Anyone in Fresno?

An old friend of mine and recently retired-from-gigging musician is relocating to the Fresno area in December. He could use some contacts and advice about a place to live (they're likely going to rent), cool things to do etc.

Anybody in Fresno?

I spent a lifetime in Fresno one week.

Never again.

The saving grace is proximity to the mountains & that's about it. One thing, going there from the mid-west/central USA, the skeeters will seem somewhat normal.

A guy from the weather service office in Fresno once called it "The Raisin Capital of the World"...and he said it with the dry enthusiasm Dak exhibited with the "I spent a lifetime there one week" line...

I spent a lifetime there one morning and afternoon trying to hitch out (don't try this in your century, kids)... I ended up walking through town backwards. Finally, toward the southern edge of town a guy in a semi- tractor picked me up. That was the good news. The bad news was he started nodding out really hard as we were going up and crossing the Grapevine. At one point he drifted off in the middle of a sentence and we careened across four lanes. Other truckers were flashing and honking, cars were screeching. He was in this weird narcoleptic state, seemed like, and he was convinced he was okay. After the four lane veer, he kind of woke up and we pulled off to get some coffee. He was afraid to eat because he'd been up for 6 days driving (yeah, just like the song) and he'd been speeding the whole time. At first he didn't even want to have any coffee because he said it would keep him awake...

Uh, where was I?

Oh, yeah, Fresno.

Do they still have an opera company there? That's about all I know about it besides the fact that it's only recently lost its crown as most corrupt city in California to the sprawling suburban giant to my south, San Diego.

Sounds like a delightful place!

Are there any decent areas to live?

Yeah, any where away from Fresno.

There must be a suburb or something, isn't there? I mean even East St. Louis has ... uh, never mind.

Paul, I'm sure there are folks who like it up there. The lifetime I spent there that week was a long time ago but I've been through there since and still don't find it appealing as a place to live, or even visit.

If I remember right I stayed at a Ramada at the airport and drove to Selma each day for classes. I was in Farm equipment maintenance at the time and we were looking at an Upright Grape harvestor and they were produced in Selma so we went up there to go to school on them.

Anyway, this was in the fall, October I believe and it was 107 every day with high humidity and got all the way down to the 90s at night.

If I were to look up there I think Sanger, Reedly or Dinuba to the South and East, off the freeway and toward the foothills.

To the North, maybe Madera. Or, I guess Clovis is now a suburb of Fresno but too big for my tastes.

Nothing to the West would interst me, in that area.

I've lived in Fresno for way too long, most the people are on meth,the majority are back stabbing, hypocritical ass holes,an economics study shows Fresno has more than a 40% un-employment rate, there is no music scene just a hick-click of self serving mediocre musicians and that's only the good part of. The only good side of town in Fresno is what they call the "Tower District", the rest is just a fancy farming Gheto with a fancy paint job. One word of advise, if you play a cover of GnR's "Patients"(if they whistle along).......better wear goggles from the flying teeth from the methed idiot-inbred born and raised folks here in Fresmenia ,Oklahoma:eek:

What a charming place!

If you absolutely have to live in a decent-sized town in the San Joacquin Valley, I would think Bakersfield would be a far better place than Fresno. Really heavy unemployment and miserably hot in the summer. There's many charming places to live in California, but Fresno ain't one of them.

Bakersfield vs Fresno?

6 of one and 1/2 dozen of the other.

All SJ Valley towns are about the same

Fresno is not as bad as it gets in CA, but nobody would recommend it as a good place to live. Since your friend is interested in renting and not buying, he could go just about anywhere.

Living in Chico (for example) can't be much more expensive than living in Fresno, but it will offer more activities in a smaller area and infinitely better scenery.

If your friend wants to move here and play music, finding good musicians is harder than finding good people in Fresno, they're self serving, backwards and not very good at the musical level. To put people in the San Joaquin valley in a metaphoric nut shell, they're a bunch of social lehpers in a break dance contest, they fall apart when it really counts to have integrity, talent or social values. one more word of advise, wear goggles when they whistle, the teeth go flying everywhere from the meth and inbreeding:eek: .

Holy cow... I come back to this forum after a three year absence and somebody necros a 7-year-old thread of mine?

On a different note, my friend ended up getting a gig in Iowa so he moved there. I have since been in Fresno many times and I have to agree with all of the above posts. Awful place. IMHO of course.

Interesting necro.  I don't think the ad is a bot.  I guess someone is paying people to search forums and respond with semi-related advertising?