Remember a year ago when I wrote a column about how Gilroy
Gardens doesn’t sufficiently market to the larger Bay Area? I got
flamed online.
Remember a year ago when I wrote a column about how Gilroy Gardens doesn’t sufficiently market to the larger Bay Area? I got flamed online. And now, Peter Hartlaub, the writer of The Poop in the San Francisco Chronicle, runs a column titled, “Gilroy Gardens: Why didn’t anyone tell me about this place?”
Yeah! Vindication. That’s right, no one in San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley knows about Gilroy Gardens. Get on that, you so-called marketing division. Quickly.
One of the commenters for the online version of his article wrote, “It seems like a lot of SF/East Bay parents have never heard of this place … I have to think that they can improve their marketing and advertising! Or maybe you just did for them.”
The column was incredibly complimentary. The only “snarky aside” was a comment about our piped-in music (he even posted a video clip online titled, “Gilroy Gardens music hurts my brain”). Dude, I agree with you – and in that case, you’ll want to avoid visiting our downtown.
I’m not a fan of the downtown music. Music constitutes one of those incredibly subjective things, so why even monkey with it? Of course, if it was all Bowie all the time, no problem.
Another issue is that people rarely throng our sidewalks, so the blaring music seems way out of scale. It’s like attending a pathetic wedding where the guests don’t stay to dance. It’d be one thing if this was Santana Row, with shoppers bustling past each other. Not so with the street known as Monterey.
Speaking of streets … a friend recently had her street (near Miller) undergo oil and chip, and there was great lamenting and renting of the sackcloth. First a truck lays down a layer of oil/polymer, then a dump truck spreads a coating of small gravel, and then rubber-tired rollers pack it all down. Or try to. Really try to, but really fail to.
They need to find a better way to pack it down. Run wild horses over it, as in days of yore (I’m not kidding. Old-timers did that with mustangs and it packs the ground as hard and water-resistant as if it were cement.) Or use the rollers a few more times or jerry-rig those industrial-sized blow dryers you see in the carwash.
The gravel rolls around as loosely as if children had strewn it. It sounds like your car sits atop a hot-air popcorn pumper, even driving on it a week later. My friend grumbled about the buckets-ful of rocks you can sweep from the curb, and how it gets wedged into sneaker soles and tracked into homes. In fact, she asked visitors to park several blocks away for a week in the hope that she wouldn’t find those little oil-coated (still wet) rocks in her house.
I witnessed what a mess the chip and oil creates. It wound up inside my car, smearing oil on my gray floor mats. But yes, this is a bit of a first-world problem. As in, “They’re trying to make the street look better? Damn them!” At least I have a car, and floor mats, and destinations.
Perhaps not the case with the people who recently stole $900 worth of groceries from Safeway. Somehow that crime has lingered in my mind. Stealing food always indicates people in the worst of straits, and rather than stealing I wish they’d found their way to St. Joseph’s Family Center. Would I steal food if my family was starving? I certainly hope I’d find a better way, but honestly starving children trumps the law. I would not send Jean Valjean to prison.
Speaking of prison, caught The Shawshank Redemption on TV the other night. What an incredible movie. And I love the scene where Andy uses the warden’s P.A. system to broadcast the Marriage of Figaro … an example of piped-in music that moved its listeners and was well worth the visit to “the hole” that he got for it.
Unlike the piped-in music at Gilroy Gardens (I know, these segues are lightning fast!)
Attempted to visit that magical theme park last Monday, forgetting school was in session and it had reverted to opening on weekends only. The drivers of two parked SUVs flagged me down at the closed gate and asked where they might get some lunch. Thinking quickly, I offered up always pleasant Mimi’s Cafe as a child-friendly restaurant, but later I wished I had sent them downtown, that downtown I’m always wishing was more vibrant. Garlic City Cafe should have been the words on my lips, or Los Pericos Taqueria.
