“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 Winchell, I hope to keep three-dot journalism alive in a business that considers it hopelessly out of date.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 jurnalism.” Caen combined “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. Here’s a scooplet: Diehard fans of Caen’s will remember that in addition to his three dots, he also used three stars.
When I started this column in my Gotham by the Bay newsletter, readers said they were thrilled to see the return of three-dot journalism, but suggested I make the dots my own by turning them into bats to go along with the Gotham theme. As we bring the column to The Voice of San Francisco newsletter, it will continue to be called Three-Bat Thursday, because, well, we all know things are batsy in San Francisco these days.
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 a 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 expenses 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. “Suzie 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 three-dot style — today I am launching Three-Dot Thursday, which will run each week in the Voice of San Francisco newsletter. Caen described his column as “one-liners, gossip, anecdotes and information” and you’ll also get that from me, though the anecdotes might include an “X of Week” and the gossip may be fact-based tales from the same sources that helped me break the corruption stories in the Marina Times.
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