Interview: Fresno Famous.

Before I get started with this blog, I have a quick announcement to make…

I saw two awesome shows last weekend in San Francisco: Chicks on Speed/Kevin Blechdom (Independent) and My Morning Jacket (Fillmore). If you missed Chicks on Speed in L.A. of S.F., then you screwed up BIG TIME. This was CoS’ first U.S. tour in three years. I doubt they’ll be coming back anytime soon. OK, that’s all. I just had to let everyone know that. We may now continue.

When I got home last night (11/13) from my S.F. excursion, I found an e-mail waiting for me from FresnoFamous.com Editor Jarah Euston (aka Abby Blackstone). I was like, "Hmm, I wonder why she’s e-mailing me…she probably wants me to write something for the site, or something." (As some of you know, I’ve freelanced articles/interviews for Fresno Famous*) Well, I was wrong. The e-mail contained answers to a list of questions I had previously asked her about Fresno Famous.

(*Articles/interviews I've contributed to Fresno Famous include: Earlimart, Mommy and Daddy, Meatball Magic, It'll Grow Back.)

When I first started this blog a couple months ago, I was trying to think of interesting people I could interview. The first idea that popped into my head was doing a Q&A with Fresno Famous. They've been awesome in promoting Fresno's music scene. I was at work when I came up with the idea. I saw Jarah online, so I sent her an instant message asking if she wanted to do an interview for my blog. She was like "Um…sure, OK." I didn’t think she’d actually end up doing it. I gave up hope after the first month of not getting a response. I’m really happy she finally got around to it. I think Fresno Famous deserves a little publicity, even if it’s only a short blog interview.

Let me back up and tell you my first memories of Fresno Famous. I can remember the very first time I gazed upon the site. I was sitting at my job as a "PIB" (person in building) at Mondosphere radio group. (Mondosphere is the company that owns radio stations like 104.1 and 95.7-FM. A PIB is basically someone who sits alone around the studios and makes sure the automated DJ stuff doesn’t screw up — an extremely boring job. Just ask guest blogger Christy A.) So, yeah. I was screwin’ around on the computer at Mondo and came across Fresno Famous. Being the eager young journalist that I was, I contacted Jarah with the intentions of eventually freelancing for the site. I thought it was so cool that people in Fresno were starting a site like this. It was very inspiring. OK, that's the end of the story.

Before I go on, I can’t forget to give props to Mike M (aka Malcolm Sosa) – Jarah’s boyfriend – who also started/maintains Fresno Famous. Mike M and Jarah make an awesome duo. He’s also the singer/songwriter/guitarist for Fresno’s Rademacher (See "Self-promoting Rademacher" blog).

OK, enough of my babbling. I could talk about this shit forever. Let’s get on with the interview. OK, I lied. I have one more thing to say. I think Fresno Famous is one of – if not the most – important things to emerge within Fresno’s cultural arts scene. I’m sure MANY (millions upon millions) will agree with me on that. So let’s give it up to Jarah and Mike M who have give Fresno this amazing weekly-updated Web site. Thanks, guys. By the way, rumor has it that the Fresno Bee is a little intimidated by Fresno Famous. I don’t blame ‘em if they are. A little competition never hurt anyone, right?

Mitch on Speed: When and why did start Fresno Famous?
Jarah Euston: We launched Fresno Famous in April 2004 because we wanted to know what was going on around town. We figured in a town this size there had to be things happening, but we were totally in the dark. We'd look in the Bee and think, there has to be more than this. Looking at handbills in coffee shops wasn't very efficient. Fresno is one of the largest cities in the country without an alt weekly- where you would usually turn to get entertainment info. We also thought Fresno was absurdly disconnected. If you were in one scene you were plugged in to that, but excluded from everything else. We wanted to create a database of events and people so if you knew no one, you'd still have a way of finding cool things to do. And we wanted to support, encourage, and promote local talent. We thought that if musicians and artists living in Fresno got more recognition, they'd be more successful here.

Is it difficult keeping up with your weekly updates?
It can be. We are a community journalism site, which means that anyone can submit stories, photos, or other content. People pitch us story ideas all the time, which is kind of funny because we publish anything that is sent to us, as long as it's about Fresno. At the end of the month we'll be making some big changes to allow people to publish directly to the site.

Between the two of you, how much time do you invest in Fresno Famous?
I do it full time. Mike's focusing more on other projects so it really varies for him, from 2 to 20 hours a week depending. Our awesome programmer Suzi is putting in serious hours for the new site.

How did you come up with your clever pen names?
Inspiration from God.

What type of content do you cover on the site?
Entertainment! Our goal is to get everything happening in Fresno onto our events calendar. Everything, from punk shows to pancake breakfasts. Anything related to Fresno. People most often contribute stuff about local music and art, but we do a lot about downtown development also.

What’s been the most interesting story you’ve covered? Most controversial?
The most controversial was probably the Coconut Club snafu. The restaurant decided to withdraw its sponsorship of the Reel Pride Gay and Lesbian film festival he night before a champagne brunch. To make matters worse, the owner allegedly made a Reel Pride supporter cry when she called to complain, spewing homophobic remarks. What would have previously only been discussed among friends, is now on the internet for all eternity. We really felt like we had an impact that day. There have been lots of interesting stories. The interview with Donnell Alexander was a favorite, and I really enjoyed doing the story on Fresno graffiti. Luke Deniston's piece on the Broadcast Flag is another favorite, because no one else was talking about how a Fresno congressman was one of only a handful of representatives pledging to support that ridiculous legislation. It made a big, national issue very local.

What keeps you motivated to keep the site running?
Money, and the possibility of more money.

Do you encourage people in Fresno to contribute to the site?
Yes. We're very excited about the new site we are launching at the end of November. People will be able to post their own stories, photos, reviews, and editorials, as well as their events. We are inviting everyone to contribute to the online community and keep us posted on what is going on in their neighborhoods. We really want to be the place people go to find out about life in Fresno- local issues, where to get Thai food, what bands are playing, what local artists are showing, what happened at the school board meeting. We're opening it up to everyone to catch the stories and people larger news outlets miss.

Jarah can be contacted at jarah@fresnofamous.com