I spent the week in San Francisco.
I spent the week in 1949. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘herb caen’
Baghdad-by-the-Bay
Posted in Books, tagged baghdad by the bay, book review, columnist, essays, herb caen, san francisco on 04 Aug 2016| 1 Comment »
Ineffable
Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged herb caen, no effing butter, sf chronicle, words, Writing on 07 Mar 2013| 6 Comments »
Aeons ago, when newspapers were printed on paper and was a young Bay Area boy, I used to open up the San Francisco Chronicle and read Herb Caen’s column.
Yes. I was an odd little boy.
I remember one column in particular, in which Herb talked about one of the local Chinese restaurants playing softball against the SFPD in a charity event. The restaurant had t-shirts printed up for its team players. On the shirts were some characters in Chinese script. When Herb asked them what the Chinese words meant, he was told they translated as “No effing butter!”
Though this went straight over my little pre-teen head (on several levels), I was still smart enough to recognize a punch line when I read one. So I showed it to my dad.
“What does ‘effing’ mean?” (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 