Inaugural Three-Dot Thursday: In honor of the great Herb Caen, we’re going back to school — old school, that is…
"One-liners, scoops, gossip, anecdotes, and information" — with some fact-based opinion thrown in for good measure
Short items, a few scooplets, a good one-liner or two, that’s what my kind of column is made of, and as my tribute to Mr. Winchell, I hope to keep three-dot journalism alive in a business that considers it hopelessly out of date. Hell, so am I, dot-dot-dot. You won’t find many young journalists writing three-dot columns these days. For one thing, it’s too much work.
— Herb Caen explaining three-dot journalism in a 1985 column
Herb Caen is the greatest columnist in San Francisco history — and arguably of all time, anywhere. “Mr. San Francisco,” as fans crowned him, was the absolute master of what came to be his trademark “Three Dot Journalism.” Caen included “one-liners, gossip, anecdotes and information” into a format that became a journalistic staple in the 1930s and 1940s, always ending with “...” His style was so distinctive that the promenade named after him on the Embarcadero was titled “Herb Caen Way…” (ellipses at the end and all).
Another of San Francisco’s best columnists, Bruce Bellingham, was one of Herb’s best sources as well as one of his best friends. When I took over as Marina Times editor in 2002 and realized Bruce was one of our columnists, I couldn’t believe it. I had admired his work in the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner for so long that I was too nervous to call and introduce myself. After I dialed the other writers, I stared at his number, my heart racing, and finally did it. “Bellingham here,” a distinctive voice on the other end said. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Bruce was the most self-deprecating writer I’ve ever know — and that says a lot. In 2007, after being handed an proclamation from the Board of Supervisors praising his decades of column writing for the Marina Times, Bellingham smiled, walked out the City Hall chamber, and deadpanned, “May I go back to making fun of the board now?”
I convinced Bruce to start a three dot column for Northside San Francisco (a magazine we later folded together with the Marina Times), which he embraced with gleeful abandon.We titled Bruce’s column Bellingham by the Bay, and no one but Herb did it better. “Do you recall that song from Chubby Checker from the 1960s, “Let’s Twist Again (like we did last summer)”? Well, I recall this. Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer were dancing on a flatbed truck at the Black & White Ball with Chubby Checker at the Civic Center here in downtown San Francisco…” he wrote in a 2017 piece.
Herb was Bruce’s mentor, and as our friendship and mutual respect grew, Bruce offered to be mine. It was Bruce who came up with the title for my SFSPCA exposé in Northside, which resulted in the president, vice president, and half the board stepping down. When I ran it by Bruce at the Coffee Roastery on Union Street, he tipped his grey felt newsboy cap and scratched his chin. The story — a four-month undercover investigation — was a magazine-length 10,000-plus words with sidebars. That was fine with Bruce, but the title I had chosen was another matter. “Kid,” he said, “Titles should be short, pithy, and to the point. You grab their attention and bring them in. Get to the heart of the matter: ‘How the San Francisco SPCA let us down’.” It stuck, and the story, with Bruce’s pithy title, went national.
After years struggling with personal demons and alcoholism, Bruce lost his apartment on Nob Hill. Though his landlords were patient and kind for many years, they could no longer allow his disruptive behavior and missed rent. We all tried to help him — friend and confidant, the late inventor and philanthropist Maurice Kanbar, paid Bruce’s rent and got him into the Salvation Army’s renowned rehabilitation program multiple times. Eventually, he moved into a tiny room in an SRO on Eddy Street in the troubled Tenderloin District. It was yet another wakeup call. Bruce was sober again.
We talked by phone every evening, I visited him often, and we began a weekly lunch date at the restaurant of his choice. Bruce liked the little mom and pop shops, mostly run by immigrants. “The food is honest and good like the families who make it,” he would say. One of his favorites was Tadu Ethiopian Kitchen on Ellis Street. “Susie is a fine food writer,” he would tell the owners proudly. I wrote about their terrific food more than once.
Over those lunches, Bruce gave me tough criticism, but he also told me that I was San Francisco’s best young writer. “You have an old soul with youthful exuberance,” the master wordsmith said one day over crispy, warm vegetarian goose at Shanghai House in the Outer Richmond. “You are a true storyteller. You can make people angry, make them nod in agreement, make them laugh, make them cry. Whether they like what you’re saying or not, they’ll read it, because you’re good. It comes naturally to you, and most importantly, readers never feel manipulated because they know your heart is in it. That’s what great journalism is all about.”
Two weeks later I got a call from his longtime friend and Marina Times art writer Sharon Anderson. “Bruce is gone,” she said through her tears. One of the greatest writers in San Francisco had died alone in his SRO room from alcohol poisoning. He was just 66. Sharon wrote a beautiful farewell to Bruce for the paper, as did his dear friend Carl Nolte from the Chronicle. Bruce’s brother asked me to sing his favorite song, "The White Cliffs of Dover," along with the Beatles’ “In My Life,” at his memorial. Held July 20, 2018, the church was filled with Bay Area media luminaries.
Every time I sit down to write a column, I remember Bruce. I hear his criticisms that always ended with encouragement; I see his trademark newsboy cap, that twinkle in his eyes that hid a lifetime of self-doubt and pain; and that amazing talent. Whenever I would gush over one of his three dot columns, Bruce would say, “Gee thanks, kid, but I’m no Herb Caen.” Well, I’m no Bruce Bellingham, but in his honor — and in honor of Herb’s magical thee dot style — today I am launching Three Dot Thursday. And without further adieu…
Oakland Animal Services has taken in 81 dogs in the past seven days alone, for a total of 106 big dogs. The facility has a capacity of 73 kennels, shelter director Ann Dunn says, leading to severe overcrowding. Several of those kennels should otherwise be left open for incoming dogs, according to the website. The shelter says it will be “forced” to euthanize dogs to make more space.
The Chronicle ran a photo of Austin, one of the dogs the Oakland Animal Services has designated as an urgent priority to be adopted. Described as “affectionate and loyal” the handsome senior shepherd-terrier mix has a euthanasia date set for tomorrow.
Another dog in need is the Marvelous Ms. “Midge,” a lovely female blue nose French bulldog lookalike with velvety grey and white fur. At 47 pounds, she’s the perfect apartment sized companion. This darling 2-year-young lowrider has been attending playgroups while at the shelter.
If you can foster — even short term — or adopt a dog from Oakland’s shelter, please click here to see the dogs most at risk…
It must be nice to be a white-collar criminal awaiting sentencing in San Francisco. Since a jury convicted former general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Harlan Kelly on six out of eight charges involving two fraud schemes, he’s been free to come and go as he pleases, and according to a July 20, 2023, court order, Kelly is heading to Martha’s Vineyard — Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, to be exact. United States Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse signed the order allowing Kelly to travel from Monday July 24 to Sunday July 30…
On a recent trip to the Webster Street Safeway in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood, I witnessed three shoplifting incidents within 15 minutes — and those were just the ones interrupted by the rent-a-cop security guards tasked with that thankless job. My friend Bill Knudson managed this particular Safeway for years, and I’ve shopped there for decades. It’s always had problems. In the 1990s Bill told me about teens swarming the store grabbing all the liquor they could carry before running out. Bill once tackled a kid, causing both to tumble to the ground as bottles of booze shattered and a gun slid out of the thief’s jacket across the floor. That was the beginning of locked liquor cases. Unfortunately they still don’t lock up the beer, so all three incidents I witnessed involved guards trying to wrestle cases away from kids as they were cursed at, spat on, slugged, and kicked. As I filmed one of those moments, an unhappy shoplifter ran at me and tried to grab my iPhone as the bewildered guard stood between us. Mind you, these guards are armed, which is a disaster waiting to happen someone decide to steal their firearm instead of a case of beer. I got the video anyway…
Meanwhile over in Gotham Oakland, Mayor Sheng Thao, in office just six months, is getting a raise. Thao nominated City Administrator Jestin Johnson for his $340,000-a-year job and less than a month later he signed off on a recommendation that the City Council increase Thao’s salary from $203,000 annually to $277,975. After pushback from the NAACP and the community, the City Council voted to give Thao the minimum amount, but her constituents aren’t happy she’s getting a dime. Oakland is facing the largest budget deficit in its history, and crime is rampant. "I've never seen Oakland this bad in my life," the owner of Good Neighbor, a store on Piedmont Avenue, told KPIX. Her business has been broken into twice since 2021. "I don't think she has an easy job, but I have to say, I don't see her. She's new in office. It would seem to me that you would want to prove yourself, that you would want to invest without compensation, and then the fruits of your labor manifest and people see their lives getting better, be rewarded for that." It’s worth noting that when Thao was a member of the Oakland City Council she was all for defunding the police…
Speaking of rampant crime in Oakland, newish Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is already facing a recall. I’m no fan of recalls — I want voters to do their homework and choose the right candidates in the first place — but several high profile blunders have brought Price to the hot seat once reserved for recalled San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Like Boudin with Troy McAlister, it started with a high profile case. In the summer of 2008, Dijon Holifield and Delonzo Logwood were arrested for committing five homicides in a span of 45 days. Both were charged with gang enhancements, which along with the multiple murders, could have qualified them for the death penalty. When Price, who ran on a platform of keeping young offenders out of jail, took over the case, Logwood was facing charges of murdering Eric Ford, 22, Zaire Washington, 24; and Richard Carter, 30. Prosecutors alleged the killings were meant to further the interests of a West Oakland-based gang known as Ghost Town, along with its subset, the P-Team. Washington was scheduled to testify against Logwood’s half-brother in an unrelated shooting case when he was gunned down near his mother’s home in East Oakland. The very next day, Ford was targeted in a murder-for-hire plot at a gas station on 35th Avenue and Quigley Street in Oakland’s Laurel district. Carter was killed a few weeks later when an attempted carjacking ended in gunfire.
In mid-June, 2023, Logwood, now 33, pleaded no contest to a single voluntary manslaughter charge in the 2008 killing of Eric Ford, as well as pleading guilty to a firearm-related sentencing enhancement and acknowledged being on probation at the time of his arrest. In doing so, he avoided a murder charge and a trial. Judge Mark McCannon signed off on the proposed prison sentence for Logwood, which had been brokered by Price. The finalized deal means Logwood could be released from prison in as little as two years. Ford’s mother criticized Price, writing that she felt little choice but to accept the deal. “What will she do next? Dismiss it completely? May God protect all of the other families who have lost loved ones to violent crime, because this district attorney does not care.” …
Over at Herb Caen’s old haunt, the San Francisco Chronicle has finally published an article confirming what I’ve been writing for years: drug dealers from Honduras are making a killing selling fentanyl. Ironically, I don’t think they meant to spark the negative reaction they did, with more than one person on social media pointing out the incongruity of the newspaper investigating Siria Valley, the hometown of a high concentration of people who, “fleeing poverty and a country with one of the world’s highest murder rates, migrate to San Francisco, where they ultimately sell drugs.” That’s because the Chronicle has deteriorated since Caen’s day into a word salad of left-leaning ideology dominated by millennials, particularly under Editor in Chief Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, who has thrown objectivity out the window with Caen’s Royal typewriter. Think I’m kidding? Last January, Garcia-Ruiz told the Washington Post “The consensus among younger journalists is that we got it all wrong. Objectivity has got to go.” As a longtime opinion columnist, I have no problem with that in a column clearly marked “opinion.” Then again, I broke the City Hall corruption stories in my Marina Times opinion column Reynolds Rap, so I tend to like backing up my opinions with facts…
In Sacramento, Senator Scott Wiener is helping termed-out criminal softie Senator Nancy Skinner’s scorched earth exit as fellow members of the "Public Safety" Committee. Proposition 47 — supported by former San Francisco (and now Los Angeles) District Attorney George Gascon along with former San Francisco Mayor (now California Governor) Gavin Newsom and SFDA before Gascon, Kamala Harris (who went on to become California’s attorney general and is now the nation’s vice president) is a referendum passed by voters in California on November 4, 2014, that recategorized some nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors, rather than felonies. Outrageous shoplifting videos taken in San Francisco stores like the one I shot at Safeway prove that lenient laws coupled with a lenient judicial system is a potent cocktail for lawlessness. Under Prop. 47, thieves can steal $900 worth of items every single day and never be charged with a felony. So why hasn’t there been pushback from lawmakers? There has been — Senate Bill 316: “Shoplifting: increased penalties for prior crimes” was introduced March 28, 2023, and failed to pass thanks to Nay votes from Wiener, Skinner and fellow Democratic senator Aisha Wahab…
My #TweetOfTheWeek goes to Kane:
“The Bay Area has a surplus of delusional indie ‘reporters’ like @hyphy_republic that pump out invented crime stats like this, and other reporters follow them. Oakland has almost 3x the per capita crime of NYC, despite NYC having more economic disparity (0.55 Gini index vs. 0.51 in Oakland) … Of the 10 US cities w most economic disparity, none have crime rates as high as Oakland's. The city with the most economic disparity—Miami—has a crime rate less than half of Oakland's. The city w most crime in the top 10 by economic disparity—New Orleans—has 21% lower crime rate than Oakland.”
That delusional indie reporter quickly blocked Kane, who responded, “Imagine getting upset over census data.” Imagine, indeed…
And I’ll give the final word to my mentor, Bruce Bellingham. Every December Bruce ended his column with the same short tale of hope and inspiration based on his long residency on Nob Hill about innocently eavesdropping on a couple in “the park,” as he referred to Huntington Park. Here it is:
Darkness is descending on an exquisite twilight on Christmas Eve. I wander around the park. What catches my eye is a couple on one of the benches. They seem to be trying to keep the world away. With my usual nonchalance, I sit at a nearby spot, and shamelessly listen to them murmur to each other.
“Is it going to be a good Christmas?” she asks him quietly, anxiously. “It’s been such a terrible year.”
“Darling, it’s going to be the best,” he whispers. “We made it this far. We can carry it further.”
She sighs, and rests her head back on his shoulder. …
And yes, they are heroes. They brought their love this far. What can be more heroic than love? After all, it’s a good time to be in love…