victorpatton's blog

Occasionally when I am making my rounds around town during the week, I get a chance to see what kinds of stories and issues are on folks' minds.

Yesterday, I was talking to a Merced resident who said the media were being racially biased in the case of a 16-year-old Florida girl who was savagely beaten by group of her so-called "friends". Worst part about it all, the suspects videotaped the episode with the intention of putting it on YouTube.

If the success of UC Merced is one of the top agenda items for state legislators, it's certainly not reflected by the recent turnout at Assembly committee meetings dedicated toward overseeing the campus' development.

Last week, only three legislators on the seven-member Assembly Select Committee on Development of a 10th University of California, Merced Campus, bothered to show up for its meeting, which is held a few times every year. At the committee's previous meeting in August last year, only two members showed up.

Merced's music community recently lost one of its most well-regarded members, longtime bass player Gary MacKenzie.

I have never met Gary personally, but Mike Meroney, guitarist for the Atwater-based rock band Killer Jays, attended his funeral last Friday at Yosemite Church. Gary died from lung cancer. "He was one of the most gentle souls you'd ever meet in your life. Just a super-sweet guy," Meroney said.

I hardly listen to the radio in Merced County -- primarily because most of the radio stations out here suck.

Like my editor Mike Tharp, I do like listening to the old "Wolfman Jack" broadcasts that air out here, but other than that, listening to Merced radio is like being subjected to a waterfall of pop vomit along with an endless parade of songs that I have probably already heard 10 billion times. Speaking of songs that I have heard 10 billion times, here's a list of songs that, in my opinion, need to die.

With the prospects of Senator Barack Obama shaping up to appear more presidential nowadays (or at least leaning toward garnering the Democratic nomination), I just can't help but think about the day when I met Obama three years ago, in the strangest of all places. At the time, I was writing an entertainment piece for a newspaper in Southern California about the 36th Annual NAACP Image Awards, held in March 2005 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Downtown Los Angeles.

Since my editor Mike Tharp made a list of his favorite music acts, as one of the Sun-Star's resident musicians I felt it would only be fair to make my own "tops" list.

I used pretty much the same categories as Mike -- but you will see my choices are a little different. As a bonus, for some of the categories I've added an "Honorable Mention" selection-- artists that maybe didn't make into my top five, but still have a place in my heart. I also included explanations with some of my choices.