And this E-mail thing is a revelation.
For Bay Area newspaper readers, Herb Caen needs no introduction.
After all, this is a man who literally has defined San Francisco since 1938, when his daily column debuted in The Chronicle. At the start he was just another provincial imitator of Walter Winchell, the New York columnist who turned Broadway gossip into national news and popularized ``three-dot journalism.'' But Caen soon created something unique -- an always-fresh, never-predictable collage of inside news, celebrity sightings, one-liners about current events and love notes to his chosen city.
The basic form of Caen's column has not changed: It is still a mix of 15 to 25 short items, although instead of bandleader Benny Goodman and labor leader Harry Bridges, Caen mentions Robin Williams and belittles Pat Buchanan. But there still are scooplets and jokes in abundance, and Caen remains the arbiter of San Francisco should or shouldn't be. He even continues to write on a manual typewriter, although the final product appears on the Internet.
But as Caen prepares to turn 80 on Wednesday, don't look for introspection. And keep the fussing to a minimum, thank you.
He shrugs off his longevity as if it were a sign of stodginess: ``A three-dot column is the stoop labor of the newspaper business.'' Asked why he has few items on the Mission District bohemian scene, Caen quickly takes the blame rather than beg off because of age or lack of interest: ``I do a lousy job on the Mission,'' he sighs. ``Plain lethargy, I guess.''
Press him, and Caen will suggest that he is irreplaceable. But in the course of a long lunch at Stars Cafe, Caen was happiest reminiscing about his days as a young columnist -- and hopping from topic to topic in a manner that suggested the gentle ricochet of short items. The more times you change the subject, the more readers you might pull in.
THE COLUMNIST EXPLAINS HIS MOTIVATION
Q. How tough is it to keep on top of things in a city that constantly changes?
A. It's easy for people who have young legs. I don't, so mostly I drive around. I never get tired of looking at it -- it's a strangely appealing city, even now with all the changes. It's got a look all its own.
Q. You had a scoop last year by being the first reporter to catch (O.J. Simpson prosecutors) Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden together right after the trial ended. So you still get out and about.
A. That was lucky! I ran into them at the Coconut Grove.
It was really possible to make the rounds once upon a time, seven or eight places a night. But now there aren't that many places to go. Sometimes I'll do three or four places, but that's about it.
I go to Enrico's, and I may wind up at some club where they let me sit in on drums -- that makes my whole night -- and I'll stop by Tosca and look in, or go over to 11th Street and the DNA and those places. But I'm not going to get items like when I went to the Mark and the Fairmont, hanging out at the bar and, in my recollection, getting off Noel Coward one-liners.
In real life people don't do that, of course, so you have to make them up.
Q. You often say writing a column is a tough job. Why keep going?
A. I can't find a way out: too many bills and ex-wives and a kid in school, things that chew up the income. I never intended this to be permanent, but it looks like it's going to be.
THE COLUMNIST DODGES A FLYING SPIKE
Q. Alimony payments aside, though, you've stayed with it.
A. Well, The Chronicle was really fun to work at as a kid. It still had the old-timers who were itinerant copy-readers, came in loaded and stayed loaded all through three editions and wrote terrific headlines and chewed people out for misspelling words. They were great.
I almost got killed by one. You weren't supposed to whistle in the city room. The first time I whistled, a lead weight came hurtling through the air with a spike coming out of it. Bam! A broken window.
Whistling distracts someone writing or editing a story, so I couldn't complain. To this day it makes my blood run cold. I can concentrate when people are talking or there is other noise, but not whistling.
I started in 1938, and I didn't know what I was doing. The column was so embarrassingly bad then. I don't know how it lasted.
Q. When the World's Fair was held on Treasure Island in 1939, did that provide lots of items?
A. Oh yeah, because then people came in from all over the place and night life jumped up. That did help a bit.
Q. What was it like being in your early 20s, having a column and being in the middle of everything?
A. I was as wide-eyed as could be, loving every minute of it. I was star-struck, amazed I could move with these guys and ask them questions, be one of the gang.
The column was very name- droppy at first: I was genuinely impressed at meeting those people. But you know, I got tired of that. Local items are always better than what Oscar Levant said last night to George Gershwin.
They all probably thought I was a cute little kid, writing nice things about them. I hadn't developed much of a needle then. The needle came later.
Q. And how did people react?
A. Guess. ``What happened to Mr. Nice Guy?'' ``You're getting bitter.'' That started when I was about 30: ``Herb, you're getting old and bitter!''
Q. By then you were a celebrity yourself.
A. The column didn't catch on very fast, you know. Mrs. Cameron, one of the owners of the paper, she finally discovered it a year after it started. ``Are you the fellow that writes this little column on the front page of the second section?'' ``Yes, Mrs. Cameron.'' Well, I've been looking at it. How long does it take to write?'' I said, ``Oh, about an hour and a half.'' She said, ``What do you do the rest of the day?''
All the members of family call it the little column. ``How's the little column coming?'' It's a thousand words. That's how it's coming. A thousand words at a time.
I think the column started to catch on about 1940, the second year of the fair. I had more self- confidence. That was the golden age, I think -- '41 up until Pearl Harbor.
Before that, I had a radio column from '36 to '38. That was fun to write. Tried to make it sound like Winchell, of course -- put in those three dots wherever I could. Sunday I had three pages in the tab section, wrote them all myself -- I slipped in a column called ``Caen about town,'' it was supposed to be about radio people but it was mainly about nightclubs, who was dating whom. More three-dot stuff.
Q. So basically you just loved doing a column.
A. Hey, I grew up being a high- school gossip columnist, writing about what was going on in the corridors.
Q. What was it about Walter Winchell that made such an impression on you?
A. It was the pace -- there wasn't any column that moved as fast as that. It was very 1930s -- machine guns and tap dancers. Staccato. Very colorful. I loved being in his footsteps, doing the rat-a- tat short stuff that I enjoyed reading, and still enjoy writing, more than the long stuff.
I don't know why three-dot columns aren't popular anymore. It's been years since I've seen a survey -- I can only go by cards and letters, and I still get plenty of both.
Actually, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of mail I get. A lot is from old-timers. You realize I've been writing for three generations of readers, even getting into four now. And this E-mail thing is a revelation.
THE COLUMNIST ON THE INTERNET
Q. You've got your own page on the Internet (as part of The Gate, the web site of The Chronicle and Examiner).
A. I've never even seen it, and I don't know what they're talking about. But the E-mail is printed out for me. It's from all over the world. I'm stunned. And it's all from San Francisco people who used to live here. They can't forget the city, and they're so excited to discover they can get the column because they remember growing up with it. They're so homesick, you can almost see them crying up in Anchorage.
These things are coming from all over the globe. San Franciscans are everywhere, and they never stop loving the city.
Q. Are those notes different from letters you get in the mail?
A. Well, they're all homesick people. Around here they're homesick for the ``good old days,'' because this town now ``isn't what it used to be.'' They're a real bunch of gripers. But they're funny.
The ones sending E-mail, they're just happy to be able to read the column again with breakfast in the Arabian desert.
Q. Did you expect that type of response?
A. No. Somebody who keeps track of all this came in and said ``You're killing them! You're getting 1,600 hits a day!'' I guess every time they ask for my E-mail, it's a hit. So the next one is at about 200 hits. I was 1,400 hits ahead of everybody else.
Q. How about faxes? How many do you receive?
A. A stack of 50 to 100 a day.
Q. Who's the most ardent faxer? Bruce Bellingham (an indefatigable contributor of items)?
A. Oh geez, that guy! He's a nut. My kind of nut -- he faxes five a day sometimes.
THE COLUMNIST SHUNS PRAISE, TAKES BLAME AND NEEDLES THE MAYOR
Q. Looking back over all the columns, what are two or three scoops you're particularly proud of? And two or three items you would take back if you could?
A. I've had a lot of scooplets, but real big scoops? I don't know. I just try to be sorta newsy. So I don't remember the scoops, just the retractions. Not true retractions. A lot of corrections, though.
I was a little ashamed about the item about the Marine who saved Gerald Ford's life (during the 1975 assassination attempt here). I broke the story -- I'm saying that sarcastically -- that he was a member of the gay community. There was hell to pay, a lot of pros and cons. The local gays were happy about it -- they saw him as a hero who had been in the Marines, but a lot of people thought it was a low blow. In fact, I think he sued The Chronicle, saying his family didn't know. That was the bad thing. So scratch that one.
Q. You also apologized about the so-called Ming vases in the house in Seacliff destroyed by a sinkhole in January.
A. Oh boy, people were really hot about that! ``They lost their goddamn house, and you're saying the Ming vases aren't Ming?!''
I tried to apologize as fast as possible, and ward off a lot of mail.
Q. What would you say your influence is in San Francisco now?
A. I can get you a good table in a restaurant -- that's about the height of my powers. Oh wait, I got Willie Brown elected -- according to him. ``You and Jack Davis got me elected!'' I like half of that sentence.
Q. How do you feel about the flack you took for boosting Brown so often during last year's mayoral campaign?
A. Oh, people really don't like that. I don't get many letters about it, actually, but the ones I do receive are entirely disgusted. But hell, a lot of columnists find a favorite candidate and plug them without being called a press agent.
Q. It seems you're still comfortable taking swats -- you criticized him for hiring Paul Horcher (a former Republican from Southern California who supported Brown in Sacramento and is now Brown's liaison to the Board of Supervisors).
A. That was a bad move on his part, I thought. You shouldn't pay off your state debts on the city's money. Maybe he owes Horcher, but we don't.
Q. How about when you ridiculed the idea for a Treasure Island casino?
A. You know, when Willie says some of these things they just come off the top of his head. You can tell when he's only half-serious. I could tell he was never truly serious about Treasure Island. What a terrible idea!
Q. But you think he'll be a good mayor. Why?
A. Sheer energy is going to get something done. And the ego will want to make him do a good job. He's got such a strong ego. He'd be very disappointed in himself if he didn't live up to his expectations.
He's an insomniac, too, which will help. I think he only gets four hours of sleep a night. The way I discovered this, he would tell me about all the movies he'd go to -- ``You've got to see this, you've got to see that'' -- and I'd say, ``How the hell do you see all these movies?'' He said, ``I go to the last show at night, because I can't sleep anyway.'' He'd go all alone.
Q. You sometimes refer to him in the column as ``his worship.'' What's Brown's response?
A. No response. He never says anything about anything. He's very cool. It will come up weeks later that he was annoyed about something. He's amazing about staying calm and neutral.
The Columnist Deflects a Line of Questioning
Q. Let's say someone was coming to town tomorrow. Where would you take them?
A. You've got to show them the neighborhoods, the rich neighborhoods. Whenever I get to a new town I want to see where the rich people live. I love to see big houses.
This city has more beautiful residences per square mile; it's an amazing-looking place. So I give the ``rich man's tour'' as I call it
--Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Seacliff, out along the water.
Q. Where would you go for lunch?
A. We're really getting to the micro questions here, aren't we?
Q. Hey, it's a day with Herb Caen!
A. Oh gawd, lunch? Oh, I don't know where I'd go. I've eaten out in so many restaurants over so many years, I'm really tired of it. Give me a good home-cooked meal, and I'm your slave.
THE COLUMNIST PONDERS THE FUTURE
Q. A few quick questions. First, what to you is a ``good'' Herb Caen column?
A. When there are about 20 items, and a good mix no matter what the category is: a couple of scooplets, a couple of funnies, a couple of great one-liners. People really read it to get a one-liner to take to lunch. Or they're looking for somebody's name they recognize. I can't take this too seriously.
Q. What is a typical day?
A. I get up about 7:15, run to the doorstop and pick up the paper like I have my entire life. Go look at the front page. I don't look at the column, I go right past it. My breakfast is shredded wheat and half a grapefruit.
I get to work about 9:30. Go through the mail and the E-mail and read the faxes and read the opposition, and if I've been scooped I feel very bad all day long.
I start writing about 1. I used to get out earlier and go to lunch and pick up a lot of items, but there's often so much going on that I can't get out until 3. And then I'm back at the office until about 6 o'clock answering mail. It's a compulsion -- Jewish liberal guilt. If someone writes me a letter, I have to answer it.
And then I go out almost every night. And I tell you, I'm exhausted!
Q. Do you see yourself at some point cutting back to three or four columns a week?
A. No, it has to be at least five. Better five bad columns than three bad columns. With five, even if you stink today people will think, ``Maybe it will be better tomorrow.'' If they think, ``Maybe better the day after tomorrow,'' they're not going to wait. It has to be the next day.
Q. What do you think The Chronicle should do after you retire?
A. Retire the column, that's for sure.
Somebody in the hierarchy once suggested I should pick my successor. What a crazy idea! Nobody is going to be my successor, and I don't mean that because of any vanity. It's just I've been around so long, and I started at the right time. You can't start a column like mine from scratch. It has to gradually become what it is, for better or worse.
Q. And what will make you actually decide to call it quits?
A. It would have to be something physical.
Or maybe a copy reader with a heavier spike and better aim than the first one! That's it: I'll walk through the newsroom whistling and see what happens.
© 1995, The San Francisco Chronicle
