Dude, I can’t stand that damn astroturf backstop area at Beiden Field!! It’s been around for years and everytime I see it I cringe. I am sure it’s practical to take care of, but it looks like total garbage. Why???!?!??
Anyway. So, some other thoughts and things I noticed being a Fresnan the past few days:
Is it just me or is this Pearl Jam tour poster really bad? I mean, it doesn’t even look like them and I think maybe someone used an old Commodore 64 to design it. Glad they are coming to town though.:
This is the time of year you can see the Sierras (with some snow still) while driving around town and it’s great.
I saw Kopi’s car in front of the Market the other day. I looked for him inside but didn’t see him. I am a dork.
Yeahhhhh a cool (kinda underground) local show coming – don’t bother DM-ing Garry:
A new blog series where, in a crudely drawn map format, I write down memories and random thoughts about a Fresno intersection.
I am trying to keep a record for myself and maybe jog a memory or two for you.
Good luck trying to read my sloppy and quickly drawn map of the intersection of Shaw & Blackstone (Or do you say Blackstone & Shaw?).
Anyway, with the exception of the current Heroes Comics, Rocket Dog, Electronic Billboard and Vineyard Farmers Market, the map is all old references.
The old convenience store at the Vineyard was a great place to get baseball cards that weren’t Topps.
Nothing compares to the old conversation pit in the Peppermill bar.
I can’t remember the name of the sporting goods store my old step-grandad worked at.
I miss both locations of Plaza Ventana.
I miss all the Wavelengths too.
When that Electronic Billboard went in it was like “Oh we’re big-time now?”
Bring back Circuit City please.
That video store is gone now, right? It’s the only store in town I ever noticed having a “red door” for the adult section.
How and why is there still an empty lot right next to a freeway and on a major street!? One of those kind of property owners that just sits on it forever, hoping to make some huge payday, I assume.
There you have it. My first Memory Map post. I would like to think I’ll get better at the map part, just wanted to get this up before I talked myself out of it.
Feel free to share your memories or home made maps in the comments or on Twitter.
Fresnans did, in fact, ‘cancel Joe’ if getting upset is canceling. But Rogan did not respond to anything on Twitter or wherever else, because he is JOE FUCKING ROGAN! Why would he? And he’s a comedian MMA guy turned huge podcaster, who cares?
So there was nobody fighting, impossible for it to go viral. But who really totally knows why things go freaking viral!? It’s a bunch of little things, IMO.
Speaking of a bunch of little things turning into something…
Why did Fresno get so mad at Firestone Walker Brewing?
The Firestone Walker fight (the ‘Firestone Flap’ as I like to call it and nobody else cares enough to call it that and be nerdy like me, and that’s ok [sadness]) blew up so big, bigger than Joe Rogan’s brief backhanded compliment to a Fresno restaurant, because….
BACKSTORY TIME!:
Fresno is drowning in Firestone beer. It’s everywhere. EVERYWHERE!
Hell, it’s bigger than White Claw and has been for years.
Any damn place in Fresno that might even THINK of having craft beer, has Firestone. Fresno and the 559 are almost forced to spend a lot of money on 805, Luponic Distortion 1 thru infinity, and whatever mixed-pack is taking up an end or a full island, at Save Mart.
I do not have the stats but I would guess that half the tanks in Paso are paid for with 559 money. We might even drink more Firestone Walker beer than people living in the 805.
Now, add to this, we have always suspected the Central Coast does not like us Central Valley folks. Every once in awhile there will be a racist or pretentious comment lobbed our way from the coast. Sometimes we ignore it sometimes we don’t.
So that’s just a LITTLE bit of our Paso Robles history.
Cut to a lazy Sunday morning in Fresno. Fresno Twitter is relaxing, fat and happy from a John Legend visit, and a subsequent positive Fresno Tweet, enjoying breakfast burritos & coffee, scrolling Twitter and the webs and such.
Then it happened.
Someone responds to John Legend’s Tweet with a negative Fresno bash. Who cares, right!?!
Except, the person bashing Fresno works at Firestone Walker. The person lives in Paso (How is that better than being from Fresno?). And, most importantly, this person is the Communications Manager for Firestone Walker Brewing.
Don’t they know? Don’t they know Fresno loves Firestone? Don’t they know how much beer we buy from them? Don’t they talk about us? Don’t they respect us at all? Don’t they think we’re super cool!? Don’t they know their restaurant/taproom is our first stop on our way to a fun and relaxing coastal weekend!?
All this love and money Fresno gives and it turns out Paso Robles thinks we’re a shithole and is not even classy enough to NOT say it publicly.?!?
Sometimes I have little dumb thoughts that are not worthy of a whole post or even Fresno related. So here is a new segment for the blog: “The Smalls”.
Don’t Go, Summer!
I am going to miss the hell out of Pool Season. The weekends won’t be the same. I do appreciate not having to worry about 90s or triple digits until next year sometime, though. I really think Fresno should have a name for when we are officially done with the heat for the year.
I have been racking my Fresno brain trying to come up with a name for it. A name that represents us getting through the heat. Embracing what makes Fresno unique (including the heat) is always something I’m into. If you think of a name for it, let me know.
TikTok and Space Pants
Can someone stop these TikTok dancing bro guys from appearing on social media ads all over my damn feed!? I get it, they look like guys that have been tailgating an Alabama football game for ten years and yet they can do a dance sequence for 15 seconds. Please tell me TikTok is more interesting than this. On second thought, don’t, I don’t need to know. Dance on, bros.
That rant aside, now my beer and notebook nerdness is contributing to the TikTok . Look what you have done, Dancing Bros!:
I don’t like using Door Dash or any other food delivery service. It freaks me the hell out that some random dude is handling my poke bowl or cheese enchiladas. I’ll just pick it up myself, thanks. Although I do like the marketing of Postmates and I’ve seen some key places (Casa Corona, etc) around Fresno using them. Still creeps me out, I’ll continue to not.
Keep Infilling, Bro!
The new Chevron at Herndon & Brawley is nice. Super wide, so much room for so many activities. Since going back to fig orchards is apparently not an option, I’m happy to see this area finally get some infill, especially with useful things.
AMPM and a Dutch Bros will be up soon. Close by, the Mad Duck NW is still in line-out-the-door mode. I’d love to see a park right next to the new Chevron. That space is not supposed to have buildings anyway since it’s a dump-spot for planes flying into Sierra Sky Park.
I have always wanted to see a restaurant right next to Sierra Sky Park. There is a spot right on Herndon (next to the runway) that used to house small planes. Now it’s just empty space, and a restaurant with parking for planes would be rad there!
Sorta related:
When a Paragraph Is a Subtweet
I rarely find myself in NE Fresno, but recently I was on Millbrook, going North and had to turn left onto Nees. There is no turn signal and the intersection is especially large and weird and kinda dangerous as hell. I think NW Fresno needs to get themselves a Councilman that pays attention to these kinds of things instead of what “Liberals” are doing. Or I’ll just try harder to keep out of NE.
Was This Cool Enough?
This post is kinda where I think the direction my future newsletter will be taking. If you think you’d be into that being in your inbox, you can sign up below:
If you’ve been reading my blog long enough, you know that I have stretches of time where there is not much posting – or I just give up. I am in one of those stretches.
The lack of posting this time comes from a combination of post ideas that are not good enough for me to write about, or good ideas I don’t have the time to put together. So here we are.
Comments are still there, just different
There is an update to give regarding posting comments to this blog. I got a rash of spam comments. Like, 100 spam comments a day. It took a long time to delete all the comments that had built up. In the process, I lost some of your legit comments. Sorry about that.
So now I have had the change the way commenting is done on the blog. You have to sign into a user name and password of some kind. It sucks because it creates a bit of a roadblock for people to easily comment.
BUT, I have not had to deal with even one spam comment since changing this comment policy. So that is cool for me. But sucks for those that comment. Hopefully, we can still keep a healthy commenting community going in future posts, even with this extra step.
Fresno things still are happening
Not sure you’re aware but there is a kinda new Flowing With Famous podcast up. Josh and I got to go on 2 Guys Talkin’ Fresno, which was pretty cool. While there recording I got to finally meet former Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, I was pretty stoked.
I always worry these kinds of posts are too hacky, but I am doing it anyway. It’s actually kind of fun going through the posts from this year because some of them I had already totally forgotten about.
Rather than boring you and posting each one, please let me just remind you of the ones that you, the reader of The Fresnan, thought were the most popular.
I pulled the nine buzziest, starting from January and ending now. These might not have been read the most but had the most “action” (sharing/reading/comments).
One of the more significant things to happen on Fulton Street this year. I have yet to set foot in the place but that didn’t stop me from posting about it.
I have been lobby two of California’s best indie breweries (that are building remote taprooms), Modern Times and Fieldwork, to come to Fresno. If they want to truly make some noise, they should. Now that Zack’s Brewing is open Downtown, this is less relevant. Still would like to see it happen though.
If I did this post today, I would choose Salsa. I did a poll on my Instagram and Salsa won. I personally use salsa as much as I use ranch but at the time I was ranching more so I went with it. This is a forever debate. Salsa now wins.
Having salsa but no chips left is a bad place to be.
There are many Fresno eatin’ holes that you have to wait to get seated. Too often, people get a table at these places and then linger while you wait impatiently, staring at these yahoos. Ya done eating? Then get the hell out.
6. I rode my bike to Pine & Palm and nobody flipped me off.
Biking needs to be more of a thing for me in 2019. I did some of it this year but not enough to talk about it, this time being the exception. I even found a “hidden” bike path.
It’s official. I became an old man this year. When the scavengers became too messy and started dumping my recyclables into my trash bin and on the street, I decided to take passive aggressive action.
While it’s true I live in the middle of Fresno. But I also live in a county island so I couldn’t actually vote for Measure P. That did not stop me from ranting about it though.
Hey, I am surprised too how much play this post got. More posts to come for this series. It even prompted a response from Brandau.
The City is fully aware of this corner. I have met several times about it. The out-of-town owner wants to develop it. May tear down. https://t.co/GbTZREuk1u
No drastic changes planned to the blog. My goal is to have a new post every week, at least, usually by Wednesday mornings. But I did not follow through on that for much of the year. Hopefully, I can do that all the way in 2019.
The one change you might see involves monetizing the blog.
I have never seen cash in my hand or in my checking account, because of this blog. You would think after blogging so many damn years I would have figured out how to make money at it.
I have tinkered with being an Amazon affiliate but it doesn’t work well for the posts I write and the traffic I get. Plus, Amazon is a pretty shitty employer, so I feel dirty working with them anyway. I will likey be backing away from that.
Target has approved me to be an affiliate but I have not started messing with that yet. Yeah, I guess Target has a slightly better conscience than Amazon so I feel …okay? using them
You might see me give that a try on a post or two or a banner ad. Oh look, there is one now!:
Google Adwords is a thing but throwing a bunch of banners around to make $20 a month does not sound worth it to me.
I’m thinking hard about starting a Patreon
If you have not heard of the website called Patreon and you are a creative, you might want to check it out. It enables people that like what you produce to donate money to you.
The cool part is, the creator has the opportunity to give extra content to the person willing to give them a few bucks a month.
We do it on the Perfect Pour and it has worked out pretty well. It at least is enough that the show pays for itself, which is a victory to me.
Anyway, man, thank you for reading the Fresnan this past year and whatever year you have read it. I’ll keep posting if you keep giving a damn.
