Modesto, California, is the butt of many jokes and, to be honest, it should be. The city tops many embarrassing lists that you’re probably already aware of if you’re a native. I would bet that right after you tell someone you’re from Modesto, you follow with some sort of comment that acknowledges how deprived it is of any entertainment, culture, or intellectualism. And everything that you say is true. But you do have a certain love for the place because it offers a unique blend of city and country, consisting of a great deal of suburb with very little urb. It may even be more accurate to call it a sub-rural area because of its being surrounded by farm lands and being inhabited largely by conservative, simple folk.
Despite all of its downfalls, Modesto shows potential. The number of discontent youths in the town is large enough to fill Graceada. The problem is there’s no place for them. After a certain age, you’re expected to resign to parenthood and stay in and watch TV. Before a certain age, you’re too young to get into any bars that are, sadly, too tacky to go to anyway. That age is the same in both cases: around 20. The effect of this is that there’s no real culture to participate in. The best possibility is a scarce Off the Air show or Queen Bean’s open mic.
We’re looking to change that, and we feel that the best beginning to this project is to create a community that thrives on new stimuli rather than the banal mass culture Modesto currently facilitates. For those of you out there displeased with what’s around you, we aim to offer you an alternative to just complaining about it. This is an opportunity to change Modesto into something to be proud of and create a community that you can be a part of, so that all those things you hate about it can either be disregarded or destroyed. There’s a whole world of culture out there, but it’s our job to bring it here and make it our own. That’s the goal of “The Valley Fudge,” and we need your help. Send us a message if you’d like to get involved and keep checking this blog for our plans, events, rants, and recommendations.
