It still seems to be a popular bumper strip — “America, love it or leave it!” — and it sticks in the craw as well as to the chromium. Along with its gag writer's glibness,…
Posts published by “Herb Caen”
What I consider the most cynical utterance in the entire literature of Americana — H.L. Mencken's "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public" -- presents a point of view I…
Oh, it's a city, all right. Idle statistic: San Francisco has some 800 buildings over seven stories tall, more than the rest of California combined. Places like San Jose, Sacramento and possibly Cucamonga have a…
I remember when the spitball was legal and when Three Finger Mordecai Brown had five fingers and when the 1929 Seals had a club that could have beaten most of the majors and when the…
"Where do you run?" The question was propounded by the editor of one of San Francisco's most distinguished underground newspapers, and as I struggled to sort out the language, he amplified: "I mean, where is…
No, I don't know what it means. “The season of the witch” — neatly printed in white chalk on the wall opposite Fifth at Market. This is the wall of graffiti that first gave us…
I was lounging at the corner of Fifth and Mish', minding anybody's business, when along came Ken Kesey, the successful author ('One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion), who has opted out…