Happy New World !!!

Reading your editorial in the Dec. 24 The Malibu Times prompts me to demystify both the cultural problem you have highlighted, as well as my own technological design work that may sound somewhat mystifying, but actually addresses these issues. Here at the Turn of the Millennium, we suddenly find that we have been Screwed. The unparalleled and exponential economic expansion opportunities represented by the Internet now stand side-beside with the extraordinary prospect of global economic melt-down triggered by the same technology industry. So Happy New World!

I want to start by stating categorically that the global bugs, like “Y2K” which will be in the news all year, and the common susceptibility to viruses found in computers today, are not (repeat, not!) required by the laws of mathematics or by any of the principles of science. No, they are simply damn stupid errors, trivial, dumb-ass, goofy, and theoretically avoidable mistakes — but mistakes rendered virtually inevitable by the culture and economics surrounding the computer software industry as it exists in contemporary society. In other words, the industry is selling us defective products, which are now going to cost us Hundreds-of-Billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars, and may actually kill quite a few people in the process. Like the arms merchants who dominated most of the 20th Century, an enormous industrial complex is currently mass-producing our futures without the benefit of any foresight, insight or oversight.

I was not among the first-out on the subject of the Y2K bug, since some experts have warned of it for over 30 years now, and in fact I did not begin speaking about it on television until October of 1997, when I alerted Los Angeles on the Bill Rosendahl show. And Bill Clinton was a bit slower to get it than me, telling his Cabinet they faced “unparalleled disaster” over Y2K, even on that very day in January 1998 when the Monica story broke. However, based on decades of experience with the seamy underbelly and entrails of software technology, I have for some years now been on a seemingly “quixotic” quest for a programming medium that will not turn around and kill all of us in the long run — or perhaps even in the short run.

Remember HAL? Although merely a movie-land simulacrum of his true self as he will exist in the future, his personality as it appeared in the movie and book “2001” was the product of one of the most productive geniuses of the now-rapidly-fading 20th Century.

Arthur C. Clarke, writing back in the 1960s foresaw a computer technology that would become so sophisticated, so human-like, that it could turn paranoid-psychotic and begin coolly murdering people. Now the irony is that to achieve this perverse result does not in reality require such penultimate sophistication as Sir Arthur projected in “2001”, but merely sufficient complication, messiness, incomprehensibility and opacity –provided it is in a technology that is sufficiently wide-spread and upon which we are dependent for the necessities of our live. That condition has now come to pass. Witness Y2K, the so-called “Year 2000 Bug” or “Millennial Error”– which is a real No-Brainer — a stupid little error, formed under relatively mild economic pressures some 35 years ago, that is now costing the US Economy an estimated $650-Billion (Wall Street’s consensus estimate), even assuming it does not set off a couple stray nukes, a global recession, or crash a 747 into Hollywood. Now supposing we all survive January 1, year [20]00 as I expect most of us will, plus the ensuing 3-to-5 horribly inconvenient years it will take to clean up the global software backlog: What then? What awaits us in terms of new, as yet undetected or unannounced, bugs and viruses?? By 2005 we will be far more deeply in the grip of a global digital fur ball that is snowballing exponentially with no foresight except for short-term profitability and monopolistic control. What evils and flubs may lurk in secret tunnels of the software culture that are more recent and devious than the milder, older generation which generated the original, simple-minded, Y2K goof?

(Today CNN began large-scale coverage of Y2K. Only last week, the Social Security System crowed that it has successfully repaired 30,000,000 lines of computer code, and CNN reported that AT&T is now looking forward to fixing the 3000 distinct programs that run the long-distance telephone systems of half the world. Departments of the U.S. Government are now rated “A” through “F” on Y2K preparedness; some do not project being prepared until 2020!

Businesses are rated as “compliant or non-compliant”, but in reality “compliant” means only 95% OK. Meanwhile, software containing the Y2K bug is still being mass-produced and sold in the US and around the world, and in some cases is right now being installed into crucial points in the global communication network.)

Rather than obsessing on apocalypse now and then, I prefer to see a gigantic opportunity amid the mess of a world in which the sins of the current and old software paradigm will be glowingly exposed in terms of immediate megabuck losses and gigantic inconveniences. Herein looms an historic opportunity — indeed an historic necessity — to shift to a software technology paradigm that is lucid, manageable, consistent, published and — perhaps most importantly–one that clearly shows us the big picture of the artificial world we are now creating for ourselves. Let us try to glimpse how it can, must, shall be done — done, that is, if the world is not to be doomed to crash again and again and again. Crash, from man-made errors — bugs and virus vulnerabilities, holes and security backdoors — given the power to grow and reproduce themselves in this new artificial life form powered by ever-faster computers, and driven ever-onward by short-view economic incentives. For this purpose, I’ve convened the first annual Malibu symposium, “Radical Connectionism and the Visualization of Network Programs,” opening on the Pepperdine campus at noon on 16 January 1999 — combining ethicists, futurists and digital technologists — including keynote speakers Rabbi Dr. Benjamin Herson, Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Professor Mark Pesce, and symposium chairperson, Dr. Fiorella Terenzi.

Happy New World!

Francis Jeffrey

Psssssst. Your are not suppose to be reading this Why? Because I am not suppose to be writing it. According to Malibu Planning Commissioners Ruggles and Kabrin, I committed a big no-no by writing a letter to the editor informing you that the Planning Commission had deep-sixed red tile roofs and white painted walls in the Malibu Hillside Ordinance areas. So, if anyone asks you what you’re doing right now, tell them that you are reading Martha Stewart’s latest rum ball recipe.

Every time I try to explain that the founding Fathers in their infinite wisdom wrote the First Amendment, guaranteeing my right to write, I am gaveled down or told I may not speak on the subject, kind of funny huh? I get the feeling that they want to keep what is going on with the Hillside Ordinance kind of quiet.

What several of the planning commission members got really excited about was the letter to Father Serra suggesting he take his mission business elsewhere because his missions have red tile roofs and white walls. If you think that was a knee-slapper, wait till you hear this one: Under the lighting element of the Hillside Ordinance, as passed by the Planning Commission, outdoor lighting is to be “down-directed, low wattage and limited in application.” That’s right, your pet petunia will have to say out in the dark all by its lonesome because the ordinance does not allow up-lighting. I called the Malibu Lights Corporation and suggested that now that their up-lights are banned in the Hillside Ordinance area of Malibu, they might want to change their name from Malibu Lights to maybe Oxnard Lights. In Oxnard, up-lights are approved for all uses, including petunias. The company stated that they did not take the issue lightly, henceforth, they would be willing to ship their up-lights to Malibu in plain unmarked wrappers. I told them that their pun was real punishment, but their packaging offer was considerate.

I thought about using someone else’s name in signing this letter, which seems to be the fashion in Malibu, however, I used code for the sake of my pet petunia, who is presently in therapy for fear of being left alone in the dark.

neK yelsreaK

How do performing artists stay in business, years on end? “Cold-hearted Darwining” says Robby Barnett, former company member and now co-artistic director of Pilobolus.

“If the public is not amused by your plumage, you don’t last long. Somebody eats you.”

Pilobolus, the world-renowned modern dance company, returns to Pepperdine Jan. 15, having performed there in January 1996.

Barnett, speaking by telephone from his home in “rural” Connecticut, says, “One of the nice things about a regular return is that people know what you do. We don’t feel like we have to be geniuses every time. We can say, ‘This is what we’re thinking about this year.'”

Named after a fungus that reacts to light, the company began when four undergraduate Dartmouth men needed a gym class to graduate.

“We were not trained in the tradition of dance,” Barnett says in one of the great understatements. “We picked up bits of movement. The vocabulary we evolved was what amused us.” It has also amused, intrigued and taught the company’s audiences for the past 28 years.

How do they know when a piece is “working” for their audiences? “Rarely do we get insight from dance critics, I’m sorry to say,” he says. The choreographers do discern certain things from audience responses – “Not the tumultuous applause, but from the attention.”

To help keep itself alive in the tenuous world of professional dance companies, the company established an educational arm, the Pilobolus Institute, about 10 years ago.

Through the institute, the troupe teaches six-day choreographic intensives around the country, at prestigious university dance programs, at elementary schools and to IBM scientists. A duet company, Pilobolus II, in part provides interactive concerts for children.

The focus, says Barnett, is to stimulate interest in making dances, not just performing them.

The four co-artistic directors of Pilobolus share in business operations and in choreography. Barnett says they evolved a method that lets them work “unified” and without losing the eccentricities for which the company is known.

The company creates three new pieces every year. “One of the nice things about having a big group of choreographers is that we have consistent productivity,” says Barnett.

The Pepperdine program is scheduled to include five works, each new to Los Angeles.

“Apoplexy” opens the program, with score for guitar by Paul Sullivan, longtime collaborator with the company. Asked to describe the dance, Barnett says, “New works are new, and it’s a little hard to understand them. We are understanding them as we are doing them. They’re a form of self-analysis. Each piece is a record of the time in which it was made.”

A solo by co-artistic director Allison Chase follows, to music by David Mills.

“Gnomen” is a men’s quartet, also to Sullivan’s music. “We began as a men’s quartet,” Barnett says. “Maybe it’s a way of stepping back and looking at what we were.”

“Orangotango” says Barnett, is “a fun piece,” to music by Piazzolla.

“The Hand that Mocked, The Heart that Fed” grew out of the Doris Duke Millennium Awards for modern dance and jazz music collaborations. The composer is Maria Schneider, who writes for and conducts a 17-piece jazz orchestra. “As all our work eventually is,” says Barnett, “this is a look at collaboration, how groups of people interact with each other. The dancers are making changes all the time, and we are adapting them as we see new things.

“After all,” he says, “if you know what you wanted to say, why even bother? It’s the discovery. It’s the investigation.”

Twas the night before New Years and all through the Dume Room

The Malibu-ites were toasting the year gone too soon.

The wetlands that Val dumped all over Ed’s plans

Most thought it was stupid — Martin thought it was grand.

The city hall grumblings and lawsuits galore

Just make sure your house paint is “Ruggles du jour.”

The stunned squirrel that Streisand had flung from her yard

With neighbors like that better move to the ‘Nard.

The drunk and disorderly thronging our streets,

No license or i.d.– just long rap sheets.

Day laborers waited all day — no one stops

‘Cause the one you pick up might turn out to be cops.

Great Western, I mean, Washington Mutual Bank

Gave out more free money — but the crook didnt say thanks.

The squid boats were fewer but still shinin’ their lights

In the eyes of the rich folks in their mansions at night.

Cindy and hubby side-swiped by a horse

Got glass in her eyes but it could’ve been worse.

El Nino — muy press! — but it wasnt that grave

Unless it was your house got whacked by a wave.

Yes, a year to remember — lets salute it with cheer

And think of the poems I’ll be writing next year.

And so as I knock back one final drink

Am I north in the southbound? No, I’m southbound, I think. . .

Tom Fakehany

Every movie opens with coming attractions and a lot of hype. The trick is to see behind, or under or around, the hype and guess what it all really means.

Cities are no different, and there are lots of things coming up this year and a lot of hype that surrounds them.

So here are my predictions for the coming attractions for the next 12 months and what we say about them and what they really mean:

Sewage

The Regional Water Quality Control Board wants us to do something about our sewage problem in Malibu. We say, “We don’t have a sewage problem in Malibu,” or, if we do, “It’s somebody else’s fault, like Tapia for example.” Unfortunately, our claiming we’re the environmental good guys is wearing a little thin, especially since we’re resisting doing things like a dye study to really find the answer to the pollution problem in the Malibu creek and lagoon. My guess is that nothing much is going to happen on this unless the RWQCB really has the cojones, which I sincerely doubt, to demand we either prove we’re blameless or require we do something, like putting in a package plant or even the dirty word , a s_ _ _ _..

Cooperation and Amiability

Every member of the City Council would like to see a more amiable atmosphere around City Hall. They all agree that more cooperation would be a good thing. What they really mean is let’s do it my way and we’ll all get along. With a City Council election coming up in the year 2000, and Walt Keller and Carolyn Van Horn not only up for reselection but at the same time trying to knock off their former ally Joan House and replacing her with a more controllable political minion, we can all expect a very brutal and bloody year. House and her ally Harry Barovsky are not about to take this lying down, especially with Keller and Van Horn controlling the mayor’s gavel between now and the next election in April 2000.

Campaign Investigation

There are currently two political investigations underway of alleged campaign violations in the last, 1998 city council #campaign.

One investigation is being run by the state of California Fair Political Practices Commission. The other, and totally separate investigation, is being run by the Malibu city attorney Christi Hogin. Rumor has it that some very major show biz names are having their testimony taken under oath, and in the present political atmosphere I don’t think people are going to be lying under oath. The results of those investigations should be public early this year. A lot of rumors, but no one knows what may happen because all the investigators are being very tight-lipped about what they’re doing, who is involved and what might be the outcome. The results could be exoneration and no further action on one hand or trials and prosecutions on the other. Whichever it is, with all of the attention it’s highly unlikely that anyone can make any secret deals. Look for this to break into the open soon.

The Hillside Ordinance

Deeply politically split and philosophically divided planning commissioners were at each other’s throats last year over things like acceptable house colors and landscape controls and houses with camouflage colors. One group was constantly trying to muzzle the other, and since several Planning Commission members could be candidates for the City Council next time, this could turn out to be the most exciting ticket in town for the next year.

The Plan for the Civic Center

Councilmembers will battle over this all of the year, but don’t expect to see any resolution soon because even after they ultimately compromise and work out some sort of a deal you can pretty much expect some fringe environmental group will file a series of court challenges to try and slow it down or stop it altogether. I’m guessing that the finale to this one is several years away.

A Bookstore

I predict that within the next year a group of us will get together to do something to get a full-service bookstore in town.