The Ugly Truth





14 March 2011
Even Armstrong and Getty Can't Believe How Badly Napa Sucks!

There's a morning talk radio show out of Sacramento called Armstrong and Getty, with Jack and Joe, respectively, the hosts. I think these are the best entertainers and social critics I've ever encountered on the air. They're pleasant, common-sensible wise-guys, who indiscriminately skewer anyone who deserves it, regardless of political or social posture.

Sometimes, they're just devastatingly funny; no radio show has left me laughing to tears so often. They're always amusing and informative. In four hours they'll quiz a reporter about a world hotspot, interview an author about internet dating, they'll welcome and grill a politician. They're civil without being pushovers, and they have no trouble telling someone they're full of shit, when appropriate, if not quite in those words.

They devote substantial effort to exposing government waste and fraud, as well as ragging on politicians and bureaucrats who make our lives miserable. I discovered from them that I can't get a decent gas container with a usable spout in California because of corrupt politicians passing a crackpot law to reduce air pollution. All paid for by the manufacturers of the unworkable spouts.

They milked every aspect of the plundering, an entertaining little civics lesson.

Frankly, I think they're the best spontaneous show in the media, and their orchestration of diverse elements into a hilariously educational whole is unparallelled.

But...but...they are not perfect. I can forgive them for not agreeing with me, and I don't begrudge the snarky comments after calling the show to dissent.

But they are not perfect, and it's painful for this admirer to hear them screw the pooch.

* * *

It was last Monday morning, and they'd worked through the big stories in their usual madcap manner: Libya's latest lapses; Charlie Sheen's latest outburst; Wisconsin's latest outrages. Funny sound clips and wisecracks punctuating each segment.

Then, seemingly from nowhere, Jack Armstrong repeated a story from a guy in Napa. The early '70s; he worked at an auto body shop in San Francisco and a co-worker bragged regularly of the beatings administered to his wife. The police were called on occasion and nothing much ever happened. The business moved to Napa; several employees relocated, including our storyteller and the brute. After slapping his wife around on one occasion the Napa Police were called, and they gave him a warning. A few months later, they got called again; this time the brute spent a few nights in jail. When called a third time, the Napa cops just dragged the bully to the backyard and beat the shit out of him.

He appeared at work the next day badly bruised and chastened; he never touched his wife again.

So, what d'ya think of that? Armstrong queried, making clear his approval of rough justice.

I could not resist, despite my bitter fear of rejection by my favorite radio companions. I made the phone call. I got through, and Vince, the screener, asked for my comment, then a clarification. And then...then...he inquired if it was Terry From Napa. Yes, I admitted, holding my breath, awaiting the blow-off.

Okay, he grunted, putting me on hold.

Mine was the first call on the subject; I inhaled deeply and let loose.

I like that kind of rough justice, too, I said, but in Napa they do that stuff to regular people with the least excuse. I explained there was a culture of routine police brutality in Napa, and cited the shooting of Oscar Grant, whose killer was trained by Napa cops, and the execution of Richard Poccia, a local man shot on Thanksgiving weekend by cops who feared he might be suicidal. I left out the Mexican they shot in the back last summer.

Joe Getty knew of the cases, offering that there are two sides to every story. Somewhere in the dialog Jack Armstrong expressed skepticism that such things could happen in the famous Napa Valley.

They were unconvinced. Thanks for the call, they said, and I was off the air.

Then Joe suggested that I seemed to feel pretty strongly about the issue, and hoped I didn't beat him up for disagreeing.

Hardy-har-har.

But far from wanting to beat Joe or Jack, I'm grateful they let me on the show again. Besides that, they pack heat.

They're right, you know. I do sound like an obsessive crank on this topic, and people all over Napa will tell you so.

Get a life, Joe might advise, and I'd like very much to have mine back, a life not so far removed from theirs. I was a member of an upper-middle-class elite myself, once, before Napa County and its minions persecuted me to the edge of ruin.

Meanwhile, I'll settle for trying to inform people about what's going on here. And that's my appeal to Armstrong and Getty: Just take a look.

But first I'd like to point out the irony here. They find my assertions incredible, yet they themselves routinely trumpet the myriad attacks on freedom by stupid bureaucrats. It's cops who enforce those rules.

And the news has lately been rife with rotten cop stories.

A year ago we first heard of the forensic technician who worked for the San Francisco Police Department and stole cocaine from the evidence locker. Thousands of cases had to be reconsidered, and she seems sufficiently guilty--on the naked face of it--to warrant a few life sentences for the gravity of her crimes. The cops dithered for months before arresting her, and charges have been dropped by the District Attorney, former Chief of Police. I presume she still receives a pension, too.

This isn't evidence of a rogue cop, but rather a thoroughly corrupt system.

And now we hear the FBI has been called in to investigate San Francisco police detectives who make searches without warrants, forge the paperwork, and then lie in court.

In Contra Costa County, a supervising narcotics investigator has been accused with colleagues of stealing money and drugs, re-selling the latter.

Yet another Contra Costa cop allegedly hired out to divorce contestants and framed spouses of his employers for drunk driving. The victims went to divorce court with damaged reputations.

In Phoenix, cops turned the city into the kidnap capitol of America with false statistics to qualify for a federal grant; they just made the numbers up.

And my all-time favorite, reports that the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms funnelled thousands of guns into Mexico in order to highlight the dangers of guns being funnelled into Mexico.

Some of those guns were used by the murderers of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, and, perhaps, by the killers of an Immigration agent.

This is the same fine government agency that precipitated the killing of 80 men, women and children at Waco, Texas.

Closer to home, the City of Vallejo, with which Napa enmeshes itself ever more, is effectively bankrupt because the cops chose to spend money on their own bigger salaries instead of more personnel. The average cop earned more than a hundred thousand a year, with sixty grand in benefits, while lieutenants earned two hundred thousand, and captains three. Typically, they retired with equivalent annual pensions.

Is it any wonder that Vallejo rivals the worst crime cesspools in America?

* * *

In light of all that, is it not at least possible that Napa might be as bad as I contend? Is it not obviously bad everywhere you look?

Take a closer look at Napa, Jack and Joe, please.

And I'll make it easy for you. I'll break it down in my coming series, Why Napa Sucks.

You guys can actually unfold a really big story: How America's world-famous wine country transformed itself into a Bueaucratic Police Dictatorship. Where rich and poor alike cower in fear.

Don't give me any credit, don't mention my web site. Mock me, deride me, vilify me.

I can hear Joe now: Well, he is a mouth-breathing pariah who lives in a cave, but...

Think of it as an honest, reflective intellectual journey into the heart of municipal darkness. You can even feed me to the cannibals along the way.

You'll discover a microcosm displaying every manner of civic corruption under the rock: how federal funds crush the community, how environmental laws persecute landowners, how every initiative to help or free people sends them to jail.

You will see the Face of the Gulag stealing life and freedom.

Right here, in the world famous Napa Valley Wine Country.

Where you go on vacation to leave on probation.

And if anyone can find some humor in this dismal situation, it'll be the two of you.

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