While most town folk sleep peacefully, dreaming the dreams of the just and the innocent, the seamy underbelly of Clayton is writhing and slithering in the bowels of the night. Or not.

So I notice that Chris Caen, son of the late, great (and late of the San Francisco Chronicle) Herb Caen, has begun writing a regular column in the San Francisco Examiner, the Chronicles scrappy 2^nd cousin-twice removed.  He’s pretty good. Only time will tell if he’ll rival his father’s longevity as well as escape his mammoth, looming shadow.

Chris Caen is filling a niche left by his father and while that’s great for San Francisco and the bartenders who pour his Vitamin V, we folks in the East Bay are decidedly niche-less. Reading young Caen’s column got me thinking (Yes I know it doesn’t happen often). Herb Caen was a Sacramento boy who moved to San Francisco. I am a Concord boy who moved to Clayton. Could we HAVE anymore in common?

Herb Caen used to refer to San Francisco as Baghdad by the Bay and while we may not have the Bay, the big city or seamy-ness writhing and slithering in our bowels there’s stuff happening. I can smell it and I need you to smell it too. I need my Clayton/Concord eyes, my spies and my on the wall flies to be alert. Send me those scoops, tidbits and bits of fluff. The scraps of conversation caught over the clank of the Nautilus machine, the scuttlebutt at the local watering holes and eateries or maybe just some off hand remarks for which kids are so famous. We’ll see if little ol’ Clayton can’t just give SF a run for its money. And if we can’t? Well who the hell will ever know anyway?

Send ‘em on to jromano01@yahoo.com