Call It Frisco

Major props to our man Andres who read the last post and was inspired to send us this:

Got a Frisco logo of your own? Send it in and we’ll post it!

The demise of the Don’t Call It Frisco Laundromat got us thinking – what does not calling it Frisco have to do with laundry? Absolutely nothing.  They were just trying to make an easy buck by pandering to a group mentality.

But now that the laundromat is gone, will other businesses rush to fill the Don’t Call It Frisco hole?  Better to Call It Frisco and guarantee you’ll never see any of these spring up in your neighborhood:

Don’t Call It Frisco Pet Neutering

Don’t Call It Frisco Back Waxing

Don’t Call It Frisco Gynecologists

Don’t Call It Frisco Pest Exterminators

Don’t Call It Frisco Septic Tank Cleaners

Don’t Call It Frisco Needle Exchange

Don’t Call It Frisco Blackhead Removal

Don’t Call It Frisco Adult Theaters

Don’t Call It Frisco Taxidermy

Don’t Call It Frisco Butcher Shop

Don’t call it brisket.

We also feel it’s best to be wary of these Don’t Call It Frisco branded products:

Don’t Call It Cisco® communications networking

Don’t Call It Quizno’s® toasted sandwiches

Don’t Call It Triscuit® snack crackers

Don’t Call it Pisco Peruvian liquor

Don’t call it Brillo® scouring pads

Don’t Call it Risk-o™ game of global domination

And, of course…

Don’t Call It Crisco® vegetable shortening

We went by the Don’t Call It Frisco Laundromat on Hayes today to see if we could have a choice word or two with the owners. But guess what - it had gone out of business! Let this be a lesson to all you haters out there that it’s time to start calling it Frisco!

Before…

After…

Don’t Call It Frisco, the book in which Herb Caen first popularized the phrase, was published in 1953. So for those who insist on clinging so tenaciously to an idea from that year, here are some other popular views from 1953 that you might want to support:

• Women earned about 60 cents for every dollar men earned.

• President Eisenhower approved National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, maintaining and expanding the United States’ arsenal of nuclear weapons to “counter the communist threat.”

• In South Africa, the Apartheid Separate Amenities Act was passed, creating separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities.

• Cigarettes were considered to be healthy.

Welcome to flavor country!

• Homosexuals were commonly convicted on “morals” charges - most notably Bayard Rustin, advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. and driving force behind the historic March on Washington.

• Pointy Bras.

• Senator Joseph’s McCarthy’s Red Scare was in full swing, and Charlie Chaplin was labeled a communist and unable to reenter the U.S. after a trip to Europe.

• The top 5 Billboard songs were:

1. Song From Moulin Rouge by Percy Faith
2. Vaya Con Dios by Les Paul & Mary Ford
3. Doggie In The Window by Patti Page
4. I’m Walking Behind You by Eddie Fisher
5. You, You You by the Ames Brothers

Two of the other top 10 hits were by Perry Como.

Who started this nonsense about not calling it Frisco? Not surprisingly, a madman.

Most people think it was Herb Caen who introduced the idea in his book Don’t Call It Frisco (which, if you’re interested, you can buy here). But actually, it was Josh Norton.

You can read a more complete history of the original Frisco hater here, but the short version is that Joshua Norton was a shipping magnate during the gold rush who first lost his fortune, and then proceeded to lose his mind. On September 18, 1859 the San Francisco Bulletin printed a letter in which he appointed himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States (he also later appointed himself Protector of Mexico).

Over the next several years, Norton made numerous “proclamations,” including the abolition of the U.S. Congress and the California Supreme Court, the firing of Virginia Governor Henry Wise, the dissolution of the United States, the formation of an absolute monarchy, and, in 1872, his most ridiculous proclamation of all:

“Whoever after due and proper warning shall be heard to utter the abominable word “Frisco”, which has no linguistic or other warrant, shall be deemed guilty of a High Misdemeanor, and shall pay into the Imperial Treasury as penalty the sum of twenty-five dollars.”

In other words, don’t call it Frisco.

Joshua Norton died on January 8, 1880. And though he was loved by Friscans of all classes and given an emperor’s funeral, he was, by all accounts, completely insane.

Hi. We’re Kevin, Andre and Luka. And we live in Frisco.

Like so many other Friscans, when we first moved here we quickly learned that calling our new home Frisco was strictly taboo – just say the word to anyone on the streets of Everybody’s Favorite City and they’ll look at you like you took a dump on their coffeetable.

And so for years, we went along with the crowd and called Frisco by its “acceptable” name, San Francisco (pronounced no other way than San Frihn-CIS-co). Or, in a pinch, we called it SF (pronounced Ess-EFF). But then one day, it dawned on us – why can’t we call it Frisco? Because some dead writer said so half a century ago? Because it’s what everybody else does? This is a city that not only prides itself on being a community of independent thinkers, but practically wears the motto on its sleeve. This is where counterculture was born, a place that embraces the arts, invents undreamed of technologies, and legalizes gay marriage. And yet it blindly adheres to this rule with a fascistic fervor.

But we will no longer blindly follow the herd. We will not omit a perfectly acceptable word from our vocabulary just because everybody else says we should. We will call our home and the city we love by any name we darned well choose. We will proudly call it Frisco.

And we invite you to do the same.