Ricky Allen Newman had no idea he was in a cult. He thought everybody’s rent was $18,000 per month. He thought everybody paid $8 for coffee. He thought everybody ate chowder out of bowls made of bread....

Ricky is just one of a growing number of people who are leaving the city for Oakland. And despite threats, they are starting to talk. They say San Francisco is a lie. They say San Francisco controlled their lives. They say San Francisco is a cult....

In 1953, a little-known newspaper columnist named Herb Caen wrote a science fiction novel called “Don’t Call It Planet Frisco,” about a planet that didn’t want to be called “Frisco” and its intergalactic war with other planets who insisted on calling it “Frisco.” The book, in which an alien planet’s population eats soup out of bowls made of bread, failed to catch on. Disappointed, Caen went back to his newpaper job, allegedly humbled by the experience. Or so it seemed at the time....

As Caen’s influence grew, an economy was built around it. Again dipping into his failed novel, Caen singlehandedly created the sourdough bowl craze of 1958, which left a once-thriving plastic bowl industry in tatters. The result: Thousands of traditional bowl factory workers were laid off. Few knew that Caen had shady business deals with several sourdough bowl companies in the city. The Chronicle looked the other way, gladly printing lucrative multi-page sourdough bowl ads every Thursday and Sunday.