BELLINGHAM!
Forget Paris, we'll always have Frisco
Years ago, after my book was published, I saw Danielle Steel lunching at the Balboa Cafe, as was her habit in the old days. I carried my new book shamelessly under my arm – as was my habit in the old days. Ms. Steel nodded amiably to me as I passed her table. Naturally, I took that as an invitation to accost her, offering her a copy.
She graciously accepted. As I signed it, I said to her, “Oh, don’t worry about reciprocating. I don’t think I could carry 50 best sellers back up the hill anyway.”
Yes, she actually wrote 50 best sellers, if you can imagine. Jack London should have been so fortunate. Over the years, Danielle Steel has become as much a part of the San Francisco landscape as the Balboa’s Pat Kelley, doyenne of the Marina District, or the sagacious Hadley Roff, advisor to innumerable San Francisco mayors and a Balboa regular himself.
So when Ms. Steel told the Wall Street Journal recently that she had decided to quit San Francisco for Paris, the shock amid the ladies who lunch was palpable.
Danielle Steel, no stranger to good copy, is not going gently into that Parisian night. Oh, no. Ms. Steel added acidly that she was very happy to leave San Francisco.
“There’s no style, nobody dresses up – you can’t be chic there,” she declared, “It’s all shorts and hiking boots and Tevas – it’s as if everyone is dressed to go on a camping trip. I don’t think people really care how they look there; and I look like a mess when I’m there, too.”
I never saw Danielle Steel look like a mess – but I got her point. You can’t be chic in San Francisco anymore.
This is the most devastating sociological statement about the region since Gertrude Stein uttered those infamous words about Oakland: “There is no there there.”
As for everyone looking like they’re dressed to go on a camping trip, I wondered what all those people were doing sleeping in the streets.
Beauty is skin deep, they say, and San Francisco certainly has a thin skin. The city is very touchy. The locals hate criticism. All the same, most persons of a certain age will reminisce fondly about how ladies always wore hats and white gloves when they were going “downtown,” ostensibly to have lunch at The Old Poodle Dog or at Blum’s or the City of Paris. Oh, did I say Paris? Sorry.
The Chronicle’s wonderful writer and Native Son, Carl Nolte, conceded he had to agree with Ms. Steel. “I did make a foray into the world of high style last fall: opening night at the Opera. Swells wore white tie and tails; the women glittered in lovely gowns. I wore a dark suit, like the city mouse. But I spotted one operagoer in Levi’s and a T-shirt. Danielle Steel was right: anything goes.” Sure, I know what Carl means. I used to carry myself with an air of well-appointed insouciance. Even NPR once described me as “dapper.”
But I told Carl that I now feel like Zero Mostel (Max Bialystock) in the Mel Brooks masterpiece, The Producers: “You see this? This once held a pearl as big as your eye! Look at me now; I’m wearing a cardboard belt!”
No matter how tawdry our city becomes, Carl Nolte will never quit his hometown.
“My favorite line from The Streets of San Francisco,” Carl told me the other day, “is when Karl Malden says to Michael Douglas after they bust some bad guys on Potrero Hill: ‘Look at that house, would you? What a dump! Who would live in a dump like that?’ Actually, I lived in that very house as a kid, on 23rd Street between De Haro and Carolina. It’s still there. Now the houses are worth an average of $950K.”
Just because San Francisco has become a badly dressed playground for millionaires, do you think I’d abandon this Outpost by the Bay for the City of Light by the Seine, as the disillusioned Danielle Steel has done?
Hah! Just watch me. Of course, I haven’t a thing to wear. Wait for me, Ms. Steel! We’ll go shopping together.
She graciously accepted. As I signed it, I said to her, “Oh, don’t worry about reciprocating. I don’t think I could carry 50 best sellers back up the hill anyway.”
Yes, she actually wrote 50 best sellers, if you can imagine. Jack London should have been so fortunate. Over the years, Danielle Steel has become as much a part of the San Francisco landscape as the Balboa’s Pat Kelley, doyenne of the Marina District, or the sagacious Hadley Roff, advisor to innumerable San Francisco mayors and a Balboa regular himself.
So when Ms. Steel told the Wall Street Journal recently that she had decided to quit San Francisco for Paris, the shock amid the ladies who lunch was palpable.
Danielle Steel, no stranger to good copy, is not going gently into that Parisian night. Oh, no. Ms. Steel added acidly that she was very happy to leave San Francisco.
“There’s no style, nobody dresses up – you can’t be chic there,” she declared, “It’s all shorts and hiking boots and Tevas – it’s as if everyone is dressed to go on a camping trip. I don’t think people really care how they look there; and I look like a mess when I’m there, too.”
I never saw Danielle Steel look like a mess – but I got her point. You can’t be chic in San Francisco anymore.
This is the most devastating sociological statement about the region since Gertrude Stein uttered those infamous words about Oakland: “There is no there there.”
As for everyone looking like they’re dressed to go on a camping trip, I wondered what all those people were doing sleeping in the streets.
Beauty is skin deep, they say, and San Francisco certainly has a thin skin. The city is very touchy. The locals hate criticism. All the same, most persons of a certain age will reminisce fondly about how ladies always wore hats and white gloves when they were going “downtown,” ostensibly to have lunch at The Old Poodle Dog or at Blum’s or the City of Paris. Oh, did I say Paris? Sorry.
The Chronicle’s wonderful writer and Native Son, Carl Nolte, conceded he had to agree with Ms. Steel. “I did make a foray into the world of high style last fall: opening night at the Opera. Swells wore white tie and tails; the women glittered in lovely gowns. I wore a dark suit, like the city mouse. But I spotted one operagoer in Levi’s and a T-shirt. Danielle Steel was right: anything goes.” Sure, I know what Carl means. I used to carry myself with an air of well-appointed insouciance. Even NPR once described me as “dapper.”
But I told Carl that I now feel like Zero Mostel (Max Bialystock) in the Mel Brooks masterpiece, The Producers: “You see this? This once held a pearl as big as your eye! Look at me now; I’m wearing a cardboard belt!”
No matter how tawdry our city becomes, Carl Nolte will never quit his hometown.
“My favorite line from The Streets of San Francisco,” Carl told me the other day, “is when Karl Malden says to Michael Douglas after they bust some bad guys on Potrero Hill: ‘Look at that house, would you? What a dump! Who would live in a dump like that?’ Actually, I lived in that very house as a kid, on 23rd Street between De Haro and Carolina. It’s still there. Now the houses are worth an average of $950K.”
Just because San Francisco has become a badly dressed playground for millionaires, do you think I’d abandon this Outpost by the Bay for the City of Light by the Seine, as the disillusioned Danielle Steel has done?
Hah! Just watch me. Of course, I haven’t a thing to wear. Wait for me, Ms. Steel! We’ll go shopping together.
Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay. He may have been a fashion maven at one time – but now he’s Loehmann’s on the totem pole. Give him some sartorial guidance: [email protected].
