Category: Fringie Awards

Yes, my human Friends on Earth, 2012 is not yet over and this provides me with a final opportunity to bring to you what you desire: the Friends For Fullerton’s Future Annual Fringie© Awards.

It’s been a long, tough year of ups and downs and believe me, as a regular recipient of broomstick whackings from my former mistress, I know tough.

This year’s version will be, of necessity abbreviated since I have spent the past month undergoing a series of painful distemper treatments. And so I leap straight into the awards.

In the category of Most Egregious Whitewashes there really was no competition. Register writer Lou Ponsi and the wanker who publishes FullertonStories were simply outgunned by the ridiculous “Gennaco” Report, a notorious mutual stroke-job between the City and the obscenely expensive stooge it hired to help make the Kelly Thomas murder go away. The various secretions of this pabulum outdid one another in saying nothing and studiously avoid naming names and demanding accountability. Too bad. But we know who did what and we know what it is: A Culture of Corruption.

In the category of Worst Political Campaign, the selection committee had no choice but to give the Fringie© to none other than Former Assemblyman Chris Norby, who took a sure thing and managed to unmanage his way into unemployment. Was it his political expert, John Lewis who let him down? Was it the tsunami of last minute hate pieces mailed out by the unions and crony-capitalists? Was it his own lethargy? Whatever. Norby has a massive pension and doesn’t need our sympathy.

FFFF added a new category this year, Biggest F-U From The FPD. There have been many instances of the usual arrogant claptrap, the one instance that caught the selection committee’s eye was the promotion of the egregious Andrew Goodrich, the department spokeshole who has been peddling self-serving half truths and outright fabrications for years as FPD P(Mis)IO. If any single gesture signaled that there was no internal self-reflection or repentence in the aftermath of the Thomas killing and the falsehoods peddled by Goodrich, this was it; and, also a sure sign that the continued reign of error will go on. Even Dan Hughes admitted it was a communications failure; and the failure was promoted. Got it?

In the past, the Fringie© for Best Video was awarded for videos that were intentionally funny. But in 2012 the committee was forced to admit that the most entertaining video was created as a serious campaign effort by none other than Doug Chaffee. The portentous music followed by the dyed hair, cracking voice and the milquetoast pronouncements were worth their weight in gold, revelation-wise. You can watch it again, here.

Best Political Campaign 2012. This Fringie© was a tough one. Perhaps because nobody hit her in a year of rancorous politics, Jennifer Cowan-Fitzgerald did very well, indeed. Well, you have to give credit where credit is due; and sometimes doing nothing, saying nothing, and standing for nothing is the best way to get elected. It used to be like that in Fullerton, and maybe is again.

A co-winner is in order, of course, to recognize the campaign conducted by Tony Bushala, a local hero, to root out the disease in the body politic known as the Three Dead Tree Stumps. And so we recognize the Great Fullerton Recall of 2012 that laid a 2-1 whumpin’ on the Ancient Regime.

The Lowest Political Political Prostitute Fringie© was an easy call for the panel. Despite the nauseating spectacle of Jan Flory and Rick Alvarez clinging to the FPOA in a diseased, chancrous lip-lock, we just had to acknowledge the whorish spectacle of former conservative State Sentator Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine)  making pro-union robocalls to try to keep Fullerton in permanent thrall to its overpriced, unaccountable gang of cops.

The Best Image0f 2012 Fringie© was another category with keen competition particularly given the political resurrection of my former mistress. However, in the end, the selection committee chose a picture that sublimely captures the essence of the unemployable, ego-driven loser who finds reward in the world of political blogging instead of gainful employment. And so we chose Big, Fat, Naked Dude In Front of the Monitor, an image that is only missing the giant, super-family-size sack of Doritos®.

And speaking of super-size, as a consolation prize we also award a Fringie© to this jaw-dropping image of  Corpulent Fullerton Corporal at the Anaheim cop-induced riots, an image that succinctly captures the essence of the Culture of Corruption: overarmed, overweight, and under accountable.

In 2012 the Scariest Ghost of Fullerton Past Fringie© could only go to one creature – my former mistress, Jan Flory. As other relics of the last Ice Age disappeared from the political biosphere, the septuagenarian Flory returned, proving that there was plenty of bitter bile left in the bottom of the bag. Watching Mrs. Flory vote for Bruce Whitaker to be your new mayor was pure delight. Now watch out for the broomstick, Bruce!

Speaking of Flory, here is the winner of the Best Campaign Sign of 2012, a terse yet eloquent reminded of who Flory will work for now that she has managed to slither back into office.

Finally, the Best Hope For Fullerton’s Future Fringie© goes to Mayor Bruce Whitaker, who has spent most of his adult life fighting for honesty, transparency, and integrity in Fullerton government. Now more than ever you will need Mr. Whitaker to keep an eye on the doings of the cops and bureaucrats as they try ever so hard to re-write the history of Fullerton in 2011 and 2012, as they try to deny you a refund for the illegal water tax they stole, and as they apply pressure to their friends on the Council to make up for all the hardships they’ve had to endure.

This year we pass out no Special Fringies© of either approbation or opprobrium. We would give them to the same people we did last year.

Well Friends, here they are. The 2011 Fringie® winners. I hope you appreciate all the tears, blood and sweat that went into this production. You probably don’t, and that makes it easier for us to wreak havoc on your synapses and bend your reality this away and that. In life you deserve what you get. And Fullerton deserves it’s Fringie® winners.

In the category of Dumbest Thing Said By a Politician the winner was a foregone conclusion. When you’re dealing with nincompoops like Don Bankhead and Doc Heehaw Jones, the competition is fierce. But nobody, and I mean nobody could match the ignorance, stupidity, and sheer insensitivity of the genuine and  heartfelt remarks made by Pat McKinley at the Soroptomist She Bear gathering. See, to McKinley if you are the wrong kind of woman getting sexually attacked in the back of a cop car “ain’t a dangerous thing.” Just call Chief.

In the category of Creepiest Political Stooge the award goes to a tiny shrunken head named Bill Gillespie. Unlike the rest of the anti-recall stooges (who have or will profit from the current Sclerotic Regime), Gillespie appears to be a stoogin’ just for the sake of stoogery. And that takes a very special kind of personality, indeed.

The Scariest Ghost of Fullerton Past was a landslide vote for former Fullerton councilman A.B. “Buck” Catlin, who was recalled in1994 for imposing a completely unnecessary utility tax on Fullerton and who thus earned the undying love of liberals and RINOs alike, who actually named a street after him. This specter emerged in 2011 to defend the indefensible – including Don Bankhead who was recalled right alongside him almost twenty years ago.

In the ever-popular category of Best Image, the Fringie® goes to the pair of charm-boys Ramos and Cicinelli, who created what is arguably the scariest pair of mug shots in Orange County history. These two goons in uniform are poster boys for a police force that is out of control and that answers to nobody – yet. Believe it or not, there are people in Fullerton who can look at these faces and not feel betrayal and disgust. Three of them are on the City Council – for now.

A lot of bad votes were taken in Fullerton in 2011, and the Selection Committee burned the midnight oil choosing the winner of the Worst Vote 2011. And by winner, I mean we all lose. Buying four times as many raincoats as you need at $90 bucks a pop? Embarrassing. Hiring a con man to deliver a pep talk to your overpaid, pampered educrats? Shameful. But when it come down to all ’round crooked dealings, the vote to jump bag man Dick Ackerman’s client from eighth place to the front of the Redevelopment multi-million dollar, low income housing bonanza line, earns first place. For Ackerman, Fullerton is just a plantation to be worked, and worked hard; and his overseers, Jones, Bankhead, and McKinley are there to make sure their anti-recall team leader gets his share of the tribute levied on the rest of us.

The Best Video of 2011? Once again the Committee was presented with several deserving nominees. In the end, however, there was consensus: the utterly comical portrait of a cop goon with important things on his mind carried the day. Yes, friends, you know what I’m talking about: Fullerton cop union boss Barry Coffman, with visions of donuts and pizza dancing through his hollow skull as he hands out tickets for “excessive horning!”

And the piece de resistance, the Failed Face of Fullerton 2011. How else can one sum up the arrogance, prevarication, sense of self-entitlement, and all ’round porcine attitude that has come to characterize Fullerton leaders and their masters in the police department. Come up with a better image. I challenge you.

The Fringies® wouldn’t be complete without the Annual Special Fringies® awarded to those who have earned distinction. One way or another.

First we award a Special Fringie® to Kelly’s Army – that ragtag assortment of lefties, libertarians and people of conscience and who banded together to show the entrenched sea anemones and their clown fish that in this country sovereignty inheres in the people, not in their politicians, and certainly not in their uniformed praetorian goon squad. Americans of good will came together – without permits, without government approval, without budgets and police power to do the right thing. A “lynch-type mob?” No, Heehaw, Americans exercising their 1st Amendment rights. Got it?

Another Special Fringie® goes to those witnesses who were willing to come forward with what they knew about the Kelly Thomas murder. God bless them, and especially God bless that OCTA bus driver who made sure the immediate eye-witness testimony without coercion or threat was recorded for posterity.

We award a Special Fringie® to Marisa Gerber of the OC Weekly, who alone among those paid to do reporting in Orange County actually did a detailed investigation of the Fullerton Police Department’s Culture of Corruption. Well done, Marisa.

For all round cowardice and pusillanimity we recognize Fullerton’s establishment liberals who have sold their souls for mortgages, Volvos, tenure, timeshares in Taos, and whatever else they hold dear. When the chips were down they were weighed in the balance and found wanting. Hell, they weren’t there at all. A guy named Baxter dealt with them far better than we ever could.

Lest we forget others who did nothing when they ought to have, let us award a Special Fringie® to our do-nothing DA Tony Rackaukas. Yes Rackauckas brought charges against the killers Ramos and Cicinelli. He also let the latter off with a puny bail; he let the other four cops at the Kelly Thomas murder scene off the hook completely; he has done nothing about the fact that their superiors coached fraudulent reports about the murder that ignored key facts; he knows and apparently doesn’t care that cops at the murder scene were witnessed confiscating cameras and film; moreover, he ignored the evident perjury by Kenneth Hampton and Frank Nguyen in the bogus Veth Mam prosecution; and he ignored the findings of his own investigator that Albert Rincon had sexually attacked a dozen women in false custody. What a guy.

And to the “main steam media,” particularly those employees of the Orange County Register who until this day continue to refer to the Kelly Thomas bludgeoning death as a scuffle, a confrontation, a fight, an altercation, or some other similar unadulterated bullshit, we award you a Special Fringie® with Poison Oak Clusters and the fervent hope for a decidedly low circle in Hell when the time comes.

Finally, a Very Special Fringie® to Fullerton Stories, an on-line (mis)information source that has remained remarkably incurious about the string of criminal and unethical behavior by Fullerton’s cops over the past several years. This operation hit rock bottom when it posted an interview with alleged itinerant jewelry peddler Richard Fritschie (above) who not only claimed to be a witness to the Kelly Thomas murder, but who took it upon himself to defend what even the DA confirms was a crime perpetrated by members of the FPD. How the rat  Fritschie hooked up with Fullerton Stories in the first place certainly makes one think of the ever helpful FPD media contact Andrew Goodrich, and I’ll just leave it at that. I wonder what Fritschie’s reward was. A pack of smokes?

Well, Friends, these are the Third Annual Fringies®. It’s been a helluva year for you humans in Fullerton, and I thought I had it rough when my mistress was whacking me with that broomstick everyday. Still, 2012 promises to be better in so many ways.

And don’t forget Friends, the immortal words of Cassius in Julius Caesar: “the fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.”

Understand?

This is a new category for the Fringies® and will be awarded to that douchenozzle who best represents what’s really wrong with Fullerton, jumping the tracks-wise. The Nominating Committee had all sorts of trouble winnowing out the finalists, but in the end the selections were made. It wasn’t painless, no. But it was hard work that had to be done.

1. Andrew Goodrich. The swinish face of Fullerton to the media. The liar, coverup artist, and police union boss who inexplicably is still employed by the City to hand out misinformation and punish the few journalist who dare write the truth. Proof positive that the  cops run the City Council, not the other way around.

2. Ex Police Chief Pat McKinley, now councilman-by-93 votes, who developed his world-view under Daryl Gates; who thinks it’s pretty much okay for cops to grope certain kinds of women, and who explained to a national audience that Kelly Thomas’ facial injuries were not life threatening.

3. Dick Ackerman. The carpetbagging slime-sack from Irvine who has millions of reasons to protect the Three Dithering Diplosaurs on the Fullerton City Council, and not one of them decent. No, basic decency has nothing to do with this political fixer, lobbyist and bagman. The sooner he is chased out of our city once and for all, the better.

4. Doc “HeeHaw” Dick Jones, the loudmouthed lout and bully who famously characterized law-abiding protesters as a “lynch-type mob” and who claimed to have seen far worse injuries than Kelly Thomas’ that were survivable. To a world-wide audience shocked at the police killing of a harmless homeless guy, Jones represented entrenched, sclerotic, ignorant authority. Those who have watched Jones in action for 15 long years saw nothing new.

Well, there are the depressing choices. And now for a flea bath and rinse.