Welcome to a hard-boiled and not without noir blog with news and reviews, occasional outbursts of maniacal Autograph Hound activity, plus archival records from the forty-five year run of The Dashiell Hammett Tour. 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour
1977-2022
Arkham House Ephemera
The Classic Years 1937–1973
Death Lit
Essays and Reviews Selected from Fifty Years of Writing 1974–2024
Willeford
The Book
Category Archives: Frisco
Two-Gun Bob: Conan — in Jeopardy(!)
After getting back to the lair after rolling up to catch Peter Field’s talk in the Tenderloin Museum last night (also grabbed a copy of his new history of The TL — you’ll like it, lots of pictures), I opened … Continue reading
Suicide Club: Peter Field Drops a Book
A fellow adventurer from the glory days of The San Francisco Suicide Club, 1977-82, has dug around, done a bunch of research, and written a book. I went on one of the first walking tours of the Tenderloin that Peter Field … Continue reading
Frisco Beat: Omega to Alpha
Today marks the anniversary of Hammett’s death on January 10, 1961, and in one of the weirder coincidences of all time, also the death of Hammett devotee Joe Gores, same date in 2011 — exactly fifty years to the day … Continue reading
Tour: Photobombed!
In the pic above shot by Sue Montgomery I stand in front of the Flood Building, 870 Market, on October 28, waiting to see who’ll show up for the walk. And I’m not alone. Technically a true photobomb or by accident? You … Continue reading
Tour: Mentioned in the NYT Again
Or so I’m told. After the tour yesterday I dropped in on the Second Sunday gathering of local f&sf fans — the fanzine fans of yesteryear — since this round it was in the Elks Lodge bar near where the walk ends … Continue reading
Frisco Beat: Alas, Poor Blanco’s! I Knew It, Horatio. . .
You know how it is, you go in for triple bypass surgery and someone figures you’re gone for sure, The Defender of the Faith is down by the wayside, and it’s now safe to paint over the tragically faded lettering … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Tour
Tagged Blanco's, Great American Music Hall, Larkin Street, Olive Street
Suicide Club: Roscoe Arbuckle Kidnapped Caper
On a rotting wharf over the Islais Creek channel, a climactic gundown gets a reenactment — left to right, R. Faraday Nelson as Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (but I’m thinking Ray’s major claim to immortality probably is serving as the model for Roy Batty … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, SFSC
Tagged Black Rock Desert, Bladerunner, Burning Man, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Fatty Arbuckle, Islais Creek, John Law, Philip K. Dick, R. Faraday Nelson, Roy Batty
Hammett: Gutman’s Daughter Preying on Minds
I was just mentioning to Bill Arney that our days of hanging out in San Francisco bars between ten and twenty years ago was a Golden Age, and that I said so at the time. Golden Ages don’t slip past me … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Chandler and the Great War
Brian Wallace lets me know about news popping in scattered corners of the noir universe. I suspect he thinks I’m too lazy to look for the stuff myself, and if so, he isn’t wrong. For many long years I have operated under the … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, Lit, News
Tagged Brian Wallace, Literary Plaques, London's blue enamel plaques, Raymond Chandler, The Great War
