The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 41

41 Guy Wright t--- HIMItltMIIIMHIIIttltlllllilllHimillllltllirtlllllltlllltlllllHIHHHmMltlUIMmi BROTHER JUNIPER GRIN AND BEAR IT I We're All In Ihe Cml Dick Nolan iiHiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiimiiitunrM See-Vve Slill Gol a IVecfc MlllllllllllilllMlllltlinilllMIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIMIIMIIIIIIIIIIIItllllllllllllllHMIIIIIII it l4 I llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllMlllllllllllllllltllllllliillll Memo to the outside world: The best way to understand California politics for the next four years is to ignore what the geography books say and pretend the capital of our state is Disneyland. You out-of-state onlookers may have receiv ed the Impression that an actor has crashed politics out here. We 'Californians prefer to take the attitude that we have crashed the movies. We can understand if voters elsewhere are envious. Our whole state is now a movie set and we are all Hollywood extras in a political extravaganza starring Ronald Reagan and a cast of millions.

Lights! Action! Camera! Ft- "Being a freshman and away from home for the first time, I never thought it was possible to study without the family TV set!" 'One second to splashdown." I Charles Denton ONCE AGAIN the pollsters must have been potted. True, they put their hunch money on the right candidate, but that was a bit like the weather man predicting light showers on the eve of a cloudburst. The pollsters told us to expect a cliffhanger, and it turned out to be a walkaway. Instead of the 2 percent edge they gave Ronnie Baby, he won by a landslide. And reposition "Clean," which they called an easy i.

winner, lost 3 to 3. If we allowed airplane pilots and barbers the same margin of error that the pollsters claim, we would all be dead. Or minus an ear. Isn't it time we told the pollsters to quit playing 'games and seek useful employment? A Champion Went Down Mm "He who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted." Damon Runyon's formula for wealth and fame in the newspaper business. Okay.

The pitch pipe, please. Be it noted here (because it will never be noted anywhere else) that this very column gave you the only correct and unequivocal forecast of the Reagan-Finch sweep. While in the same editions the pollsters were balancing the election on a knife-edge, hedging with their usual "undecided" fall-breaker, and coppering the bets by noting a trend among the "undecideds" to Pat Brown. I wore out a pencil working out the arithmetic, and have applied to the front office for a new one. The request is being processed through channels, and I am quite optimistic about it.

As for wealth I managed to mousetrap an innocent from the morning paper into a J5 bet. and I plan to squander it all at DunhiU'i on several or more good cigars. While projecting a substantial win for Reagan, my calculations uere actually on the low side. With returns still coming in, the error amounts to a fraction more than four percentage points statewide. It was a good exercise, and 1 am childishly pleased.

THE ONLY pollster-analyst to put his neck right on the block and I bow low to his courage was Hal Dunleavy. His prediction of a Pat Brown win was 100 percent wrong and about a million votes off. Dunleavy was misled by the 'undecided'' totals, and the fluctuation therein. In a television interview. Dunleavy pegged the "undecideds" as Democrats, and expressed a faith that their party loyalty would come through for Brown.

The rest of the polling brethren played it straight from Delphos. and carefully arranged to have Apollo speak with forked tongue. Apollo also has cold feet. Behind the scenes, as the campaign ended, there was a tantalizing hint here and there that inner core profes-sionals were alerted to a possible Reagan landslide. Lyndon Johnson's people sensed it.

In the Reagan camp the arithmetic looked so good that nobody dared to believe it. The Brown bunch pinned their hopes on that final television splurge and a shift among the elusive "undecideds." WHILE DISSECTING tins campaign, which I found fascinating, I may as well register a strong dissent to the views expressed on election day by my colleague. Sydney J. Harris. In sum.

Harris said American politics is a farce, not worthy of his attention. Tsk. The Harris viewpoint is high minded nonsense, of course. At all levels, politics is the key to power, and nobody's life is unaffected by the decisions made in the brawling political arena. Besides which, it is the biggest spectator sport in the world, well worth all the attention it gets.

May it never get less. THE CALIFORNIA campaign was a bitter one, and the sting will remain for a long time to come. The diehards are already digging into sniper iositions from which the Governor-elect will be well and truly peppered. The more solemn Brown partisans are going about today as though the world were going to end. It's a post-election gloom which is deeper than usual, and not at all necessary, really.

Seasoned politics-watchers can only remind the gloom-ies that a more or less regular turnover is good for the Republic. In a sound democracy, our rulers ought to be changed routinely, like diapers for the same reason. DEFEAT OF the airport and muni bond issues should offer some lessons, if we are willing to learn. Each xeceived a majority, but not the two-thirds majority for passage. The vote: Prop.

A. (airport) yes; 81.537 no. Prop. (muni) 135,077 yei; 101,088 no. Perhaps the lesson of the bond defeat is hidden in the following figures: San Francisco voter registration for the past three gubernatorial elections shows this pell-mell plummet: In 1958 (Brown-Knowland) 406,158.

In 1963 Brown-Mxon 384,470. In 1966 (Brown-Reagan) 355,371. This drop of almost 50,000 in eight years is more than can be accounted for by varying election interest or the city's population decline. What it does offer is an inkling of the changing character of the electorate the people who ARE San Francisco. WE HAVE more elderly people, whose political participation has slackened.

We have more young people; semi-transients who have come West in search of the Great Something; they "love" San Francisco but are Indifferent to the mundane jnatter of municipal government, We have more southern Negroes, people whose inferi- nr orliirufinn and rnltnral inhibitions have kpnt them from You didn't want to look, but you couldn't help yourself, lie stood there in his corner, blinking incredulously at the awful suddenness of it wliile his handlers gloomily massaged his shoulders and muttered their sympathy. Unbelieving well-wishers pressed toward him, cheering, and he waved to show he wasn't hurt, but the pain in his eyes was unmistakable. His wife was beside him, and he smiled at her uncertainly. She managed a tight smile in return, and you had the feeling that she was more relieved than saddened. Now at last It was all over.

He would have to hang them up for good. He went stiffly to the microphones, waited for the last hurrahs to die down and said some nice things about how good it had been to be the champ and how much he thanked everybody for being so kind to him and how he wished the new champion all the best. He made no excuses. Uttered no cries of "foul." Then he trudged wearily out of the arena, nodding apologetically to the old fans who tried to pat him on the back and sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." And in the dressing room his managers were already talking about where to find someone to groom for a shot at the new titleholder. HE HADN'T WANTED this fight.

He had wanted to retire while he was still the champ. Maybe find a nice, soft job someplace on the strength of his name and take life easy for a change. He was way over the hill, and he knew it. He didn't have a chance, and deep down he knew that, too. Even in his prime they called him a "cheese champ" a willing plugger who could take a punch and keep coming, but that was about all.

He had all the style of a rube at a tea dance. And after eight yean of battering, he couldn't control his left, and his right was as likely to hit him as the enemy. His timing was farther off than an SP train schedule, and Frankenstein'! monster had fancier footwork. The challenger had youth, vigor, class, smart handlers, a right you couldn't even see, only feel, and a secret punch called the backlash. But the old champ had lots of debts, and the pressure was on him to make one more fight.

Besides, he'd never backed away from one before, and there was always the chance that the challenger would drop his guard and let him get in one big punch. IT WASN'T in him to go in the tank, either. He trained harder than ever endless miles of roadwork, endless hours of boxing the same old shadow and flailing away at the same old bag. But he just didn't have it any more. His jabs didn't sting.

His feints didn't fool anybody. His exhibitions didn't draw enough spectators to fill the ashtrays, and the oddsmakers made him a longer shot than Robert E. Lee In an Instant replay of Gettysburg. In the challenger's camp they were already looking ahead to bigger battles to come. By ringtime about the best the old champ could hope for was to go the distance and make It a close decision hang in tough and make the challenger sweat for It.

But he was knocked out before most of the spectators even got to their seats. If it was depressing to watch, it must have been tragic to take. But he took it like a champion. Not a "cheese champion," either. tun commitment in civic auairs.

Even with the influx of these three groups, the city's population continues to decline, which should dramatize the magnitude of the invisible migration to the suburbs tkneo mAAl-na tnlriHlo.xlucs families Itppn avlnc Kenneth Rexroth are In short supply. Scoff all you wish about the bourgeois middle-class, these are the people who act as the flywheel of civic life. With growing children, they feel a stake in the future, offsetting the reluctance to change that marks old age. roots in the community, they feel the involvement that the vagabonds and newcomers haven't yet achieved. They are the ones who would take the trouble to vote for a better airport and a better muni but they don't I live in the City anymore.

A Game That's Deadly DottM Stnnley I itti Mir WWW "Vk Itt Sydney J. Harris Hip Argot of Pro Griddcrs ft More Thoushls Also, this results in a universal Tomism. Berliners, at least in public, say what they think Americans want to hear. WELL THEY might Tom anybody from America you never know who you are talking to. The other night I went to what purported to be a party of a mildly Leftish-Liberalish complexion.

The cocktail conversation was the most extraordinary double talk. Furthermore, I am sure they all knew one another well and had been hob nobbing at parties like this for years. I wonder what percentage of the guests went home that night and typed up reports before retiring? What fun! Trouble is, when push comes to shove, as it does by fits and starts, this fun can turn deadly. It is not all as innocent bed play as that lovely Marschallin juggling her two lovers. Al Large-- Coffin's Needle Ninety per cent of what we believe has nothing to do fwith the process of thought, but comes instead from the four sources of family inheritance, individual temperament, national culture, and economic self-interest; and while we cannot wholly cast off these shackles, we should -rat least recongnize their cramping and distorting influence upon the free process of thought.

The social organism, like all nature, abhors a vacuum; and what the power structure in any society rarely learns until too late is that if the legitimate needs of the people are not met in a human way by the community, hey will be filled in an official way by the state. if How many wars, occupations or separate military actions has the peace-loving United States engaged in since 1900? Would you believe 28? And would you believe that in the 3600 years of recorded history, fewer than 300 bave been wholly warless, with 8000 "treaties" broken in "that time? BERLIN It is like old-time Californians and the climate, straight off on meeting everybody asks you, "What do you think of Berlin?" From the editor of the highbrow magazine "Monat" to ditch diggers, taxi drivers and girls in bars, they all seem to want to be reassured that they aren't dying with a dying city. I often answer that, If the Marschallin in "Der Rosen-kavalicr" symbolizes Vienna in the Indian summer of its long drawn out decay, so Berlin Is a Marschallin the Second, a beautiful, damaged, but carefully repaired kept woman. Everything about the city is just a little paled out with parasitism. STATISTICALLY West Berfin has, in money values, the highest industrial production of any city in West Germany, and East Berlin the highest in East Germany.

Partly this is illusory the great metropolis of Essen, Cologne, Dusseldorf and the other central Rluneland cities are not all one town, and in many instances the major industries in that area lie outside any city limits. Still, if the two Berlins were combined, their Indus-trial production would be as great as that of any city between the French border and the Urals. True, much of this is subsidized by West Germany and the USA for West Berlin and in very recent years Russia and East Berlin have started to encourage similar development of the eastern sector. Still, this is a case where you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink unless he's thirsty. SOCIALLY nOWEVER, Berlin life is just a little unreal the most loving kept woman still remains something of an actress.

The Russians and the Americans and the East and West Germans keep hundreds of people busy with an immense Hitchcock spy movie. Behind the scenes, for Instance, in a couple of flashy underworld hotels just off the main street, things can get pretty rough and ugly at times, but mostly it's all a James Bond thriller rewritten for the "Reader's Digest," 007s who have taken doctorates at Swarthmore and talk like liberal ministers who dig Ionesco. They are all still busy fighting the Cold War, as of ten years ago, and can't understand how or why you can be what they consider cynical and indifferent about it. You must be up to something very sneaky indeed. By Harold Coffin San Francisco shows an interest in its neighbors by trying to dump its garbage next door.

But Brisbane refuses the refuse. Brisbane 'i contrariness seems downright un-neighborly. Don't they realize this Big City garbage is a collector's item? The situation is too messy for scavengers to handle. And so they've called in the lawyers. San Francisco believes In garbage dumps and freeways.

On the other fellow's property. The attitude of San Franciscans toward garbage is similar to their attitude toward the topless. They figure that if they look at it long enough it may go Watching pro football on the little screen I have become aware that along with knee injuries one of the major casualties of the sport is the English language. In this regard perhaps nobody hits with greater vigor and effect than Bob Fouts, the 49er play-by-play mn of Channel 5. Somebody else took the adjective audible and made a noun out of it that means a new play called at the line of scrimmage.

But it was Bruiser Fouts 'who knocked down this bastard form with the exclamation, "Brodie is audibling!" Thus becoming the first NFL sportscaster.to bypass a verb form and turn a noun into a present participle. THIS, OF COURSE, is only another confusion in a speech pattern that has already given weekend vocabularies such arcane constructions as zig-ins, slot backs, blue rights, flares and post patterns. Like bop talk, pro football argot, one suspects, can't tolerate public understanding. That is, as an "in" dialect it must change as soon as the "outs" catch on. Nevertheless I am grateful for "The Language of Pro Football" by Kyle Rote and Jack Winter.

It tells me the difference between dummy and live colors, how Unitas spots a zone defense and what (not who) Wanda is. There is nothing, however, about audibling. ONE MIGHT define a public relations consultant as an old fashioned press agent who owns his own prize vineyard. At any rate that defines San Francisco's nerb Cerwln, who has now also done what no practicing PR man In bis right mind should do before retirement. He has written his memoirs.

Since PR men are paid to make clients look better than they are. Cerwin's little indulgence, entitled "In Search of Something," might have been disastrous to any number of folk, for his connections have included: Lincoln Steffens, Robinson Jeffers, Jo Davidson, P. Gianninl, Earl Warren, S. F. B.

Morse, Salvador Dali, Blng Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Witter Bynner, Sylvester Weaver. Nelson Rockefeller, Gertrude Stein, Orson Welles, Theodor Reik, Dean Acheson, Louis Petri and Cardinal Spellman. ALL THESE names and many more act as place markers in the life that Cerwin has now committed to paper. But they or their heirs can rest easy. The books holds nostalgic value for those old Carmelites who remember the place as a bohemian beachhead before its fall to a mixed force of retired admirals, generals and brokers.

THE LANGUAGE OF PRO FOOTBALL. By Kyle Rote. Random House; 146 pages, $4.95. IN SEARCH OF SOMETHING. By Herbert Cerwin.

Sherbourne Press; 318 pages, 5.95. away. ANDY CAPP By REG SMYTHE IT IS NOT "LOGIC" that keeps people sane, but a sense of reality insane people think much more logically than most of us do. but their rigorous train of thought is 'based on an utterly false premise about the nature of reality. The greatest mystery of modern times is how so many people manage to live as well as they do on what we suspect they make.

Middle age is when you pass an apple orchard and remember the stomach-ache more than the thrill of climbing for the apples One of the few true mots that the late Somerset "'Maugham ever committed to paper was his definition of "perfection" as "what American women expect to find in their husbands but English women only hope to find in their butters." IT IS NOT divorce itself that does damage to the children of such marriages, but the emotional conflict leading up to the divorce; and recent studies indicate that adolescents from unbroken unhappy homes are more troubled and delinquent than those from broken homes, at least in middle-class environments. "Integrated education" is meaningless in itself, unless -we can raise the quality of education generally; and it is a dangerous and hopeless illusion to expect the schools to do what society will not do. f( What we call "the value of experience" can be grasped only by character; as Joubert observed: "Few men are worthy of experience the majority let it corrupt thUiV TIE I BOUGHT VER, INSTEAb OF ANDY SAW ME WEARIN A Ss WITH TV ji.