Celebrating a Caen-iversary, but please, no gifts

The first column, that of July 5, 1938, had the sort of wanly sophisticated tone only a 22yearold would think he could pull off.

And hold those cards and letters even though it is my birthday. Well, not mine, exactly. It’s the birthday of this pillar of occasional veracity, questionable charm and definitely dim wit. It was on July 5, 1938, a date that has lived in infamy longer than Pearl Harbor, that “It’s News To Me, Says Herb Caen” first appeared on page one, section two of the then notsoold Chron. Paul C. Smith, the then editor and a courageous fellow, had given me a glowing sendoff. “Well, kid, we’ll try it for a couple of weeks and see how it goes.” I never heard from him again and later he died, unfortunately, so I have never been sure how it’s going and I’ll thank you not to tell me.

The fledgling column’s title was a typical copout. Almost everything was news to me in 1938, when I was a little on the slow side, even for a 22yearold, and I haven’t learned too much since. When I ran such items as “Market Street has four streetcar tracks” and was told that other people had noticed the same thing some time earlier, I would reply smartly, “Well, it was news to me.” Now, 47 years later, I am still printing things everybody knows, and I am still embarrassed, but not enough to quit, as so many letter writers keep suggesting. I have already established some sort of record — a column freak at the Columbia School of Journalism says I have the longest running sixdayaweek column ever to run in a metropolitan daily — but I’m aiming for 50 years so I can get a goldplated watch inscribed “To a great reporter. The Chief ” if I have to buy it and inscribe it myself.

A lot of people ask how I can write six columns a week. At first I thought they were impressed by my industry but lately the question has taken on a different inflection, along the lines of “WHY do you write six columns a week, each one almost 1000 words in length?” The reason I write six is that it’s easier than writing, say, three. When you do three they have to be pretty good, maybe even checked and doublechecked. When you do six and produce a dog you hope that some nice people out there are saying, “Old Herb was pretty bad today but he’ll probably have a good one tomorrow.” These nice people have been saying that for 47 years now and tomorrow never comes, certainly not today. Thus six columns a week are not only killing me, they are keeping me alive, if you call this a life.

The first column, that of July 5, 1938, had the sort of wanly sophisticated tone only a 22yearold would think he could pull off. Volume I Number I, not a collector’s item, began “Yesterday was the Fourth of July. Today, here are we. This probably adds up to something or other, but we don’t quite know what; isn’t very important, however you look at it.” A semicolon, yet. After that start, it’s amazing there was a Number II. Either Editor Smith was a compassionate soul or he didn’t read the new column.

As you can tell by the faux pseudo fake style of the introductory note, I was a devotee of The New Yorker in those faroff times and was attempting to ape that magazine’s Talk of the Town, which went heavy on the editorial “we” (it took me a long time to realize there is no law against “I,” no matter how irritating it becomes). At the same time, I was enthralled by an entirely different stylist, Walter Winchell, the “Bard of Broadway,” the “gray Ghost of Gotham,” the handsome, silverhaired fellow who popularized, if he didn’t invent, the ratatattat threedot column. His was the best; fast, furious, funny, sharp, nasty, opinionated and finally, when he seemed to be going bananas, erratic, crazed and crazy.

Winchell finally won out. I dropped The New Yorker’s languid “we” for his unabashed “I” and what he called “my three little dots.” When somebody called me “The Winchell of the West,” I flushed with pride and several other products. When he himself called me his most talented imitator, I took it as a compliment, as he intended, but decided it was time to develop a style of my own, something I am still working on and will perfect if it takes another 47 years. You and I have known each other for such a long time that I feel we’re friends, even those of you who deplore my politics (unregenerate New Deal liberal), hate Namephreaks and Velveeta jokes, and wish I would get more serious, whatever that means. Actually, I’m pretty serious about being entertaining, which is supposed to be the main function of this ancient vehicle. I could go on to say something smarmy about “If I can make one person smile at the breakfast table, I feel I’ve done my job,” but I can already see your lip curling. A tough audience. Short items, a few scooplets, a good oneliner or two, that’s what my kind of column is

made of, and as my tribute to Mr. Winchell, I hope to keep threedot journalism alive in a business that considers it hopelessly out of date. Hell, so am I, dotdotdot. You won’t find many young journalists writing threedot columns these days. For one thing, it’s too much work.

Entre nous, I had intended to write just a paragraph or maybe a couple of lines about this 47th birthday but then I took a second look at the notes strewn about my incredibly cluttered desk. No scooplets. A lot of doubtful Namephreaks. A line about Chico. A Cuuute Firm Name. A longish paragraph about Old S.F. without a punch line to carry it. So, as I write this on the eve of Fourth of July, I’ll declare my independence of those three little dots for one more day. And always remember, “Old Herb wrote a dog today and tomorrow is Saturday.”

This column originally appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle on July 5, 1985.