Fresno's really showing off now. It's Spring and there's too damn much going on, especially for one shitty blogger to keep up with. ArtHop is tonight with dumps of stuff (artists love it when you refer to their pieces as "dumps of stuff") all over at places like this:
Also, that blog that has never stopped believing that blogs are popular, the Fresno Beehive, are putting on another Tweetup with the Grizzlies, poolside:
If you haven't figured it out yet, ValleyWho is a tournament modeled after the NCAA basketball tourney (Go Lady Dogs!) except college basketball teams are replaced by local celebrities. Everyone votes to try and get their picks moved on. Cool shit.
Before we throw our stupid opinions out there, we give a solid fist bump to the Beehive for putting this out there and creating a balanced-as-you-could-realistically-get bracket. That said, we would have like to seen Tony D, Tom Flores, Famous Whitewater, Margie Wright, Henry Ellard and the Guitar Playing Sign Twirller at Shaw & Blackstone up in there.
Some other things we feel like being a dick about:
Anthony Taylor a 13 seed? Seriously? That's some friends propping up friends stuff right there. Only us local Internet nerds know Taylor and we don't think he's even been around Fresno for very long, has he?
Parker (a 16 seed) going up against William Sorayan is worrisome. The Grizzlies are going to rally around this and probably bump Bill out in the first round. Sadness.
Graciela will likely be battling Bubba in the second round. Too damn early for tough decisions like this. That goes for other second round problems like Seaver vs. Radka and Tark vs. Laval.
Crazy Bernie is in this? Hasn't he only been around a few months? Plus, the creepy as hell picture of him on his sign and billboards insures that we will never buy furniture in that fuckers place, ever.
A printed version is in today's Bee. Go vote here. This should be fun. Check out our bracket after the jump:
It took many many years and a 64 ounce soda but the Fresno Bee's Mike Osegueda finally visits Dorktown... errr Legit Town. Lots of Fresno-y things were dorked about, stuff like this:
We know the Beehive has its fine feature called "Did They Just Say Fresno?" We're jealous of it. But don't tell any Beehive-rs we said that 'cause we'll deny it!
Well this person on YouTube, Keviva007, has done some fine editing in a series she calls "Did Somebody Say Fresno?" Maybe it's coincidence or whatever, but she's done a couple already (that we posted a while back), and there is a third out to enjoy:
UPDATE: There is now a winner for the pair of tickets to Thursday's event: Angel. His name was drawn out of our Oakland A's hat (for realz), so congrats. And special thanks to all of your email comments, I enjoyed them greatly and I'll be paying my $5 along with you tomorrow.
Our Brothers In Blog, Fresno Beehive, are organizing another one of their Tweetups at The Chuk. It's Thursday and should be good. Highlights for us include a Tweetup goers only Thirsty Thursday booth, and the likelyhood of Barry Zito (and his pretty curveball) making a rehab start that night.
Breakdown of the whats:
WHAT: The third annual Great Fresno Tweetup, a face-to-face meetup for Fresno's local Twitter community. It includes baseball-watching, networking, games, prizes, cheap beer, possible heckling and, of course, lots of Tweeting,
WHEN: 6 p.m. Thursday, 'til whenever the game is over. First pitch is at 7:05 p.m., but our event starts at 6, which is when $1 Thirsty Thursday beers are available. Not a coincidence.
WHERE: Chukchansi Park, downtown Fresno. At the "Tweetdeck," our private party deck overlooking left field.
WHY: Because Fresno's Twitter community is: (a) Awesome, (b) Growing, (c) Full of fun people and (d) Somehow well-behaved enough that we haven't been 86'd from The Chuk after the previous two Tweetups. Also, word is that Barry Zito of the Giants will be pitching on Thursday, so that's pretty rad.
HOW: RSVP on Twitter with @fresnogrizzlies to get your special $5 tickets (which include your first $1 beer). Make sure you're following @fresnobeehive for contests both at the event and leading up to it. Keep an eye on the #GreatFresnoTweetup hashtag to stay current on the all chatter.
Alright. You know what's going on. Now is your chance to win a ticket (plus 1) to the event (courtsey of Fresno Beehive). Just email contest@thefresnan.com saying whatever you want - it could be "The Fresnan sucks ass!" - and you're entered. Easy. Winner will get sent a reply email later Wednesday night.
Beehive. You can party like a blogger for the night with the Fresno Beehive crew - one night of blogger style partying is enough, trust us. Many funsie things happening at the newest awesome Fresno place and it's all free and stuff:
Hockey. Hockey is one of our favorite things as Fresno's Monsters will be hosting the Wenatchee Wild at Selland. And don't forget, they have $3 tickets available the rest of the season:
The Fresno bloghistoric site, Fresno Famous, got a remodel on Tuesday. We approve. It's a nice mix of its original conception as a online magazine, and its most recent version as a community blogsite. Folks on its main rival, The Beehive, even seem to like to the change.
For those new to Fresno's blog history, Fresno Famous was Fresno's first cool website. It was started by Jarah Euston who was frustrated by not being able to find out about the good stuff going on in Fresno's creative scene. So she made a site about just that. It soon became Fresno's beacon for hipness, community involvement, blog wars, started Fresno's first podcast and even spawned a Modesto Famous.
Eventually Jarah sold the site to the Fresno Bee. Ironically about the time that the Fresno Beehive sorta took the reins as Fresno's go to website. The Beehive's rise along with Facebook's world domination, more Fresno-y blogsites thinning the waters, and Fresno Famous was in danger of becoming irrelevant.
Luckly Famous Whitewater never gave up his post as resident blogger, keeping Famous' heart beating. That commitment may be finally paying off as the new version of Famous could get the site back in the blogosphere's higher conscience again.
Yeah, she never really left, but we're glad to have the old gal back.
*Disclosure: We're a featured blogger on Fresno Famous and think Joshua "Famous Whitewater" Tehee is one cool dude.
He is Fresno's "Blogfather". He writes columns for local newspapers. He tweets. He likes the Oakland A's. He's Mike Oz of the Fresno Bee and Beehive.
Mike has something to promote, maybe multiple things. So we allow him 20 seconds of audio time on The Fresnan to say what he wants. That's the game. or podcast. or whatever.
It's pretty likely you've seen the whole Starline being shut down for the under 21 crowd, thing. And you probably have also seen that, come to find out, it was local promoter, Rick Mirsnitchian, pulling Starline's Conditional Use Permit (CUP) and alerting local authorities that Starline (and some other places that have dancing like Rick's clubs do) may be technically pushing the boundaries of their permits.
We say bravo to Mirsnitchian. That's capitalism (or something). Get in good with local officials then, you know, maybe, politely point out some things your competition is doing that may be questionable. Concerned citizen. How nice and civic.
So then we're thinking "how do we incorporate this business model to the local blogging world? How do WE handcuff our blogging competition?"
Step one: Get in good with local government. Well, we're totally Ashley Swearengin's friend on Facebook and there's this one time we met Councilman Henry T, so we're in. Step two: Open up the books on all our blogging competitors and point out to our government-y friends, the violations we see:
Edward Stewart: The dude blatantly ignores all rules of capitalization. Been doing it FOR YEARS. [re: fresno blogger code 11.a]
Fresno Famous: Ad-post-to-real-post ratio is way off. You can't let every douchebag post their crap on your site and not be taxed or in violation. Also, there's not nearly enough cussing on there and we need to see a return of Marylin. [RE: Back In The Day Fresno Blog Code 1.a]
Dumb Drum: For a blog that's all things nerd, there is far too little Star Wars related posts. That's not living up to their Conditional Use Permit, for sure. [RE: THX1138 Code]
Fresno Beehive: Far too many posts about TV shows that don't relate to Fresno. [RE: Rick Bentley Code 22]
This Is Conlan: Writes way too well and is too sharp to be a local blogger. It's frustrating. [RE: Don't Be Smart Code 18.b]
Central Valley Moms: Moms only blog. That can't be right. What about daddy? Okay there was that one douche but there hasn't been a post recently. [RE: Reverse Title 9 Code 1.B]
There's plenty more but that ought to keep Mayor Swear' and Chief Dome busy for a bit. Looking forward to having less competition for original posts around here.
Mike Oz did a great job of breaking the story today on the Beehive. Heather Porter of IQ promotions, brought Saturday night's LA Guns/Faster Pussycat show to Frank's Place. Then proceeded to, allegedly, take the money from the door (about $3000) and may have even had a friend yank some merch money from the bands. In the end, the bands didn't get paid and the show goers got only half a show since LA Guns and Faster Pussycat decided not to play since they're money had left.
Tried like hell Mike Oz did to get Heather's side but she ain't talkin' or rebutting anything said on the Beehive today. So, it very much looks like Porter is taking the money and leaving town. Really? You have a booty of 3 grand and that's enough to essentially end your promoting career over? To be shunned in the music community you've been a part of for years? Wow.
Maybe she thought she could get away with it and even still book in town again. But that's pre-blogosphere thinking. Before blogs, this might have not been reported and would have only floated around Fresno's music circles. But thanks to Oz's post today, everybody knows her name. Everybody knows not to work with her. Hopefully we don't forget.
It's a holiday, sure, but BMOTW is not taking time off (this time), because some stuff happened on the blogs this week. Maybe there wasn't one defining moment, but cool stuff none the less.
It's not cool because it shows Fresnans leaving Fresno - that's what all the bad red lines are. We say to those leaving: Fuck em. (whoops, did we write that out loud?). Go have fun in your new city, just don't be mad if we block you on Facebook now.
This map came via the Beehive's Joan Obra as this week she stepped outside her normal food blogging role and brought us this map from Forbes and came with the question "Are you leaving Fresno?" And yeah we get it, times are tough here, maybe more so than other cities and you want to see if some other city will treat you better. Go for it.
But remember this, while we may not be at a Austin or Portland level right now, we will be. Not next year, but in the coming ones. One day we will have lines pointing TO Fresno, not away. Maybe even a few from *gasp* Portland. This much we know.
Truthfully, we don't normally pay attention to the Fresno Bee's news blog. We read the Bee (yes, the inky version) and we read the main Beehive, why should we read the news blog? For want of a better description: it's not a blog in the organic sense. It doesn't exist on its own - it feeds off what is in the Bee too much. That's why it's rarely considered for a BMOTW.
Well, George Hostetter has been overcoming that lately, especially this week with his "Glory and Challenges of Downtown" post. A gigantor post of George walking around Downtown Fresno, pointing out cool and not cool things, all the while using his vast city government and planning knowledge to enlighten.
Not sure if it's the goal of every blogger to parlay successful blogging into something else, like getting a newspaper column or whatever. But we imagine that somebody that works for the Fresno Bee would think it's super sweet.
BONUS MOMENT! The DumbDrum.com turned three-years-old this week. In blog years that's 58. We would like to give Roque and Bryan one of those slow claps that builds strength until every local blogger is clapping.
The Fresnan is a blog drunk on Fresno's sweet sweet booze.
We like posting about local music and random Fresno culture junk. We like Downtown, tri-tip, South of Shaw battles, tamales and remembering when there was a fig orchard at Herndon & Palm. We like to occasionally go to River Park but tell people we never go there.
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