Clouds on the horizon...

F all this, it looks like thunderstorms are hitting the valley today.

It's fitting, because dark days may be ahead for Fresnomore. If I get the good luck and the balls to do it, I may be leaving the valley a whole year before planned... The end could be near!!

TIme to rant

VSP responded to my sharp criticism today -- with a story about a high school girls track star. Dayum!

Fresno isn't the kind of place that would let an era of worldwide business fraud go by without getting a hand in. Turns out we had our very own Bernie Madoff or Ivar Kreuger right here in the pit. I mention Kreuger because our guy had the good sense to kill himself before he got caught.

"In this case, Mr. Otto is essentially the California Madoff," Jabagchourian said Tuesday. "He decimated several hundred people in the Valley."

People around here complain that the valley gets lost in the hype around the areas to the north and south. But see here, they didn't call him the valley Madoff, he won the whole state! There's some local pride for ya.

I guess I should say something about the Surpreme Court ruling about gay marriage. I do feel badly about it and wish the gay folks well. The more I read, the more it amazes me that this qualifies as an issue. How a single person can convince themself that two gay people they will never meet getting married will affect their life... I wish we had better things to debate.

Ex. The story about the investment fraud, the one that swindled local residents out of about 138 million dollars, has no comments. The one about gay marriage has 14. Let's find a few...

Go fight a battle that is truly more equal. Go fight global warming, go fight hunger, killings, poverty. Make a difference in something that is going to help the world. This is like the civil war all over again.

WHAT!?!? The CIVIL WAR!?!? Guess which side of the issue this guys in on, just guess.

Like donuts, I grew up in Fresno and moved to LA and never looked back. It's people like you Joe that make Fresno unpleasant and forces good people to look elsewhere to live.

Oh wow, this entire blog is summed up in that statement.

Get with it, please. Your hedgemony in CA is over.

He spelled hegemony wrong and severely bastardized its meaning. Guess which side this guy is on?

Next we could have people wanting to marry children or animals.

Conservatives and the slippery slope, a match made in heaven. Get it? Heaven!?!? Ahahahahah!!

It's got a pulse

I'm sorry dog, but it's time to start the death clock for valleysportspulse.com

I was seriously excited when I heard about the site, but it just ain't cuttin it. One of the lead columns has been up since April 2nd and has the following subheadline:

Fresno State head coach Pat Hill is not one for offering many prospects before their senior year.

I check this site several times a week, and every single time I try to figure out how to fix this sentence. I think the words "a scholarship" would help right? But even then it's still SO AWKWARD!!

Then there's Takada's latest column (Up since April 29th) about the Oakland Raiders.

"psssssssst. it's called valleysportspulse.com dumbass!!!"

And dude, nobody thinks Al Davis is a good owner. You might as well write about how walking involves legs.

Now look at some of the quotes from the welcome column "written by Andrew Marden."

I suuuuuuuuuuuuuure don't know how, but for some reason more of the shit is about Takada than the site! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm:

He also believes he is the right person to run this operation. And why not? George Takata has lived in the valley since 1985. He has been on TV in the valley since 1996.

I mean shit, as long as there isn't anyone who has lived here longer than 24 years or been on TV before '96 I guess he's right!

“People have always asked me when I was going to try and make the jump to a larger market,” says Takata."

Translation: "When will I not have to see you anymore? I can't stand your cocky ass!"

He credits friend Chris Miller for coming up with the name “valleysportspulse.com.” But now it’s his name - George Takata - that’s all over the media kits and the business cards.

How surprising

What is valleysportspulse.com?

That is a question owner/president George Takata has been asked several times over the past few months.

Quit asking, that's rude. And before you go off about the difficulty of working on a budget or the economy or whatev, look how many times Fresnomore has been updated since April 2nd...

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lazy

The relief at being outisde of the valley for the summer is indescribable. I feel like I've been rescued.

The paper had something about record setting heat, a special election that will either rescue the jacked up state budget or just let it fail that hardly anyone from Fresno is showing up for, a 15-month-old ingesting meth, blah blah blah.

It all seems like a big joke, a terrible dream that you wake up from relieved as HEYUL that it's not real. Of course I'll be back in August, so I better keep in mind that the covers are coming back.

This thing here really is cool. You can type in any address in Fresno and find the last 50 crimes within a quarter mile, half mile, or whole mile radius. They even have color codes for what kind of crime it was. Try it at your own peril.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just read it.

Make-up Call

"I'm 18!"

You know, like when the ref makes a TERRIBLE pass interference call and then calls offensive holding on the other team a few plays later:

Crime Alert Attempted Robbery Date/Time of Crime:

Thursday, May 14, 2009Approx. 2:30 p.m.

Location:

Maple Ave. two blocks south of Shaw Ave.

Incident Information:

Thursday, May 14th a report was made to Fresno Police Department that an individual was walking southbound Maple Avenue two blocks south of Shaw, when confronted by one black or Hispanic male and one white male with a knife. The victim was not physically injured and did not give up any personal belongings. The two suspects fled the scene on foot north towards the university and then east towards an apartment complex.

Suspect Information:

Suspect 1 White Male19-25 years old Height: 5ft. 7in. or 5ft. 8in.Weight: 150lbs light brown facial hair wearing a tan hat and white shirt

Suspect 2Black or Hispanic Male18 years oldHeight: 5ft. 7in. or 5ft. 8in. Weight: 150lbsdark hair wearing a dark t-shirt

This really is one of the goofiest things I've seen from FSU. Why do we need to hear about an attempted robbery? To prove that they can take less than 19 hours to report a crime, of course.

They pulled a knife on somebody and didn't take anything? And if they fled north and then east "towards an apartment complex", that's a pretty narrow location. How hard can it be?

Even funnier, the one guy is definitely white but is somewhere between 19 and 25 years old. And the other guy is DEFINITELY 18, but might be black and might be hispanic. How hard can it be? Did you see his hair?

Not to slam the FPD, but it just ain't necessary. Swallow your embarrassment from a few days ago and move on. Then again, I got a few laughs out of it, so it's aaaaaaaaall good.

OMG

Abazu sent me this today. I'll just post the message verbatim:

..this story kind of sums up the central valley (kind of disgusting)http://www.turnto23.com/east_county/19473681/detail.html

Thirsty Thursdays

I sometimes get pangs of guilt about writing a negative blog, especially when the negativity of others gets to me. Instead, I like to think of this as an honest effort to keep people who don't know about the city from getting the wrong impression. If you're a conservative, family-oriented person who basically likes sitting around the house you'd probably like it here.

Reason I say all this is that I had a really good time last night at the Fresno Grizzlies game. Chukchansi Park is a great downtown venue. More importantly, Thirsty Thursdays is a great promotion where you can get trashed for cheap -- and boy did we.

Nice place, eh?

We had a hookup for free tickets so the beer was the only expense. No one had any idea what the score was, who we were playing, what sport was being played, or where the hell we were, but we enjoyed ourselves. By the end of the night we were singing random songs as a group and hoping nobody we knew was there. Yee Haw.

Caught a glimpse of Fresno Bee columnist Matt James. He was a lot shorter than I expected, and I wonder why he insists on the Mr. Clean look. I was hoping he'd write a column about the game but instead all we got was this. Hard to believe all that stuff happened!

There were negatives, namely that they made you wait in a big line to I.D. you and get you a reeeeeeeeeally tight wrist band and then checked your I.D. again EVERY SINGLE TIME you bought a beer. What gives?

We had a girl with us from France, complete with the heavy French accent and pit hair (seriously!... not really). They wouldn't accept her passport as an ID. She shrugged it off, saying they didn't deserve her money anyway, but I felt bad. Unfortunately that's more of an America thing than a Fresno thing.

It's funny though because France is so insanely lax about the subject. The girl told me she had been drunk, in a bar, at the age of 14 and nobody thought a damn thing of it. Vive le France!! Fucke le Fresno!... I mean,... yea.

Disbarred Fresno lawyer questions himself at trial

Not much going on today, I'm moving all my ish out for the summer and I leave town tomorrow!

Haven't noticed anyone else commenting on this, but come on, it's so damn funny. The lawyer saga continues:

On the witness stand Wednesday, Morris asked himself whether he had stolen any money from his clients.

"Absolutely not," he answered.

But if a theft occurred, Morris asked himself, should he be held accountable?

"At the time I was not myself," he told the panel. "I did not understand the consequences of my actions."

I can't even figure out the logistics! Did he actually run between the witness stand and where the questioner normally sits ala Speedy Gonzalez playing tennis? Did he just recite the monologue like it was nothing unusual?... Hmmm, it might actually work for him. He does sound pretty insane to me...

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I walked past an overweight, basically unattractive woman yesterday and overheard her say she was against abortion because women make their "choice" to get pregnant when they open their legs. No seriously.

The chick being anti-abortion was not surprising, but the language! Who says that!?

Dr. Laura should move here. In fact, she should trade places with me.

"You'd fit right in, BITCH!!!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

So dude, back to the Sacramento Hmong trial thing. I just realized that the Shaman's name was "Wang Her Vang". Awesome. Just don't tell any overweight basically unattractive women you might walk by...

Hey 19

Play this song while reading.

Haven't figured out how to embed video yet.

Anyway, this probably isn't what ol' Steeley Dan had in mind... It took the Fresno State administration 19, 19 HOURS to tell students about a fatal shooting right next to campus!
More truth in advertising.

Alas, in the fantasy world where I used to live we didn't have 2 fatal shootings next to campus in 2 weeks. Hey, I'm adjusting, the blog is therapeutic, no?



------------------------------------------------------------------

The "crazy" lawyer fired his lawyer today and is now defending himself, claiming his own insanity while being sane enough to represent himself in court. I wish I were kidding...

------------------------------------------------------------------

Just discovered a few new blogs. The Fresnan is a blog "drunk off Fresno's sweet sweet booze." Right. It's one of those blogs that tries to be cool by saying stuff that makes no sense. Ex: It's description reads,

"The Fresnan is a cityblog influenced by fig orchards, Kopi's hairline, tamales and driving the wrong way on downtown streets.
If you would like to send us some tamales, Fresno tips, press kits, advertising questions or just general niceness, email us."

Sure dude. I think Lil' Wayne started all this.

Then there's Burn Fresno, I like the sound of that better, but his posts run kind of long. Worse, it hasn't been updated in a month.

Which makes me king! Fresnomore fo liiiife!

"I plead insanity." "pssst. No, you idiot! The LAWYER is pleading insanity!!"

Leading off, a truly crazy story. A local lawyer is pleading insanity. As noted earlier, they usually tell their clients to do that right? Say it with me boys...

"IT'S FRENOOOOO!!"

So the dude swindled a ton of clients out of money between '02 and '04. And he's pleading insanity because of a tragic plane crash -- in 1992. Apparently it took him 10 years to realize he was insane.

More importantly, his mental insanity just happened to make him a lot of money! And now that they caught him, the insanity is gone (suppressed by meds anyway). Interesting case. Surely the jury won't buy a 10-year delay for post-traumatic stress disorder. Eh.

-------------------------------------

I went to Wal-Mart today:

I'm not gonna go there again for a while.

---------------------------------------------------

On a serious note, there's some big Hmong trial going on in Sacramento.

I read the article but am still fuzzy on the details, especially where the guy on trial stands historically. However, I can still point to this as a chief example of Valley mentality.

An ocean of Hmong went to Sacramento to say the trial should be dismissed.
"It's a fact cuz we say it is!"

Plainly, obviously, these people were not making calls based on evidence. It's not even possible 8,000 Hmong all came to the same conclusion dialectically while almost everyone from the other races evaluated the situation and came to the opposite one.

Excerpt:

...a defining moment, comparable to marches led by Martin Luther King Jr...

That would be accurate if there were currently Jim Crow laws against Hmong.

Here's a gem:

Sacramento shaman Wang Her Vang burned symbolic paper money as a sacrifice to the ancestral spirits, asking them to release the case.

This is retarded by itself. But really, you couldn't even burn some ones? Cheap ass...

And so it goes. The Hmong know they're getting screwed. So do the Armenians. So do the Filipinos, the Koreans, the Hispanics, the Blacks, the Indians, Hell even the Whites for cyin' out loud!

I saw a shirt the other day that said, "Not Latino, not Hispanic, Mexican!"

I know a guy and a girl who are both Indian, both Gujarati Indian at that, but their parents won't let them date because they are from different classes within their race within a race.

Do you see how this place drives me insane?

(Don't even try calling me racist, I'm not. And if you do, I'll just pull a Fresno and plead insanity... my dog died when I was 10.)

Iiiiiiiiironyyyyyyyyyyyy

I got a very nice complement about this here ol' blog a few days ago. Freaked out when I saw a comment as I'm always afraid it'll be from some high-ranking official who has discovered the site trashing his city (in good fun of course!!...) and is vowing to hunt me down at any cost.

But this one was nice. He complemented the conciceness of the blog, how it was updated often and stayed on subject. The being famous part was nice, I'm sure it's a pipe dream every blogger has (cough cough fresnofamous.com cough), but eh.

SO, I finally found the comment -- after updating 2 times in 2 weeks with stuff about Las Vegas and San Francisco A.K.A. doing the opposite of the ish I got the complement for. Stupid me.

But hey, that's Fresno.

Back on da topic:

"I'm comin' out. I want the world to know..."

Truth in advertising came out from the Bee a few days ago, and for once I completely agree with some valley politicians.

The article details the difficulties of the valley legislators in getting any attention for their region of the State ("The Armpit of California"). Apparently towns like Mendota have 40% unemployment rates, which is admittedly a shocking number.

So they're organizing a march on Washington (still unscheduled) and marched locally for water last month.

It's not an opinion piece, but the article nonchalantly asserts the New York Times as "agenda setting" because it put the valley water march on page A17. Dude, the paper operates out of NEW YORK. What you expect? And have any of these unemployed thought of the obvious thing, LEAVING!?

As the story goes, Americans don't care about the unemployment rate here because it's always high. They also don't buy the farmers' excuse that environmental protection is ruining them since there's plenty of food. And they don't care about food shortages from the world's richest agricultural region because prices haven't gone up.

In other words, they have no incentive to feel sorry for the people here. Another tragedy of modern life. Farms the world over can fill in our gap, men are outdated.

THE POINT:

They need to succeed! They need to march on Washington! They need to get the attention of Barack Obama!! (after Saturday night I'm sure he could make some priceless Fresno jokes) Everyone in America needs to know about this!!!

...Cuz if everybody knows, suckers like me will know better than to move here. Oh no, oh Fres-'No, more

Las Vegas

Oh baby!!

Obviously this isn't quite Fresno related, but hey, that means it's better.

So we went to the Fresno Grizzlies game Thursday night. I had free tickets to Thirsty Thursdays, Hell yea!! Turns out the road team was none other than the Las Vegas blah blah blahs. We got a couple beers in us and suddenly my buddies were yelling; "Let's get on the f-in team bus and go to Vegas!"

And we did!!!!...

Okay, not really. But we went home and drove to Vegas on a whim, arriving around 4 a.m. GREAT way to start a weekend.

First off, I've been to Vegas before, but I've never been impressed with it. I'm not a gambler and that doesn't help, but the scene is what really sort of perplexed me. Hardly anyone we saw was young, or even well dressed. At least 75% of the clientele at our hotel was older overweight blue-collar workers. Forget Las Vegas, call it Middle Ageas.

More importantly, I live for spontaneity (obviously) and excitement that's at least a little off the beaten path. I mean, if it ain't off the path at all, how can it really be exciting right? And certainly Vegas is seen as an exciting place. But dude, it was such an obviously controlled environment. You walk around in maze-like buildings. You drink out in the open. You play various games which are obviously designed so the house wins. And it's all there to take your money. Every bit of it. It just seems boring.

Anyway, the guys I went with were the most outgoing dudes I've ever met. They dominated the conversation everywhere they went, and they won most of their bets out of sheer confidence. Guys like that don't usually hang out with writers and vice-versa, so even as a non-gambler it was fascinating to just watch how they interacted with people.

One of them got down 500 dollars in a roulette game about 30 minutes after we arrived. He didn't even break a sweat. I once lost 5 dollars betting on a football game and got so mad that I cussed out the winner for his brief entry into the fool's paradise, and later apologized. So how this guy could do that I'll never understand.

By the end of the weekend both claimed they had actually made money, and lots of it. I think one said he made 500 overall and the other came out up 300. I don't guess they were lying, though I didn't keep track or anything.

Everything else I could say about the trip is probably not safe for the internet, but yea Vegas ain't for me, at least not until I hit my mid-life crisis.

Oh, oh yea. And whenever we told people at the tables we were from Fresno their eyes got wide and they said something about how lame it was. And I agreed wholeheartedly.

The Fresno Flu, it's killed millions

Sadly, I've been feeling quite uncreative these last few days. A combination of the fallout over that trip to San Fran, a collective several days lacking in action, and the usual stresses of the end of the spring that put many a person down.

I will be leaving Fresno for the summer! How very exciting. Of course, I will try to keep tabs on the city and my friends who will still be here. Because I gotta tell you how much it sucks!! Even from another time zone!!!

Among other things that have me down, a few people I know are graduating from Fresno State and are ecstatic. You'd think they had won the lottery or died and gone to heaven. First off, I don't know what they expect to happen now. Life WILL NOT get any easier just because you have a college degree nor will you have any less work to do.

In fact, it's worse, because you can look forward to the end of the semester in college. With your career you can only look forward to death. Yay!

More importantly, in the craaaaaaaaazy universe where I came from college is fun. It was the best 5 years of my life, and the school president himself couldn't keep me from taking that fifth year (no, he didn't try).

To double check, I looked at my undergraduate school's newspaper online. Sure enough, there were no less than 3 columns that detailed how sad the author was to be leaving. One called his graduation "one of life's tragedies" and in another the girl was crying as she wrote the thing. Seriously, she actually wrote, "I'm crying as I write this."

Again, these people enjoyed college, acknowledged that they enjoyed it, and looked to the real world realistically... Then again, the people at Fresno State probably never had fun in college, so they don't know what they're missing.

Therefore:

Ignorance (A.K.A. Fresno) is bliss.

San Francisco

"Fresno, welcome to the freak show!"

Boy, I don’t even want to describe San Francisco to y’all who probably think of it romantically. But shit, I have never felt like such an old school gentleman than I did there. I kept looking at the MOTHERF—— FREAKS that roamed the streets, and every time I did I got a vision of my Dad, complete with his perfect accent, “But you agree with their politics!” To which I answered, HELL NO! I’d vote against gay marriage my whole life if it means not bein one of these people! I never felt so normal in my life.

RNJ and Abazu have somehow been Fresnoized and ditched me on Thursday. I tried to prove how independent I am by going to San Francisco for Cannabis Freedom Day with the NORML people that I didn’t really know. And to be honest, they were some weird folks. Actually, they weren’t that weird. But they were the most obvious, ridiculous, stereotypical losers I’ve ever met. They met almost every stereotype imaginable of losers. I felt like I was in a movie. The dude liked to spout out random facts (“facts” really) and once finished one by saying, (while awkwardly making eye contact with me through the rear-view mirror) “And that’s why they call me knowledge.” I guess that’s his nickname.

Then later he was driving crazy (he was absolutely the worst driver I have EVER ridden with, I was f-ing terrified) and said, “I don’t drive fast, I fly low.” No irony… none. His car had a camera that showed what was behind you when you backed up. I freaked out because it was so new and amazing to me. He STILL had to readjust literally 5 times to parallel park. One of the times he completely started over, but he wouldn’t let anyone get out of the car to help him. Then we finally parked and he told us to wait and got out of the car and then got back in and readjusted two more times. I hope my writing makes this sound as tedious as it was. Later we spent literally an hour looking for a Chili’s. After half an hour I got the courage to say, “You know, we could eat somewhere else, ha ha, ha.” No response. It had to be a freaking Chili’s! Why!?!? WTF!?!?

But dude, the worst incident ever. Loser dude walked to the restroom in Carl's Jr. Two gross looking homeless girls ask him what time it is. He whips out his phone to find out. They ask if they can use it. He politely says no and walks toward the bathroom. They stop him by saying, “Our friend is in there.” He asks, “Are you in line?” They respond, “No, we already used it.”

We already used it

Words cannot describe how grossed out I was at that point. I had to pee bad, and there was nothing on this earth going to make me go to that bathroom. The other group of bums was discussing various issues and they looked scary.

We ate the food in the car.

I mean, even the bums were a bunch of freaks! We finally got to city hall where the event was taking place. It was small, yard sale small. Not the big, cool event I was hoping for. I thought the whole ‘legalize weed!’ movement was somewhat mainstream. I was wrong. This was a fringe group of scary people. Everyone looked messed up, and they were weird. Three separate guys in their 60s and 70s were there with tattoos, fucked up and dancing. They were – and they were certainly in their heads – living out the real dream of the hippies to live that life as long as they live. But dude, these were old men who should’ve had families and relatives, and it was scary as Hell seeing them act this way. They were just too old for that! Call me bigoted, call me whatever you like, but it scared me then and I hate it now.

In an unrelated incident of how I don’t understand Californians, I saw a friend of mine get a sales pitch thrown at him, which he declined. Thinking it would make good conversation, I went and asked him what that craaaaaazy man had offered him. He looks at me confused – and points directly to the man, who gives me the same lame-ass sales pitch. I say “no” in a way that says “Are you seriously trying to sell me this bullshit” and “I can’t believe he just directed me to a scammer” at the same time.

I got tickled by one song by this old man playing blues. The song went, “I’d rather be sloppy drunk, than (blah blah blah).” And he sang it with this rough, heavy voice that suggested he really WOULD rather be sloppy drunk than anything else. It wasn’t a comedy song but I thought it was funny as Hell, hilarious in its own right on top of the irony of playing this ode to alcohol at a weed convention. I saw him later smoking a cigarette and had the brilliant idea of asking him if he really would rather be sloppy drunk than anything, but chickened out.

Lastly, the people I was with were big time liberals, yet they still had the central valley mentality. We arrived promptly at noon, walked around very organized and normal (read: none of the ridiculous mischief I’m used to getting into), and then left promptly at 5. Inside the incredibly generic Chili’s the leader of the group said he knew it felt early, but we’d be glad we left early after the long ride home. I felt like I was with someone’s Dad, but not my Dad, because he’s not that lame. Also, the main chick in the group made no less than 5 statements about how she was glad a man was driving, how men anchor their women, how great gender roles are, and other 18^th-century shit I couldn’t believe was coming from a girl in 2009 much less a marijuana legalization advocate. Oh and one dude almost threw up from drinking two beers.

Lame-azz wannabees......

First off, I'd like to congratulate Fresno for becoming California's 5th largest city. Yay.

Elsewhere, the city dropped Mayor Swearengin's plan to use GPS devices to track sex offenders even after they have been released. It's a great idea, but, um, oh ish, it's not legal. I tell you what though, if she had ran on making weed cheaper in Fresno I'd have voted for her anyway.

Speaking of sex offenders, a famous one is about to move back here!! Sherman Polk is apparently famous around these parts and has been in jail since 1985. But he still knows where the action is baby; Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeef Naw.

And on a personal note, I had a very "special" trip planned for this weekend to San Francisco. Me and two friends had planned on it since January and by Tuesday night had worked out most of the details. On Thursday, they both suddenly had different plans. One wanted to "go to Vegas!" on a whim (Las Vegas is overrated BS from lame movies BTW) and the other, more bizarrely, wanted to go to San Luis Obispo.

The Vegas guy went, the SLO guy didn't. And I'm still going to San Fran dammit!... albeit with people I barely know. I won't blame my friends' erratic behavior on Fresno because they are not from here and I'd thought before yesterday that they were above the lameness of the city. Rather, they have engaged in some sort of pathetic alpha male stunt. San Francisco wouldn't work because it was my idea and they couldn't be so shamed.

Pardon my French, but Fresno 'em.