Mustache giving Bee critic bad advice

The Bee's Rick Bentley is showing his age. It's time for Heather or somebody with some young critic blood to help Old Grey Mustache out.

Rick disagreed with "30 Rock" winning an Emmy for best comedy:

Maybe it was a dream. Please someone wake me up. "30 Rock" could not have been named best comedy. Alec Baldwin is the only funny part of the show and he did not win. The win by NBC's "30 Rock" makes the dream about being in front of a class, naked and without your homework seem rather tame.

Sorry Greystache, but "30 Rock" is funny as hell and it's been a long time since a woman as smart and funny as Tina Fey has hit comedy. Even longer then it takes to trim that stache.

Blantant misuse of hotness

Bloggers are not the most attractive people in the world. They are pudgy-fugly nerds that sit at their computers all day watching their gut grow and their chances for a real woman fade as they blog about things as inane as Red Robin openings.

Well, the Fresno Bee has an exception: Heather Mclane. Even more impressive is, the lady can write too. She's the funniest blogger in Fresno and the Bee is under-utilizing her.

She should be doing something in the printed version of the Bee - other than appearing in full blown adds for her Beehive Blog.

Hey! Bee Overlords. How about a column for the girl? I would love to hear her rip on Fresno celebs...other than K-Fed. Or, what about a weekly video of Heather musing about something Fresnerdy?

It could be like this popular weekly vidblog from (also nice tah look at) Jessie Cantrell:

Native Fresno Assholes

Apparently, Fresno's major export to Portland isn't grape related products, it's assholes.

Fresno native and current Portland, Oregon...er...ite...ass, Scott Moore, wrote a weak little article about Fresno's current "Strong Mayor" format being adopted by Portland. He used it as an excuse to flame Fresno, calling Fresno "a royal craphole."

Bill Mcewen, Fresno's top columnist, got wind of it and blogged about it. That prompted a Portland Mercury blog about Bill's blog.

A blog brawl ensues.

Don't move away from Fresno then call it a "craphole" because the Fresno blogsphere will find your ass!

Soon to be forgotten dork

Dorktown got a second letter in The Bee this past Sunday. It was a cleaned up version of a prior blog I posted about the Fresno City Council not getting involved in things like they should. The Fresno Bee approved version can be read by clicking here.

I kinda wish I could take it back though. There's a section in the first paragraph (the whole last sentence, complete with dash) that is just bad writing. If I would have sat on the letter a while longer, I would have noticed it. Unfortunately I just sent it to the Bee after one proofread.

Once is never enough when proofreading.

Now that bad sentence is in print forever. Lucky, it's mostly just old farts that read the editorial page anyway and it will soon be forgotten. Just like the council will forget about Storyland, Playland, Gateway Ice Center and nerds that write to the Fresno Bee.

Bee-ing watched

You may have noticed this blog tends to watchdog what the Fresno Bee is doing. More times than not, I'm praising something the Bee has written about; this is again one of those times. I know, fuckin' boring eh?

There was a great editorial today about the valley's diminishing farmland and how nobody seems to care enough to do anything about it: Vanishing Farmland.

Also, Matt James, probably the Bee's best columnist, wrote a great piece about the Fresno Falcons and how they might have to move if there's no Fresno ice to practice on. Basically saying, if nobody does anything about this lack of ice problem, problem solved: Matt James story.

Historic, Dorkish and Famous

I had been looking forward to Podcast 38 for quite some time. Even before Jarah sold Fresno Famous, we had been planing to have her on our podcast. Unfortunately, some sound and length problems prevented it from being perfect, but it still turned out to be as fun as I'd hoped.

Jarah and Josh were just plain entertaining and some provocative stuff came from the interview.

When Jarah was asked if she was surprised at the amount of backlash selling FresnoFamous caused, Jarah replied "Yes. I didn't think that anyone would give a shit. I didn't think that anyone would notice."

Josh - who's taking over for Jarah as the website's head blogger - proved he is ready for the challenge and talked about the distance he will have from the Fresno Bee, "I don't work in the newsroom, I don't work on the paper. We are separate from the news[room]...I'm not going to ever talk to the executive editor of the Bee, we're doing things a little differently. We're not going to be doing what the Fresno Bee is doing, we're not going to be doing what we did with Get Out."

But what trumps all of that is Jarah throwing down some "Wham Rap" with Bells - part two of #38. I think Bells would have married her right on the spot if he wasn't already spoken for.

I hate pimping something I've already posted but this show is dedicated to Famous Users and I really want to make sure everybody gets a chance to listen to the podcast. If you have iTunes you should be taken to the Dorktown iTunes page by clicking iTunes.

Thanks to everybody for listening to our dopey-ass show and special thanks to Jarah and Josh for coming in and being so open.

-Mike

Dork Exposed as Idiot

On the post below, I railed The Bee for not publishing my "letter to the editor" concerning Fresno Famous. Truth be told, I was kinda hoping they wouldn't post it so I COULD smack 'em for not posting.

Well, come to find out, they actually DID post my letter in Saturday's Fresno Bee. I just missed it. This was pointed out to me on my blog at Fresno Famous by Fresno Bee Editor Russ Minick.

Yep, as you can tell, any idiot can write a blog.

Bee 'Edits' Dorktown

Famous being purchased by the Fresno Bee has been blogged about as far away as Massachusetts and as close as Bakersfield. But not one editorial letter in the Opinion section of the Bee.

I decided to change that by sending a letter to the Bee myself. Bee Editors apparently didn't find it worthy because they aren't publishing it. I've even sent in a couple different versions, still nothing. Maybe the writing just sucks - I admit it isn't great. Or, maybe they don't like the content of it.

Either way, since they aren't publishing it, I will:

So, McClatchy’s Fresno Bee has bought FresnoFamous.com. To borrow from the Bee, I would like to say ‘Thumbs Up’ to the Bee for putting their ego aside and saying “If you can’t beat ‘em, assimilate ‘em.”

It will be interesting to see if the Bee can keep to their promise of not meddling with the site and letting the Fresno Famous users dictate the bulk of the content and style. I know the Famous users will keep a watchful eye.

Yes, not all letters make it into the Bee, but I always find the ones about local issues more interesting , rather than what somebody from Clovis thinks of Iraq.

Bee is Famous, Fresno

The rumors are true, Fresno Famous, the hippest little local site EVER, has been assimilated by the Borg - also known as the Fresno Bee.

Valley Floor rumors of the mighty McClatchy Company purchasing Dorktown are highly...alright, there aren't any rumors. But when the Fresno Bee was not reached for comment, they said all Fresno Dorks should now stay away from F'Famous and go fuck themselves.

Fresssno Before Swine

A while back I did a Video Blog about the comic strip Get Fuzzy being replaced in the Fresno Bee by Pearls Before Swine.

To get the point across that Get Fuzzy needs to be brought back, I made fun of Pearls - and BC, but that was too easy. Well that came back to bite me in the vlog-ass because I soon got a email from Stephan Pastis, the creator of Pearls Before Swine. It turns out he thought it was funny and he couldn't have been cooler about it.

Now, I'm a big fan of Pearls - especially since he was able to skilfully work Get Fuzzy into his own strip a couple weeks back - and I became a bigger fan yesterday when Fresno got a mention (see comic above) in PB Swine.

Hopefully, one day, there will be Pearls AND Fuzzy in the Bee. Until that day, I'll just continue to hate BC, even if the creator contacts me.