Quick Links for April 10th

Oh hey, it's Sexy Friday. Hope you enjoyed the Michael David Smith interview. El Duke may emerge from his cave today to bring back a revamped Shit To Do post later today, so look out for that. Out of Context Quote of the Week should also appear sometime later. But for now? Quick Links!

It must be awards season. Better go get my tux dry cleaned

Sure, we probably won't reclaim the violent crime rate title this year, but that doesn't mean we can't clean up in all the secondary award shows!

Today, it was revealed that Stockton has the highest dropout rate of any California city. So, as is customary...(clears throat)

Wooooo! We're #1! We're #1!

With that out of the way we have to express our disappointment that this study is based on numbers that are 2 years old. We really wanted to make and Amato/SAT joke but he had nothing to do with these numbers which severely disappoints us. But still, graduating less seniors than we had dropouts is fairly impressive. So congrats future lifetime Delta College students. You're making us proud.

Oh, and that that Oakland!

I hate journalism

These vigilantes clearly have lost their marbles, so the next natural step of progression is to exploit them on a national level! Yes, in a move that must give the Stockton Police Officers Association a massive erection, the Alan Pettet has fielded media requests from the Associated Press, National Public Radio, and Captain Douchebag himself Rush Limbaugh. You guys already know my stance on these vigilantes so I'm not going to beat a dead horse (although SAM might come by and shoot it later).

If you have yet to read it Christian Burkin's blog entry about the SAM is a pretty good read and he offers a unique perspective as an ex-military man and a guy who probably knows more about crime in Stockton than any of us.

I really hope this story dies a quick, painless death. But I kind of doubt it will. Fuck, now I'm depressed. Let's end this on a lighter note.

Nobody pahtied fackin hahdah!

Kissing Suzy Kolber was on a roll yesterday. First there was the least surprising story about a Raider fan ever, then there was the linked post of a letter sent to the students or alumni of Holy Cross. It's pretty much one of the funniest things I've ever read. And that includes Fitzy's plan to buy the Thunder (We'd be Gods!). Although frankly, the two of those are actually kind of similar.

Is Stockton really miserable or just potentially miserable? Plus, a special appearance by hope!

I was at a friend's house playing video games when I found out. Sitting there shooting zombies with my Wii controller and then it happened. It started off quiet at first, but then as always, it picked up. "Raaapppadooo!" That either means that the champ is here, or that Bris Isaak is calling me (What? You don't have "The Time is Now" set as one of your ringtones?). To my surprise, it was both.

"Forbes has named Stockton the most miserable city in the United States."

Wooo! Weeeeeeee are the champions! Nobody's more depressed and miserable that us! Fuck yeah! Then I thought about it for a bit. Wait a minute, I don't feel depressed or miserable. Sure, at times there's enough THC in my lungs that you could probably slap me in the face and I wouldn't feel a thing, but it's not like I smoke and drink to escape being miserable (Note: Valentines Day not included in this statement). I do that shit because I'm fucking bored and need to kill time.

I don't mean to shit all over the celebration, we are called Reclaiming the Title after all. We love this kind of shit. But this list just seems flawed. Well, more flawed than any of these sorts of rankings. They compiled this list by looking at things like violent crime rate (check), taxes (looks at paycheck, check), and...commute time? How did we rank so low in commute time?

I know sometimes driving in Stockton can be fucking annoying because of the high rate of old Asian ladies. Hell, we have a high rate of old people in general who for some God forsaken reason still have their license. But are old people alone really enough to warrant a low commute time rating? These guys have been to Tracy, right? I've hit bumper to bumper traffic on the 205 at 3 in the fucking morning. They're way worse.

But even if you spot Forbes the traffic thing, it still doesn't amount to anything real. It's all statistics and no polls. Sure, we all have our problems. Times are tough right now, but I wouldn't say anybody I know is miserable by any means. What this list shows is Stockton has the potential to be miserable. Nobody could blame us if we all just sat around wallowing in self-pity because shit is so tough. But that's for pussies and emo kids.

We're not the most miserable city in America (and we question the veracity of any list that infers that Miami could be anything but fucking awesome). Are we one of the most afflicted cities in the US? Yes. Do we have a lot of shit to deal with? You bet your ass. Do we let it get to us? Sometimes, although you could have said that before the recession. Will we let it hold us back? Fuck and no. We've said it before and we'll say it again, Stockton is town of fighters. Could we be miserable? Yeah. But shit doesn't get fixed when you're wallowing at the bottom of a fifth of SoCo (and trust us, we would know). If we're going to get out of the slump this city has been in for years, we have to fight. We have to fight the voices in the back of our head that's freaking out about bills, mortgage payments, and job security. That little voice can't win. That's what makes people miserable.

Sure all of the factors Forbes listed help, but Forbes never called anybody from Stockton and asked if they're miserable (save for Ann Johnston, but who listens to her anyway?). Again, everybody gets down from time to time. But straight up completely miserable? Cynical maybe, but not miserable. I think deep down inside, even past that previously mentioned nagging voice in the back of our heads, we all know it's all going to turn out OK. Like the Forbes article says, we were ground zero for the real estate boom and we were ground zero for the real estate collapse. Who's to say we won't be ground zero for economic recovery? Sure, shit looks bleak right now, but as housing prices continue to drop more and more people are able to afford homes. The jobs will eventually come back, and shit will work out.

Some people are fatalists and claim we just need to tap out. Again, those people are pussies. We need to remain hopeful for Stockton's future. Yeah, it's tough to do right now, but if we're going to get out of this we have to keep that hope. Shit can't really get any worse so we have to cling to that hope and fight for a better Stockton. You know, fighting those El Guapos that try and keep us down. The day we stop fighting is the day we truly are miserable. I hope we won't stop fighting. I hope we win this battle. We have the potential to be miserable, but we also have the potential to kick ass. Eventually we're realize that potential. Which one? Well, I know which one I'm hoping for.

Time to check in on the reclamation efforts

A couple of days ago we saw this update on recordnet.com. We read it and came up with one pressing question. The same question we ask when we see an article about the NBA and don't see a Kings mention (which is often). "That's nice and all, but how are we doing?" Yes, we're horribly vain.

Considering the FBI isn't going to even compile that information for a while, we won't find out until next year. But what that article did do was give us the itch. That kind of itch you get when it's April and the NFL draft rolls around. It's not actual football, but it's something. And I'll be damned if we weren't all holed up at Chitivas watching the draft coverage while the rest of the city enjoyed the Asparagus Festival. (The dollar beers helped)

So without any real new information coming out, we have to make due with what we got. This site helped for a bit. Right up until crime stopped cold on August 19th. (Who runs that site? El Duké?)

Fortunatly, the man that drove a grand total of 7 unique hits (as of last night) to us, Christian Burkin comes to the rescue. While we're amazed the Record has to figure out the violent crime rate rankings themselves (Note: Journalism degrees and math don't mix. Or so all our degree having friends say), we're also amazed at how fucking glorious this spreadsheet is. (Note: Glorious to nerds like us. [Note: How many notes is one sentence allowed?])

Never before has someone so easily visualized our violent crime rate title reclamation efforts. We're working on bringing in Ron Jaworski to break it down for us. But until then, let's hit the basics.

The defending champion Oakland averaged a little bit more than 19 violent crimes per 1,000 people. While Stockton averaged just a skosh more than 14 per 1,000.

Fuck. That's a bit of a difference. I guess I now know how Raider fans feel after they read training camp reports. (Sorry, couldn't help myself. Although to be honest, we knew that feeling the second we saw "J.T. O'Sullivan named first week starter" scroll across the news feed.)

So if our math is correct (which it isn't), we need 5,000 more violent crimes in order to have a shot at reclaiming our title. Cue the Rocky theme.

Not quite what we meant by reclaiming the title, but we'll take it

While it continues to amaze me that the A's can have such a good farm system but still somehow blow goats at the pro level, it still doesn't take away from the fact that one of the city's minor league teams is good at something. The Ports are Pacific Coast League Champions. (I'd like to extend a hearty "fuck you" to whomever at recordnet.com decided that the Ports winning the title should be buried to the point that it's not even a featured story in the sports section. Bang up job.)

Congrats guys, now let's see if we can transfer that winning attitude to the other minor league teams and see if they can at least be only a few games under .500 this year. (I have realiztic expectations. Although even a barely sub-.500 season from any of them seems borderline unrealistic.)

Crime never takes a day off...except for when it takes a day off

One of the services we try and provide to you, the reader, is skimming the Record's website for anything interesting. About twice a week one of us checks the Record Staff blogs. It's a fruitless job. Notice all those links to the interesting blogs they post? Yeah, me neither. But there's a first time for everything.

From the Record's surprisingly quiet crime blog, we get an update on the city's title reclamation efforts. And what do we learn? Well, besides the fact that the crime blog has a penchant for big fancy words (What the fuck's an erudite?), we learn that crime occasionally does take a day off. We're guessing they all went to the Grape festival.

Welcome to Titletown

It's been a slow week. It hasn't been hot enough to warrant another filler story on the front page of The Record. I haven't even bothered to see what Fitzy wrote this week because I'm still blown away by the notion that Stockton Police has long tamed the wild west that is downtown. (Of course as soon as I typed this I meandered on over to The Record's site and saw his column about regional tourism. Looks like I have more to write about.)

Today, finally something of note happens. We won another title. San Joaquin County has the worst dropout rate of any decently sized county.

Yes, I know I had to use the qualifier of "decently sized", but hear me out. SJC as a whole ranks 4th worst, with almost 137,000 students living within the county. The 3 county's worse than us have a measly 17,000. We could lose 100,000 students, (and with a 36% dropout rate, that's a possibility) and we'd still have twice the students those podunk counties have. Therefore, they don't count.

On top of all that, Stockton (Hey, I live there) Unified School District had a 54% dropout rate. Which is more than twice the statewide average. (24.2)

It may not be violent crimes, but it does feel nice to have that gold back around the wait, doesn't it?

Stockton: Fighting "imaginary" crime since the mid-2000s

So a lot's happened in the last couple days Stockton-wise. Forgive me for slacking, I'm still having computer issues. Not to mention I'm one person who's trying to hold down a full time job and blog on the sly. Like I said before, this place is going to be janky for a couple weeks while we do some initial legwork.

Part of that legwork is explaining the name of this place. Reclaiming the Title is our subtle reference to the violent crime rate title this city held for a couple years before we were unceremoniously ousted by Oakland. Since then our city leaders (and that damn Record) have been trying to tell us the city is safer, and that the unsafe feelings Stockton residents have about this place is just a stigma that we place upon ourselves.

Bullshit.

We may not have the violent crime rate title anymore, but we are the number one contenders. Saying Stockton's safer because we're "only" number two in REPORTED violent crimes is like saying Iraq's safer after we killed Saddam. Sure, it's safer, but not by much. (Here's where I'd say "don't start a political flame war, we support the troops", but nobody reads us yet anyway.)

I wonder is 14 year old middle schooler Mayra Lopez thinks Stockton's image problem is all just in our heads. Oh wait, she's dead. For walking down the street.

I wonder what the handyman at my apartment complex thinks about this issue. I'd ask him but he quit his job and moved after he kindly asked a fellow Stockton resident to straighten out his parked car that was over the line and got the reply "I know where you live motherfucker" and had his and his kids' lives threatened. Over a parking job.

I wonder what the former patrons of Da Candy Shop think.

I'd go on, but I think you get my point. It's not a perception problem, it's a real problem. Instead of talking about how to "brand" Stockton (more on that later), they should continue tackling the problem at hand. Instead the city's acting like Jim Carrey in the beginning of Liar Liar. ("The color of the pen I hold in my hand...")

And it's not even just our negative view, residents of other towns know how it is here too. When I meet new people in Sacramento and tell them I'm from Stockton, I get immediate street cred. I can see the reaction in their eyes. I'm not a very imposing looking man, so I'll take all the cred I can take. Which is why we need to reclaim that title. I'm tired of Oakland looking down at us as if we got it easy.

Oakland: Hey, we just had another gang shooting, and we sent some suckas over to taunt SF's tigers, what'd you guys do?

Stockton: We had a middle school student shot for no real reason.

The (future) champ is here.