The Late Great City of San Francisco

I returned from my latest soiree in San Francisco thinking that the most exciting days of this great American city are probably behind us. I am not saying that San Francisco is in decline; I AM saying that its glory is most likely in its past.

I’ve read about and seen footage of that cataclysmic event of 1907 when The City collapsed like a house of cards. How many cities can claim to have been totally destroyed by an earthquake and then rebuilt from scratch? The sheer thrill of it all!

It was in San Francisco in 1955 when Allen Ginsberg first publicly recited his poem “Howl.” I have no first-hand report from that reading, but I’ve read about how awed the crowd was. If I had been there, THAT would have been something to tell my grandkids about.

We associate Kerouac and The Beats with San Francisco. Though I came along too late to consider myself a Beat, I do identify strongly with their innate philosophy. The word “beat” came from their feeling of being beaten down by the conformity and repression of American society in the 50’s. I feel beaten down by American society in 2008.

In 1966 thousands of young people descended on The City with flowers in their hair heading for Haight-Ashbury. Sex, drugs, & rock and roll was born here. I do have a first-hand report on this one. My former roommate, Young Boozer III, was there, albeit a little late---in 1970. Young grew up in Tuscaloosa---his father Young Boozer, Jr., was on the U of Alabama Board of Trustees---but his Dad sent him to Stanford. Young told me how he visited Haight-Ashbury in that year. By then all you saw, he said, were hippie wannabes, with everyone running around yelling, “Peace, Peace”! and giving the peace sign with one hand while trying to pick tourist’s pockets with the other hand. The fun, he said, was separating the hippie wannabes from the FBI and the CIA operatives who spent their vacations milling around the area in training to be wannabes.

I like to think that in 1966 it was “real.” But then John Lennon said in his song “Strawberry Fields Forever” that “nothing is real.” So who knows.

If something new and novel does come along in San Francisco, the problem is that 400,000 tourists would be there to see it the next day. If you hear of something new and interesting in S.F, better get there early before the herd shows up.

In 1967 we Sixties People had the Summer of Love. Growing up in a small town in Alabama, I had to experience most of it vicariously, but in my mind I associate that summer with San Francisco and Monterrey, Mexico (the Monterrey Pop Festival). Since Mexico is in the process of moving to California, it has all come together in 2008. (The more fortunate South-of-the-Border up-and-comers make it to Alabama)

Rolling Stone magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 and remained there for 10 years before removing to New York. If nothing else, S.F. will always have a warm spot in my heart for being the birthplace of all-time favorite magazine. I still have old copies from the 70’s that I pull out of the trunk and read on occasion.

While in San Francisco this time I went looking for a “San Francisco Liberal.” The term seems to be in common usage. The only one I know for sure is Speaker Pelosi, and unfortunately, I did not see her while I was there. I asked the desk clerk when I checked into the hotel if she knew where I could find a San Francisco Liberal, and later I asked the concierge, but neither seemed to know what I was talking about. I asked the bellhop who took my luggage to my room. At least HE laughed, knowing what I was talking about, but said he didn’t know any San Francisco Liberals. You would think that hotel help would be better trained. San Francisco Liberals should be icons along with that bridge they talk so much about and the cable cars. I left S.F. disappointed at not finding a bona fide San Francisco Liberal.

I used to think that if I had the McCain’s money---if I had married a woman with a $100,000,000 beer nest egg---I might have one of my houses in the Bay Area. But no, I think I would pass now. I might have ONE of my 7 houses (was that the last count?) in California, but not in San Francisco. That city’s most exciting days are in the past.

Of course the San Andreas Fault can decide that its next hiccup will be in Northern Cal rather than Southern Cal. In that case, all bets are off.

Ernest J. Gaines - A Lesson Before Dying

This is a strong novel set in Louisiana in Cajun country in the late 1940's about a black man unfairly sentenced to death and the jailhouse friendship between him and Grant Wiggins, a local school teacher. Jefferson, the young black man, has an aunt who wants him to become a man before he dies in the electric chair and Grant is given the job making Jefferson a man. Grant, with personal issues of his own, and Jefferson forge a bond leading to the inevitable conclusion. Both men come to understand the simple heroism of resisting and defying the expected. This is powerful stuff and well worth reading.

CBS says Obama's poll lead grows

(CBS) Democratic nominee Barack Obama's lead over Republican John McCain has grown after the Democratic convention, which 71 percent of Americans say they watched. Obama and his running mate Joe Biden now lead McCain and Sarah Palin 48 percent to 40 percent, according to the latest CBS News poll. This is the first CBS News poll to include the vice presidential candidates in the

Summer Reading

The summer reading season is coming to an end. Actually, since I read year round there really is no summer "season" for me, but it seems customary to think of summer as a separate reading season .

I thoroughly enjoyed Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for at least the third time. What I most enjoyed this time was the Southerness of the novel. There was the mention of Montgomery and Mobile and Meridian, Mississippi. The people seemed like the small town people I grew up with in the 60's. Boo Radley went back into his house and Scout never saw him again. Poor Boo.

Rick Perlstein's NIXONLAND is maybe the best book I've read on the 60's---my generation. It's a stretch to blame all of today's partianship on Nixon, but he's the best target.

Thurston Clarke's THE LAST CAMPAIGN I read in June to remember Bobby Kennedy's last campaign in 1968. RFK is the only politician in my lifetime that I really loved and appreciated. He will always be the great what might have been.

Barbara Leaming's biography of JFK is the best JFK book I've read. I learned a lot about his background that I did not know. I would highly recommend this biography.

Larry McMurtry - Streets of Laredo

And so the Lonesome Dove series comes to an end for me. Streets of Laredo is a good one. This is definitely a conclusion. McMurtry left no room for another volume in the series.

We leave Call an invalid but finding for the first time in his life another human being that he needs---the young girl whom he decides to patronize for her future education. The frontier finally destroys Call physically but awakens him psychologically at the end.

I am saddened to see that Clara is killed by a horse and that the son that Call never acknowleges is also horse-killed. It seems that McMurtry likes to kill off so many of characters in bizarre accidents.

Pea and Lorrie live on. Perhaps the future is only for the young.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

A sublime bildungsroman centering on the keen, sensitive, and curious dreamer Francie Nolan.

The setting is from 1901 to about 1917 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Francie is compassionate, sentimental, a believer of everything, and a storyteller. She has an unbeatable spirit and a stirring imagination.

Francie, along with her family, copes against poverty, prejudice, and her father Johnny, a singing waiter who drinks, barely works, and often doesn't come home at night. His alcoholism, which eventually kills him, results from becoming a father at a young age. He's not ready for a family, loses his job, and, unable to handle it all, resorts to drink... Francie grows up lonely and has few friends, but is a voracious reader who is kept company by the books she consumes... She is also troubled by her mother. Katie feels that Francie's brother Neeley needs more encouragement, support, and show of love, leaving Francie to feel unfairly put off...

Certainly, Francie has something indomitable inside her, like her mother. While Johnny responds to his troubles by giving up and becoming an alcoholic, Katie is a hard worker who keeps the family together and believes that hope and a better future for her children are possible. Indeed, the tree referred to in the book's title is the Tree of Heaven, which commonly grows in New York, often through cement. Just as this tree triumphs over its environment, so does Francie grow up to ultimately triumph over her environment.

Smith depicts this coming of age seamlessly. She goes from Johnny and Katie courting to their marrying, to Francie's birth, her childhood, and finally to her becoming a young adult, all as a cohesive, engaging story. Although lonely and out of place as a child, Francie finds acceptance and becomes more aware of the world and adult things as she gets older... All this, and she and her family remember Johnny fondly long after his death.

Although some look down upon her as a dirty, poor scum, Francie finds beauty in her life. It is an inspiration and a pride. Towards the end, when Katie gives birth to a third child, Annie Laurie, she laments to her brother that their sister will not experience the poor, desolate life they have lived, and therefore will not have the happy, fun memories they acquired from such a life.

This is a marvelous book. A new favorite of mine.

Literary Tattoos

We all love books. We have tons of them. We read and read and read. (And, so says Mike Denison, we think superior intellectual thoughts to boot.) But would you put your love of books on yourself as a tattoo? According to this short blurb, literary tattoos are the new rage:

Tattoos may be associated in the public mind with bikers and football hooligans, but the growing popularity of more literary designs is finding an outlet on the internet.

Have your say: What quotation would you choose for a tattoo?

People whose body art is inspired by their favourite novel, poem or song are posting pictures on their tattoos on number of new blogs and websites devoted to the trend.

Many of the designs are short, memorable quotations, but others - often covering the person's entire back - are composed of entire chunks of books.

Posters to contrariwise.org, a literary tattoo site, show a broad range of influences, from William Shakespeare to Dr Seuss.

But a handful of authors, notably Sylvia Plath and Kurt Vonnegut, seem to hold a particular appeal.

Here is the link to the blurb, with numerous pictures of people's literary tattoos: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/07/15/batattoos116.xml