[FAC] OT: Red & Blue Bartender Challenge A Fun Success!

[Donavan Byrn]

Tuesday night's Bartender Challenge between Julie Griffiths and  
Elliott Balch was quite the event. The house was packed and between  
the marvelous efforts of Julie and Elliot behind the bar and some  
spirited poster sales by Reza Assemi (he signed them especially for  
us that night) in front of the bar, we raised over $900 for the mural  
fund. What a great way to end the season! We'll have pictures of the  
fun on the website (www.creativefresno.com) soon so check often.

The competition was heated but in the end Elliott prevailed and Julie  
has vowed she will regain her Master Bartender title so look forward  
to an exciting rematch in future!

Speaking of Julie and Elliott we'd like to thank them both for taking  
time out of their insane schedules (it is an election year) to go  
behind the bar. It's hard work but they (and all of our "bartenders")  
make it look easy. We'd also like to thank the Kids at Reel Pride for  
helping to encourage the tipping by providing some tickets to the  
film festival's opening night movie! If you haven't thought about  
attending at least one of the films showing over the next five days  
you should. We promise you won't regret the experience.

Special thanks to Paul Palomino and the gang at Palomino's for always  
letting us come in and turn the place upside down and then leave the  
clean up to you! You guys so ROCK!! But we especially want to thank  
all of you that have supported Bartender Challenge for the past two  
years. It is because of your support that we have been able to "get  
paint on walls" and contribute to the growing number of national and  
world class murals in Fresno.

While the Bartender Challenge is on hiatus until 2009 we are planning  
on bringing Sexy back (sorry couldn't resist!) in December. Stay  
tuned for more details on that in the next few weeks. We will also be  
taking part in a panel discussion on Fresno's growing mural movement  
at the 2008 Cultural Arts Conference sponsored by Fresno Coalition  
for Arts, Science and History (FCASH) on October 17. You can find  
details about the event at www.fcash.org.

Once again, thank you for your support!


Mural Project Committee
Lea Adams
Geoff Kramer
Abe Lopez
Donavan Byrn