CALIBER

Ostensibly, initially, I took this photo for Troy. Troy’s fond regard for the late Herb Caen came back to me with a smile when I walked up 5th Street and saw the Loyal Royal, Caen’s trusted typewriter.

But the past few days added a dimension and a question posed by this image: Who speaks for us San Franciscans now? Who tells our stories and makes them heard?

I went to a MUNI Town Hall meeting last night. I wish I could say that for all of the citizens who came to speak their fears, stories, suggestions—that something constructive would come of it. But you know as well as I do that the reality of a situation doesn’t translate into action. I left that meeting feeling like there is no one now who can say what needs to be said in a medium that will rally the people and make the management step up and take notice. The blog world is not a subsitute for a central and powerful voice that people relate to. Our last and lonely newspaper: we watch its for its last breaths with good cause.

I wonder what Herb Caen would have written about that meeting, what he would have said about the poor, the elderly, the infirm who are desperate to be heard in a wilderness of mismanagement.

The people of San Francisco want to be heard. That meeting made me want to redouble my efforts to do my part, in my way.

Yesterday, my other site, i live here:SF, had a wonderful article written about it in KQED online. It countered the depressing feeling I had leaving that MUNI meeting. Reading about my work through the eyes of someone I’ve never met made the numerous hours spent on this labor of love gave me a shot in the arm. I’m no Herb Caen, and I’m no journalist, but I like to think he’d understand my project.

Perhaps there’s no one who can speak for us anymore. We have to speak for ourselves.