San Francisco Confidential: Tales of Scandal & Excess from the Town That's Seen Everything

by Raymond Mungo

Tales of scandal & excess from the town that has produced more saloons per capita than any other, Haight-Ashbury, acid rock, gay liberation, and more, and has been home to such notables as Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, Patty Hearst, & others. B&W photos.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1995

About the author

Raymond Mungo (born 1946) is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books. He writes about business, economics, and financial matters as well as cultural issues. In the 1960s, he attended Boston University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Boston University News in 1966-67; and where, as a student leader, he spearheaded demonstrations against the Vietnam War.
In 1967, Mungo co-founded the Liberation News Service (LNS), an alternative news agency, along with Marshall Bloom. LNS split off from College Press Service (CPS) in a political dispute. The founding event was a notably tumultuous meeting that transpired not far from the offices of CPS on Church Street in Washington, D.C.. Mungo descriptively details this event in his book, Famous Long Ago: My Life and Hard Times with the Liberation News Service.
In 1968 he moved to Vermont with Verandah Porche and others as part of the back to the land movement.
Mungo continued to write through the 1970s and 1980s; however in 1997 his career path took a different turn. He completed a Master's Degree in counseling and began working with the severely mentally ill and with AIDS patients in Los Angeles. Mungo visited France in 2000 and briefly considered relocating there.

Reviews

[Bev · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun book! I was going to read Henry V, which I am reviewing this week, but that plan didn't last long and soon I was up and looking through the shelves again. This was one of the display books and I picked it up and within seconds had returned Henry V to the shelves. Published in 1996, this is quite dated but it covers the scandalous activities in San Francisco from the time of the Gold Rush to the date of writing. Not all of the scandals, of course, but some of the more notorious and most of them things that I remember. It's not only scandals, but also things like the birth of the Beat era and the Hippie era (I'm amazed at how many things I lived through were "firsts" in the country). There is the re-telling of the story of the murder of Mayor Mosconi and Supervisor Harvey Milk (the first gay supervisor). I was quite familiar with that story, of course, but I don't think I ever heard that homophobic assassin Dan White was actually gay and having an affair with a San Francisco Fireman. The books covers suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge, Patty Hearst, and lots and lots of San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen (now deceased). I was so tickled by the book that, of course, I bought it. Cheap at only $5!