What we missed this week…

We got off to a slow start this week (and a slow end to last week if you want to nitpick) so we missed some things that we normally would have been all over. To rectify this we’re bringing back one of our many erratically used features that is essentially the Quick Links for stuff from the past. In order of awesomeness, here’s what we missed for the week of Dec. 14th.

El Guapo is no match for Zombie 209Vibe!

It was a little over a year ago that we broke the news of the death of 209Vibe. It was a sad day because we’ve always liked 209Vibe, it was a great place for us to easily find shows to include in the old “Shit to do” posts and it was really the only local publication that attempted to cater to a demographic born after disco died.

But what annoyed us most about its end was that it seemed so unnecessary. We completely understood the death of the print edition because of reasons ranging from sporadic distribution to the cost of actually printing it. We said at the time that, at the very least, they needed to maintain the website because it would be inexpensive and relatively easy to do. Plus, the website was so good (a great mix of professional content, a term I use loosely, and user-generated content) that it was hard to believe it came from the same people who produced the abomination that is recordnet.com. For a while we held out hope since the website, sans updates, was still up for months after its closure. It was kind of weird since we assume they still had to pay to renew the URL  and for the server space, but as long as it was still up there was hope it could make a relatively inexpensive comeback one day.

Eventually, like many of you probably, we just forgot about it. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, there were signs of life. After a year-long coma 209Vibe popped back up on Twitter, mostly posting and retweeting show dates. If it was in this theoretical coma, the Twitter reemergence was the equivalent of a finger twitch. It wasn’t much, but it was a sign of life.

Finally, on Monday, 209Vibe opened it’s eyes and realized it still has a lot of life left in it. We’re not sure what 2010 holds for 209Vibe, but we’re just happy that news that matters to people under the age of 35 is coming back. Especially since the rest of the Record’s holdings seem to be going in the opposite direction.

Are we being Punk’d?

This column from Fitzy was just so horrible and sprawling we spend 2 days trying to point out just how wrong it is and eventually gave up. We ended up with something twice as long and it just made us feel crazy because we’re pretty sure we put way more thought into it than Fitzgerald did. But here are some of the bullet points.

The thrust of the column is that there are a lot of new, fresh ideas being held down by an older, oppressive, incumbent regime. Which is pretty hilarious coming from a guy in his 50s. It doesn’t take long to realize that his young, fresh ideas are actually just old school dirty hippie values. He opines on environmentalism and marijuana legislation (yes, again) and it is adorably misguided.

The environmentalism stuff we’ll let slide because we too think SoCal trying to hijack our water is total bullshit. But trying to pass off environmentalism as a fresh idea is just dumb. That battle isn’t new vs. old, if anything it’s north vs. south. Or at its very base, liberal vs. conservative. And that battle isn’t exactly new.

The pot stuff we’ve touched on before. We’re for legalizing hippie lettuce but we hate the bullshit excuses people give for legislation. Marijuana should be legal because I want to smoke it. End of story. I don’t give a shit about tax revenue and I could care less about its medicinal value. Pot should be legal because most people (myself included) have the personal responsibility to not let it take over their lives. Which makes it a lot less dangerous than alcohol.

Fitzy, on the other hand, thinks it would alleviate our overcrowded prisons thus making the whole prison hospital situation disappear. He’s wrong for many reasons but mostly because he’s taking a quote he ran in a blog last week and running with it.

The quote, by the hilariously named Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, is pulled from a press release (which means he didn’t even talk to her) and she is the only source for the post (always a sign of quality journalism). The gist of it is that she’s lamenting budget cuts to the already strained prison vocational training and drug rehab programs (programs that will be less strained once the state builds a re-entry facility and 2 prison hospitals on the outskirts of Stockton) while “California spends over $500 million a year to lock people up for nothing more than personal possession of an illicit people up for nothing more than personal possession of an illicit drug.”

Fitzy has obviously taken that to mean people are getting locked up for personal use of Mary Jane, which isn’t the case at all. You don’t go to jail for possession of amounts of weed that can believably be assumed for personal use. You get a ticket. You go to jail for possessing enough ganga to fill a house. The illicit drugs she was referring to are presumably the harder, chemically dependant drugs like meth, coke, and heroin. We know this because she’s bitching about funding cuts to drug rehab, and nobody goes to rehab for pot. Nobody.

So yeah, Fitzy’s idea of  oppressed fresh ideas are actually just remnants from an era that died at the hand of a shitty Rolling Stones concert 40 years ago. We’re not saying youthful, fresh ideas aren’t being held down by old ideals because they very much are. Just not the ones Fizty’s spouting off.

And on top of that, he threw David Harzoff and downtown redevelopment under the bus. Which was very Ann Johnstony of him, but his doing so almost made my brain explode. Guess it goes to show if you want to stay on his good side, return his calls right away. That’s why he still supports the undefendable Randy Paragary, but didn’t hesitate to throw Harzoff under the bus with glee. The man may have been a dick, but at least he was upfront with our man Fitz. And we all know how much Fitzy values honesty (Quick note: Caring about the area and trying to get a less biased judge are two different things. Also, that doesn’t qualify as lying).

This is why I love this town

This is probably my favorite story of the year (well, besides that time El Duke willingly took a punch from a midget wrestler). Guy gets his car stolen and finds it for sale on Craigslist. Most people in this situation would call the cops immediately. Not this guy. He set up a meeting under the guise of purchasing his  own car. After talking his friend in to giving him a ride over he somehow steals his own car back and ditches his helpful friend. What did that friend get for his troubles? His car stolen by the same car jackers. I fucking love this town. Somebody steal your shit? Steal it the fuck back! That’s what I call an eye for an eye.

Also, we have to note we like that this article wasn’t written in the dry, inverted pyramid style most newspaper writers are shackled to. While it may not be in the straight up conversational tone that most blogs use, it does have a more animated feel to it than most stories and we kind of like that. It may not work for every story, but in a story this hilarious it was a nice surprise.

OK, we’re out. See you next week.

Quick Links for Dec. 17th

Sorry for the incredibly late start this week. It’s been a long week on our end. But let’s try and forget about that and knock out some Quick Links! (One’s that hopefully won’t magically disappear like yesterday)

Johnny Ford may be over, but City Council meetings still have plenty of drama

We assumed that now that the Johnny Ford debacle has reached a completely unsatisfying conclusion, City Council meeting were going to return to the borefests that served as a great example as to why David Siders has our undying respect and why we’ll never run for public office. And we were right for a couple of weeks.

Then Ann Johnston did that thing she does where she shows she does as much prep for her job as Mayor as we put in for this site and pissed off developer T.W. Starkweather who basically took his ball and went home after having his integrity questioned by Johnston and Leslie Martin.

It was, in typical diva fashion, an epic dramatic exit as only the gays can do. David Siders documented the great play-by-play in his blog. Once again proving how to use the internet to compliment your reporting (something some people have yet to figure out). Obviously this whole thing can be easily solved with a good ol’ fashioned Diva Off. Mostly because I want to see Ann Johnston channel her inner Beyoncé.

We’re #98! We’re #98!

It’s been a while since anybody dissed Stockton via a flawed list, but MarketWatch.com’s rankings of the best cities for business decided to end that drought by naming Stockton the 98th best city out of 101 surveyed to open up a business. In other words, we’re the third shittiest place to open up a business in all of America. If we open up these prisons we might even topple the mighty Youngstown, Ohio!

Obviously we don’t buy into these rankings. Stockton only debuted on the list this year because they changed the criteria to include metro populations (aka, the surrounding area, not just Stockton city limits) over 500,000 people. Doing so doubled their list and pretty much cleared out the previous year’s bottom 10 cities.

Again, we put zero stock in these lists because they’re based on statistics alone, but this can’t be good for anti-prison advocates. While there are other issues such as payment for the added strain on city services, the whole “this will kill our business attractiveness” argument is (and already was) a crock of bullshit. We don’t have business attractiveness now, a trio of out of sight prisons out in the cuts isn’t going to change that.

So, yeah, thanks for taking your turn to dump on Stockton MarketWatch. See you next year.

Hope the $400,00 was worth it douchebag

We’ll leave you with a sad story out of Lodi where a special needs student collapsed in the Lodi High wrestling room. Staff attempted to revive him with CPR and were successful in maintaining his pulse, but he eventually died after being transported to Lodi Memorial. Details are scarce but we can’t help but think about that douchebag who sued Lodi High after he suffered cardiac arrest while playing dodgeball during PE and was saved by the quick acting staff. They didn’t act fast enough for him though due to a faulty defibrillator and he sued the district and won $400,000 and made the AEDs too much of a liability to keep on campus. We’re not saying that the device would have saved the life of the kid from yesterday, but if some doucher hadn’t lawyered up over the speed of getting his freaking life saved then this kid would at the least have had a better chance. Thanks asshole.

City Council mishap cheat sheet

The past couple weeks haven’t exactly been kind to the Stockton City Council. Not many weeks are, but lately it seems the shit just keeps getting piled on. Most alarming though is that, at least with people I’ve talked to, some don’t seem to understand that not all of it is the fault of the current Council as if they were appointed to lifetime positions. I’m not entirely sure how this happens. I assume it’s a combination of the public’s eagerness to complain (yay civic pasttime!) and newpapers’s inverted pyramid style pushing that detail down to the part of the article nobody reads.

So to save me some time (and you some embarrassment) at all the wine and cheese parties I/you go to (ha!), here’s a quick cheat sheet on the latest current events and who to blame.

New Grand Save Market’s liquor license revocation for example, as we noted last week, was actually done by the Planning Commission and upheld by the Council back in 2006. So while there may still be people in City Hall who had a hand in the original decision, this specific Council isn’t to blame. Well, not yet at least.

Another majorish story occasionally erroneously attributed to the faceless Council is the eminent domaining of the Ballpark’s right field. Which is 15 different types of hilarious because it happened forever ago. Like Mark Lewis and Gary Podesto forever ago. Nobody sitting on this Council had anything to do with it. Except for that whole cleaning up the mess thing.

Of course, this Council isn’t blameless. They may be averse to making controversial decisions (or any decision for that matter), but that doesn’t mean they dance around issues particularly well. Most famously, there was that Maxim’s decision that finally streamlined the live music permit process, but not before they tried to limit Maxim’s ability to operate as a business. Not surprisingly Maxim’s, a Tracy staple for years, has ceased operations. Thanks racist Brookeside residents and this City Council!

The more recent transgression though was, of course, Johnny Ford! We shouldn’t have to point out this is there fault so we won’t go into too much detail. But their decision to not provide City employees compensation for legal fees after Elbert Holman decided to hand out subpoenas like they were his business card, thus risking putting them in Ford’s legal crosshairs, was totally them. More specifically it was Elbert Holman, Leslie Martin, Dale Fritchen, and Diana Lowery’s fault since they voted against providing Palmer and Garcia the option of legal counsel while approving that same legal protection for themselves.

So if you’re going to complain about the Council, do it for stuff they actually did. They may not have done much in the year they’ve been in office, but what they have done shows that maybe they’re not much more different than the councils they campaigned against to get elected. We hope this cheat sheet helps, not just you, but also helps us from having to defend the Council. Which we don’t particularly enjoy doing. As you can see, they’re wrong a lot.

Reality Check

I hate to be a Negative Nancy but this whole Cal/UOP basketball “showcase” at the Arena is virtually to be one giant debacle. Don’t get me wrong, I really really want this to work. I’m a huge basketball fan and hate that the only minor league sports we didn’t attract when building our downtown minor league Mecca were lacrosse and basketball. We can attract two major sports meant to be played outdoors (football and soccer) but we can’t attract the one that is (Hockey doesn’t count as a major sport)? Shit, Reno gets an NBA D-League team and we don’t? We’re shitloads closer to Sacramento.

But I digress, as much as I want this game to succeed it’s going to fail majorly on many different levels. For one, Cal is going to decimate UOP. I’m not even a big college hoopshead and I know the Tigers have no chance. The Pac 10 is so much better than the Big West that I feel dumb for even having to point that out to the non-sports fans. I could be wrong and this may be a great match between two evenly matched squads, but this has “40-minute raping of out-of-towners wearing ‘Stockton’ jerseys” written all over it. And who wants to watch that?

That brings me to my second reason why this game is destined to be a disaster, who the fuck is going to go to this game? This game has received better promotion than both the EliteXC event last year (which isn’t saying much) and last year’s Kings preseason game (which, considering they didn’t return this year, didn’t turn out too well). If we can’t even sell out the Spanos Center for professional basketball what makes them think we can sell out a facility twice the size with an inferior product? Hell they can’t even sell out the freaking Spanos Center for UOP games and students get in for free! This game only 900 or so students were so lucky, and while tickets are in the surprisingly affordable range of $5-$25 there are still 2,500 tickets available. Did I mention that the game is tomorrow? With most people citing the cost of Arena events as the reason for not attending (ringside seats for the Diaz fight were a ludicrous $700 a pop), there must be another reason why this game isn’t selling.

This brings me to my last (and main) point, how back asswardly this whole thing was put together. In the linked article this game is being pimped as the beginning of Pacific’s Community Outreach program. Which would be a fine claim if this game hadn’t been in the works for 2 years, meaning this game was formulating before the University even knew they had to begin searching for a new President. This game had nothing to do with UOP President Eibeck’s “Beyond Out Gates” program until they decided it did. That’s all well and good but Stocktonians can smell bullshit from a mile away, pretending this was always the plan just feeds the skeptics’ claims that this is just an empty gesture to a city it has largely ignored and even actively denigrated at times.

Again, I’m all for putting college basketball in the Arena. It was even one of our Top 5 events downtown events that need to happen. Of course, we had the smarter version of holding a basketball tournament that would promise tourism from visiting schools and watchable, exciting basketball after the inferior Tigers got bumped from the tourney, but at least this is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately it’s just the wrong step at this time.

You don’t start off your community outreach program with a basketball game you’ve given people no reason to care about. You can’t just take a bunch of players who’s local profile consists of occasional social excursions to Bradley’s and slap “Stockton” on their chests and call it good. You have to give us a reason to care about this team and the school before you try something like this. As much promotion as this event has received it still hasn’t given us a reason to care about a group of outsiders who only venture off campus because of school’s perplexingly strict alcohol policy (thanks for forcing all those drunk drivers on our city streets by the way).

Of course, what defines this event as a debacle or a failure or whatever is totally subjective. In our minds, this event will fail when a nameless Pacific bench rider can’t elicit anything but a pity bid for his Stockton jersey (why would one want to buy one of those anyways?). But in the minds of those pushing this event, it’s probably already a success. It’s raised the profile of their effort and even if it fails in every other traditional sense it still shows that they’re trying. And that’s good, but we worry that if that’s the only facet in which this “showcase” is a success it will go the way of that Kings game which they hoped to make an annual event (which, again, didn’t happen).

Lastly (I know I said that a while ago, we’re wrapping up, promise), we can’t say this event is going to be a total failure. We’re just talking in an exaggerated fashion because that’s our shtick. If this event is considered any sort of success it’s because it gets people downtown. Specifically, it gets UOP students downtown and we need more people in that age bracket to realize that downtown isn’t the fabled urban wasteland of old. It may not be perfect and cater to families way too much, but if even a fraction of the 900 students being bussed in via free tickets and as trolley realize that going south of Harding isn’t the instant robbery they may or may not have heard it was, then this event has to be considered some sort of success.

Or at least the first step towards successfully uniting Stockton and the major learning institution plopped right in the middle of it. We just wish this was the last step where everybody unites to celebrate, drink (because, unlike the Spanos Center, the Arena has a liquor license and drinking is what we’re good at), and cheer on a Stockton basketball team together. Maybe next year. We’re guessing/hoping there will be more people that time around (or at least a “that time” to have).

Quick Links for Dec. 4th

It’s been a frustrating day. Let’s get it over with so I can start pregaming for this weekend’s charitable drinking. Sorry in advance that we’re minus some relevant links. Recordnet Mobile needs to die in a fiery car crash. Or at least afford you the same browsing options we can afford you free of charge. Yeah, feeling feisty today, Quick Links!

I <3 being right

A while back we opined on the City Council’s decision to deny Gordon Palmer and Dianna Garcia’s legally guaranteed legal representation while, at the same time, approving legal representation for themselves (note to Mike Fitzgerald: That’s hypocrisy). Some Council members were skittish to allocate the roughly $30,000 retainer needed should Palmer and Garcia need representation after the Elbert Holman put them at risk by passing out subpoenas like the were illegally obtained Sesame Street on Ice tickets.

Plus, some Council members questioned whether the law applied to that situation so they asked some independent lawyer dude to tell them what he thought, he disagreed with the Council. So naturally Holman is continuing to try and cover his ass (again, I might add), by claiming he thinks the lawyer got it wrong and that they’ll discuss it in closed session (hooray for openness!). Because if at first you don’t get the answer you want, you ask again. I wonder if he learned that move from Johnny Ford.

While we’re on the subject of horrible Council decisions…

Once again Stockton made a decision that a federal judge overturned because it was an abuse of power. Is there any law besides the Council appointed position provision that Ann Johnston does know the intent of? Ok, that was a bad joke. The original decision came down 3 years ago, Ann Johnston wasn’t even Mayor yet. This one was actually Real Stocktonian Ed Chavez’ bad.

An almost inexcusable bad when you think about it. A family comes in and buys a troubled market in a sketchy area and start doing work to turn it around and what does the City do? They cut them off at the fucking knees because the cops called it a public nuisance. Isn’t SPD’s job to take care of public nuisances? That’s called job security.

So just know if you want to help turn around a blighted area of Stockton, do it faster than 2 years or else the City will take the logical step of limiting your ability to grow and succeed as a business. Sure they could’ve just increased patrols since those were more robust times financially, but that would have required (guh) effort. Or, you know, they could have helped out Grand Save with a security guard or something (again, we had a little more scratch then). But know, actively hurting their business so the building may end up unoccupied and draw more activity to a deserted parking lot sounds a lot better. At least then they could’ve broken inside the empty store and then we couldn’t see them. Problem solved!

OK, we’re out. Promise to do better next week. RIP Eddie Fatu.

Quick Links for Nov. 30th

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, we had a nice week off but now it’s time to dive right back into it with some Quick Links!

Mike Fitzgerald, meet Stockton. Stockton, Mike Fitzgerald

This one’s fairly old but that doesn’t make it any less hilarious. Sometimes we wonder who edits Fitzy’s work because sometimes he just comes off like a clueless jackass and we just want to thank that editor for leaving all that stuff in. In this case, Mike Fitzgerald wants you to know that he’s doing his part. Or, at least, that he tried to. Because we all know that the most important part of volunteerism is making sure you get recognition for your service (or in this case, attempted service).

Hilariously, Fitzy’s attempt at helping his fellow man involved trees. Specifically banding his neighborhood together to prune the trees lining his street because if you’re going to help someone, why not make sure you benefit as well? Of course, this being Stockton, things didn’t go so smoothly. You may remember a post we did a while back where we personified the myriad of problems Stockton is combating at any given time as 3 Amigos supervillian El Guapo. Well Fitzy tangled with El Guapo a lot in this column, let’s run down the list shall we?

Fitz first locked up with Guapo in the form of haggling over price. Apparently the cheapest tree trimming service had miscounted the number of trees to be trimmed. Imagine that, a service chosen based on price alone didn’t provide the best service possible. Somewhere all the stores put out of business by Stockton’s big box run of the 90s gently weep themselves to sleep.

But the Guapos were unrelenting in their rapidfire approach. As Fitzy battled one Guapo another appeared out of the shadows in the form of impatient old people! But crotchety old people are right in Fitzy’s wheelhouse (really though, who the hell else reads his columns?), so this should be a softball for him. Sadly, it’s not.

Fitz’s column centers around this conflict he has with a couple of his neighbors over the timeliness of his efforts there are a few issues on the storytelling side. For one, he names the Guapos (in this case some of his neighbors) which would be fine if they too had a thrice weekly space editorial space in which to present their side of the story where the pompous jackass they just met from down the street spent too much time haggling with a subpar trimming service.

In fact, if they want to shoot us an e-mail with their more complete side of the story we’d be happy to print it. Instead, we’ll just guess what happened because that’s what we do best. Fitz dragged his feet for a bit and these two guys went over his head and got shit done faster. They were able to secure a better trimmer who came out and did the work in a timely fashion. Did all of the trees get trimmed? No, but some did. And some is better than the none Fitz had accomplished.

Fitzy wasn’t happy with this of course, and he lamented the fact that people weren’t able to put aside personal agendas to help the community as a whole. Welcome to Stockton Mike. Shit’s not always going to be easy and sometimes you have to fight to get shit like self-serving agendas to get results. Hell, this whole thing started as part of Fitzy’s self-serving “Do something charitable to write a column about and look good” agenda. Fitzy’s not pissed people are trying to accomplish their own selfish agendas, he’s pissed they’re not trying to accomplish his agenda.

That’s the problem we’ve always had with Fitzy, if we’re not with him in his mind we’re against him and that’s not the case. We want an awesome, redeveloped downtown. We want pot to be legal. We want a lot of things Fitzy wants, just not the way he wants it. And that’s what happened here. Fitzy and his neighbors wanted the same thing for their block, trimmed trees. Fitzy’s road to that goal had lots of self-serving conditions while his neighbors really only had one, namely to get that shit done as quickly as possible even if it meant spending a little more money. And they got it done, so bully to you neighbors of Mike Fitzgerald. And for those who’s trees didn’t get trimmed, at least one thing you can take away is that you finally got to meet your locally-famous longtime neighbor (way to be involved in the community Fitz). Plus, you’ll probably make it in the paper the next time it’s windy and the trees revolt again.

Speaking of self-serving agendas…

We’ve already done our prison hospital rant so we’ll keep this short. Obviously the personal agendas here are Doug Wilhoit not wanting a prison hospital in Stockton because it makes his job of luring outside businesses to Stockton more difficult. And Fitzy doesn’t want a prison hospital because it doesn’t jive with his vision of Stockton as a hub for the affluent cultural elite. J. Clark Kelso’s agenda is to get a bunch of prison hospitals built because the federal said to do so or else the state has to release a bunch of prisoners.

Now that we know everybody’s personal interests in this, it explains why Fitzy’s latest blog post is so horribly bias. Granted, it’s opinion so he can write that stuff, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s wrong. How you ask? Well J. Clark Kelso isn’t being a hypocrite. Like, at all. In fact, let’s go to the dictionary shall we?

hypocrite n. – a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives

Now, let’s look at the offending quote via Fitz’s blog:

“I remain hopeful that the litigants will come to the table with reasonable requests during the settlement talks,” Kelso said in a press release explaining his petition to move a lawsuit to stop his plans to federal court.

We’re not going to post the whole Wilhoit letter because it’s long and takes up most of Fitzgerald’s blog post, but the basics are (and feel free to read this in the tone of someone’s Jewish Grandpa since that’s how I wrote it in my head) “We should meet, we had a great meeting with the talking and I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement. We’re just so glad you finally came to see us. You never call and we just want to talk and see how your plans are coming along…etc. etc.”

So the accusation that Fitzy is making is that Kelso is being disingenuous in saying…well, actually we’re not sure where Kelso is saying one thing while doing the other. All he said is that he “remains hopeful”. Is Fitzgerald insinuating Kelso has lost hope? If he is, we can’t say we blame Kelso. Remember that first community meeting about a month ago? The one that Wilhoit cited in his letter as an example of the community’s willingness to meet to find a compromise? Yeah, that was basically an hour of people yelling “We don’t want a prison hospital! Why are you just telling us about this now!?” If we were Kelso we’d lose hope too.

Of course, the hypocrisy allegations aren’t over hope, they’re about coming to the negotiation table with reasonable requests. In other words, it’s more political posturing as both sides dig in for what’s sure to be a long, drawn out legal battle. Kelso gave a fairly innocuous stock quote about negotiations and Fitzy’s blowing it out of proportion to bolster the ranks on his side of the argument. So while we understand personal bias is naturally built in to opinion writing, this post was taking it a tad bit too far. If you’re going to be biased, at least make it true.

Now watch as we show you how to compromise

This article caught our eye mostly because we didn’t realize that the downtown parking situation has died down enough to discuss alternate uses for planned parking garage sites. Also because I live somewhat close to downtown and a community garden seems like kind of a cool idea. But the Guapo of indecision seems to be impeding development.

This post is long enough so we’ll just highlight the hilarious parts. Our favorite is city leaders questioning the fertility of downtown’s soil as if one could just tear up the pavement and start planning. As any farmer would tell you that’s not going to work. Any garden downtown will require trucking in some top soil and planting plants with shallow roots for a while.

Susan Eggman pops in midway through the article and suggests building affordable market rate housing downtown and putting the garden on top. Which is a good idea except, as we’ve said a few times before, finding housing isn’t a problem in Stockton. Especially with this whole plan being some sort of mea culpa from Spanos Cos. before it tries to build some massive housing complex up north. We’re all for infill instead of sprawling outwards, but the only real way a rooftop garden works is in affordable multi-person dwellings (aka apartment complexes). And Spanos Cos. doesn’t exactly have the best reputation building multifamily dwellings.

Plus, none of those ideas address the still very real parking problem downtown. Our idea? A compromise. Build a parking garage, and put the garden on top. That way we’re not wasting a bunch of prime downtown real estate solely on some hippie garden and the parking problem is somewhat alleviated. Sure, there’s no housing involved, but we have plenty of spare houses lying around anyways.

Quick Links for Nov. 20th

We’re going to make these extra quick because there’s drinking to be done.  Plus, you know, brevity is kind of the point (one we miss a lot). Quick Links!

We can turn anything into a drinking game

Ever wondered what I sound like? Well then today’s the day for you. Head on over to Podcast Stockton to listen to Matt Beckwith’s interview with me (and the rest of the show of course) where I actually make points without swearing. Plus, you get to hear stories about how we do the site and I even tell the origin of the Reclaiming the Title name.

Plus, if you’re not interested in hearing me talk about conversational tones and dancing around anonymity compromising answers, we’ve devised a drinking game based off of my various verbal crutches because we do self-deprecation way better than we do self promotion. Plus it makes me feel better about all that self-important “needed voice” talk I do in the interview.

Take one sip when:

I use the filler phrases “like (in a valley girl sense, not as a show of affection), ummm,  or I mean…”

I mention the Record

I use a $10 word (3 syllables or more)

Take 2 sips when:

Matt asks me a question that I barely answer before shooting off on some tangent

I use an ass covering phrase like “It’s not like” or “Don’t get me wrong”

One of us uses the word “Stocktonian”

Take 3 sips when:

You notice a long pause caused by either a brain fart or an edit from when I realized I was rambling and wanted to collect my thoughts for a minute to avoid looking like a jackass (hooray taped interviews)

I mention something that happened in the 80s

Finish your drink:

If you get the Tweetup-related joke at the end

There, that was fun wasn’t it? Sorry about the alcohol poisoning. We’re pretty sure we’re clear legally because we never told you what to drink. Thanks again to Matt for having me on, hopefully we’ll have him on whenever we get that fabled RTT podcast started.

If we’re just going to book shows based on who has a deal with Comedy Central, can we at least get Sarah Silverman?

So Jeff Dunham, the ventriloquist comedian who briefly overtook Comedy Central is coming to Stockton. Not only is he coming to Stockton, but they’re putting him in the freaking Arena. Yes, IFG (I’m guessing) is apparently thinking they can sell that place out with a puppet act. And not even a particularly family friendly one at that. Thanks Stephen Grossman. This will not count towards your promise of 8 big acts or whatever it was. No wonder city officials had so many free tickets to pass out.

Obviously we’re not big fans of his, but don’t take our word for it, here’s videogum’s review of the highly-rated first show. Or better yet, take the word of the 55% ratings drop of the second show. Jeff Dunham sucks. Thanks for booking yet another act nobody wants to see Stockton. Gotta keep that streak alive.

Quick Links for Nov. 18th

Ready…set…Quick Links!

Goodbye closure

So the Johnny Ford thing is over. That’s nice I guess. We’ll never find out what happened, who got paid what, basically none of the fun stuff. All because an at will employee didn’t like the unneeded reason given for his dismissal. The City Council decided they were done with this openness bullshit and have agreed to private mediation with Ford.

So all that talk of openness was just a big fat pile of bullshit to placate a small but vocal  church community. All that sorely needed city money spent investigating this was for nothing. That report was nice and all, but the City Council can’t publicly make a decision on this? Really? Way to prove that you’re not the rudderless ship everybody thinks you are guys.

Don’t get me wrong, I get the other side. Prolonged litigation is costly. Eventually you just have to say “Enough” and tie a tourniquet around a wound s lowly bleeding away cash. In this case that tourniquet is probably a nice check and a non-disclosure agreement.

But at some point, after spending so much cash, you have to realize what you’re really buying. You’re buying closure. Sure it sucked to see 200 people out of Stockton’s nearly 300,000 citizens be able to cajole the City Council into spending money investigating the firing of one of their friends, but at the end of the day you could always look forward to the glorious clusterfuck that was going to be City Council’s eventual decision.

Ann Johnston gave us a preview a few weeks ago with that epic “I don’ t think this is in the spirit of the charter” speech. Imagine how awesome it would be if she ever articulated an actual decision! The most depressing part about this entire thing is that the City Council was going to have to be forced to grow some balls and take a controversial stance on something. To date their biggest moment is making Gordon Palmer waste time by spelling out all the possible budget options. This was going to be it, and instead of nutting up the City is taking the easy way out. Where’s that fighting spirit I expect from fellow Stocktonians?

And while we’re here…

We won’t get closure from this prolonged, expensive fight either will we?

Don’t think we’ll forget about all of this Johnny Ford shit as you try and distract us with the prison hospital fight. OK, actually, that’ll probably work. We won’t forget. We never forget (Speaking of, anybody hear from Stephen Grossman lately?). But the average Stocktonian? There’s a good chance they’ve already forgotten (Sandra Who?). But hey, at least public comment will be restored to 5 minutes again. Tocan Nguyen is stoked.

I guess it could be worse, we could have Australian media

This has no local angle, I just think it’s hilarious. This is an article from Herald Sun in Australia, which is apparently a real newspaper. A legit newspaper totally covering a classic pro wrestling press conference turned beatdown administered by the Nature Boy Ric Flair to one Hulk Hogan.

And just for fun, here’s a YouTube video of a Fox Sports report on the beatdown in which the reporter actually remarks “That looks very real” in a non-sarcastic tone (unless sarcasm gets lost in the Aussie accent or something).

Actually, that story and video probably got a shitload of hits now that I think about it. Maybe the Record should cover Luche Libra more.

Quick Links for Nov. 17th

Hey, we have stuff to write about today so let’s Quick Link the shit out of this.

We await the creepy Fitzy feature about transgender sex any day now

For some reason this article was buried deep into the A-section of yesterday’s Record so we felt it deserved prominent placement in today’s Quick Links even though we don’t have much to say about it.

The story of Rosalina Ferreira and her transgender son Alfred Dibble is sadly all too common. It’s especially sad because if Stockton is known for anything positive, it’s that it’s accepting of pretty much everybody. Sure, there are always going to be exceptions to the rule (coughbrookside!cough), but for the most part we’re pretty accepting of anybody (especially if they want to buy one of our many vacant homes).

So it’s sad to see obvious hate crimes like this occur in our town. Sure, we’re used to crimes happening with above average frequency around here, but rarely are there crimes of absolute hate. There can be misdirected gang shootings, drug deals, and the occasional burglary, but when you boil it down those are business motivated. Sure, it’s an illegal business but that’s just how some people get by. We don’t condone it but nobody’s breaking into your house out of hate, they’re doing it because they need money. That doesn’t justify local criminals at all, but need is better than hate.

Like we said last week, right or wrong, Stockton’s going to be associated with crime. Regardless of whether or not a massive prison complex gets forced upon our southernmost border, that’s probably not going to change (at least significantly) any time soon. In the meantime, we can at least work towards a smaller, more attainable goal. Eliminating local hate crimes is no small goal, but raising awareness about an underrepresented group in our community is a baby step in the right direction.

We hate hate, and we love the opportunity to show that with the Transgender Day of Remembrance this Sunday. Now if only somebody could tell us exactly what’s going on that day.

Hey, speaking of that business-minded crime…

Oh hey look, one of the parks I kinda live near is in the news. And, surprise, it’s been overtaken by crime. Ok, maybe “overtaken” is kind of a strong word. But a 16-year old boy was shot there last month, that’s usually a big deal. So a series of meetings was called. This shouldn’t disappoint.

And sure enough, it didn’t. First of all, a city employee was outside the SUSD main office (where the meeting was held) warning people not to park their cars on the street because they were likely to get broken into. Mind you, this was on Madison Ave (aka Pacific Ave south of Harding) before the time change. Not exactly 8th St after dark.

But hey, the tone has been set, it’s not safe for the for the children anymore. What can we, as a community, do to fix this? We read somewhere (not in the article, on Facebook I think) that someone at the meeting suggested we go the niche route and make changes to the park to better cater to a certain sect of the community. The most hilarious of the suggested aesthetic changes included adding some shrubbery and making it the city’s “gay park”. Missed stereotypes aside (shrubs are gay? My dad’s going to be pissed), if we were to segregate our parks like that we’re almost positive Oak Park would have something to say about that.

But if thinly veiled ignorance isn’t the key, what is? Drug dealers sitting around a park is never good for the kiddies but, as Deputy Police Chief Eric Jones said, the only real reason they’re there in the first place is because nobody else was there. I’ve seen some brazen drug deals in my day, but if there’s one thing most criminals hate, it’s witnesses. If the surrounding community hadn’t been such pussies when whatever unsavory element initially scared them off came around, we wouldn’t be fighting this battle. Instead, the park was abandoned and now we’re trying to discuss the laziest ways to get it back.

There’s only one real solution to this and it’s for the surrounding community to stop being such huge pussies about the whole situation and to actually use the park. For one, that’s the only way Weber Square is getting a facelift like Gleason and Weberstown Park did. Nobody wants to spend city money on a park only drug dealers use. I know it’s going to be tough at first, but that community is going to have to poke its head out of their comfort zone to get anything done.

I’m not suggesting just brazenly letting your kids run over their unattended, but why not have some sort of community barbecue where you show the scurrilous drug dealers who really own that park? It’s not like they’ll come back with chains and pistols to try and recover such a coveted square of land. This isn’t some massive turf war, it’s a couple of dudes sitting around slinging meth (or whatever). They’ll most likely just go find some other place to sit.

But all of this ignores the more pressing issue, Stocktonians being pushed around by the perception of danger. We’re not claiming it’s totally safe out there in Weber Square (or any park for that matter), but that’s because the notion of being totally safe doesn’t exist anymore. Regardless of how many patrol cars make it out there there will always be something that will freak parents out. Whether it be some creepy looking dude with a pedostache or some shady dude in a puffy jacket spending too much time leaning against a tree by himself doing nothing in particular. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there’s always a chance your kid could be the next Aaron Kelly.

That sliver of risk is always going to be there and you can’t be afraid of it. More importantly, you can’t let your children be afraid of it. They should always be conscious of the dangers that are out there, but to say “No, you can’t go play at that park across the street because it’s too dangerous” in the middle of the freaking day is going to make that kid scared of where he lives. And that’s a shame, because nobody wants to raise a scared pussy.

Hey look, at least on Port did some winning this year!

And now that I’m done calling a group of people I’ve never met huge, gaping vaginas, let’s extend some congratulations to former Stockton Port and current Oakland A Andrew Bailey for winning the AL Rookie of the Year award. Billy Beane is already working on a trade that sends him to the Red Sox in exchange for 3 promising middle schoolers and a piece of twine.

Quick Links for Nov. 12th

No witty intro this time around (so, you know, business as usual), but chew on these Quick Links while we have fun testing out this new (to us a least) mobile WordPress app. Apologies in advance for the increase in typos.

Schwarzenegger to canal opponents: “I’ll be back…tracking”

After absent-mindedly announcing that the much-maligned peripheral canal is a virtual lock to be built while in Stockton last week, Governor Conan the Barbarian is backing off those comments this week by claiming that “canal” might not be the right word to describe the project. After 40+ years in this country, Arnold’s language comprehension has finally progressed to the point where he understands semantics. It truly is a red letter day.

Instead of using a canal, our future President (according to Demolition Man) told the Fresno Bee editorial board that the state is also looking into boring a tunnel to SoCal using a machine not unlike one seen in Total Recall (or the one Shredder and his henchmen use in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon).

We’re skeptical of the practicality of the idea, but after mulling it over for a bit we actually think the Governator isn’t taking this idea far enough. State Assemblyman Bill Berryhill mentioned recently that the proposed canal would be wide enough to accommodate cruise ships, can you imagine how bad ass it would be to float down an underground tunnel (preferably on the top of a gold bar-filled dump truck ala John McClain in Die Hard with a Vengeance)?

Or we could take a cue from the southerners the water would be shipped to and turn it into the world’s longest amusement park ride. One section could be constructed with a Pirates of the Caribbean theme and the stretch that navigates through the Sierra Nevada mountains would be perfect for a Splash Mountain-esque log ride.

Imagine how much money something like that could bring in. The construction costs could be paid off within the decade and we’d be well on our way out of debt. We need to approve this now just to begin the end of lengthy, partisan budget delays.

After that we hope Gov. Schwarzenegger starts work on a plan that would benefit all of California, figuring out a way to recreate the 3-boobed chick from Total Recall. Then we can work on melting the ice at the Earth’s core to patch the hole in the atmosphere.

Hey look at that, dissent!

Just 2 days after we called the Record out for its one-sided analysis of the prison hospital(s), the letters to the editor section (still the only place you can publicly comment on Record/local issues by the way) is dominated by letters in support of them. We’re not vain enough to take credit for this (OK, that’s a lie), but we are happy to see both sides of the argument finally represented in the paper. Granted, it’s in the least credible part of the paper (aside from Tony Sauro’s music previews), but at least it’s something.

Ol’ Bulletpoint’s kind of rusty at this whole effort thing

We mentioned this on our Twitter account but it warrants repeating here. Sports editor Bob Highfill has been on a tear recently after relying on a column consisting of short bulletpoints for about as long as we can remember. It started last week when he penned a column about overzealous PA announcers at high school football games and another on the new Cougars owner. We said it jokingly last week but apparently it rang true, when it rains it pours.

Highfill continued the trend this week by eschewing his weekly Tuesday bulletpoint column for yet another column dedicated to one topic. Unfortunately, this week’s topic was how he royally screwed up the Edison/West column. His transgression was misidentifying the announcer who botched the field goal call at the end of the infamous game. He assumed it was regular PA announcer Ray Harris when it was actually an unidentified replacement after Harris left his post in the 3rd quarter to tend to a family emergency.

How does one make such an error in judgment? Well, Highfill neglected to give Harris a jingle while writing the column. Go ahead. Read that again. The editor of the sports section decided he didn’t need to contact the person the column was about. And to think, my old editor used to give me shit for not getting clichéd postgame quotes from sweaty athletes in towels. Yet Bob Highfill couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone for comment from the catalyst of this entire story?

We said it on Twitter and we’ll say it again, maybe “Must B.” Highfill should stick with giving his opinion in short, 3-sentence bursts. If only so the Record can spend less time deflecting slam dunk libel suits.