Stockton, CA

A few things I’ve noticed since being away from home for a few weeks: Continue reading »

The other day — not too long after I noted how the brand new wall erected on the corner of Hammer Lane and Frontage 99 didn’t have that much graffiti on it, and didn’t even raise an eyebrow at the vagrant peacefully scrounging through some green, 50-gallon garbage cans four doors down from a friend’s home — my older brother observed how Stockton is starting to become more urbane. He even muttered something about the beginnings of a “cultural renaissance.”

What?! Continue reading »

As I was sitting at the dining table having breakfast with my laptop, I was reminded that in between the hooligans, graffiti and vacant foreclosed homes, there is something worthy of praise from my childhood hometown of Stockton, CA. Continue reading »

I really have to hand it to my childhood hometown of Stockton, CA. It’s been only 10 months since the Stockton Bears’ humiliating defeat to the Riveroak Redskins, which punctuated a whole string of close losses and near-misses. If it were any other city, residents would have thrown in the towel long ago, run to the nearest tattoo parlor, and branded a giant “L” for “LOSER” on their beer bellies. But not S-Town. Stockton, you see, has heart. It finds a way to pick itself up after being pushed around like this particular 25-year-old Stocktonian who could not take on two 14-year-old kids. Continue reading »

The day has finally come! That’s right, something big is happening in my childhood hometown of Stockton, California, and no, I am not even referring to ghost-riding the whip or the Massive Mall Marriage last week where dozens of “broke and cheap husbands-to-be” were able to get hitched.

Now, at first glance at the city’s local paper — The Record — it would appear that it’s just a normal day in Stockton. For example, these are the top headlines as of February 20th at 11:30pm: Continue reading »

Yes, there is good news for my childhood hometown of Stockton, California — and I’m not even being sarcastic this time. This development has to do with the world of sports and a particularly unlikely athletic event.

No — for those trying to guess — it’s not that the Stockton Bears matched up with the Riveroak Redskins again, didn’t lose and have one of their players manhandled by an opposing coach. It also has nothing to do with hoodlums doing donuts in lowered, bass-thumping jalopies in sideshow competitions either. Instead, it has to do with the 2nd annual Tour of California, America’s premier bicycle stage race. Continue reading »