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.
[Simple fan Matt Murphy's life was finally given meaning after he caught home run #756]
[A San Diego Padres' fan is led away from QualComm Stadium in disgrace]
[Aggressive drug testing has brought shame and disgrace to the sport of pro cycling]
[Baseball doesn't want to wind up with Duane Kuiper (1 home run, lifetime) as it's greatest home run hitter.]
[Anderson gets it. Some Giants fans, unfortunately, do not.]
Gary, regarding the supposedly negative effects of steroid use among athletes, especially the "bloat" factor... (let's be honest, Barry Bonds' facial bloat resembles a storage facility for enterprising squirrels.)
[Focus on the main thing: 
[Is Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling responsible for pedophiles in the Boston priesthood?]
[Gregg Valentino, east coast steroid freak]
[The genius of Brian Sabean: Armando Benitez generated intense fan
emotion and a reason to vent at the ballpark. Paying attention Billy
Beane?]
The book: Darkness at Noon,
a novel by Arthur Koestler, written in 1941, following Joseph Stalin's
purges of high-ranking officials in the Communist Party.
"As was the case weeks ago, the agenda was unclear as to what the item really was that was being voted on....
The beautiful thing about Christianity -- besides eternal salvation and having a personal
God who looks after us and us only -- is we don't have to think too hard. Everyone knows that thinking hard can lead to doubt and uncertainty and brain cramping. Being soldiers in God's Christian Army, we have plenty of sergeants and lieutenants and
generals who've already interpreted the religious source material. We're just here to
copy their Cliff notes. 
Verily, the Internet is a confusing place, a snakepit crawling with corruption. And vice. And other interesting things. And yet because we are Christians we may engage in sin without fear of damnation, as long as we do it in a sanctioned Christian format. We can even participate in pornography in a clean and healthy Christian way, thanks to sexinchrist.com, which provides these guidelines for 
Please, support the 
The Tortilla Curtain probably won't appear in our local high school's reading list, for issues
having to do with the fact that T.C. Boyle is not a Latino author. The ideology of strident multiculturalism does not allow that a son of Irish immigrants would be able to accurately represent La Raza.
Outfoxed is a well-researched, professionally vetted documentry. Outfoxed employs those basic tenets of journalism we used to know as "news-gathering," "attribution," and "verification by experts." Interviews with former Fox news employees document the sorry, compromised state of television news journalism, as represented by Murdoch's most potent vehicle of political influence, Fox News. The film also reveals how CNN, MSNBC, and the other "news" networks have sullied themselves trying to compete with Fox.
Pompous angry blowhard Bill O'Reilly 
O'Reilly's rabid female counterpart 
[Powerful Santa Clara county overlord Jabba the Hut -- er, supervisor Don Gage -- wasn't going to let Measure A diminish his control of land parcels on unincorporated areas.]
?
[When Tracie Cone ran the paper, the Pinnacle's motto was "All the news that fits." With Mark Paxton in charge, the motto became "
[Another one bites the dust. Respected local writer Martin Cheek was censored for discussing censorship. 
[Even Radnich has stopped defending Bonds]
[at left, Diaz, the lame duck superintendent of Gilroy schools, demonstrates how he will flap his wings during take-off]
[Powerful Santa Clara county overlord Jabba the Hut -- er, supervisor Don Gage -- wasn't going to let Measure A diminish his control of land parcels on unincorporated areas.]
[Aguirre's responses to the R of G's candidate questions, while verbose, avoid the district's academic stagnation issues.]
[at left, prominent political consultant Tom Shepard, hired to create confusion, paranoia, and doubt about Measure A; Doug McNea, disinformation-spreading president of Silicon Valley Taxpayers' Association; and Santa County sheriff Laurie Smith, whose anti-measure A commentary reveals why cops and firefighters shouldn't quit their day jobs.] 
Gilroy has acquired an unwanted reputation as a place where people are killed by trucks driving too fast and too carelessly on residential streets. In the last four months, three pedestrians have been killed in town.
"Menacing and foreboding, as befitting the Man's oppression palace," upholsterist Marvin 'Jerry' Nordstrom-Saks observed from his Harley. "You can't see what's going on inside, or who's being brought in or who's being taken out. It has a paranoid, apocalyptic, 'Darkness at Noon' quality that makes me want to lock my door, drink Pernod, hallucinate enemies, and clean my gun in my room with the blinds closed. Excuse me I hafta leave."
[at left, "Abu Graybar" in Gilroy]
I’d like to congratulate my self-appointed arch-nemesis, Mr. X, on his response to my response to his response to one of my columns, published several months ago, in which I revealed his consistently erroneous logic and frequent grammatical errors. 
[Award-winning photography by James Mohs has been noticeably absent from the Hogpatch] 
Adrian (delivery specialist, smoking cigarettes outside First Street Coffee): F*** no I ain't going! What for? To eat garlic gut bombs in a cow pasture in 100 degree heat with thousands of sweaty people and pay too much for beer? 
Lady (outside of Gap Outlet): Why do you want to know?
Justin (landscaping contractor, drinking beer at Chili's bar on 10th Street): Ehh... maybe.
Skateboarder (at Las animas Skate Park): Huh?
The GUSD will ignore the education research proving that math concepts -- or any instruction, but especially math concepts -- are best learned in small, not large, chunks. The district will ignore the wisdom of moving all math instruction to the morning, while minds are sharp. The district will not worry whether math concepts are being taught incorrectly in the GUSD (see sidebar), in improper sequence. Not necessary!
[The undercurrent running through today's post is the similarity between Mainstreet media publisher Censorin' Steve Staloch and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld. Both men ignore good advice from internal experts and external critics. Both refuse to acknowledge unpleasant truths. Both remain arrogant and autocratic while standing neck-deep in horse manure.]
"I do not need to explain why I say things. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something. But I ... don't owe anybody an explanation." -- American President George W. Bush
The man has only one look for Christ's sake!.... Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"
With a single media entity owning all the regional papers, and with the San Jose Mercury News having all but abandoned south county reporting, Gilroy newspaper readers shouldn't expect to see any sacred cows outed in 2006. Jane Howard, Chamber of Commerce honchos, Leadership Gilroy, city manager Jay Baksa, perennial school board member Jim Rogers, city council windbag Craig Gartman, Bonfante board member Bob Kraemer, superintendent Edwin Diaz, and Garlic Festival dignitaries will continue to be untouched by thoughtful, in-depth reporting.
Moo.
It's February. The Republic of Gilroy wishes you belated new year's greetings. The dank month of Feb is a good time to consider the significant stories that were ignored in 2005. Why were these stories ignored or barely reported? Lots of reasons: (a) the trend toward fluff over substance in community newspapers; (b) the assumption that people don't have the attention span to read longer, investigative stories; (c) overworked, underpaid reporters too burdened with filling the daily fluff-hole to report the story behind the story; (d) a media monopoly -- Mainstreet Media LLC -- owning all the local papers and eliminating healthy editorial competition between papers; and, most significantly, (e) too many danged SACRED COWS -- Dipsack advertisers and other Gilroy "players" who are permanently off-limits (unless, of course, they become involved in a sex scandal or get themselves arrested). 
"Clear Conflict of Interest" screeches the headline in the Dec. 21 Dipsack editorial. The edit charges mayor Al Pinheiro with ethical misconduct for his participation on the Bonfante Gardens board of directors.
[at left: the old Wal-Mart building -- destined to become the region's first Wal-Mart SuperOutlet?]
From the autobiography of Dr. Martin Luther King: 
That's a cold comment. But the kind you expect in the Republic of Gilroy, where we don't pull punches. You can't get your third DUI while in office and expect leniency in public opinion. Instead of resigning, which would have been the honorable thing to do, Morales stubbornly remained, ignoring a lot good advice to relinquish his council seat, pay his public penance out-of-office, then run again in two years.
Sensing the imminent addition of Bracco to the council dias, Mayor Al Pinheiro recently griped about the Gang of Four's undue influence on local politics. Mayor Al feels that the four have consorted outside the boundaries of standard accepted council discourse. He feels that Dillon and company 
"Like a bad penny, you keep coming back," Gartman once told me in an unsolicited email. He was upset about something I'd written -- perhaps it was when I labeled him "the human waffle," or playfully characterized him as "Councilman Keg Waffleman." Maybe it was when I suggested that Gartman might want to open Gilroy's first waffle house. Don't take the criticism, personally, Craig, it's just politics.
One thing is clear. George Bush is the biggest dumbass to hold the Chief Execuitve's office since Warren G. Harding. We've had bungling, backtracking, lying Presidents before -- Republicans and Democrats. But it's the sheer dumbassedness of Bush, his capacity for doggedly going about things all wrong, especially in Iraq, that makes this Bush so special.
Denise Apuzzo
Dina Campeau
Lisa Pampuch
Dennis Taylor
Did you hear the joke about the Gilroy school board member who thought he'd be popular because he was on community access cable television twice a month, and made stupid remarks to bring attention to himself? But his wacky statements weren't funny, or poignant, or ironic -- just bizarre, made other board members look away. It was like a bad comedy act, painful to watch.
It eventually dawned on this school board member that the happy-go-lucky buffoon act wasn't achieving the desired effect. Just the opposite. It had made him irrelevant. He was outside the main circle of influence, his opinion was unvalued. The damage seemed irreversible and the realization made him bitter.
If he couldn't be popular and important, he decided, he'd at least demonstrate that he wasn't powerless. He'd get close to the big wheel on the school board, the superintendent, who had many critics. He'd be the superintendent's champion, the first line of defense for the status quo. But the superintendent didn't want the clown to bring him down.
You're help is not helping, he told the clown. Unattach yourself from me.
Now the clown was totally rejected, an untouchable, heard but barely acknowledged. So the rejected clown turned into a bully, and took out his frustration on anyone who dared to come before the board and petition for higher-quality academic instruction in the school district -- the worst-performing school district in all the county.
Like a demented dog chained to a post in the yard, the rejected clown barked at anyone -- parents, teachers, other board members -- who dared to question policy or the board's direction. By challenging the advocates of common sense he only made their criticism stick. He only made the superintendent's failed policies more glaring.
The punchline of this story is that in the very last important televised board meeting of his trustee career, the once jovial clown completed his transformation into an edgy bully clown, angrily raving that "the policy is the law and the law is the policy!" and "Minutes are words on paper, written down!" and pounding the table like Captain Queeg or Senator Joe McCarthy.
The topic of discussion in that meeting was whether high school cheerleaders should be allowed to skip a week of school to travel to Hawaii and perform a 15-minute cheer routine at a half-time show. The clown felt strongly that the cheerleaders should travel, but only because some of those who had mocked him in the past felt the cheerleaders should stay in school.
It was a contentious, if silly debate, a perfect platform for the clown. He was aware that time was running out on his school board career. He was aware that the television camera was transmitting every moment. He was aware that, like the cheerleaders, he too was a misunderstood performer. In this final, great redemptive moment of his career, he would show all the critics!
His angry clown eyes narrowed, focused on a parent in the audience who he felt didn't respect him.
"Yes or no, are you a member of a parents' group?" he demanded of the parent, who had advised the board that, in a school district, instructional time shouldn't be sacrificed for dubious week-long field trips with no educational merit.
"Excuse me?" replied the parent.
"Just answer the question!" yelled the clown, triumphantly looking around the room.
"Yes, I am a member of a parents group." replied the parent.
The clown smiled. He had cornered his enemy with mental gymnastics. Now the clown lunged for the kill. "Did you... publish opinions about the school board?"
"Uh... yes." admitted the parent.
"There, you see!" shouted the clown. He had destroyed her with an incredible comeback! Career vindicated!
As he cast his vote in favor of sending the cheerleaders to Hawaii, he could feel public opinion swinging in his favor. When the final vote came in, 4-3 in favor of the cheerleaders, he could feel the love of the cheer people who crowded the room. He half expected them to carry him out on thier shoulders, cheering. He half expected them to invite him to Hawaii. But having used him to get what they wanted, they wanted nothing more to do with the clown.
It was a riveting, if disturbing, performance. Those who watched had to admit that the clown had at last become funny and poignant and ironic, in a borderline psychotic sort of way.
.... and that is the sad history of former Gilroy school board trustee David McRae, who recently completed a four-year run on the Gilroy school board.Unless you count his decision not to run for re-election last November, McRae left the board without making a meaningful contribution. He forged no working alliances, sponsored no needed reforms, led no important committee, championed nothing important. Occasionally he advocated on behalf of teachers, parents, and students, but only if they were working against common sense policies or complaining unreasonably about being held to minimum acceptable standards of behavior.
The R of G criticized McRae harshly during his school board career. McRae: send in the mimes details how McRae embarrassed himself and the school board with his comments regarding Day of Silence. School board buffoon (unreported, 2005) documents MCrae's propensity for idiotic commentary.
McRae's one quality as a board member was his ability to forget the stupid things he said and did to others, to forgive himself and assume that everyone else forgives him too. All the times he suffocated intelligent discussion with non sequiturs, all the times he bullied parents who were challenging the culture of low expectations in the GUSD, all the times he obtusely denied the reality of academic stagnation, especially evident in high school achievement test scores, the high school dropout rate, the number of graduating seniors moving on to college careers -- it's all miraculously forgotten now that Dave is off the board.
It's that oblivious quality that I almost admire. It's what allows McRae to see no irony in posting a comment to this web site, to use this forum to announce his tour schedule to his "fans."
The Republic of Gilroy is interested in seeing Dave McRae perform, just to see if he re-uses any of his school board material. Good luck with your comedy career.