For lunch today, Synthesis sales guru Cayle Hunter and myself headed down to a little burrito joint we frequent up the road called Amigos De Acapulco (highly recommended if you ever make it to Chico). The music they play in this restaurant is the type of OOM-PAH, keyboard driven Mexican polka, technically known as Duranguense, that they play in every burrito spot in California. Usually its pleasant enough but not really worth paying attention to. But today was different. Behind the usual heartfelt Spanish crooning and laughable synth-lines was some serious Neil Peart style drum fills. Insane snare rolls, fills that crossed the measure line, all sorts of crazy shit was going on. We asked the woman at the counter who the fuck we were listening to and she told us it was “K-Paz” in the same sort of tone that someone listening to rap would tell you they were listening to 2Pac. It turns out K-Paz de la Sierra is one of the bigger names currently making the rounds in Duranguense scene, and were even nominated for a Grammy last year, despite the murder of frontman Sergio Gomez. If you want to see a band with style, poise, and a badass drummer, check out a few of their videos on YouTube or add them on Myspace. Muy Caliente!

WARNING: the following sentimental diatribe may be tl;dr

Being born and raised in Willows, CA, a forlorn outpost of a town known mostly to the outside world as a place to score Taco Bell or Starbucks on Interstate-5 between Sacramento and Portland, I had the good fortune to enjoy the sort of quaint small-town upbringing that many of my more urban rooted friends and associates know only from books and movies. Though the list of things that rule about life in Willows is too long to denote here, I can say that one of the more unique, and perhaps quixotic, aspects of Willows is the Sacramento Valley Mirror, a twice-weekly newspaper that acts as a foil to the local McPaper, the Willows Journal, and more importantly, as an implement of epic shit stirring. Owner / Editor Tim Crews is possibly the most despised in the entirety of Glenn County and for good reason: he’s successfully taken on almost every aspect of the local government, the cops, the County Supervisors, the School District and has somehow always come out relatively unscathed. As a kid in Willows though, I cared less about the uncovering of corruption and graft within local politics than I did the weekly rundown of Police Calls, which ensured that no domestic dispute or Drug bust would go unrecorded. Many lulz were had reading about a buddy’s older brother getting popped for Meth or the high school gym teacher roughing up his old lady. The Valley Mirror is the type of paper that every small town needs, but hardly any have. It has thus earned a surprising amount of accolades from the journalism world at large. Last year, I almost shit myself when I picked up my morning copy of the San Francisco Chronicle and saw the above picture of Crews strolling through Downtown Willows (at an intersection from which one of the five sets of stoplights in the entire town was recently removed, if that tells you anything about Willows). The accompanying story was quite laudatory, painting Crews as the protagonist in the David vs. Goliath fight of investigative journalism versus the corporate news world in the internet age:

The kind of scrappy journalism Crews does may become harder to find if current media trends continue. With classified advertising usurped by the Internet, newspapers across the country are facing mounting losses and, in many cases, cuts in staff and resources. First Amendment scholars fear that investigative journalism may die as newsprint fades away. Crews won’t have any of it. He is a country editor whose little paper is influencing public opinion on a shoestring budget. A maverick, old-school muckraker, Crews is notorious in this rural farming community of 6,220 people and the governmental center of Glenn County.

However, much to the chagrin of those who’d like to see the paper go the way of the dodo, the Sacramento Valley Mirror is now online, providing me with the weekly dose of the small town drama I’ve been missing. A quick run down of this week’s news shows the the Valley Mirror is still doing its thing. The leading editorial “Yes, we owe Glenn County taxes, and Glenn County owes us a fair shake” takes a recent disclosing of the paper’s outstanding property tax bill and turns it into a rather stirring run down of the various intimidation tactics used against the paper since it’s formation:

The paper is founded. In the first three years we have some 30 break-ins, cases of vandalism, or car burglaries. Most reports not even logged.
fter a several such, Sheriff Roger Roberts, beleaguered and looking tired, visited. Hands down on the counter, slumped shouldered, he said, “I just don’t know whom I can trust. But do this, clean the bottom of those computers real well so we can get some prints.” And so we did, with carbon tet. Clean as a phonied up narcotics case. A week or later we had another burglary. Our landlord had heard a scanner in the office – we didn’t have a base then — but wasn’t quick enough to catch anyone. We called it in. Lots of deleted files and searched files. The machine showed when they were entered. Then deputy, and now Glenn County Sheriff’s Lieutenant, Phil Revolinsky was there working when the Glenn County District Attorney investigators arrived.
“I’ll just go get my fingerprint kit it out of my car,” Deputy Revolinsky told Chief Investigator Mike Murray.
“No you won’t,” Lt. Revolinsky recalls the chief investigator saying. And so, no prints were taken.
Sand in the valve cover, water in the gas, .22 hole in a door, the list dragged on until a call to Congressman Vic Fazio’s office prompted the feds to make an appearance. And it all stopped. Three years and 30 or so events. If one lives with this kind of nonsense long enough, it becomes somewhat irritating. There was never one investigation by Glenn County. Those were different times, we are glad to say. [Memo to Willows Police Department: Any progress on the arson fire here 16 months ago?]

Elsewhere however, the mood is lighter with headlines such as the epic “Dog Bites Patrol Car.” And though the Willows Police Logs are seemingly yet to be online, there is at least the rundown of Glenn County’s Most Wanted, which from time to time includes any number of childhood friends and dudes I used to smoke weed with in high school. Ah, Willows! One day I shall make my return!

Anyone who lives in Northern California knows that there were only, in history, two good things about Vallejo: Marine World and N2Deep. They ruined Marine World years ago by turning it into a Six Flags and putting a bunch of ghey roller coasters everywhere, and, now that I think about it, N2Deep really wasn’t that cool (I mean “Back to the Hotel” is kind of the knock, but whatever). Long story short, Vallejo is basically a dump. Thus its not too shocking that Vallejo is boldly going where no other California city has gone: bankruptcy.

The city of Vallejo is on the brink of becoming the first California city ever to declare bankruptcy, City Council members said Tuesday. Vallejo may run out of cash as early as March, council member Stephanie Gomes said.

Gomes said the situation has been building for more than a decade. “This has been happening for quite a while. For 15 years the city council has been putting Band-Aids on the problem. (It has been) extending contracts and deferring payments for public safety to the next years as a way of balancing the current budget.”Public safety contracts for police and fire services make up 80 percent of the city’s general fund.”We’ve been spending more than we’ve been making for 20 years and it’s time to pay the piper,” Gomes said.

Like they say up, right up the I-80 in Vacaville: “Sorry ’bout cho luck!”

So for this week’s Meet the Synthesis, I’d like to introduce you to our hometown, the lovely, if not somewhat remote, Chico, CA. I would regale you with all the stats and whos, whats and wheres, but that’s why they invented Wikipedia. Instead, I will just post this YouTube clip, which in 30 seconds, encapsulates perfectly the real heart and soul of Chico.

Now you know.