So I had caught some of the numerous news reports about the opening night at the California State Fair. Apparently, around closing time there was a bit of an altercation just a short distance outside of the fairgrounds and there was shooting and cops in riot gear chasing people around. It sounded like the fair this year was a pretty dangerous and violent place to be, so of course, my first reaction was, "Fuck yeah! I'm there!"
As it turned out, since my visit happened to be on Sunday afternoon, I didn't witness anyone being shot, stabbed, clubbed, maced or tasered, although the groups of young men in matching team colors of mismatched teams seemed to be growing in presence as the day went on.
The first thing that I usually do when I get to Cal Expo for the fair is board the monorail. I'll get the bird's eye view of what's where that way, even though in many areas it's the same old shit year after year.
I was kind of intrigued this time with the warning sign which is placed inside the door of the monorail seating area. "ALL OBJECTS AND BODY PARTS MUST REMAIN INSIDE TRAIN". Not "LIMBS AND HEAD". I'm wondering exactly what somebody may have flashed or hung over the side of the monorail in the past, possibly after one too many Bud Lights in the August heat. Even more disturbing is the thought that someone may have had said questionable part or parts seriously injured or even amputated by an unfortunate accident of some sort.
The midway was sort of dead, with many of the rides not even attended by operators. Perhaps things pick up at night when it's cooler or even Labor Day weekend just before the fair closes. The food concessions seemed by be pretty busy, but actually, it's kind of hard to tell if the fucked up economy we're experiencing nowadays is affecting the fair's attendance numbers or not.
The featured theme for this year's California State Fair has got a Hollywood thing going on, with a special exhibit of movie memorabilia such as Herbie the Love Bug, the DeLorean from Back To The Future, and the cart that Charlton Heston was hauled around in from Planet Of The Apes, among other sorta cool and nostalgic stuff. however, the whole shebang seems to be a way for Stage Nine, a local store of classic movie and cartoon related merchandise, to set up shop at the State Fair, because about one third of the exhibition hall was exactly that, a Stage Nine store. Folks seemed to be buying into it and grabbing up the classic star portraits, t-shirts and other such trinkets by the truckload.
The Stage Nine marketing stunt only amplifies the fact that the California State Fair has 2 slogans in actuality: The public slogan of "Big Fun!", and the private slogan of "Sell Lots Of Shit!" For those of you who have never experienced the dizzying Babylonian sensory overload that is the State Fair's shopping exhibit halls, just imagine every exhibit booth from every infomercial product, New Age fad and community service under one roof, and there you go. I wander around, take note of what they think that people are stupid and gullible to buy into this year and then it's out the door.
In the middle of all of the moneychanging chaos are the various county exhibits, with these elaborate displays in which, in state fair tradition, each county is attempting to show off why theirs is cooler than the other counties.
The Sacramento County exhibit was, erm, interesting to say the least. It was this towering assembly of some suggestively Yggdrasil kinda shit, with trees on the top layer with the upside down man made city structures on the bottom. The slogan at the foot of this assembly is "From The Ground Up, It's A Delicate Balance". Oh, okay. That's purty deep, yuh. Maybe, "It's The City Of Trees... And Developers" would have been more appropriate, and said pretty much the same thing.
The livestock areas sort of depress me. Seeing all these farm animals stuck in a cramped little pen with electric fans set up in a futile attempt to keep them cool almost makes it reassuring to know that most of them are going to end up on somebody's dinner table within a short time. However, the nearby trained seal show was fun to watch, even though it was pretty much the seals saying, "Okay, I've mimicked what you're doing, now gimme another piece of fish!"
Despite my usual level of cynicism, there are parts of the State Fair that I really enjoy seeing every time I visit, such as the art and industrial exhibits, which showcase the immense amount of talent in California's rank and file folk, especially from the youth. I would recommend to everyone visiting to make absolutely sure you check out those particular areas, and that way, when you read stories about the little thugs trying to brawl after the fair disperses at night, you can be reminded of what you saw in those craft and technology exhibits and remember that there are still kids out there who will have a bright and productive future ahead of them.
(IMPORTANT NOTE OF GUIDANCE: This post is but one in a series called THE MUNDANE MONTH OF BLOGGING™. For those of you who are scratching your head right now and saying to yourselves, "What the fuck is he trying to prove?", Click Here, Pilgrim)
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