P.J. Corkery, an Examiner columnist from 2001 to 2006 covering San Francisco’s political and social scene, has died at Stanford Hospital at age 61 after fighting non-Hodgkins lymphoma for two years. The Chron said in an obit that Corkery spent most of his final two years co-writing “Basic Brown,” the autobiography of former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who called that collaboration one of the high points of his life. “I never had so much fun as when we worked on that book together,” Brown said Tuesday. “The fact that he had such a wealth of knowledge and was able to recall it was amazing.” Before San Francisco, assistant editor at the now-defunct Herald Examiner covering the entertainment industry. He also wrote a biography of talk show host Johnny Carson.