For reasons I cannot entirely explain, I’ve been thinking a lot about Berkeley lately. Berkeley California. The East Bay. Location of the flagship campus of the University of California System.
I came to this fixation early on, long before I’d ever even visited the place. More likely than not, it draws from my youthful obsession with the 1967 film “The Graduate” and the specifically with the passing lovely (like you) Katherine Ross. Particularly the scene where Dustin Hoffman surreptitiously stalks her around campus, with the sorrowful strains of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair” playing in the background.
Beyond that, I have some connections to the town, and it has been my experience that if you “have some friends, know some people” in Berkeley, you are impelled to bring up the subject as often as you can.
Well, I have some friends, know some people, in Berkeley.
I thought you ought to know this.
My sister Tiff is a graduate of UCB. She put herself through the joint working as an accountant at a Men’s Clothing Shop that sold anachronistic crew neck sweaters and other stuff that came straight out of the Fifties. Her boss was a fall-down drunk. Tiff did the books, and, presumably for a time, kept him from going broke.
So, I hung out around town quite a bit in the late seventies/early eighties. Loved the vibe at Rasputin Records, which, this very year of Graduate ’21, is celebrating its 50th year of continuous operation. Jerry is gone. Janis is gone. Skip M@^%ther F$%&king Spence is gone. Rasputin Records abides.
I remember hanging out in the vicinity of Telegraph Avenue around 1978 — a point when (as with so many other sacred cultural cows) the local coffee bars were way ahead of their time. I recall entering one of these, scanning the menu (etched, of course, in colorful calligraphy on a chalkboard) and recognizing not a single item (note this was long before Starbucks had rendered such terms as Latte’, Mocha and Frap ubiquitous). As an ignorant, L7 visitor might, I boldly ordered a black coffee, and they looked at me like I had three heads.
Wander Northbound to the end of Telegraph, and you soon run into the threshold of the UCB campus, then the Sather Gate, and, just beyond, the Magnificent Sather Tower, which looks something like this:
Nice tower, no? Well, it may please you to be made aware that it is the third largest bell tower in the world, surpassed only by some structure In Italy, and another in Birmingham, U.K.
For better or worse, though, Sather Tower is a notorious suicide spot, its observation deck deemed by the self-annihilation crowd to be a perfect point to make that final jump. Perhaps this is owing to the long-standing legend that the ghosts of the leapers haunt the place for eternity.
All of which caused some clever individual(s) to paint two circumscribed circles at its base, with the outer one labeled “Undergrad” and the inner form designated “Grad”
I figure it must’ve come from the Engineering School.
I searched for online evidence of this glib, grim prank and came up empty. But I swear it is (was?) there. I saw it myself. On the other hand, I may not, at the time, have been in a state where my observational skills were at their most acute. So maybe I’m misremembering?
All of this came into focus for me when I read a widely distributed WSJ expose’ about student loan debt, which pointed out that, for the first time since they began tracking these figures, aggregate borrowings of graduate students now exceed those of their (by contrast) degree-deficient brothers and sisters. So, as was perhaps inevitable, The Graduates win again (just as Mike Nichols won Best Director back in ’67).
But not by all measures. The thrust of the article was that most master’s degree borrowers – particularly at Ivy League schools, depart with, in addition to their sheepskins, considerably more debt than can be offset by their subsequent earnings power. The medians indicate that the former exceeds the latter by a factor of 5.
The Journal singled out one institution, and, without naming names, it is an establishment: a) of which I am quite fond; b) where I have both received a master’s and have taught in a master’s degree program; and c) that is located in New York City. For the idiosyncratically obtuse, I will add that between 1941 and the time of his Death (1968), Dwight David Eisenhower held only three jobs: Supreme Commander of WWII Allied Expeditionary Forces, President of the United States, and President of the above-referenced university.
For what it’s worth, though, I paid off my loans, and I think the record shows that I amortized my borrowings, if not magnificently, then at least at a better clip than those poor schlubs who went into six figure hock to earn an MFA or a similar credential from the Film School. Many of the latter are scrambling to feed themselves, so current lenders are having a difficult time collecting.
The universities which are recipients of the funds, however, have broken the bank with these initiatives.
The newly credentialed obligees can perhaps take comfort in the knowledge that they are not alone on this journey. In addition to outstanding debt of our newly minted (or aspiring to be so) scholars, which exceeds $1.5 Trillion, State and Local governments owe another $4T. The Federales are in for $30T (not including their trivial and therefore uncounted future Social Security and Medicare obligations)
And as for corporations? Well, let’s see what FRED has to say about them:
Thanks as always, FRED. You never let us down.
The visible totals to which the country is thus into The Man approach $50T and the true number is probably 3x that amount. Our entire GDP clocks in, no matter how one measures it, at about $20T.
Thus, one way or another, and just as is the case with our financially burdened Ivy League MFAs, the entire country has borrowed what amounts to several years of its revenue producing capacity — some of which, presumably, must also be allotted to our care, shelter and feeding.
What could possibly go wrong?
I’d ask those smart guys on Wall Street, but they’re too busy buying up everything in sight. Our indices closed out the week at another set of yawning all-time records. They’re buying stocks, bonds, houses, cars, etc. (They’re a little less enthusiastic, as are their bankers, about the purchase of gold. Which I reckon to be a shame if for no other reason than the eponymous donor of our feature structure – Peder Sather – made his fortune lending to miners in the region during the 19th Century Gold Rush).
But the current buying focus is clearly on equities, and even heightened Taper Talk revealed in the Fed Minutes only caused a pause for a brief selloff on Thursday. By week’s end our indices had recaptured lost ground and then some.
The renewed stock market vigor miraculously focuses on our old friends from the Berkeley region, from jurisdictions such as Cupertino, Mountain View and Menlo Park. In other words, Apple, Google and Facebook, all settled at all-time highs. The good vibes are so strong that they carried Northward, bringing the same tidings to Seattle-based behemoths Microsoft and Amazon.
I don’t see any of it ending soon. It cannot, however, possibly, end well. From this perspective, the upcoming week promises to be interesting. Inflation figures drop. And, beyond that, banks report. Their numbers are projected to be boffo – student loan write offs and tepid gold financing action notwithstanding.
But all of this is an old story – one that I’m getting tired of telling.
I’d rather go back to Berkeley. With you. Where the Sather Gate still greets us. Where the ghosts of leapers long gone offer us there spectral their hospitality. Where they’re still spinning “Cheap Thrills” (Vinyl version, natch) on the turntables at Rasputin Records.
The town has no doubt changed since I last visited. The Sather Tower just last year celebrated its Centennial, but is now no longer referred to as such, but rather, by the rather obtuse handle of The Campanile. Sather Gate, however, remains Sather Gate, and I reckon we can take some comfort in that.
The students are currently spending much more time cramming in libraries than they are at the time-honored ritual of occupying administration buildings. A degree (Undergrad or Grad) from the University of California Berkeley is now harder to obtain, but more valuable than ever, once having done so. Particularly from the School of Engineering, under which circumstance you have my assurance that that a job (with a salary that will not only enable you to quickly retire your student loans, but to retain sufficient funds to afford the exorbitant rents that the region commands) awaits you.
A word to the wise, though. Don’t try to paint targets on the grounds adjacent to The Campanile; the Berkeley 5-0 are hip to this lick and are likely to straight up bust your @ss.
Leaving you nowhere to hide. Katherine Ross and Dustin Hoffman, of course, escaped on a Berkeley City Bus in the final scene of “The Graduate”. Where they ended up, no one can say. I’d like to think that they ultimately booked passage on The Dog. To Paris, TX. Taking with them a cooler full of Deviled Eggs.
But all of that is ancient history. It is current destinations that interest me, so, if you are going to Scarborough Fair, please do remember me to my once and always true love.
On second thought, don’t bother. I’ll do it myself.
TIMSHEL