta phase, the hype however is overwhelming anticipation, running the risk of Glass turning obsolete before its general release — the laser disc of wearable computers. Betamax Glass. Besides, most everybody is waiting for Apple to make them user friendly anyway.
Meanwhile, irrevocable damage is being done through permanent alterations to the landscapes onto which the ravaging techsters have descended. This October, the shares of Twitter employees are fully vested and 2,000 millionaires will hit the streets of San Francisco. And people will speak dreamily of the good old days when a studio in the Mission with no parking and the smell of old men embedded into the walls only cost $3,500. OK, Glass, evict.
Because of the vast monies being bandied about, all of us will be forced to cater to these concentrated hordes, raising the question, who are the real Glasswipes here? The insular entitled techie menace blissfully traipsing down sidewalks bemusedly contemplating cat videos on their face-borne computers or the rest of us desperate supplicants poised to wipe their tiny windscreens clean with our miniature squeegees? There’s an app for that.
— Will Durst is an award- winning, nationally acclaimed political comic. Go to willdurst.com to find about more about his new CD, “Elect to Laugh,” the one- man show “BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG,” a calendar guide to personal appearances and info about the documentary film “3 Still Standing” benefit to raise post production money at 142 Throckmorton on May 9.
