Jarett Kobek - I Hate the Internet

Anyway, the band’s female members met on a Sushi Sunday. There was Minerva and there was Vasilisa and there was Galina.

They spoke Russian and discovered a shared love of three chord punk. They discovered a mutual desire to be in a band.

Minerva could sing, sort of. She had a guitar that she could play, sort of. Galina could play guitar, too. Sort of.

Vasilisa’s roommate had a bass guitar. Vasilisa couldn’t play bass but that didn’t matter. Bass guitar was punk’s least important instrument.

Most people ignored it.

Minerva, who had attended the Parsons School of Design, designed a flyer stating that the band was in search of a drummer.

She took the flyer to a copy shop. She was friends with one the employees. She ran off about 300 copies of the flyer. The employee hated his boss. He didn’t charge Minerva.

The flyer was taped to lampposts across the city.

A handful of people responded.

The only decent applicant had four serious defects: (1) He was 16 years old. (2) He wasn’t a woman. (3) He was American. (4) He lived in San Rafael.

But Minerva liked the kid. His drum sound was primitive and crude.

She convinced her fellow ex-Soviets by saying, “What is problem? Making music with pubescent is perfect punk rock. He is dissonant note in symphony of disaster.”

Daddy Was in KGB lasted a few years. They recorded a demo and released two 7” vinyl records.

Then the drummer made a pass at Galina, which was rebuffed, and then he went to college.

Then Vasilisa got pregnant after a one night stand with the guitarist from another band called DRUNK PEOPLE R LOUD.

And that was weird because Vasilisa was a lesbian.

But whatever. People are complicated.

The band broke up.

Minerva couldn’t remember who suggested it, but someone said that she should look into nursing. Which she did. It turned out that she loved it.

She believed that the confrontational aesthetics of Daddy Was in KGB were not about offending or hurting people but about healing them from their personal and social traumas.

Now she was healing bodies from physical trauma.

It was all the same thing, really. It depended on your point of view.

Minerva picked up Adeline.

“What do you need, bright girl? Why do you need car?”

“Darling,” said Adeline, “I can’t fathom whether or not you’ve made the acquaintance of my friend Christine, but I have simply accepted her crackpot theory that the Bay Area is nothing but a very great monstrosity of advertising. What I want to do is drive out to the airport, and then as you drive back, I will photograph every billboard as we approach the city. Perhaps we can know San Francisco’s unconscious thoughts.”

“Sure thing, bright girl,” said Minerva.

As they drove to the airport, Adeline told Minerva about the latest Twitter scandal.

A journalist named Caroline Criado-Perez had started a campaign to get Jane Austen on the ten pound British note. Thousands of people signed up and supported the effort. Caroline Criado-Perez’s WaNks Index Score was 2.577861406696081.

Jane Austen was a writer from the Nineteenth Century who had written books about marriage and money.

The Bank of England acquiesced. The Bank of England announced that Jane Austen would appear on the ten pound British note.

After the Bank of England announced that Jane Austen would appear on the ten pound British note, certain users of Twitter were outraged.

They were furious. They were frothing at the mouths. They were dumb assholes. Nothing is more odious in a society that hates women than a woman who expresses an opinion.

The more that people tweeted about Caroline Criado-Perez, the more that Twitter could serve advertisements. Nothing made people tweet like outrage.

So Twitter made money off of rape and death threats sent to Caroline Criado-Perez.

Adeline watched with fascination.

“Darling,” she said to Minerva, “If I keep on, I am rather sure I am going to receive my own threats of rape and death.”

“Fuck all bullshit men,” said Minerva. “Fuck them until they die. You say what you want. Fuck them all.”

Minerva arrived at San Francisco International Airport. She turned off the 101 South and then merged on to the 101 North. She drove all the way to Market Street.

Adeline was in the passenger seat with her camera. Her camera used actual 35mm film. She made Minerva drive in the right lane at 45 miles per hour.

Adeline took pictures of every billboard along the highway. These advertisements were the first thing which travelers saw upon entering the city. They were premium messages of the moment.

This is what San Francisco was saying in September 2013. This was the message of the streets, if only it could be deciphered and interpreted. These were the pieces of a puzzle:

(1) Giant Sweep

This billboard advertised a public service campaign spearheaded by the city of San Francisco and the San Francisco Giants. The San Francisco Giants were a baseball team which generated the illusion of meaning by winning the 2010 and 2012 World Series. Giant Sweep was a campaign dedicated to keeping San Francisco clean by guilting its citizens into performing services that should have been financed through taxes on the obscene wealth of its residents.

(2) iPad

This billboard advertised the iPad. The iPad had changed everything.

(3) Distributors Run NetSuite

This billboard advertised business management software, which was a tool for middle management boors. It allowed them to craft the illusion that their jobs had purpose in large, bureaucratic institutions. NetSuite was co-founded by a billionaire named Larry Ellison.

(4) Corporate mobile data will double this year. Are you in control?

This billboard advertised a company named Druva, which offered secure data integration across computers, tablets and mobile phones. Druva had raised funding from the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.

(5) Oracle Open World, Sept 22 — 26, San Francisco, #OOW13

This billboard advertised a conference dedicated to the products of Oracle, a company that sold database management software to other companies. Oracle was co-founded by a billionaire named Larry Ellison.

(6) NetApp is the world’s #1 storage OS? Yes, NetApp.

This billboard advertised NetApp, which was a company that offered remote data storage to other companies. Back in the 1990s, NetApp had raised funding from the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.

(7) #1 for a Reason

This billboard advertised Trend Micro Inc, a Japanese company that sold consumer and enterprise level security software and services.

(8) IMAGINE 30 YEARS OR MORE OF DOING WHAT YOU LOVE. Let’s get ready for a longer retirement.

This billboard advertised retirement and money management services with Prudential Insurance Company of America.

(9) iPad

This billboard advertised the iPad. The iPad had changed everything.

(10) New Homes at Candlestick Cove With 2-Car Garages

This billboard advertised condos for sale in the low $700,000s.

(11) puppetconf 2013

This billboard advertised PuppetConf 2013, a conference organized by puppet labs. puppet labs was a company that had raised capital from Google’s venture capital firm Google Ventures. puppet labs offered software that automated routine tasks performed by systems administrators, leading to a market environment in which automation had rendered most systems administrators inept and moved them ever closer towards obsolescence.