Davis has filled an obvious void in Hinckle's life. He has a partner-in-crime once again. Cut to the Mitchell Brothers' theater in 1994, a Sunday afternoon birthday party for local politico Barbara Kolesar. As guests milled about, chatting and drinking, suddenly loud music cranked up from the sound system, a hybrid Don Ho/Ohio Players disco thump. The showers activated in the fabled Shower Room. Some sort of show was about to begin.
But it was to be a performance that would forever haunt the dreams of all assembled. Stepping out from the wings were not two nubile, naked women, but Warren Hinckle and Jack Davis, Hinckle wearing red checked boxers and patent leather shoes, Davis parading around in B.V.D.s. The crowd was slack-jawed at this tableau of two rotund, nearly nude men, drinks in hand, frolicking under the shower heads. Bentley suddenly recognized his master -- perhaps it was the checkered boxers -- and, despite a bandaged paw, eagerly jumped into the shower. As the columnist attempted to calm his excited dog, Bentley's soaked bandage began to unravel. A silent crowd fumbled for their cameras.
Despite all the public pranks and moldy magazine carcasses, Warren Hinckle remains audacious in his Independent columns, issued weekly from the Argonaut office. Chronicle columnist Phil Matier is dismissed as a "toilet brush." Examiner Executive Editor Bronstein is alleged to have a secret latent homosexual crush on Jack Davis. Bay Guardian Publisher Bruce Brugmann is said to sport "well-manicured fingernails." And this very newspaper represents "square-headed yuppiness," in Hinckle's words.
"I think that it's Warren as catalyst that makes him important, more so than Warren's own ideas," says Boston University's Dr. Howard Gottlieb, "which of course are numerous, and go in all directions." Gottlieb is eager to collect Hinckle's work and papers at the BU Library, and has pursued the man relentlessly since 1965. He compares his quest to a minuet:
"He would promise yes, I would send truckers, and archivists to help pack the materials, and something would develop, and they would come back without the materials. This went on year after year, and each time Warren had another excuse. Oh, he had to leave town, or Ramparts was going into bankruptcy, or he had to think of something else, or this would happen, or that would happen. I'm hoping that as he lopes into maturity, and as the onset of middle age comes upon him, he may be tired of carrying all this material around. And then I think he might weaken. And I'm ready to pounce when he does."
Robert Scheer is quick to point out that in the case of Hinckle, the path of an iconoclast is probably the most difficult road to take for a journalist:
"There's a lot of people who were nowhere near as smart and talented as Warren, who had the presumption to become pundits. A lot of them make a good living now in Washington. I think Warren can beat 'em cold as a reporter, as a writer, as a thinker. ... Surviving in this life as an interesting person -- doing interesting things -- is not easy."
"He needs that story," says Bob Callahan. "That's his addiction. The idea of something quiet, or any kind of spiritual life, the quiet life -- Hinckle would laugh in your face. No philosopher king for Warren. He's the last of his kind."
Some would like to see Hinckle return to his sense of righteous indignation.
"He's a muckraker," insists the Examiner's Bronstein. "He was passionate about going after things, and exposing things in his own inimitable way. But if you're the booster for the establishment of San Francisco -- I don't care if it's somebody as interesting and entertaining and colorful as Willie -- you can't engage in what you do best, which is muckraking."
But Hinckle's legendary style of fast and loose with the facts, creating his love-it-or-leave-it reputation with readers, is beginning to worry longtime friend Jim Wood, food critic at the Examiner:
"He's done something recently that's extremely troubling. I don't know why he did it. I don't understand it."
Wood refers to a lunchtime crowd at the M&M, a newspaper bar on the corner of Fifth and Howard. Three weeks ago, a huddle convened of Chronicle and Examiner reporters, including Wood and Maitland Zane. All were discussing Hinckle's recent column in the Independent about Chinatown activist Rose Pak. Hinckle had listed a few observations about her character flaws, then wrote:
"I raise these points as a person who genuinely, personally, likes Rose Pak. She swears and drinks and that is my type of person."
The journalist beehive was completely baffled.
"She's a non-drinker," says Zane with the air of authority.
"It's not like she's a recovering alcoholic -- she just doesn't drink," says Wood, a puzzled tone in his voice. "She's never drunk. I thought that was the weirdest thing."
Quentin Kopp is still on the line, tooling down I-80, talking about his lifelong friend Warren Hinckle.
"He has the most verve, the most imagination. He's also fearless. It's a wonder he hasn't been whacked on defamation." The senator pauses, then adds wryly, "Maybe because everyone figures, 'Ah, who the hell pays attention to Hinckle?' That could be, too.
