October 12, 2017--Not-So-Smart Phone

I know that more and more things are only accessible with a smart phone. Like calling for an Uber car. 

Even though I realize I'm being left behind, here's why I still do not want one. It all became clear to me over breakfast the other morning with John Allan. 

As usual we were having a wide-ranging discussion. Somehow, the film Clockwork Orange came up. John, Rona, and I remembered it vividly. But for quite some time none of us could remember who directed it. I thought it was Richard Lester, who I recalled was thought of at the time as a filmmaker who was influenced by Mod style. 

Neither John nor Rona remembered him and I wasn't sure I even knew his name. And of course, I couldn't remember the titles of any of his movies. 

John reached for his iPhone and began entering Clockwork Orange. Before he could get too far with that, I asked him not to do so, saying I wanted to challenge my memory and didn't want to get right to the answer. 

He put the phone down, smiling at my desire to test my memory. At my age, I like to do that as much as possible, though often I get frustrated and think I have Alzheimer's. John understood that as he struggles with some of the same issues.

I continued to play around with Richard Lester's name, spelling it various ways--Lester, Lister, Lesnor--in an attempt to spur my memory, thinking that if I could do so I'd also be able to confirm that he was in fact the director none of us could remember.

We struggled with this for some time before Rona blurted out, "Stanley Kubrick. He's the director. I'm sure of that." She leaned back, feeling proud of herself. 

"I'm not so sure," I said, "I still think it was Richard or John Lester."

Quickly aggravated, Rona said to John, "I think it's now OK to look it up on your phone. No reason to struggle anymore with that since I'm sure . . ."

Before she could complete her thought John confirmed the director was Kubrick. 

In the meantime, though I reluctantly agreed, I felt certain that the director I was thinking about was Lester, Richard Lester. "I think he made the film Bedazzled and something with Julie Christie."

John had proceeded to look him up, "Yes he did make a film with Julie Christie, you were at least right about that; but, how could we have forgotten, the Beatles' Hard Days Night."

"I loved that movie," I said. "When it came out I was with my ex-wife in Dublin and it was playing across from a pub we had turned into our 'local.' We got on line with hundreds of kids and saw it. It was a terrific film and Lester was the director. But what about Bedazzled? Who made that?"

Looking at his phone, John said, "It was Stanley Donen, who also made a lot of musicals including Singin' in the Rain."

"Amazing," Rona said, "How a simple reference to Clockwork Orange has us thinking about the Beatles and Singin' in the Rain.

"And Julie Christie," I said. "Don't forget her. Did I ever tell you my Julie Christie story?" Rona rolled her eyes. She has heard it at least 100 times. John indicted he was interested.

"This goes back to 1967. My ex-wife, again, and I had driven cross country to San Francisco where Lisa was enrolling in the Art Institute. We rented a houseboat on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge in the houseboat community in Sausalito. It was quite a time to be there. The Summer of Love, the year Sargent Pepper was released, Haight-Ashbury. All that. And if you can believe it, also on a houseboat, just across the dock from us, living there were Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and the rest of the Grateful Dead."

No," John said.

"Really. We'd hang out with them when they practiced and smoked together. They had the best stuff in the marina."

"You're making this up," John said.

"Not at all," I said, "You can check it out. In your phone, type in Grateful Dead, 1967, and Sausalito. It'll come up."

He did and it did. "Amazing," he said, "And Julie Christie?"

"You can look that up too. Just enter her name and also Sausalito. Then click on 'Images' and a picture of her houseboat will appear. It was a big yellow ferry. It was also near our dock, on the San Fransisco side. She was there having just made Petulia with George C. Scott. Richard Lester was the director. I'm sure of all to this. I remember it." I was happy to report that. That I remembered it."

"Sounds like it was fun," John said.

"It was. And if you can believe it, Julie Christie and I became friendly. She was living with a French guy, a so-called artist, I think in fact more a boy-toy. But we became friendly and then over the years when she was in New York she'd occasionally call and we would get together. Once, she took me on a 'date' to see Hamlet on Broadway. An actor friend of hers, whose name I can't remember, played Hamlet. He wasn't that good, but we had fun."

"I get your point," John said. "Not looking things up prematurely can jar the memory. And is a good antidote to feeling you have dementia. That is, until you have it."

"Now you're sounding just like him," Rona sighed.

"I could look that up," John said, getting his smart phone ready. "The actor who played Hamlet." He looked at me to see if I was inclined to want him to do so.

"Let's leave that for another time." Rona was itching to leave.

Sausalito--The Yellow Ferry

November 13, 2105--Uber

In Aftershock: The Next Economy & America's Future I think it was Robert Reich who wrote about how the middle class has struggled to adapt to the new service economy by a variety of responsive strategies.

In the old economy, with well-paying manufacturing jobs economically anchoring millions of families, it was men primarily who worked in factories and offices while women stayed at home and worked there to maintain the household and assume primary responsibility for raising the children.

At that time, for most the jobs available to middle-class men were enough to sustain their families and provided enough so the next generation could do better than their parents.

But then the compounding affect of inflation and the decline in the number of these good jobs made it impossible to maintain families' life style with only one job and only one person working outside the home.

So men added part time jobs to help them keep even. And more and more women began to work outside the home and struggled both to do that and continue to take primary responsibility for childcare.

But 10-15 years ago this also began not to work.

To compensate families next turned to debt financing.

The one appreciated asset many families had was the rising value of their homes. Those who owned one. And so to maintain their financial status millions refinanced their dwellings. The loose lending environment was such that it was easy to get financing for more than real estate was worth, and families used that extra money--extra debt--to finance their lives and life styles.

Then everything collapsed and millions found themselves under water.

Looking around, they couldn't figure out what to do. Some decided to defer or even not have children. Others turned to the underground economy. More depended on various forms of government subsidies.

And yet others found ways to turn their only two remaining assets into income--

They earned extra money by renting their homes, apartments, and spare bedrooms via Web-based operations such as airbnb and turned their cars into taxis via Uber.

When this no longer works to keep families afloat, what will be next?