North Beach Examiner

Liftoff in North Beach

This inaugural post, devoted to covering North Beach, originates from the light-dappled corner stool at Specs, which seems an altogether fitting place to begin our journey.

It's both a nod to this hard-drinking neighborhood and an homage to legendary Chronicle columnist Charles McCabe, who for years faithfully penned his daily requirement over a few dirty martinis at Gino & Carlo. (Where, upon completion, he would call the city desk, which would dispatch an office boy to North Beach to fetch his gin-soaked copy.)

We use computers now, which kills the romance a little. But we soldier on.

McCabe died in his Telegraph Hill apartment back in 1983, keeling over from a stroke at 68. So he never got the chance to write to the Internet. While he would have probably sneered at the technology, I suspect he would have embraced the spirit. "Any clod can have the facts," he once said, "but having opinions is an art." He also coined McCabe's Law: "Nobody has to do anything."

Both seem very close to the blogger ethos. Not to mention the North Beach zeitgeist.

In the coming days, weeks, months and, perhaps, years, I'll be channeling Charlie McCabe as I comb the cafes and bars, the alleys and thoroughfares, the galleries and trattorias, digging for news and seeking out the essence of our little corner of heaven.

Everything is fair game: good, bad or indifferent. When I edited the North Beach Beat ("an editorial success but a financial flop," someone called it) a few years back, I wrote a rather high-minded, bombastic editorial about serving the neighborhood, and the importance of community journalism as a marketplace of ideas, where all opinions (artistic and otherwise) are welcome.

Well, nothing's changed. I remain as committed to North Beach as ever. With this thread of posts I seek your participation as much as your readership. The only difference now is that examiner.com, and not me, is paying the freight. In other words, it might work this time.

So check in regularly and take this leap of faith with me. I'll be writing about all things relevant to North Beach, so give me your news (buy me a drink), flog your event (buy me a drink), whine in my ear (buy me a drink).

See you around.
Topics: North Beach , Charles McCabe , Telegraph Hill , Specs