My (unselected) 'write like Herb Caen' piece

Baghdad By The Bay
A Herb Caen Write Alike Contest so called…
I dunno…is that even doable?

Writing like Herb would be seeing like Herb, smiling like Herb or sipping a Martini like Herb…
We can all see, smile and sip…but to write like a man who did it for a living, producing columns that read like quiet inner thoughts…
Tricky, indeed… for there’s more to it than clacking 3 dots…
Would you need an Olympia typewriter and carbon paper to do it right?

It takes the soul of a Poet mixed with the wit of a Punster, one who takes things seriously Only When Necessary…
The City Herb loved so much seems largely gone. Much of it floating away in the yellow rivers of uncaring urine generated by the uncared for yearning... The Homeless almost outnumbering the Tourists and the Tourists don’t tour like they used to…
The Chron he loved isn’t what it once was… but then is anything ever what it once was and was it even what we thought it was at the time?

The Mayor would have been a constant Source for items… but using Politicians for items was as easy for Herb as spotting is to a Seagull…
It would take a month of Write Like Caen to even touch the Washington crowd we have today both in sunlight and shadow… mostly in shadow…
But The Fog is still here…
And The Bridge…
And Alcatraz…
Write Like Caen…? You have to start there first…with the Fog…the Bridge and Alcatraz and from there try to find the city’s Heart, now broken and lonely, that Herb loved so much…
And Herb would find it if anyone could. And he would have told us our quiet, inner thoughts about Baghdad By the Bay…
…three dots and all…



Herb Caen Write-Alike Contest
c/o The Chronicle
P.O. Box 7130
San Francisco CA
94103-7130.