13 Years Without Caen

If you lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the ‘70s and ‘80s, no doubt you started your morning with a cup of java and reading columnist Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle. Business and sports was the not the first news you turned to back then. It was Caen. Caen dominated SF culture. He was a Bay Area icon. In fact, he was the guy who said “Don’t call it Frisco,” as many people today still refer to San Francisco as Frisco.

Thirteen years ago today, February 1, at the age of 80, Caen passed away. His manual Royal typewriter fell silent.

Caen’s column was must-viewing. Getting a mention in Caen’s column amounted to instant ego gratification. I managed to get his attention a few times and once made his column two days in a row capturing several inches discussing my car license plate: PR WIZ. Talk about walking on air! There were a few other times too, for me and my clients. Talk about client elation, that’s how big an impact Caen had in Bay Area media circles. That was the positive side. It worked both ways. If Caen ripped you, or spoke negatively, say, of a restaurant, or other business, it could hurt.

Caen could write about anything—politics, sports, culture, entertainment, you name it. But mostly, he was the king of the "three-dot journalism.” His Monday through Friday item-dot-item column was must reading for every politician, publicist, socialite and entertainer. Anybody who was anybody craved Caen's daily dish. Even the most ordinary SF person read Herb Caen.

If you represented a celebrity, you could assume Caen would always run that item. In the '80s I did some work for the late Broadway actress Gretchen Wyler, who was appearing in a stage play in San Francisco. No worries. Caen published my little note about Wyler’s appearance in the City by the Bay.

Even though he wrote mostly about the SF scene, his popularity spread throughout the entire Bay Area and beyond. Chicago had its Irv Kupcinet and Mike Royko and the Big Apple had their Jimmy Breslin. But the Bay Area adored Herb Caen. Today … he’s still sadly missed.