SAN FRANCISCO bridges the generation gap
Deadhead dad, Techhead son find some common ground
I was three years old when the Summer of Love dawned in San Francisco. When my son was three, cellphones with built-in cameras went on sale in Canada.
Cellphones with cameras? Just try to buy a cellphone without one today.
As a 16-year old in 1980, the music, books and movies of the Sixties inspired me; my 16-year old son is fascinated by the future and technology. Needless to say, with me interested in the past and him looking beyond the present, finding common ground when on a holiday is difficult.
Until we went to San Francisco.
THE EVE OF DISRUPTION
In 2016, the word ‘disruption’ is synonymous with technological advancements and innovations that have forever changed industries that seemed impervious to change. In the 1960s it was the radiating rays from that Summer of Love that disrupted so many facets of society and culture. The case can be made it had a greater impact on the world than the computer chip.
At least, that was what I was trying to tell my kid as we flew into San Francisco International. Cue the eye-rolling.
But during our trip, we encountered touchstones from both eras, with him coming away with a better understanding of the profound impact of the Sixties, and me coming to accept that there’s no turning back from the brave new world.
Here’s a look at some of the places and activities that saw those two worlds meet.
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS GAME
Few sporting events are as steeped in tradition as a major-league baseball game.
From Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the seventh-inning stretch to the slow-paced rhythm of the game itself, baseball prides itself on offering a sentimental slice of the past.
That’s certainly true of a San Francisco Giants game at AT&T Park, but as we discovered, tech is as much about the fan experience as root-root-rooting for the home team.
And yes, there’s an app for that. In fact there’s a couple. The first is At Bat, the official app of Major League Baseball that offers streaming video of live games and highlights, along with real-time stats. Then there’s the Ballpark app, which provides all kinds of information about AT&T Park. This great app provides in-game features, allows you to purchase and manage tickets, and even browse concession menus and order food from your seat.
And the best part, according to my son? Free Wi-Fi!
SF LOVE TOURS
Having done a few hop-on hop-off bus city tours over the years, I decided to spring this one on my son with no warning. Good thing too, as when we approached the parked hippie-fied VW bus at Fisherman’s Wharf, he hesitated. ‘Dad, what are doing?’
When I asked the driver if he was John, the jig was up but soon we were in the back row seat as the opening chords of Hotel California filled the bus.
For the next two hours, John led us on a fantastical journey through the many distinct districts of San Francisco in this one-of-a-kind city tour.
SF MOMA
Given the choice, my son would take a bus tour over an art gallery any day, so this visit to the Museum of Modern Art was also sprung on him at the last minute.
His exasperation was suspended when he was handed an interactive personal device with headphones for the self-guided tour. It’s amaz- ing how a little tech goes a long way.
The gallery was closed for three years to undergo an expansion, and its reopening in May was the talk of the art world. The new space did not disappoint, nor did the collection of some 1,100 works loaned for 100 years to the gallery by Doris and Donald Fisher, the founders of the Gap.
A nice discovery was an exhibit of computer technology under the guise of design sculpture.
Asked what he thought of the show, my son said, “It was OK.” High praise indeed.
GOCONNEKT
Upon check-in at Hotel G, we were given a fantastic little device called GoConnekt.
The boutique hotel — situated in the heart of Union Square — had just received the fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand devices, so we were among the first to try one out.
Essentially, it’s a mobile hot-spot that emits a Wi-Fi signal that up to 10 devices can connect to. In other words, as you travel around the city, you can stay connected without needing to have a roaming plan with your service provider. Brilliant.
And with a daily fee of just $15 for 1GB of use, it’s a bargain for a family or group when compared to individual roaming fees.
PALO ALTO
For our final night we headed down to Palo Alto for a stay at the Epiphany Hotel, located in the midst of the town’s high-tech high road.
Despite the 21st century trappings all around us — the energy among the 20-something techheads that populate the main street at night is crackling — we were thrown back into the past at dinner that night and at brunch the next morning.
MacArthur Park Restaurant bills itself as a BBQ joint, but, it is so much more. The restaurant opened in 1981, but the amazing building it resides in dates back to 1918. It was designed by trail-blazing architect Julia Morgan, and was originally a ‘Hostess House’ for visiting families of First World War servicemen.
The food — we were advised by everyone we asked to have the ribs — outdid the setting, and even my son, who had been lobbying for InN- Out Burger, agreed that it was a very memorable meal.
That was until the next morning when we had brunch at St. Michael’s Alley, a three-minute stroll from the Epiphany. There was a bit of a wait for a table at the small bistro, favoured by locals, but once inside the service was top notch, as was the food.
My son couldn’t help but overhear conversation at other tables, most of which was peppered with words like ‘startup,’ ‘valuation’ and ‘investors.’
Just as we were commenting that it felt like a scene out of ‘Silicon Valley,’ the delightful maître d’ Rigel approached our table.
“I heard you are a fan of the Grateful Dead,” he said to me. “Well, you’d be interested to know that back in the mid- Sixties the Warlocks played St. Michael’s when it was a coffee house just around the corner.”
I explained to my son the Warlocks was the Dead’s original name. To his credit, and for Rigel’s sake, he fought off the eye roll.
COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM
We’d specifically stayed in Palo Alto on our final night so that we could visit this shrine to tech in nearby Mountain View.
Despite his cool demeanour, I knew this was something my son had been looking forward to.
We missed out on the guided tour — which runs every two hours or so — so forged off on our own.
The exhibits are organized chronologically in the main gallery, called Revolution, beginning with the world’s first computer — the abacus — and running through 2,000 years of computing. As you proceed through the rooms you discover the holy grails of computing: the Babbage Difference, the Hollerith Electric Tabulating System, Enigma, Cray-1 Supercomputer, Apple-1 circuit board, the original Google Server engine circa 1999.
My son ate it all up, despite me getting excited about displays featuring the tech from my youth.
“Hey Callum, check this out! Head-to-Head Football! And Atari!”
I suspect there was eye-rolling, but he’d laid eyes on a self-driving Google car and was gone.
As we headed out of the museum and to the Model X, plugged in with a dozen or so more Teslas at the big supercharging station in the museum’s parking lot, the Sixties seemed very, very far away.
Young people rode by on multicoloured Google bikes, commuter vans festooned with colourful tech company icons rolled by, and in the distance stood sparkling new offices of the tech revolution and NASA’s Ames Research Centre.
I felt at once detached and a part of it all, as if it was a waking daydream that was taking place with or without my consent or acceptance. For my son, it was a beautiful reality.
For both of us, it was a trip where, despite the inevitability of us growing apart, we grew closer.
(And yes Callum, you can roll your eyes now.)