Cowboy Confessional

It has been said that upon entering San Francisco one has the feeling they have left the United States. This sentiment is true in both its positive appreciation of San Francisco and its cynical caricature of the same.

Most amusing is the way San Francisco unconsciously exposes its differences and indifference to the rest of the nation. Though secession is not on San Francisco’s agenda, cultural and political collusion with the rest of the country is frowned upon if not actually illegal (the later is impossible to determine as The City’s statutes appear to be written by lower primates, by whom I mean Chris Daly). Even the thinning local newspaper of record has the fortunate habit of inadvertently advertising the disparity San Francisco has with America at large.

Sunday editions of the San Francisco Chronicle contain a book section which is for the most part a joy to peruse, aside from the angst it causes people who measure their unread book collections by the yard, by whom I mean me. The reviews are mostly lucid, often entertaining, and outside of election season not aggravating to conservatives and libertarians (the same cannot be said for the editorial page which is outsourced to the remnants of Pravda).

The back of Sunday’s book section contains a table of interest to writers. It lists the top selling books in several categories, but splits the table between Bay Area best sellers and what the rest of the country is reading. The contrast is stark as black ink on white newsprint. The non-fiction section – dominated by political missives in our modern era – has rare covariance, with today’s top ten sharing only one book betwixt (Malcolm Gladwell’s observations on Outliers, those annoyingly productive people that make average folk reevaluate their drinking and late sleeping habits … at least until cocktail hour or nap time).

Today’s #4 slots displayed a divide slightly wider than the Wyoming sky.

Across the nation people are rapidly reading Bernard Goldberg analysis of the media’s relationship with the new president, appropriately titled A Slobbering Love Affair. Bernie was a reporter with CBS News for more years than he is comfortable admitting and thus has seen media sausage making from the pigs vantage point. When he opines on the failings and fawnings of the media, he provides insights few other people can. The American public, largely suspicious of the media in general, has been gobbling up Goldberg’s book.

San Francisco readers lifted into their #4 slot The Inaugural Address 2009, a dump of Barack Obama’s opening salvo as the new, temporary chief executive officer of U.S.A. Corp.

To say San Francisco has also indulged in a slobbering love affair with Obama is akin to saying the Taliban is a little harsh. During the last election cycle I met the one San Francisco resident who put a McCain bumper sticker on a car. I’m not sure it was his car. He was reluctant to admit anything specific and later declined to emerge from his underground bunker until after the election for fear that his otherwise atheistic neighbors would revive the lost art of crucifixion.

Contemplate for a moment the generalized divergence. The wide swarth of America is investigating the relationship of an allegedly complicit media with the DNC’s messiah. San Francisco is consumed with the messiah himself and uninterested in analyzing if the media wears knee pads during presidential press conferences.

Does this say more about San Francisco or about the average American? The latter.

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