Last week, I flew out to San
Francisco. I'd been invited to speak
on two panels at the MacWorld
Conference. One was the big keynote,
called "Cyberstars of the Internet". 
I was so excited. A week in the great
Gay Bay, most expenses paid by ICon
(this magazine's publisher). I was
positive I was gonna meet the
supercool cyberboys and go to all
kinds of crazy parties. 


So the plane lands and I grab my superdemo
station suitcase out from baggage claim. 
Its contents include: a Spark hard drive
with a Texas Instruments laptop
front-end, ready to project WORD from
a local hard drive. I got all the dope
moves: the cgi animations,  the real
audio, the smart & beautiful
graphically designed stories all
safely running out of VGA output.
I had a powerdemo ready to fly.

Tuesday morning I wake up at 9:30 and 
cab it down to the Marriott. I get there
after the set-up time, but it doesn't
matter, cuz things are already way off
the plan. First off, Steven Levy, my
favorite NYC writer(and fellow
moderator) isn't there. He got hung up
in NYC because  of the hurricane. Then
it turns out that *none* of my NYC
homeys are there. And as if that's not
bad enough, they've replaced the panelists 
with San Fran techno hippy types, including 
John Perry Barlow. 
 

One of these guys introduces himself to 
me as a "Cyberstar replacement" and I 
realize that I am doomed. I try to be a 
good sport and go about my business and 
set up my stuff, but they refuse to
connect my gear cuz it's PC and not
Mac. So I complain to uncaring ears.
Seems they're in a bit of a mood. I guess I
can understand, though, seeing as how
they had just *fired* their top 4 vp
executives because of HUGE and
EMBARRASSING, HUMILIATING company loss.
Apple assholes.
  
Finally, the conference got underway. 
At the last moment, they let me
use Apple's T1 to demo WORD, but of course 
the real audio doesn't work cuz of open 
transport. After me, the geek hippies talked 
about Apple scripts and Apple politics; 
none of it had to do with cyberspace at all.  
It was pretty bad. But then it happened-- the
fuckin' worst: they ended the panel
with a song. It wasn't just any song.
It was "Give Peace A Chance." I stage dove 
off into an oblivion of embarrassment for 
my cyberculture.


The parties were just as lame. The 
last night of the conference I was invited 
to a "Yuppie"  party out in Sausalito. 
It was on a house boat owned by some New 
Ageists from Pixar. I felt out of place 
in this jungle of 40somethings dropping 
lines like: "I am working on this amazing 
web site that has applications that take 
the net into the next millenium, but I
can't show you anything cuz I am under
nondisclosure." 
 
At one point, I was taking a piss, and 
this cyberqueen busts into the bathroom. 
I said "Excuse me, I'm just about done" 
and she goes, "That's okay". What do you
mean?  That it's *okay* for me to pee
in your presence? Witch.. 
 
Turns out she was preparing for some hippy
dance, cuz moments later, she shows up
on the floor in black lace with a
candle attached to her head doing a
strange, slow Arabic snake dance. She
had a young girl with her, handing out
little crack vials filled with smelly
shit I was supposed to rub on my
forehead. I poured it on one of their
SGIs and left. What a bust. 

I don't know why I'd had such high
expectations from the MacWorld
Conference, but in the end,  it was
just another computermall of useless
CD-Roms, uninteresting software, and
hardware sales that couldn't compete
with any brochure stuffed into my
mailbox at my office. 


During offtime, I had my buddy Steve Speer 
give me a tour of the latest and greatest 
of the "multi media gultch". We visited the
"lofts" of Organic, Wired, and Hot
Wired. The funny thing was that these
offices were located in the same
building as a bunch of sweatshops. One
office was stuffed with Chinese women
hacking away at sewing machines; next
store was stuffed with 22 year-olds in
Gap outfits hacking away on Macs or on
the phone trying to sell web ads. Big
lofts stuffed with underpaid workers
so excited to be part of the American
dream; whether it be making the
clothes or wearing the clothes...
  
I'm not saying all of San Francisco is
dumb and pretentious. I'm just saying that
lame-ass motherfuckers can ruin a lot
of shit, and it's important to spit on
`em on your way out the door.