The Fresnan – Page 28

Olive Garden Opening In Fresno Is A Good Thing…There, I Said It.

I don’t go to Olive Garden. Well, I haven’t for a long time. I went to the Modesto Garden years ago because my Grandma wanted to. And yeah, I have been to the Clovis one. I’m embarrassed to admit I brought a date there once. There was no second date.

I purposely have not Gardened for a long time. Waiting an hour for a table to eat chain “Italian” food in Clovis is not my idea of a good night out – I don’t care how many unlimited bread sticks you throw at me.

So why the hell should I care or think it’s a good thing that Olive Garden is about to open up its first Fresno location? [Located at Marketplace Shopping Center, BTW)

Because the Highway City area of NW Fresno does not have a sit-down, waiter comes to your table, restaurant. If the first one has to be an Olive Garden, so be it.

I would rather it be a local restaurant or something we have never seen in Fresno before. But it’s not. It’s an Olive Garden. Highway City will have to accept it. Something tells me they will and there will be an hour wait there too.

Some advice, though. Don’t take a first date there, dude. Impressed she will not be. Unless you can do a dance routine with your bread sticks.

Finally. A Guide To Help Us Be Like The Palm Avenue Bikers

I have a bike (pictured). It can get dusty. But I have one. It’s just a fixie. Which means I was cool 6 years ago. And now? Well, I have a bike only good for beer & Redbox runs. And I can only stop Flintstones style.

I need a new bike. A road bike. I may even want to be like one of those people with the bike outfits, riding down Palm Ave. But it looks like a whole thing, ya know? Like work or something.

Well thanks to IFHT, there is an entertaining step by step guide to show me and you how we can be like a Palm Ave Biker:

I definitely need a Recovery Beer just watching that.

If you’re ready to start adding road bikes and putting “yourself” on display riding Palm Avenue, make sure to hit up local places like Steven’s, Sunnyside, Fresno Schwinn, Rubber Soul, Herb Bauer, Cyle Path, and get riding.

Pot Is Making You Lose Your Damn Focus, Fresno!

Our Mayor is thinking he will defy a state law and probably not allow pot dispensaries in Fresno. Screw the millions in revenue. Don’t need it. We got all them millions already. We good.

Even the SO-CALLED liberal newspaper, The Fresno Bee, doesn’t support legal pot.

Welcome to California’s Bible Belt.

To be clear, this rant is coming from a NON pot smoker. [for realz] I don’t inhale.

Mayor Brand sent two Fresnans to Colorado to check out how things were doing there with the legal pot. Turns out, they couldn’t figure out if it was good or bad.

So police chief, Dyer (one of the people the Mayor sent) just gave a blanket “No, bro” reco to Brand. This was enough for our Mayor to conclude he’s going to say no because that seems safe.

Is Dyer running the city or Brand?

Come on, Fresno. Wake up to the fact we are in California. We need to be progressive.

“Oh golly, I hear a pot dispensary might get broken into every once in a while.” THIS IS YOUR CONCERN!? We’ll be ok, snowflake. Fresno can handle this.

Do you realize children get shot in this city for being in their front yard at the wrong time of day AND YOU’RE FUCKING WORRIED ABOUT A BUSINESS GETTING BROKEN INTO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!? As if other businesses don’t get broken into.

Holy shit, man. It’s called priorities. Get them. Maybe take care of our meth, poverty and gang problem before focusing on shutting down LEGAL pot.

Have you ever heard of a guy in Fresno carjacking somebody or shooting somebody because he was super fucking baked? No, of course you haven’t!

Reporter: What happened here, officer?

Policeman: The male suspect was seen getting super high earlier and then started stabbing everyone and stole a car.

You hear how ridiculous that sounds, right?

Please worry about real stuff, Fresno. Take advantage of being in California and mellow out.

Stop Doing The “I Don’t Say FresNO, I Say Fresyes” Joke – An Open Letter To Touring Bands

Hey. Frontman for [insert any band name here], listen up! If you are coming to Fresno for a show and you’re working on your “between song banter” we have some advice for you: Please restrain yourself from changing Fresno’s name to FreYES.

It was never clever. It was not funny the first time we heard it, 30 years ago, and it is not funny today. Come up with better material.

For example. Blake Shelton was at the Save Mart Center last week. He pulled this little gem (you can stop it at 5:40):

Come on, man.

It’s not just the big acts either. I have seen so many small touring bands at Audie’s/Club Fred, or Strummers/Starline or Fulton 55 or you freaking name it, do a version of the joke. It’s lame. It’s eye rolling. We have heard it all. Enough.

The Fresno Bee’s Joshua Tehee and I, discuss it in this month’s Flowing. Here is a clip:

So please. I beg you. Stop doing the “It’s not FresNO it’s FresYes.” … unless:

@FlowingWithPod @thefresnan @JoshuaTehee How about Fres-FuckYeah? No? I'll see myself out. ?

— Israel Flores (@Israel_F) March 6, 2017

Alright. If you incorporate “FuckYeah” I can convince myself to be ok with it.

Bee Killing Season Is Here

Why? Why do bee keepers place their bee hives so damn close to the road, optimizing the chance for the hard working bees to die on my windshield?

Take a drive outside of the city right now, like on a Blossom Trail, and expect the bee death rate to skyrocket.

It seems like the issue is that most of the boxes are placed along side of the road and not in the middle of the orchard; a more logical placement, you’d think. Maybe the answer is never leaving the Fresno city limits in the Spring.

My small amount of Internet research on the reason why a large percentage of hives are placed along side of the road has produced… no reason. I assume it’s laziness combined with hardness of getting to the middle of an almond orchard to place boxes.

There is this though from Scientific American:

In all, more than 31 billion honeybees converge on California’s Central Valley each February to polllinate the almond trees. By the end of the bloom, having gathered plenty of nectar and pollen to feed their colonies, the honeybee population in the orchards may exceed 80 billion.

Wow. 80 billion, eh? So with that many bees doing their thing across the state, maybe keepers are not worried about losing a little bit to windshields. But there are a lot of windshields. I probably killed 100, easy, driving down Avenue 12 the other day (sometimes it’s a good alternative to using Herndon to get out to 99…more on that in another post).

With all those windshields and the bee population being a worrisome thing, you would think more care would bee [first pun] put into bee box placement. But whatevs. I am just a dumb blogger trying to figure out things. Let me know if I can bee [pun 2] of anymore help.

*BEEcause [pun 3] charts are fun, here is a chart from Scientific American showing how bees start things off here in the Central Valley and move on to the rest of the country:

Places In Fresno That Need Better Beer!

One of the problems with being a beer geek (me) is, you get spoiled with good beer. So spoiled that it becomes almost impossible to drink mainstream beer.

Plus it gets very tiring looking down your nose at people drinking pisswater. [insert laughing emoji here]

A beer geek tends to push eating-out choices to places that serve good beer. But you can’t do that every time. Compromises must be made. Food wins out over good beer. On occasion.

So here are some Fresno spots I often wish had better beer.

Edo-Ya. It’s hard not to make this all about Japanese and Mexican restaurants because they are kind of the worst when it comes to beer choices. Unless you are at Kuni Sama. That is actually a legit beer geek place AND it’s in the Taint District!

Casa Corona – Bullard & West. I kinda love the bar there (even though it skews old). It has not changed since I was a kid (not that I drank there when I was a kid, just saying). And it didn’t even change when it switched from El Torro. But DAMMIT their beer selection sucks a King Burrito.

Sequoia’s – Tower District. KIDDING! Totally kidding. It’s fine, it’s fine, the beer is fine. It’s fine. Totally fine.

Maroo. Same problem Edo-Ya has. But they do have Hite beer, which is fun to say and order. “Hite! I’ll have a HITE!”

Hite-pale Places In Fresno That Need Better Beer!

Heroes Comics and Mossette’s Baseball Cards. All my nerd things in one place. I know they don’t have a liquor license, just wishful thinking. To be able to hang out in these places with a bar and a good beer? Dream fulfillment.

Doghouse Grill. Any chance I have to rip that place, I take it. I have not been there in some time, but I’m guessing their crappyass selection has not changed.

Home Depot. Okay, again I am including a place that doesn’t serve alcohol but I really hate going to this place. Having a beer while I’m trying to find the proper dishwasher hose clamp, would really lessen the hate. Plus, when I have to come back for the inevitable 2nd or 3rd time (because I did not get the right size of clamp the first time), I’ll enjoy that 2nd beer even more.

Please leave your choice in the comments because I would love to hear them.

Speaking of beer, there has been a lot of local beer talk lately by the Fresno Bee. You may want to check out their dedicated beer section. We even had them on The Perfect Pour, a couple weeks back, to talk about it.

Let your ears have a listen. Cheers!: