BY ALEX CANTATORE
Staff reporter

I certainly don’t consider myself a social butterfly. But for some reason, I rarely find myself in town when the weekend hits.

This state of affairs causes much half-hearted consternation from my editor.

“Fiiinnnnee,” she huffs, then sweetly asks a co-worker if she will cover the opening of the Patterson Dog Park instead.

But it’s not as though I really want to be leaving town all the time. And it’s certainly not that I want to be avoiding our canine friends.

It’s just that it’s very difficult to find entertainment in the greater Modesto area.

This past weekend I went up to San Francisco for a friend’s birthday due to the lack of options available within the county’s borders.

I didn’t know most of the attendees beforehand, and so in the course of getting to know each other in conversation it came up that I was from Modesto.

As I’m sure you’re well aware, no one knows where Turlock, Riverbank, or any of the other smaller cities of Stanislaus County are, so I always just say I’m from Modesto to cut down on the explanatory steps.

After the prerequisite reference to Laci Peterson, a casual remark on Gary Condit, and a mention of our car theft per capita title, one of the partygoers made an offhand comment that stuck with me.

“So what’s in Modesto?” he asked.

I hesitated. My normal patter failed me; I wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

I thought back to the week previous. My friend whose birthday we were celebrating had come down on Thursday to see a band play.

She works for a record label, and so she and three of the more executive types had journeyed down the 580 to take in a concert at Sidelines in Modesto.

And while the show was fun, I got the feeling that the label-folk were not entirely impressed with what Modesto had to offer.

“Oh, I didn’t realize this place was in a strip mall,” one of them remarked as he glanced around the TV-laden venue.

Between the odd location and the inability of Sideline’s circuit breaker to power both the TVs and the amps of the band we had come to see, sending us into silence and darkness three times during a 45 minute set, the evening didn’t really paint a glowing picture of what Modesto offers.

So I thought back a little further, looking for a story that would somehow justify Stanislaus County.

I recalled how, a few weeks ago, a group of friends and I had gone to the Copper Rhino in Modesto. We drank, we danced, we played pool and shuffleboard (rather poorly, might I add), and everyone had a good time.

But, perhaps most memorably, the crowd was exceedingly odd.

At one point we witnessed a female patron, dressed in a white hoodie and jeans, travel to the restroom. She returned sans-pants, and then proceeded to, ahem, “get it on” up against the shuffleboard table.

For some reason, neither of these seemed like good stories to relate. I scrambled around and came up with a goofy response just to get out of answering.

So what’s in Modesto?

“Me, and that’s about it,” I said, with a forced laugh.

I immediately felt badly for depreciating my hometown. I’ve always liked it here, even if there isn’t really much to do in town, and while Stanislaus County has its faults it didn’t deserve that.

As we worked our way through San Francisco on the birthday pub crawl, our exceedingly cute laminated maps in tow, I kept thinking why the San Francisco social scene was seemingly so much better than Modesto’s.

Somewhere between the Tunnel Top and Swig, it hit me. San Francisco is, quite simply, “where it’s at,” as the kids like to say.

Within ten blocks, there were no less than seven awesome bars and tens of more than passable ones. It was great. And it was only an hour and a half from home.

Why go anywhere else?

I commute 40 minutes to work each day. Even to get to Modesto’s downtown takes 20 minutes. So what’s an hour and thirty minutes to get to the best bar scene in the state?

The great thing about Stanislaus County is that you are, quite literally, an hour and a half from anything. If you want to go skiing, it’s an hour and a half. If you want to go surfing, it’s an hour and a half. Any environment your heart desires is just a short drive away.

But, because there are so many great places relatively close by, there’s no impetus for developers to build in our area. Everyone’s gotten used to leaving Stanislaus County in order to have fun.

Until now that gas is $5 a gallon, that is.

As crazy as it seems, this gas price increase may be the best thing to happen to our county.

Maybe in a few years, when gas hits $10 a gallon, the 600,000 people in this county will have no choice but to start staying local. The population might finally demand entertainment in our own backyard.

But, until that happens, you know where I’ll be next weekend. And it’s not in Stanislaus County.

To contact Alex Cantatore, e-mail acantatore@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2005.

Originally published in the Turlock Journal 6/25/2008.
Retrieved from the Turlock Journal Web site.