Are my eyes really blue?

Our first place of our own in California was in Mountain View, close to Castro Street – the main drag of downtown. And my vestigial cigar habit meant I needed to spend plenty of time outdoors of an evening, which gave me lots of time to wander up and down Castro to see what was doing.  I had been around there before on visits to California – mostly to go to Books Inc and occasionally to Dana Street Roasting – but this was the first time I could really wander up and down and see what was happening.

It’s been eight years since that autumn, and last night I got to see most of Castro en route to dinner.  And what struck me was how much has turned over.  The big appliance store appears to have some tech company in that space. Kapp’s Pizza is now Restaurant 191. King of Krung Siam is gone, replaced with a Cal-Mex fusion place. The former Wienerschnitzel on the corner of California and Castro has been half a dozen things before settling on a burger-and-beer-garden. The cigar shop is now a Mediterranean joint – under the same ownership. The pool room almost immediately turned into some sort of velvet rope nightclub. And the mildly dodgy cellphone-and-clothing shop has turned into three or four restaurants and is now waiting to get turned into Crepevine.

It’s not all bad. The Scientologists are gone, which is fine, as I got my anecdote out of them; they had nothing left to offer but an excuse to cross the road.  La Bamba has arrived, for all my carne-asada-nachos needs. Red Rock has expanded to two stories. Neto is the first coffee still on offer at midnight. Jane’s Beer Store is now open with almost any brew you can imagine, Ava’s has provided a legit grocery store, and Scratch provided a top-shelf date night restaurant with cocktail offerings to match.

Meanwhile, plenty has carried on like normal. Books Inc is still hanging on in an Amazon world, as is the used bookstore next door. The gelato place is still featuring a longer line than the velvet-rope nightclub. St Stephens Green and Molly Magees are still offering plenty of food and drink respectively, although the Saint’s Irish character isn’t what it was when I arrived.  Then again, neither is mine, I suppose. Best of all, Los Charros is still serving up a carne asada plate with a bottle of Jarritos for a price that has climbed from preposterously to merely ridiculously cheap.

But a lot has changed, and it drives home the point that I’ve actually been here longer than I was in DC. In fact, I’ve spent fully twenty percent of my entire life as a Californian now, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.

The buzz around town today is about whether Color is going down or not. Color launched in March 2011 as some sort of social-photo-location app for iOS – basically the perfect storm of buzzword compliance. It went nowhere, reinvented itself as a live-self-video-streaming app, and now is allegedly on the brink of shutting its doors.

And it’s based in Palo Alto, which is the point of this exercise. Of course it is.

What are the things that have transformed American life in recent years? Google: Mountain View.  Apple: Cupertino. Twitter: San Francisco.  Facebook: founded in a Harvard dorm room, but incorporated in Palo Alto.  When they moved, did they move to Texas?  Did they move to Alabama, or Mississippi?  Hell no.  They moved to Silicon Valley.

It’s become fashionable of late for certain conservatives to point to California as a dysfunctional, financially doomed canary in the coal mine of the American economy, on the verge of going down like Greece.  I’ll set aside the fact that if California only paid as much federal tax as it gets back in federal services, the budget would be in surplus (you’re welcome, rednecks) and I’ll also set aside the preposterous clusterfuck created by Prop 13 that requires a 2/3 vote of both houses to pass a budget when 50%+1 of a referendum vote can change the state constitution.  Instead, I’ll just ask: if California is a horrible place to do business, why hasn’t Apple decamped to Austin? Why didn’t Twitter relocate into a nice set of lofts overlooking Railroad Park? Why didn’t Facebook take over a shiny new campus hard by the future Interstate 22 in the scenic bit of Mississippi?

This doesn’t even require an answer. In fact, it probably leads to a lot of guffaws at the notion of, say, Knoxville as the new home of Gewww-gull. But to hear everyone from Newt Gingrich to the Economist tell it, businesses are dying to get away from places like California and relocate to the low-tax laissez-faire paradises of the Deep South.  But there’s a hell of a lot more to it than that.  If that’s all it took, manufacturing wouldn’t be overseas and design wouldn’t be in the Bay Area.

Fact of the matter: the Southern approach to economics doesn’t work. You can cut taxes to the bone, cut services to nothing, offer billion-dollar tax incentives to the likes of Mercedes and make up the difference with 9% sales tax and income tax starting on $5000 a year, but it’s not going to deliver the New Jerusalem to your notional Silicon Holler.  Too many people are trying to sell us the idea that the race to the bottom is the only way to turn the economy around – but that only works if you think Alabama is heaven on Earth.

Of which…you know.

So I got the shots. And stayed home all day, and only did a half-day at work Thursday – of which more in a moment.  And I’m feeling something similar to the last round of prednisone – I know that all I had was cortisone in a disk, which should reduce inflammation, but I’m having everything from insomnia to stiff muscles to drowsiness to a cough to weird intestinal happenings…basically it feels like I’m having my DNA rewritten from the inside out.

When I did come in, though, I found out that work will be featuring the kind of emergency crash program that made me in the summer of 2003.  This time, it means a massive cleanup/deployment of stuff that should be out there already: remote management, online backup, and whole-disk encryption.  It’s a huge priority, it’s an emergency, it’s a massive project with a hard deadline, it’s a crisis environment.

And today I broke out the riot reds and my old Indy jacket from DC, because this is what I live for at the office.  Somebody else broke it.  These guys will fix it.  We need fast, effective and brilliant, and we have to have all three.

I’m Winston Wolf.  I solve problems. May I come in?

I’m sure I’ve commented on this before, but it bears repeating: there is a substantive difference between specialist opinion and the general public, and it’s the same in politics and technology alike.  It’s because most people aren’t really paying that much attention.  Take the iPhone 5, for instance – judging from the technology press, you’d think that the iPhone 5 was the biggest disaster since New Coke.  And yet, sales are through the roof and more people are citing the new Lightining connector as a bigger issue than the new Maps.

Similarly, to most accounts, the vice-presidential debate was mostly a wash, maybe a slight edge to the Vice-President – unless you’re on Twitter, where everyone was persuaded that their guy had mopped the floor with the other fellow.  And let’s be honest – between the most gripping playoff baseball in years and a Thursday night NFL game, how many people were paying attention to a vice-presidential debate?  A VP debate is like watching the ACC Championship Game in football – unless you’re watching to see gaffes and to jone on the participants, there’s really nothing to be gained by wasting your time.

The thing is, you wind up with a participatory minority, usually highly partisan and motivated, and a vast majority who doesn’t really care that much or pay that much attention.  This is less scary or upsetting in the realm of consumer electronics than in addressing who’s going to be President of the United States.  But ever since 1996, the push in Presidential elections has been to get your guys to the polls in a low-participation environment, and in some cases to try to press participation down until your share pops above 50% by one vote.

It’s a mixed bag.  People need to understand politics and technology – you don’t have to be an expert, but you should know how to use the tools in front of you.  And once again, I’m starting to wonder if Westminster isn’t a better way – if nothing else, to eliminate the logjam from separation of legislative and executive powers and provide for more rapid-response elections at times of no confidence…

So Levi’s and Filson are collaborating again. This year, the Tin Cloth trucker jacket has an additional black version alongside the tan. And during Bay Super Weekend last Sunday I had the opportunity to try it on at the Levi’s flagship in Union Square.

As it turns out, the fit is a lot more normal. All they had was a large, and I needed an XL, but it was easy to extrapolate from the large that I only need to go up the one size. And the black looked better than I was expecting. I need black outerwear like I need a hole in the head – I have the shell, the Vandy soft shell, the Claiborne casual jacket, the black Uniqlo blouson, the WWDC zip-up thing, plus a peacoat in a true navy that’s almost indistinguishable from black and an old oilcloth duster that came from DC and is probably only of use for costume parties at this point.

So why this one?

For starters, it checks a whole lot of random boxes. Classic American workwear. The denim jacket look without being a jean jacket. Made in the USA by two iconic American brand names. Water resistance without the “performance outerwear” look that everybody else relies on. I may not be a trucker, but I’m a hell of a lot closer than being a hiker.

Drawbacks: it’s woefully expensive. It’s not got a hood, which is a detriment to the whole waterproof thing (although in a steady pour I’m going to be using an umbrella, one hopes). It won’t hold the iPad inside, but that’s what the shoulder holster is meant to provide (once the shoulder is healthy).

But it’s like the automatic watch, or the 1460 For Life DMs, or my Rickshaw and Timbuk2 bags, or the peacoat – it’s something I could legitimately use for the rest of my life.

Something to think about.

No bigs, as it turns out, though it was a far more involved process than I was expecting. I anticipated some betadine, some local numbing agents and bing bang boom, all done in five minutes. Instead there was an hour of prep, a half hour of recovery, an IV line, a sedative, constant blood pressure and oxygen-level monitoring, a gown, a hairnet, and a big bag to keep all my S in for the duration.

But it’s done, and I have laid around the house and done fuckall today, and will do fuckall in an abbreviated day at work tomorrow. And maybe by this time next week, I’ll be better.

It’s weird, knowing that people you barely know and have never met are thinking of you and wishing you well in your time of need. And yet. Maybe that’s how this grace thing works.

It’s all of a piece, when you think about it.  The Me Generation, that sobriquet of opprobrium for the Baby Boomers, is especially appropriate when looking at Team GOP’s plans for Medicare – if you’re over 55, you have nothing to worry about, you will get the same quality government-run free health care as ever.  If you’re under 55?  Root hog or die.

When you think about it, that’s the Randian ethos at its finest: I got mine, fuck you.  It’s become elevated to a cultural imperative – think of the solipsistic drivers that make driving in California so noxious, especially since they always seem to be one-to-a-vehicle. Think of the reality-TV ethic, which is how we wind up with everything from Kardashians to Jersey Shore to Honey Boo Boo – it doesn’t matter why I’m famous so long as you spell my name right, and often. Look at me, look at me, look at me.

Hell, just look at the whiny-ass titty-babies who fancy themselves captains of industry, masters of the universe – they got filthy rich off the Bush Decade, they got made whole by bailouts, they got the stock market roaring all the way back, and yet because Obama hurt their precious fee-fees and suggested they might need to pay the same tax they did during those brutally business-oppresive 1990s, he is beyond the pale and must be vanquished. I got mine, fuck you.

Maybe that’s how I got to be how I am. I didn’t have Boomer parents, so I didn’t get the Millennial you-are-a-very-special-snowflake routine (which I can only assume stems from projecting yourself on your kids) – I was legit gifted and all I ever got was browbeaten with enough humility for any three Buddhist monks.  Think of others.  Think of the greater good. Non nobis solum. Team spirit.  Born to be second-in-command, vice president, senior noncom, the wingman.  I wonder sometimes if the egomania I affected back in the late 80s – or in 2003-04 – might have been better off as real arrogance, real self-confidence, as something other than a front.  Actually, by the end of 2003 it probably wasn’t a front – I was genuinely supremely confident in my abilities, at least at the office.  Honestly I wouldn’t mind getting back there at some point, and I’d even try not to be an ass about it.

Ultimately, that’s the question: because if you think of others, and nobody else does, you’ll get plowed under.  Prisoner’s dilemma.  If everyone else is a dick and you aren’t, you get crushed; if nobody else is a dick and you are, you get your way (at the expense of being liked, I suppose), if nobody is a dick then we’re living in fantasyland, if everybody’s a dick then there is no society.  So if society as a whole is radically oriented toward the mad dickish – where the hell do we go from there?

Actually, never mind. Hell kind of covers it.  Sartre was right.

Five years ago, I went under the gas to have my knee scoped. I was more nervous about it than I let on at the time, because anytime you black out, bad things can happen. Ask anyone who ever woke up on a frathouse couch with someone’s junk traced on their face.  But ultimately, that was my knee, nothing to get too bent out of shape about.

Tomorrow, I will get my neck numbed and a huge needle stuck into my spine, to deliver steroids straight to an inflamed disc that is, to all accounts, the principle issue behind my ongoing shoulder pain these last couple of years.  I am a little sensitive about anything to do with the spine, partly because of my dad’s issues and partly because it’s your goddamn spine. It’s the core of the nervous system, it’s where the action happens, it’s the next thing after the brain.  It’s nothing to fuck with.

On the one hand, my chiropractor recommends this guy as being an artist at that sort of thing, that he’s had thousands of patients and never a glitch. On the other hand, there’s a rash of fungal meningitis back East owing to a bad batch of drugs from a compounding pharmacy (an outbreak that was identified by Vanderbilt University Medical Center after the first case popped up at another Nashvile clinic; Anchor Down).  On the third hand, the scrutiny of drugs is going to be tighter than ever, which means whatever they give me will have been inspected and sorted properly.  On the fourth hand, it’s a fucking needle in my spine.

I’m not freaking out, honestly I’m not. Of course it’s not happening yet.  I’m very good at la-di-da right up until the moment that I’m confronted with not being able to feel my neck when they numb it.  Hopefully they’ll have space to plug in an iPod or something else distracting while the action happens, but probably not.  Price of doing business.  A couple days rest and maybe this’ll be an end of it for a while…maybe a couple more years of normal function before it starts to twinge again.  This is just the price of getting old.

So I’m due to have a cortisone shot this week.  This is the ultimate culmination of two years of going round and round on this weird neck thing that went away for a year or so only to rear its head again this spring past – I’ve run out of patience waiting for it to go away on its own and this is the logical next step.

Problem is, in the week leading up to this procedure, I can’t take almost any of the normal NSAIDs. Ibuprofen, naproxen, etc etc – all of them are contraindicated with the upcoming injection. So the doctor who’s doing the injection called in a prescription for Celebrex, which is hepatic rather than renal and thus all right to use in case I need painkillers for the duration.  And I went to pick it up…and Blue Shield refused to cover it.

See, Blue Shield doesn’t see anything in my prescription record that says I’ve taken two other NSAIDs, and they think I should take those first. Despite the fact that everything they cite as an alternative is on the list of contraindicated meds for this procedure. Despite the fact that my primary care physician specifically told me to take prescription-level doses of Advil rather than write a script that she didn’t expect Blue Shield would cover, because it’s an OTC drug.

In other words, Blue Shield is second-guessing my doctors. And incorrectly, given the nature of the problem. The doctor tells me not to use these drugs, and Blue Shield says I must use those drugs. Impasse. The catch is, one of those parties is making decisions based on (presumably) medical training and experience, and the other one is making decisions based on what the three-ring binder says to do.

And ultimately, this is why privately-insured health care will fuck you: because a private insurer’s entire business model depends on them not providing you with the coverage for which you paid.  So far this year, Blue Shield has refused to pay for these meds, and refused to pay the MRI provider because they didn’t have the right pre-authorization. I haven’t delved into that at all, because I’ve never yet gotten a bill, but I fully expect that at some point it will come back to me, at which point, well, if I have to go around seeking pre-authorization for everything I do, what’s the point of paying through the nose for a PPO?  If I want to be in an HMO, I’ll pay Kaiser less money for the privilege.

This is why the teabaggers can kiss my ass: because the bureaucrats between you and your doctor are already here. They have been for years. At this point, the dipshits with their tricorn hats and Medicare scooters are fighting like hell for Blue Shield’s right to keep screwing me while they ride off with their own government-provided health care, and I’m not about to sacrifice myself so a bunch of fucking baby boomers can have gold-plated care in their dotage.

And here’s the thing: I can afford those pills.  Vandy Lifestyle, bitches. $5.71 a tablet means nothing to me. How many people are there who need medication that they can’t afford to pay $180 a bottle for? What are they supposed to do? Well, the doctor thinks you need this, but oops, insurance company doesn’t think you do, so you can lump it or find the scratch to pay for it all yourself? Or forget about the procedure? Get the doctor to write a script for something else and hope that gets covered, then hope that when it doesn’t work, Blue Shield will deign to let you try what the doctor originally wanted to use?

This is why I back Obamacare. This is why I back single-payer.  Perfect? No, but it’s not going to insult my intelligence by screwing me over and charging me for the privilege while telling me this is the greatest system of health care in human history and how lucky I am not to be a poor benighted Canadian or Briton. Non nobis solum, assholes. Not for ourselves alone. That’s what society means.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”