My Saturday night hit a bump when the Humboldt County Tea Party Patriots refused to let me hear former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack argue for a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution at a well-attended fundraiser at the Fortuna Veterans Memorial Building.
Truthfully, I could have gained entry by paying the $10 suggested donation, but since I was there as a reporter I thought I should be admitted free. The organizer said media access had been available earlier, before the speech, but as I had arrived late, after the speaker had ascended the podium, I could either pay or wait outside.
I mulled my options. His website, SheriffMack.com, outlined his views: He favored the right to bear arms, opposed regulations to suppress the sale of raw milk, and railed against seatbelt laws, believing that Americans have the right to either buckle up or go splat in auto accidents. So he was not the mystery. What I had wanted to know was what drew Humboldters to this event?
As I wandered the parking lot, I met a 50-year-old commercial painter from Southern Humboldt who had driven up for the event but, like me, had arrived late and was now debating whether to pay $10 to hear the tail end of the speech.
So I offered to buy Gary Adamoski a beer at the nearby Playroom Bar where he slowly revealed what had drawn him to what would have been his first Tea Party event, had I not spirited him away.
“The lame street media don’t really have the basic interests of the country at heart,” he insisted. “Good, decent basic morals and the Constitution that created this country and the faith that created this country. Because whether you believe in God or something else, you have to believe in something.”
It may not have helped our trust issues that I kept leaning close and whispering in his ear, so much so that he gave me a funny look at one point.
“I can see you’re a touchy-feely fella but I guess that’s just the way you are, isn’t it,” he said, continuing his political analysis.
“There’s a darkness on the land, a chaos and a fear and a confusion, that’s what it is,” Adamoski said and I nodded.
He interviewed me as well, trying to discover my political leanings. “You’re a liberal progressive, aren’t you?” he asked, and it was close enough so I nodded.
By the time we walked back to the Memorial Building people were streaming into the parking lot. By then Adamoski and I had found some common ground. We agreed that extremism was a scourge and that left and right sometimes bent over so far backwards as to touch one other.
He smiled, for instance, when I complained about these home-schooling, leftie moms I know who not only drink raw milk but refuse to vaccinate their kids because they believe the discredited link between shots and autism — putting them a six shooter and a seatbelt away from Sheriff Mack so far as I’m concerned.
But Adamoski bristled when I asked how this gun-toting Arizonan dared show his face in California given the recent tragedy in their state. “The liberal media was quick to point fingers,” he snapped and I backed off.
There was the divide: I was press and he was not. It was the same distinction that I had raised at the door, though Adamoski didn’t know it. This presumed advantage rankled Adamoski who said: “There’s no such thing as a journalism degree. Anybody can be a journalist.”
So we said goodbye and headed home to our opposite worlds, him to Miranda, me to McKinleyville. I spent the drive home mulling what I had learned when I asked Adamoski for his e-mail address. He told me that he and his roommate had sold their shared laptop to help pay for his roommate’s chemotherapy. I didn’t probe. Adamoski had declared his opposition to even the mild version of European-style socialism implicit in Obamacare. I left Fortuna admiring the Spartan consistency of a position that holds if Americans have a right to be hurled through a windshield, surely the Founders intended that they hock everything, or hold chemotherapy bees, rather than allow the federal government to stamp “BUY INSURANCE” on every American forehead as the central planners drive us over the edge toward universal coverage.
This article appears in The Little Casino That Could?.
Um…why does this nauseate me?
This article should be retitled by its creator “NEW NCJ Editor skips coverage of local event in favor of beer and talking mostly about himself.” I’m no Tea Bagger, but I am interested to know what my fellow citizens see in them. I thought this story would be Mr. Abate’s first stab at reporting in the Journal, but I was instead met by his arrogance seeping through the page. No new news there.
Here’s an idea, Tom, stop prancing about the county pretending you are Fromboldt and spend your time building a bunker on your land where you can hide and protect yourself from all of the (apparently single) “leftie moms” that sat around drinking raw milk and collectively made the decision to not vaccinate their children (I’m one of them, RUNNNN!, aggghhhh). While you’re at it, use your BIG NAME contacts in the Bay Area to reach Sarah Palin and see if she will do an interview with John, KSLG’s “stupid listeners” would love to here what she has to say about the gotcha media techniques he used to get poor, old you to spill your story on the air. Oh wait, nobody asked you, let alone coerced you to tell your sob story until you angrily blurted it out 7 minutes into the interview.
Tom Abate, you don’t have the first clue what it means to be a part of this community and you never will.
Judy Hodgson, you seriously misjudged your readership. You stabbed a loyal employee in the back after six years. Neither of those show respect for the community. Unfortunately for you, the Journal doesn’t have stupid readers, KSLG doesn’t have stupid listeners, and Humboldtians (not Humboldters, Tom) are intelligent, caring people that recognize your mistake. Fix it.
Ditto what ARG said…except I would like to not ‘hear’ anything Sarah Palin or Tom Abate have to say about anything!
Advise to Tom, please stop writing while under the influence…please stop giving interviews while under the influence…just…please stop.
er…make that advice.
The vehemence of the few comments so far is startling. If Hank Sims had covered this event, he would have given enough homage to the Baggers to pretend that they make sense, while snarkily trivializing the event enough to keep the lefties placated. It wouldn’t make much sense, but it wouldn’t offend the extremists on either side. Abate may discover that coming out against extremism is too challenging for Sims’ readers, who seemed to prefer a “split the difference” approach.
San Francisco and New York are the two poles of complacent “superiority”:—if there were a “Smug-Fest” they would be co-hosts. Tom Abate’s “Boomerangers” introductory article spelled it out: People move here and live amongst us and then go off to “bigger and better” places and finally condescend to return.
We are attractive as charming local yokels who amuse them as objects but they don’t need to pay attention because they know we are only “types” to be parodied. They will tell us about “Home Depot”, “Trader Joe”, “Peets Coffee”, Pacifica Radio, KQED, as if they were missionaries in the 19th ce Congo bringing us “civilization”. What a contrast between the “farmers market” at the San Francisco Ferry Building and our local farmers’ markets! Over priced hype vs the real deal.
If only we had Bruce Anderson and the AVA!
Weekly detailed coverage of the Courthouse and the schools and the wine industry. Fully supported by subscribers instead of advertisers. Proud coverage of every local event–high school football, bake sales, all the little wonderful things that we all treasure here.
And a passing nod to the outside world beyond our happy region. Read the AVA and look at how to do it .
Tom—maybe you should start over and cover about ten small events–pretend you might like it and just record what you see and feel and not what you already know you see and feel. Go see My Fair Lady and meet Bob Wells. Come out to Petrolia for the next Cabaret at the Community Center (it includes a fashion show). Pretend you have something to learn—fake it, it’s OK. Interview the MC, Doctor Dick–don’t worry, he went to snob schools back East–but he got over it long ago.
Look at Counterpunch on line—millions of hits–quoted weekly on Amy Goodman–did you know it’s created in Petrolia?
In two weeks you’ve lost most of your credibility but maybe you could eat some Humboldt Pie and recover.
Not having heard reporting on this event, yours truly wishes the kind observer and dear reporter had either made arrangements ahead of time or wasn’t tardy and paying the ten bucks.
The readers would have liked to known what happened beyond the paltry pale of the parkng lot given the few drops of watered down hearsay mixed with some hops and gossip and gleaned from the lips of passerby reported here.
In for a penny, in for a pound; not a pint or two at the Playroom.
*”Non trovarsi sul lastrico, quando si e in ballo, bisogna ballare”
~”To not find yourself on the pavement when at a dance, one must dance.”*
ok, ok, but what did Sheriff Mack have to say? Here is a person of interest that has a rather large following in the alternative media….what did he say?