San Diego’s ‘Fab Fair’ invokes the Beatles

By Donald H. Harrison

DEL MAR, California – As Fred Schenk, president of the San Diego County Fair board, tells the story, he was driving in November 2012 to his law offices in San Diego, when the Beatles song “Here Comes the Sun” came on the radio, and he started singing along. The thought struck him—the sun, the beach, San Diego County—what a great idea for a fair theme.

Then Schenk remembered, and verified it on Google when he got to his office, that the Beatles had come to America, on the Ed Sullivan Show, in 1964. Excited, he called up Tim Fennell, the fair’s CEO and general manager, and said that the 50^th anniversary of the British Invasion would be coming up in 2014, and wouldn’t that be a great theme for the fair that year? Fennell and Schenk’s colleagues on the fair board liked the idea, and so from this coming June 7 through July 6, it will “The Fab Fair,” in honor of the Beatles, who were nicknamed “The Fab Four.”

Schenk was 11 when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in the vanguard of what became known in the music world as the “British invasion.” Besides the excitement of their rock n’ roll, we two Jews recalled (I turned 19 that year), there was pride in the fact that the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was Jewish, and some years later, that Beatle Paul McCartney chose a Jewish American woman, Linda Eastman, to be his wife.   And, Schenk and I noted, the Rolling Stones, the band considered “rivals” of the Beatles, still is going strong, with a mega-concert scheduled June 4 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

At a media party Friday, May 30, to preview the San Diego County Fair, there was plenty of evidence of the “British Invasion” that had been presaged by the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Parked along the midway was a red double decker bus. “IAM the Walrus,” the fair’s official mascot, is a busker (as street performers are known in Britain) who brings to mind the Beatles’ walrus of coo-coo-ca-choo fame. IAM The Walrus wears a costume reminiscent of the uniform of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band.

Along the midway one could find a backdrop of a street crossing, looking very much like one the Beatles crossed on the cover of their “Abbey Road” album. Here, fair goers could pretend they were traversing the very same crosswalk.

There also were three slapstick Queen’s Foot Guards, looking like those determined young men who guard Buckingham Palace in Red Coats and Bearskin hats. But instead of marching in lockstep order, this group known as the Ex-Changing of the Guard kept bumping into each other, one turning left, another turning right, as they worked their way down the midway.

Not everything along the midway was British – particularly not some of the outlandish culinary choices offered at the food stands – but that didn’t stop exhibitors from trying to make a connection. For example, Cindy Cavallini, zoo manager for Pacific Animal Productions, brought to the media party “George” a 9 ½-foot long Burmese Python, which she said weighs approximately 35 pounds. As most of George  was wrapped around her waist and legs, that was a statistic she could vouch for. In the last two weeks of April and the first week of May, Pacific Animal Productions took George and other critters to schools as part of an educational outreach program for the Fair. Cavaillini explained to the children that the fair celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the “British invasion” in popular music, and that George is an example of an “invasive” species – that is, a non-indigenous species that could change the eco-balance. George, himself was “born and raised in captivity. He was somebody’s pet who could no longer keep him because he outgrew their home, so we took him,” Cavalini said.

In case you’re wondering, George was not named for the late Beatle George Harrrison.   Cavalini said the Burmese Python’s full name is “George of the Jungle.”

County Fairs are meant to bring together in one place many diverse intrests, so not everything is related to the Beatles – not even by a stretch of the imagination. Other animals that were a hit at the media party – but which will not be at the June 7-July 6 Fab Fair because of other time commitments – were Rosie and Tai, a pair of artistic elephants who are 30 and 46 years old respectively. At the media party, they took turns picking up a brush in their trunks, dipping it in paint, and then swishing it onto paper mounted on an easel. The elephant art was to be auctioned off later, with proceeds intended to raise money for the Fair’s Don Diego Scholarship Fund and for the International Elephant Foundation (IEF).

Sarah Conley, a spokesperson for the Perris, California-based “Have Trunk Will Travel” organization said the elephants are taken all over as “ambassadors for their species.” “We go out and make sure that people have a personal interaction with the elephants, and support conservation and make sure they don’t go extinct.” She said that through IEF, her organization supports research into a disease called Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus (EEHV) that claims “one in four baby elephants in the wild and in human care.”

Another theme of the Fair is American patriotism, with a museum-style exhibit on the life and works of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy one that will compete for fair goers’ attention with another traveling exhibit about the lives and works of the Beatles.

At the press party, there were other signs of American patriotism – fire engines and a monster truck saluting First Responders to the 9-11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers being one such type of exhibit, and the “Freedom Bell,”  a miniaturized Liberty Bell, which people could loudly ring, being another. Mike Rainey, a volunteer for the Spirit of the Liberty Foundation, said “most people relate a bell to the memorial service for people who died in the service, but we also want people to have the opportunity to ring the bell in honor of someone who came back from the war and led a normal life.”

Also on hand for the party was James Floros, president and CEO of the Jacobs and Cushman San Diego Food Bank — so named for local Jewish philanthropists Irwin Jacobs and Steve Cushman– who explained that the Food Bank, which works with 325 non-profit agencies in San Diego County to feed the hungry, will be the Fair’s official charity.

“If you know of a non-profit in San Diego County that has a feeding program, they are probably getting a majority of their food from us—whether they be Jewish Family Service, St. Vincent de Paul, San Diego Rescue Mission, down to a little church group.”

It’s a misconception that the primary beneficiaries of food are the homeless, he said. While homeless people certainly receive a share of the food, the majority of recipients are “the working poor, people who are struggling to get by,” Floros said. He said that approximately one in five persons in San Diego County—or approximately 460,000 people—are “food insecure” and during the year may need help from the Food Bank though one of its beneficiary agencies.

In connection with the Fair, the Food Bank has a promotion with Albertson’s. “For the three weeks leading up to June 24,” he said, “if people buy one of their store-brand jars of peanut butter, and donate that peanut butter to the Food Bank, they will receive a two-for-one coupon to attend the Fair on June 24^th.”   He explained that peanut butter, while being a food that most children like, is high in protein.

Floros also said that through its various partnerships, the Food Bank is able to leverage a $1 contribution into five meals.

So, when people are gorging themselves on some pretty strange food combinations at the San Diego Fair – for example, a triple decker cheeseburger on Crispy Cream donut buns— or when they sample some foods, and throw them half-eaten into one of the many trash cans on the grounds — may they donate money to the Food Bank to assuage their feelings of guilt (if not their heartburn?)

“We’ll take any contribution, whatever the motive,” Floros said.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com