Success!

I did it. knowing it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I ran down to the tea party.

Unfortunately, I literally ran there and thus didn't have my cell phone (a.k.a. "the fresnikon") to take pictures. But my, oh my! No tea, no Indian costumes, what took place resembled the county fair much more than it did a political rally. The Save Mart Center had overpriced sodas and popcorn for sale, there were guys walking around on stilts, old white folks galore, skits, church groups, a blue-collar heaven.

I've heard before that Fresno is really a Midwestern town. Never has it been shown more clearly than it was today. The people stood around, politely, and held their signs. I saw a girl with an "I only date Republicans" T-shirt. No wonder I'm still single! Nah, she was one of maybe five twenty-somethings I encountered the whole damn time.

Picked up some of the stuff they were handing out. One guy gave me a million-dollar bill, I couldn't wait to read what it said about Obama's craaaaaaaaaazy tax policy... then turned it over and saw that it was a Christian tract. Dammit! It was appropriate though. Fear of the new and the different permeated just like dusty clothes and bales of hay did (yes, there was a semi pulling a moving stage with a bunch of hay on it). If I didn't know any better I'd think I really was at a church event.

The signs were a-plenty. Many read "I'll keep my (guns, money, freedom, God, old white friends, etc.) you can keep your change." Others said things about socialism. One fairly creative guy was dressed as a disheveled-looking Obama with a sign that said, "Anybody seen my teleprompter!?" There was a production going on, the announcer kept yelling, "Don't taze me, bro!" Later a govanaata impersonator came up and made up a new city that he could tax (I don't know, and he is a Republican right? ). W-I-L-D

To be quite honest, it was sad, for a number of reasons.

Again, what I saw and observed in the people there, more than anything, was fear. The right latched itself onto moral panic and the mystical (nonexistent) America of yesteryear in the 1980s and is now feeling the effects. These people see minorities, they see gay people, they see young people, and it scares them to death. Only now those groups represent well over half the population. Slate noted the intense irony of conservatives- who embody the mainstream- staging a protest at all. And they suck at it. Seriously, there wasn't even any real tea!

Moreover, these were obviously working-class people. I didn't see but one or two people I could even imagine making over $200,000 a year. It kept popping into my head, "These people should be Democrats!" That they were actually out there of their own free will lobbying in vain to try and get more money for rich people. How a single one of them could blindly buy that "socialism" tag obviously without doing a bit of research into it. It's sad.

At the same time, the stuff they pull is so nutty that it never fails to be entertaining. I mean it, their nuts.

Bran...stateAAh!

All riiiiiiiight! Checking out the ol' (not that it'll ever get old) valleysportspulse.com, we see a story about how our boy Tommy Brandstater did well at the NFL combine. Check out the advice his agent gave him about his torn lat muscle:

“When we first warmed up, you weren’t supposed to have any phones, any contact with anybody,” Brandstater said. But I snuck my phone out there and texted my trainer. I said I can’t do this anymore. There’s no way I’ll be able to throw. I’ll just make myself look bad. He never responded, so I just kind of said screw it. I’ll just go out there and see what I can do.”

Boy, his trainer sure was worried about his draft status! "Ah, it's Stater again... I'm too busy with, um, this bottle of shampoo right now."

So he did well at the combine, but at day's end his muscle was 70-percent torn. Looks like our boy is in for a great NFL career.

(Brandstater wonders where it went wrong. "I really thought he liked me this time!")


Baseball:
Looks like our National Championship baseball team is off to a hot start, they beat Buffalo (Buffalo?) 20-0 Saturday night for their fourth win over that team in just over a week. It looked like a good Nelson-from-the-Simpsons style bullying joke would work well here, but Fresno provides better comedy. In the 7th inning, the Moog-synthesizer-inspired PA system went out. We hold these truths to be self-evident... that Fresno is jacked.

(PA guy with ghetto bullhorn: "Your attention plese, FSU now has a new mascot. Time Out will be replaced by "Time Off." The position has been filled by whoever the Hell runs the facilities crew.")

What, oh what will Monday bring to F-No. more