Fresno on Foot

“…I will crawl on my belly over broken glass [in order to be someone worthy enough for you to hire].” I actually told this to somebody yesterday. Upon further examination, I realized that this is actually more or less what I’ve been telling everybody as part of my job search. In fact, I might even say it does a good job of summing up the lion’s share of the world’s job-seeking advice. This is strange considering the job market today technically favors job seekers. At least, that’s how it seems to me; I can’t know for sure. The only thing I do know for sure is this: I haven’t been doing right by myself for a very long time. It’s true that I’ve exhausted my last dime. It’s true that I both maxed out my credit card and depleted my savings just trying to survive the last two years. It’s also true that I’m under-qualified (on paper, at least) for most design job openings as they’re posted on job boards. It’s true that my cell phone is broken and I can’t afford a new one. It’s true I

I’m selling posters and T-shirts. Come get ‘em.

I might not suck at marketing after all. A Yelp review I wrote made something of a difference to a local restaurant—so much so, in fact, that they felt compelled to tell Facebook and Instagram all about it. Just thought I’d share.

No pictures today; my feet hurt and I’m all pictured out. I suppose I should admit that I’m having some misgivings about continuing this blog. I have no desire to be any sort of “activist.” I have no interest in stirring pots, rousing rabble, beating any form of alarmist drum, or engaging in any form of crusade. And I’m failing to see how this is providing anything of value to anybody’s life in any way. I don’t want the burden of always having to explain the “urbanist” perspective (especially when there is already a wealth of material on the web if you just step away from the social media), I don’t want the “bad feelings” that come from seeking and finding empty lots, crumbling buildings, and wasteful parking lots, and I don’t want the fights that come from people misinterpreting what I say. I don’t want to be in “debate mode” all the time. I just want to live my life in peace with everybody else, in a town that’s prosperous and in which I can participate in said prosperity as

I think the Downtown Fresno Partnership made a mistake in its attempt to “rebrand” the old Fulton Mall as some sort of upscale entertainment and dining district—something it’s clearly not . What’s particularly egregious is that what it is is in many ways so much better than that: a blank slate, ready for your masterpiece. Or at least, it could be, if only City Hall got the hell out of the way. If the municipal government can’t fix what ails Downtown (and make no mistake: They can’t ), they should consider primum non nocere —“first, do no harm” and let property and business owners make more of their own decisions without their benevolent interference. The problem with trying to force something or someone into being something that it isn’t is you end up destroying the good of what’s already there. Downtown has suffered enough under the thumb of decades of the well-meaning, unilateral, and costly visions of a small handful of people who think they know better than busine

Pictures on top, story on bottom. According to some people I met from the old country, if your father’s father was Armenian, then you are Armenian. By that standard, I am Armenian. Oh, I feel more American than I do anything else. And to tell you the truth, I never spent much time with other Armenians, and I never felt like I belonged much to the diaspora…or any group, really. I’ve always considered myself the perennial outsider. But there’s always been a small sense of…not exactly belonging , but connectedness with my ancestral heritage. And, although I’m only a quarter by blood, the fact remains that the blood is there…and there are those to whom it is blood enough . But discounting my Armenian heritage, there’s something about Fresno’s Little Armenia that saddens me, as a human…and as a Fresnan. Take these beautiful, old, relocated, and abandoned houses. These structures used to house humans—real, living, breathing, bleeding, laughing, cryi