An Interesting Compendium of Gilroy Anecdotes
The Wikipedia entry for Gilroy, CA describes the town, it's history.
Key points have been omitted.
Like this one: Gilroy has the highest concentration of ignorant people in Santa Clara county, and possibly the entire Bay area. Not just ignorant, but proud of it. In fact, Gilroy is not so special. Heavy concentrations of ignoramuses are found in many parts of the world.
Food Consumption
Overeating and overdrinking is a way of life in Gilroy. The town's identity hinges on the yearly Gilroy Garlic Festival, also known as the Big Hot Sweaty BBQ, held on the last weekend in July. The festival happens once a year, but the aesthetic of overconsumption is practiced daily. People gorging on greasy food is altogether normal in Gilroy.
One food observer has noted that our "our insatiable demand for food must be worn on our bodies, often in the form of diabetes as well as obesity. Overeating makes us miserable, and ill, but medical advances mean that it takes a long time to kill us off, so we keep on eating." This statement summarizes Gilroy's attitude about lifelong eating.
Officially, Gilroy is known as the Garlic Capital of the World.
Unofficially, Gilroy is known as the Adipose Tissue Capital of the
World. In Gilroy, thighs are for carrying satchels of cheesy fat
aggregations. If you like obese Mexican women shopping with their kids
at Wal-Mart, Gilroy is right for you. If you like fat Anglo women
who smoke and yell at their kinds in their SUVs, Gilroy is right
for you.
In Gilroy it's possible to build a Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits stand within 200 yards of a junior high school without raising an eyebrow. Such establishments serve as refueling stations for Gilroy students on their way home to play videos, watch youtube, and consume mass quantities of the three main Gilroy food groups: sugar, starch, and salt.
Gilroy, a great place to live
Only people born in Gilroy seem to think Gilroy is a great place to
live. There are some dissatisfied residents who feel differently, but
they are generally shunned from key institutions like the Chamber of
Commerce and Leadership Gilroy.
Why then is Gilroy a great place to live? Police protection. Gilroy is filthy with police protection. The percentage of Gilroy's budget dedicated to police and fire protection is the highest in the county. Taxpayers funded a new jail on the bottom floor of the new police station, so the cops wouldn't have to drive all the way to Santa Clara with their prisoners.
But the Gilroy PD's walled $27 million fortress keeps Gilroyans safe.
Gilroy remains a lucrative
investment for big box retail stores who've built a regional city on
the other side of the highway, far away from the city's quiet, rustic, empty
downtown that caters to thrift-store clientele.
Environmental Stewardship
Fear and loathing of environmentalists, their causes and their initiatives, has been cultivated through years of propaganda from Gilroy's ruling class, i.e., real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and other craven lackeys who worship at the feet of Southern California Real Estate interests and assist their desire to build trophy homes on every remaining pristine hillside in Santa Clara County.
As a result, Gilroy barely tolerates bicyclists and runners. The bulk of the population is averse to any activity that can't be completed from a couch using a remote.
In Gilroy, environmentalists are not just scorned, they are reviled. When a tree-hugger is discovered practicing environmentalism, Gilroy reacts as if terrorists were caught working the fry pits at the Garlic Festival. Alarms go off in the newspaper, inside council chambers, and at the two great franchise restaurants that Gilroyans love to frequent for rib night: Applebee's and Chili's.
Cultural Identity
The pinnacle of success for a working class woman in Gilroy is former Gilroy High cheerleader and current hairdresser. The pinnacle of success for a working class man is played football at Gilroy High and hasn't served time in prison. If you don't fit into either of these categories then you're a criminal, or worse, some kind of elitist snob from Morgan Hill putting on airs.
In Gilroy, a man is not considered a man unless he's driving a conspicuously large American truck with a V8, which he spends Saturday washing. In Gilroy, a man's virility is measured by the number of internal combustion engines he maintains. You are on the A-list if you have two American made four wheel drive vehicles -- one to drive to the supermarket, the other to haul your boat and your off-road vehicles.
It is not unusual for reasonable, informed people to inhabit Gilroy, and to become stuck there because of rapidly diminishing real estate values. They tend to stick out, like the ectomorph waiting behind a herd of lard butts ordering dessert drinks at the Starbucks on First Street.
These outsiders who aren't from Gilroy tend to compare Gilroy to places that have a vibrant downtown with locally owned businesses, or walkways and bike paths connecting neighborhoods. Or culture. Or artists other than taggers.
Typically the outsiders ask why this or that hasn't improved in Gilroy. They don't understand the history of the town's growth, it's urban planning, it architecture, it's economy. A history that can be summarized in one statement: "anything worth doing is worth doing badly."
They don't understand that Gilroy only wants to remain some romanticized idea of what it was that no one can express very clearly. Something sentimental like: late 60s ranchette with chickens in a dry dessicated yard, a restored 57 Chevy parked by the fence, and a low-slung cottage in the background. Or the nouveau riche variation: a McMansion on a hillside or gated golf course community, with a Hummer in the driveway.
Statistics
Literally, figuratively, and economically at the bottom of Santa Clara County, Gilroy seems to end up with the dregs of society. This translates to three dubious distinctions for Gilroy, in the following categories:
- most inept restaurant service
- most inebriated public servants
- most incompetent school system administrators
Gilroy has approximately 50,000 residents, 77 of which are sex offenders. That's roughly twice the state average of sex offenders per capita.
Business and Industry
Gilroy is a haven for developers looking to construct crappy subdivisions without the restriction of strictly enforced building regulations or comprehensive development plans. As a result, Gilroy has the highest percentage of newly built bank-owned homes in Santa Clara County. You won't be able to sell a Gilroy home at a profit for another ten years, which is about how long it takes before substandard construction on that Kaufman & Broad stucco cul-de-sac manor begins to reveal it's flaws.
In Gilroy, standard wisdom is that bigger is always better. To become the region's leading hi-tech center -- leap-frogging rival Morgan Hill, which has successful, profitable business parks -- Gilroy rezoned 660 acres of farmland that have no roads, water, or sewage, and dedicated it to a future technology park for Fortune 500 companies. Unfortunately companies large and small have yet to seize the opportunity. So Gilroy's biggest employer remains the school district.
Education
Gilroy public schools produce the most well-fed stupid children in America. In Gilroy, a big celebration happens when a student passes 8th grade. An even bigger celebration occurs when the student passes the California High School Exit Exam, meaning they've learned the minimum required to receive a high school diploma. Failed the CAHSEE? It's OK. You don't need a diploma to work a scanning machine at Target or at the biggest Wal-Mart Supercenter in the region.
This is not to say that nobody from Gilroy goes to college. Many Gilroyans attend Gavilan Community College, or are enrolled at Heald Institure, or are actively completing cosmetology school.
I can tell you don't live in Gilroy, or have even visited in the last five years. The Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits you write about in your blog doesn't even exsist anymore. The business didn't even make it a year and I feel it's because not all "Gilroyans love to frequent for rib night: Applebee's and Chili's."
It's easy to see the ugly when that's all you're looking for.
Posted by: anne | 09 October 2009 at 04:31 PM