We had high hopes that Peter Getty would give our "nakedly hateful" rant against him the full rich boy-thrashing, but alas. And alack. We're greeted with only diplomacy!

Seriously; we knew it wasn't going to be a stroll through the park sharing our thoughts about growing up rich at any time, least of all during a recession. But we had to introduce ourselves somehow. What was the winning move? If we point out the things we might have in common, we're patronizing. If we point out the differences, we're rubbing people's faces in it. If we mention any difficulties that accompany wealth, we're self-pitying. If we simply ignore the subject, we're Marie Antoinette.

Just address it frankly in our first post, we figured, get it out of the way and go for a few laughs, so that's what we tried. We expected a little initial hostility, but we have to admit we were surprised to see it go international this fast. A guillotine has yet to be erected in Union Square, so maybe we didn't bomb as drastically as all that.

At least any uncertainties about a subject for our second post were removed quickly enough. Still, we don't want this to become a series of writings about the last thing we wrote, so we'll try to move on. Join us if you like.

So you want us to "join" you, do you? Here is what we require to agree to your armistice:

• One gilt-laden vessel of Pharaoh's ashes from the tombs of Egypt.
• A procession of seventy peacocks, linked with a golden chain.
• Spoons of the finest silver; forks of the finest copper.
• A baronial estate on the highest San Franciscan hill, surrounded by Bengal tigers trained by the holiest Indian shamans.
• Babes.

Age: Next month Peter turns 42.

Source of wealth: Oil business started by his grandfather, J. Paul Getty, and sold to Texaco by his father, the composer Gordon Getty, who is worth around $2.5 billion.

Occupation: Outside of blogging for SFGate, has described himself as a playwright, advertising copywriter and actor. Was in a rock band; started one now-defunct record company and talked about starting another, though that effort apparently fizzled. Upon the debut of one opera he wrote, in 1985, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "If you or I had written this, it wouldn't have gone beyond the living room."

Also authored an anonymous music blog, available here.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Wife Jacqui, defacto Coppola: Jacqui de La Fontaine was pregnant with Francis Ford Coppola's granddaughter when her boyfriend Gian-Carlo "Gio" Coppola was killed in a boating accident. Francis looked after the widow and daughter Gian-Carla ("Gia"), later walking Jacqui down the aisle during her 2000 wedding to Getty.

Jacqui has worked as a stylist at Harper's Bazaar, and as a costume stylist for music videos (Bob Dylan, Beastie Boys, Faith Hill) and movies. This background no doubt influenced her Bazaar photo shoot; in the attached picture she's on the left with Gia in the middle.

Best friends with British opposition leader: According to a 2005 Mail on Sunday story, Peter was close with David Cameron in Heatherdown, a British prep school. A former instructor said Peter Getty was "one of Cameron's best friends at school." The story added: "During the summer of 1977, Getty's family invited Cameron and four other boys at the school to fly to America on Concorde for a threeweek holiday including seven days at the Getty family mansion in Pacific Heights in San Francisco." How fun!

'Nexus of hipster Hollywood:' A 2004 Bazaar profile called Jacqui the "nexus of hipster Hollywood" and said the couple's nondescript home at the top of the Hollywood Hills, along with a Malibu home rented each summer, form a "crash pad" for their celebrity and artist friends to mix "in a freestyle, nonconventional form." The couple also throw a popular Halloween party.

Celebrity pals: The couple's friends include:

• "Close pal" Demi Moore, who met Jacqui in a Kentucky antiques store in 1988.
• Ashton Kutcher.
• Jason Schwartzman, who probably knows the couple since he's Francis Ford Coppola's nephew, partied with the couple right after their marriage and attended his 40th birthday party five years later.
  
• Actress Heather Graham also attended Peter's 40th birthday party.
• The various Coppolas, obviously.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.His rock band: Virgin-Whore Complex, whose 1996 release "Stay Away from My Mother" was in the mold of English new-wave band XTC. Spin magazine did the release party. The band reportedly refused to perform live concerts. None of this shielded the group from criticism; the music zine Octulus wrote, "The male lead singer's nasal delivery begins to sound like a bad imitation of a sleepy Fred Schneider."

Ironic lyrics included:

Son, I know you're scared
But we think it's time you knew
How much poverty and crime it takes
To finance one of you

Playing dress-up: Getty's clothes have betrayed the same superficial alienation from his privilege as his controversial SFGate posting. He assumed the character Spats Ransom in his band; other makeovers have seen him costumed as Willie Wonka (courtesy a gift from Jacqui) and an 18th-Century sea captain (from the Bazaar photo at top). Around town in San Francisco, he takes pride in an aggressively casual appearance, judging from the society columns.

The Coppola music hook-up: Jacqui's Hollywood connections have not only helped attract a circle of celebrity friends but also aided Peter's business: His now-defunct record label Emporer Norton Records released the soundtracks for two popular movies directed by Coppola's daughter Sofia, Lost in Translation and the Virgin Suicides.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.May have literally slept with Gavin Newsom: The Getty family is a longtime benefactor of Gavin Newsom, the hard-drinking, womanizing, hair-gel loving mayor of San Francisco and potential Democratic nominee for governor. Newsom's father, Judge William Newsom, was financial consigliere to Peter's father Gordon. So it was probably inevitable that his interests would intersect with those of Peter.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Getty scion has been a partner in one or more of Newsom's business ventures, which include wine, restaurants and resorts. He rented his one-bedroom, $2.5 million apartment (left, via SocketSite) to the mayor after his divorce from Kimberly Guilfoyle. And things got even cozier at the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Peter shared a hotel room with Newsom, his brother Billy — and just two beds.

Exes: Met Jacqui when he was dating Lauren Hutton, 24 years his senior.

San Francisco home: This, bought (obviously) with help from mom.

The brothers' terrible blog "What the Butler Didn't See," you'll recall, is a failed attempt to obviate class rage with cheeky, self-aware disclosure, which can be effective if well-executed, but is not effective when it manifests itself in sentences like "You can easily make far better hot dogs at home than they give you in the luxury boxes," or in biographical entries that say "Peter Getty has flirted occasionally with real work, but finding it wearisome, has returned full time to his first love, watching television."

So that's pretty much what we said, in a more profane way, and we though that was that, but turns out Peter Getty went all over the internet leaving indignant comments on every blog that hated on his blog, including ours!

Since practically none of the comments here address the article itself, I'd like to express my relief that it was so poorly written, so filled with unwarranted venom, so nakedly self-contradictory, and so nakedly hateful and so smug in jumping to absurd conclusions about our motives, reasoning and "self-awareness" (although Mr. Nolan concedes that he doesn't even know whether we're "good guys" or not, he somehow knows better than we do how we perceive ourselves). I'm proud that we hold our writing to a higher standard than this.

But even more exciting is Getty's comment on SFist, which includes this:

The Gawker piece, in its completely unwarranted hostility, false presumptions, blatant self-contradictions, and errors of basic spelling and vocabulary, has provided us with an excellent subject for our next post.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.OOOOOOOOOOO. Ooo. Getty heir Peter Getty is going to bring the pain of an icy, cutting blog post directly into our area code! This will end well. Very well. Mr. Getty, we salute you for choosing to magnify this meaningless bicoastal internet class rage outpouring by a factor of one hundred. Never let it be said that you have something better to do than feud with underemployed "professional" bloggers, who decidedly do not have anything better to do. We are already composing a profanity-laced, grammatically incorrect and philosophically incoherent response in our head, clouded though it may be by the foul air of plebeian geography. Though your most recent comments on SFist indicate quite strongly that you may be a borderline wingnut by internet argument standards, we await your blow with grim determination, and neither Barack Obama nor a cat to assist us in our time of battle.

May our relationship be long and fruitful. I really think it will be.

[Previously. Pic: Facebook, Flickr]

The rich guy bloggers are Peter and Billy Getty, famous in San Fran as heirs to the Getty oil fortune. Maybe they're good guys and they try to be self-deprecating but they have clearly stepped much, much deeper in the violent waters of class rage than they are prepared for. None of this works, guys. Starting with your bio:

Peter Getty

Since graduating from college in 1988, Peter Getty has flirted occasionally with real work, but finding it wearisome, has returned full time to his first love, watching television.

Not to be confused with serious responsibilities are Mr. Getty's infrequent forays into music and writing, nor is the obscure music blog he has kept pseudonymously for the past several years.

Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up with your idle life. Do you see the irrational, unfocused nature of class rage, the force with which you are now in contention? It cannot be reasoned with. It's doubtful this bit of democratic public outreach will work out for you two in a positive fashion. Your blog is called "What the Butler Didn't See," which, shut the fuck up with that, as a title. You just put up your first post yesterday. It purports to answer the question purportedly on the minds of many purported people: "What's it like to be rich?" A sample of your work:

By the way: there are slews of people richer than we are, just in this neighborhood. We're more famous for being rich than we really are rich. But we have enough to belong to the leisure class, meaning we get to spend very little of our time doing anything we don't feel like, and we have means to sample, if not to gorge on, pleasures that most people, sad to say, won't likely ever share in — things like yacht trips and safaris, ludicrously expensive wine, and private jet travel.

This section is a caveat, meant to display both humility and no-frills honesty about your relative privilege. But men, you have forgotten: class rage. Your section serves to produce anger rather than identification. You continue:

Not to sound patronizing, but if you watch the Giants on TV — well, ideally HDTV — you partake equally in the most satisfying indulgence we know. We share a private box at Pac Bell or whatever the hell they're calling it these days, and it's actually kind of a hassle, to tell the truth. You can easily make far better hot dogs at home than they give you in the luxury boxes.

Again: your self-awareness of your uncomfortable position serves only to make you seem weaker to the angry, underprivileged hordes. Had you had somewhat more perfect self-awareness, you would not have agreed to write this blog, for the dying San Francisco Chronicle. As it is, your reader is unable to fight the urge to shout, "Well I'll come sit in your fucking luxury box while you microwave hot dogs at my studio apartment, then, motherfucker!"

A shame. A sad sad blogging shame.
[Peter & Billy Getty's Rich Guy Blog. Many more entries to come, we hope!]