Fullerton, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Full-er-ton: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth (sort of) Full. Er. Ton.
Let other scribes and raconteurs masquerade behind thin veneers of objectivity as they wax rhapsodic about the cities they’ve been assigned in this issue. Let them pretend to love cities they’ve never seen, and heap scorn on those they secretly adore. I, for one, will be nothing but nakedly honest: Fullerton is the best city in Orange county. Bar none. Like the mural on Lemon Street says, Fullerton is the town I live in, esse.
I have passed out on its streets, vomited in its bars, dined at its finest restaurants, been arrested on its streets, broken bread with its denizens, consumed lots of…other things with them, spent 54 nights in its jail, performed my plays, music and poetry from one end to the other, given birth in its hospitals, ministered to its sick, provided succor to its poor, raised its dead and…well, you get the picture. Don’t be pouring Hatorade on my town.
Sure, it lacks the natural beauty of beach town cities and a ginormous shopping center giving it instant consumer cred outside its boundaries. Sure, the outside of its city hall is one of the ugliest extant examples of 1960s civic architecture and the interior is a labyrinthine warren of slow-moving, shortsighted bureaucracy. Sure, there’s a gaping divide between the mostly Latin working poor and the mostly white (and Asian) filthy rich and a cadre of business owners and local officials who walk around as if they own the place—which they mostly do.
Sure, there have been a few black eyes in its history. Norton Simon, who helped drag the city into the modern era through creating Hunt-Wesson foods, wanted to put his museum in Fullerton; he settled for Pasadena. Walt Disney wanted to put his park in Fullerton; he settled for Anaheim. A woman was raped in the police department’s parking lot a couple of years ago. The rise of downtown’s bar culture has generated lots of problems, ranging from urination to assaults and a requisite backlash in overly zealous cops.
But it also has a great park in its center—ideal for family functions or solo adventures during the day and gay cruising at night. It has its own lake and 28-miles of horse and biking trails, a dam and two regional parks, five colleges and 60,000 students, a 24-block wireless internet zone (which never seems to work when I need it), more theaters than any other county city, a train station, two museum complexes, the county’s best downtown, stately old buildings, wonderfully bucolic neighborhoods. Hell, it even has its own airport.
Downtown is where most of the action happens these days, which is fitting, because the heart of downtown—the intersection of Harbor and Commonwealth--is where two brothers named Amerige drove a stake into a mustard field in 1887 after striking a deal with a railroad guy named Fullerton to divert his railroad through what was then quiet farmland. Today, it’s where the most drinking, dining, dancing, clubbing, worshipping, dating, beatings and stabbings take place.
Radiate out from downtown and you have working class neighborhoods and manufacturing zones to the east and west, dominated by large companies like Hunt Wesson (which is now the site of a monolithic Korean church) Kimberly Clark, St. Jude Medical Center and Raytheon. The further north you go, the pricier the real estate.
Fullerton is where Jackson Brown grew up, Tommy Lasorda used to live, Richard M. Nixon and Walter Johnson went to high school and Leo Fender perfected the electric guitar. Need we say more?
Yes, we do:
FULLERTON MOTHERFUCKERS!
Best place for good old-fashioned sleaze: California Girls. Once upon a time, Fullerton contained 27 massage parlors, a sleazy adult book store called Fantasy Books, even a salon on Harbor Boulevard called circus Maximus that was a brothel the cops called circus jerkus. Those are all gone (the few massage joints still here are, by all accounts, the non happy ending kind).. All that’s left these days are a handful (pun intenteded) of massage parlors and California Girls, a topless club way different from its previous incarnation as Cherries. ; California Girls, 1189 E. Ash Ave., Fullerton, (714) 447-0692.
Best bartender: Since I’ve served or been served by probably every bartender in town, I’d obviously run into trouble by selecting one. But what about Mike Garrett, Mulberry Street’s resident curmudgeon? He’s a pro, has been known to not crack a smile for a fortnight and, if you make the mistake of ordering some frothy sugar-sweet fiasco like a Scooby Snack, you’ll likely hear this rejoinder: “go fuck yourself.” 114 W. Wilshire, Fullerton, (714) 525-1056.
Best Italian: Roman Cucina. It’s simple, it’s hearty, it’s family owned and operated and has photos of boxers sweating and bleeding on the wall. Try the wedding soup, spaghetti Bolognese, or the shrimp scampi. N. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton, (714) 680-6000.
Best sushi: Chomp. No less of authorities than TV Guide Network executive Eddie Delbridge and Ego TV Executive Producer Jon Messrah swear that this big, bold, splashy sushi restaurant is the best in the city, if not the county. Try the seared albacore. E. Commonwealth Ave. Fullerton (714) 738-3511
Best Vietnamese. Pho 88. The No. 44, an incredibly tender cut of steak marinated for 24 hours, kicks ass, as does the No. 17, seafood soup. The mixed appetizer plate, featuring spring rolls, Vietnamese egg rolls and shrimp, is a steal at $5.95. 1121 S. Lemon St., Fullerton, (714) 773-4022
Best place to hang a web cam. Across the street from the Stadium Tavern patio. The stadium tavern has good food, great beer and the hottest servers in town. A veritable cornucopia of the fairer sex. Rumor has it that a couple of guys also work there. 305 N. Harbor, #128, Fullerton. 714-447-4200
Best Mexican: El Camino Real. Everything you’d expect at an authentic Mexican tacqueria, from the pollo and asada to the buche, chorizo and pineapple and cinnamon tamales. 303 N Euclid St, Fullerton, (714) 447-3962
Best sandwich: Lee’s Sandwiches. The meatball, grilled pork, pate and sardine sandwiches are exceptional and cost less than $2. The roast beef on croissant is a whopping $3.25. 1028 S Harbor Blvd, Fullerton, (714) 525-2989
Coolest shopping area: Villa del sol. Some fine restaurants, like the Cellar, Café Hildago, Brownstone Café and Stadium Tavern, a stuffy British grocer, a sports memorabilia store, a salon stacked with attractive woman clients. All of it nestled inside a 1920s building that used to be the California Hotel and is today haunted. Anectode: once, while pleasantly inebriated, a friend of mine and I wandered into the British Grocer. I was scoffing at the teacups and such while he perused the candy selection. I attempted to open a freezer to reveal the bounty inside but the cranky guy behind the counter said, in his best British accent, “don’t open that, please.” Growing slightly miffied, I ambled over to the newspaper section and opened one of the tabloids to the Page 2 girl, you know the one with the boobies? My friendly neighborhood grocer barked at me, “this isn’t a library.” Now quite pissed, I made my way to the door. I then turned and said, with great élan, “this is why we fought the Revolution, my friend.” Perhaps my finest moment on this planet. 305 N. Harbor Blvd.
Best bar in the daytime: The Continental Room. Stadium Tavern’s patio is tough to beat, but the Continental’s dim light and red leather booths is a great place to drink away the sad wretched afternoons of your pathetic, fucking life. 115 W Santa Fe Ave, Fullerton, 928
Best breakfast: Spadra Café. Formerly Il Ghiotto, this is still a mostly Italian place by night, but its weekend breakfasts bring out the locals. The Wild Mushroom Crepe is a piece of heaven and the hand-made pastries by owner Dave Parker are almost as good as his terribly bad jokes. 136 E. -Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, (714) 447-0775.
Best steak: Stubrick’s Steakhouse. The kind of meaty, juicy, thick slabs of cow that Satan would love: the bacon wrapped filet mignon and blue cheese-stuffed sirloin are particularly decadent. 118 E. CommonwealthAve., Fullerton, (714) 871-1290.
Best bar not named Back Alley or Front Street. Tough call. In downtown, the Continental Room has the best loungey vibe and is wall-to-wall most nights while Mulberry Street is the best place for a conversation. Heroes features heaping mounds of food and just as many people. Slidebar is great if you like tattoos, piercings g and fakery of all kinds. Steamers is a premiere jazz joint. But what about the dive bars on the city’s periphery?2j’s, Sunset, The Tropics, Jimmi’s, Lucky John’s, Ginger’s, Bigs, and, our personal favorite, Bananas, are all located in working class or industrial neighborhood, all open early and stay open late.
Best motorcycle builder: Matt Hotch. This guy makes Jesse James look like a little bitch. H won the Discovery Channel’s Great Biker Build Off this year. His shop, HotMatch Custom Cycles, is located in the heart of Fullerton and if you’ve got a couple of hundred grand burning a hole in your pocket, give him a ring. He’s not the best custom bike builder in the city, or the county, or even the country. We’re not all-world, all-galaxy, all-universe, bitches! 201 W. Truslow Ave., Fullerton, (714) 680-3462.
Best glimpse of nature: Fullerton Arboretum. A 26-acre botanical garden with plants from around the world separated into four collections: Cultivated, Woodlands, Mediterranean and Desert. 1900 E. Associated Rd., Fullerton, (714)238-3579
Best building: The Church of Religious Science. Built in 1909, this Gothic Revival structure is just plain spooky, even if God does live there. 117 N. Pomona. Honorable mention: Chapman Building, northeast corner of Wilshire and Harbor.
Best reason to hope for the future: the Fox Fullerton. A tireless group of local volunteers helped save this venerable 1930 movie palace from demolition. They now need something like $10 million to create the multi-use performing arts facility that once seemed like a pipedream. They’ve already cleaned up the theater’s exterior, launched an outdoor film series, movies on the outside wall and feel confident that within five years, this once stately jewel will one again shine. 512 N. Harbor Blvd, (714) 870-0069.
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