San Francisco Confidential
There’s not enough crime in San Francisco for James Ellroy, imagine that.
According to Leah Garchik’s column...
Noir writer James Ellroy, who made an experimental move to San Francisco in early February, is said to be moving back to Los Angeles. Noir City impresario Eddie Muller, who was at Enrico's with him the other night, says crime and boxing were what they talked about. San Francisco "apparently offers neither in sufficient measure,'' says Muller.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/05/DDGNSGUF0T1.DTL
Yeah, Jimmy Boy, enjoy your daily bowl of smog in the morning. Along with a nice heaping helping of traffic for lunch, followed by seconds, thirds, and if you haven’t had enough? Some more traffic for dinner. Mmm-mmm, tasty ground level ozone.
The back of the last James Ellroy book that I’ve read claimed that he moved to Kansas, but there you go. Anyway, time to get my rant on. We have crime, Jimmy Boy, we have crime. Last year, we had the highest homicide rate in over a decade...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/31/MNG62H06931.DTL
If you say that ninety-six murders are not a lot? Well, that’s a bunch considering that we’re just one small city of 46.7 square miles. Plus, we have fun incidents like this...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/31/BAG5II1AIF1.DTL
Believe you, me, Mr. Ellroy, callous and cold-blooded are not unique to the southern part of the state. That’s just one story of the senseless variety, but there are at least four of these type of incidents a week.
Yet, why confine ourselves to inopportune violence? How about the drug-dealing corridor on Sixth Street, between Market Street and Mission Street? Or as our own police call it, “Sixth and Mayhem.” We’ve got Bloods, Crips, Norteños, Sureños, Chinese gangs, Vietnamese gangs, Russian gangs, MS-13’s, etc... Don't get me started on the street life in the aptly named "Tenderloin," or the shootings in the Mission and on Third Street.
Why stop there? Take our police. We got your Rampart Division right here, Jimmy Boy...
http://www.sfgate.com/useofforce/
So, why would I take umbrage when someone says that there is not enough crime in San Francisco? Because nothing could be further from the truth. Every city in America has crime, but for you to say that you cannot find crime in San Francisco is like saying that you couldn’t find any fog either.
Do I think he was being serious when he allegedly made that statement or do I think that the superb Eddie Muller didn’t have his tongue in cheek when he related this to Ms. Garchick? No, and I think Eddie was half-pulling her chain.
What I do believe, was that James Ellroy was saying that San Francisco couldn’t inspire him as a writer. This was the same city that did just fine by Dashiell Hammett, whom Ellroy has cited as one of his greatest influences.
This little city has not been short of inspiration for Jack Kerouac, David Eggers, Amy Tan, Daniel Handler, and the aforementioned Eddie Muller. It has been said that Anne Rice wrote some of her best material here, as well as Mark Twain. John Steinbeck wrote newspaper articles here that would eventually become “The Grapes of Wrath.”
So Mr. Ellroy, go on back to Kansas or Los Angeles, but don't bother coming to San Francisco anymore. We have no use for you and apparently you've lost the ability to recognize crime, even if it bit you on the “hush-hush, on the q-t.”
According to Leah Garchik’s column...
Noir writer James Ellroy, who made an experimental move to San Francisco in early February, is said to be moving back to Los Angeles. Noir City impresario Eddie Muller, who was at Enrico's with him the other night, says crime and boxing were what they talked about. San Francisco "apparently offers neither in sufficient measure,'' says Muller.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/05/DDGNSGUF0T1.DTL
Yeah, Jimmy Boy, enjoy your daily bowl of smog in the morning. Along with a nice heaping helping of traffic for lunch, followed by seconds, thirds, and if you haven’t had enough? Some more traffic for dinner. Mmm-mmm, tasty ground level ozone.
The back of the last James Ellroy book that I’ve read claimed that he moved to Kansas, but there you go. Anyway, time to get my rant on. We have crime, Jimmy Boy, we have crime. Last year, we had the highest homicide rate in over a decade...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/31/MNG62H06931.DTL
If you say that ninety-six murders are not a lot? Well, that’s a bunch considering that we’re just one small city of 46.7 square miles. Plus, we have fun incidents like this...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/31/BAG5II1AIF1.DTL
Believe you, me, Mr. Ellroy, callous and cold-blooded are not unique to the southern part of the state. That’s just one story of the senseless variety, but there are at least four of these type of incidents a week.
Yet, why confine ourselves to inopportune violence? How about the drug-dealing corridor on Sixth Street, between Market Street and Mission Street? Or as our own police call it, “Sixth and Mayhem.” We’ve got Bloods, Crips, Norteños, Sureños, Chinese gangs, Vietnamese gangs, Russian gangs, MS-13’s, etc... Don't get me started on the street life in the aptly named "Tenderloin," or the shootings in the Mission and on Third Street.
Why stop there? Take our police. We got your Rampart Division right here, Jimmy Boy...
http://www.sfgate.com/useofforce/
So, why would I take umbrage when someone says that there is not enough crime in San Francisco? Because nothing could be further from the truth. Every city in America has crime, but for you to say that you cannot find crime in San Francisco is like saying that you couldn’t find any fog either.
Do I think he was being serious when he allegedly made that statement or do I think that the superb Eddie Muller didn’t have his tongue in cheek when he related this to Ms. Garchick? No, and I think Eddie was half-pulling her chain.
What I do believe, was that James Ellroy was saying that San Francisco couldn’t inspire him as a writer. This was the same city that did just fine by Dashiell Hammett, whom Ellroy has cited as one of his greatest influences.
This little city has not been short of inspiration for Jack Kerouac, David Eggers, Amy Tan, Daniel Handler, and the aforementioned Eddie Muller. It has been said that Anne Rice wrote some of her best material here, as well as Mark Twain. John Steinbeck wrote newspaper articles here that would eventually become “The Grapes of Wrath.”
So Mr. Ellroy, go on back to Kansas or Los Angeles, but don't bother coming to San Francisco anymore. We have no use for you and apparently you've lost the ability to recognize crime, even if it bit you on the “hush-hush, on the q-t.”
Labels: Dashiell Hammett, Eddie Muller
posted by Writeprocrastinator at 6:44 AM
2 Comments:
Nice rant. But trust me, a chain was definitely being pulled. And so good of you to refer to Eddie Muller as "superb."
When I say "superb," that's an understatement.
Eddie Muller came as close to recreating Noir with "The Distance" and "Shadow Boxer," as anyone will with literature in the post-Noir era.
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