Take it out to Pomona and let ’em know

By Brandon Adamson

Gonna save all my money and buy a GTO
Get a helmet and a roll bar, and I’ll be ready to go
Take it out to Pomona and let ’em know
That I’m the coolest thing around
Little buddy, gonna shut you down
When I turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO!

-Ronny and the Daytonas- GTO 1964

Just got back from Pomona, CA where I attended the LA World Guitar Show. It was fun but exhausting to say the least. Managed to escape without buying anything ridiculous. Pomona is yet another example of places in California which were great in the 1960’s but have since become overrun and become scumtowns. Across the street from my hotel was a beautiful wooded park, which upon closer inspection turned out to be filled with bums, gangsters and other riff raff. Initially I had considered setting out to explore, but decided that more than anything it looked like a good place to get shanked. I could just see the creepy crime show reenactment scene with the narration, “Brandon told his friend just wanted to walk through the woods and get a few photos, which turned out to be a fateful decision.”

The houses in Pomona are actually pretty nice, mostly typical southern California bungalows, with some mid century modern and ranch….but the inhabitants drag them down.

Anyhow, I spent most of my time in Claremont, which is still a bastion of civilization(for now.) I ate at a really good pizza place there which I can’t remember the name of.

I hadn’t been to Pomona since 2000, when Phantom Planet, Kara’s Flowers(known now as Maroon 5) and The Siren Six(which later became Big City Rock and now The Remainers) played at The Glass House.

Oh, and you’ve gotta love the internet. Unspoken truths which would have been filtered out of existence 20 years ago can be found at a moment’s notice.

Check out the Urban Dictionary entry for Pomona:

2. Pomona 106 up, 46 down

a ghetto ass place, where it used to be such a popular and lovely place. it was an attraction for stars, but not anymore.. now it’s an attraction for the cholos and shit. its mostly hispanics, some blacks and cambos, and fewww whites.

aye foo, where’d my homie go?

he went to some kickback in pomona.