Late night radio will never be the same since comedian John Wessling of Hellgig America asked, “What if Art Bell was a stand-up comic?”
Sure, creepy abounds on Art Bell’s show of demented UFO believers, apocalyptic bell ringers and interviews with the ghost of Bigfoot. But where’s the comedy? The comedy, my friends is going to run rampantly alongside the macabre on the brand new Red Eye Radio Show.
There’s going to be readings from my own dirty book: Lords: Part One, there’s going to be potty ghost talk, UFO-gazing, and theorizing as to how mankind may just be God’s special sausage.
The show itself will be recorded live Saturday night from 11PM-3AM on Bakersfield’s KGEO 1230 AM Radio. You can listen outside of city limits on warpradio.com. Or you can wait to download podcasts of the show which will be exclusively premiering on nlbelardes.com. (Click here to find links to Red Eye, Puck, John Wessling, Warp Radio and more)
John Wessling will be joined by Puck of The Puck Show as the two interview authors, scientists, ghost hunters, and more about the paranormal in us all.
Excited? Yes. I can’t wait to talk serious while throwing in some comedy about Bakersfield urban myths, creepy ghost stories and alien lights. Sure, it might just be kids with flashlights, but hey this is Bakersfield, and here we’re close enough to the secrecy of Edward’s Air Force Base, and ghost sightings by the locally revered, Arthur Chilling. I hear Arthur Chilling may even call into the show.
Crop circles, anyone?
I asked Comedian John Wessling why he was doing the Red Eye Radio Show. While we spoke he was near Sunset and Vine, driving in circles. Tires squealed as he was submersed in conversation and strange LA moments filled with sirens and talk of alien blow-up dolls:
“Not just was I a radio kid to begin with, radio is a medium that only advances so far. No matter how digital you make it, radio is fully evolved, classic, free and there’s something romantic about being on AM through the end of the night. It’s like your own personal solar flare. I believe the overnight shift is the prime time of the future. You see with all this global warming people will soon become lizards and sleep under rocks during the day to keep cool. They’ll stay awake at night just to listen to the Red Eye…
“I respect and love Art Bell, George Noory, and Wolfman Jack. They’re my idols and heroes, but there’s room for competition. And besides, there’s a lot of people who can’t sleep who need to be catered to… The Red Eye is not so much a lean to the macabre. It’s not like I’ve committed to a Goth wardrobe. We’re talking comedy, the bastard brother of tragedy. The first sign of healing after tragic events is comedy… I want this show to sound like books on tape while it’s being recorded. There is definitely some theatre to it, some staged events. I am a descendent of H.G Wells and PT Barnum and so I’m going to use our forum to propagate odd thought and odd behavior. Now we gotta get out of here. We’re nearing Hollywood High and I’m feeling like I’m being triangulated with this phone call…”
And then there was silence.
Tune in to the Red Eye Radio Show Saturday night as it’s recorded live from 11PM-3AM on Bakersfield’s KGEO 1230 AM Radio. You can listen outside of city limits on warpradio.com. Or you can wait to download podcasts on nlbelardes.com.
Join the Red Eye friends on myspace.com/theredeyeradioshow.
I’m listening to Meathead serenade me right now. He’s on Bakersfield’s KRAB 106.1 radio talking about the new Superman movie. I remember I was in the studio the day he saw the trailer.
Talk about a big kid getting excited about a movie. Meathead is a connoisseur of the comic in himself and of comic book films. He knows lines from movies and could probably tell you every detail and hiccup of every Superman film, ever.
And he kind of looks like Lex Luthor on steroids. He’s that big. Though I liken him more as a gentle superhero rather than a dark villain. So don't let his looks fool you.
Meathead: the superman I have been looking for
A hero among us mortals. It's true!
Next week he’s even going to give details about what he calls “hiccups in the current Superman movie.” He did note today on the radio that he loves the new film.
Recently I attended “The Meatydish Show” starring many local bands in cool videos. Oh, you didn’t hear about it? It was at the local Bakersfield Independent Film Festival. There were films about love, murder, naked people parties, fish, superheroes, murderous fairy tale creatures, lonely men, coming of age murder stories, hectic cop shoot-outs, at 11:00 news flashes, and more.
And music videos starring local Bakersfield bands. Many of them. All of them made by Meathead, a filmmaker with a film degree from Florida State. And his expertise doesn’t stop there. Meathead is also part of the Brighthouse on-demand TV show, Damaged TV. Damaged TV is a hilarious show with skits, interviews, and stars Meathead, Rocky, Desi and friends including Francis Mayer and Meathead’s brother…
As a result of my recent article where I criticized a pregnant lady who still might kill me, her husband who should have, and myself for wrongly wanting to skip out on the film, Youthanasia, I also came down hard questioning why Meatydish Productions did not attend. Was I just hurt myself? Or was I disappointed in a greater scene not showing total support of Meathead himself and the BIFF?
I wrote:
Meatydish Production folks skip film festival
BIFF’s short entries included a barrage of film shorts that included Meatydish Productions music videos and hilarious episodes from their Brighthouse Network show, Damaged TV. Although there was a nice crowd in attendance, no one from Meatydish or any of the promoted bands or radio showed up to the event other than The Filthies on Saturday to help promote their “Embalm You” video. Especially disturbing was the Krotch video. The audience wasn’t sure whether to clap or not until one lone audience member from the video stood and clapped. I thought the director’s non-attendance was embarrassing, since the films and videos promoted local music, radio and TV personalities. Was it egos or did they just not know about BIFF? Strange.
The truth came out in a recent phone call with Meathead of KRAB radio who said he was hurt over my paragraph. Luckily we were far apart so he couldn't strangle me. I explained to him that I aimed my piece at being critical about a lack of total support, and even bashed myself for wanting to walk out on a film. I understood Meathead might have a good reason for not showing up, and he did. He wrote on my blog:
First I would like to say Congrats to all the talent that was showcased during the B.I.F.F 1.5. And second I am sorry I couldn't make it due to an undesirable case of Green POOP. Yeah I said it—you know dollar bill green, but this green cost me my weekend along with horrible chest congestion that only Bako has to offer.
That being said. To my friend N.L. Belardes who colorfully commented that my absence was, oh yes I remember now "Embarrasing" . To you Nick - I shake my fist and wag my finger.
There are so many people I would like to work with and hopefully will be able to. Even you Nick.
M
Oh yes, Meathead spoke out on the blog, and rightly so. And now that is cleared up, where were all the people who Meathead filmed who should have come out and supported him? Bands, get off your asses and support Meathead. Your videos were shown on the big screen. Where were you and your fans? You should have been dancing in the aisles! Damaged TV actors: go support Meathead when his artwork is shown. His vision as a filmmaker is just beginning to be realized (And I know he gets a lot of support. I just wanted to SEE the support firsthand at the festival)
Meathead is a community servant, and a person with artistic goals.
Appreciate what he lends to the music and film scene. He’s helping to fuse the arts in this building of the Bakersfield Renaissance…
I spoke out and Meathead responded. Let me just end this piece by saying while I lived in Vegas I was approached by a questionable lady only once. Was that luck or am I that ugly? I was standing near the Lady Luck Hotel-Casino while waiting for a ride. I worked for Up in the Air Productions, a subsidiary of the Golden Nugget Hotel-Casino of Mirage Resorts and we made cheesy sound and light shows for the Fremont Street Experience. I leaned against a planter and the lady walks up and says, “Are you the Superman I’ve been looking for?”
I swear I am not lying.
No, I wasn’t her Superman, but Meathead is mine.
*NOTE: Meathead is currently developing a very secretive and dark project that he won't talk about but that will promote Noveltown's Cinema of the Lords Short Film Contest...
Oh yes, I wrote to you recently how I worked with an internet porn star, and about the strange parallel between Berry and the young character in my novel, Lords: Part One, also about gay youth run rampant in a malicious adult world of power and corruption.
Image from Detroit Free Press site
I didn't work with him intentionally. But it happened in the strangest of work environment circumstances. You can read all about it in my article, "Justin Berry, the new young Lord of Bakersfield".
Now the other side of the story is speaking out. In a website titled "The Truth about Justin" you will read a very controversial blog, articles, and discover questions as to the possible true intentions of internet sex prince, Justin Berry. A new Millennium era Lord of Bakersfield? A Joey Minstrel of the Third Kind? Could be.
Go look for yourself and form your own opinion.
There's more. Recently in the criminal case against Kenneth Gourlay, the star witness and alleged victim both have ended up in the hospital with emotional diagnoses. Read more in the Detroit Free Press article, "Teen Accuser in Internet Porn Case Hospitalized".
One of Justin Berry's friends speaks out in a blog entry criticizing Berry, indicating that Berry's sexual desires and intentions may be questionable.
The new website asks that you submit evidence.
Will you?
I got up this morning with my trusty camera in hand, ready to be the Paperback Writer blogger/novelist on the scene with a citizen journalist eye on the media. You know how I love to take photos of the media hard at work: newspaper folks, TV cameramen, reporters, photographers, and soon enough: TV morning anchors on the popular local Channel 29 show, Daybreak.
Oh yes, Rusty Shoop, a true man of mystery even shared some ‘cottonfield murder’ talk that only two sleuth novelists could grapple… thanks Rusty.
Only we talked right before going on-air.
Paperback Writer blogger gets behind the scenes!
Rusty Shoop gets comfortable in a quick chat about Noveltown
And "Stories from Dust"
No, I hadn’t planned on going on live, but strange circumstances had it that while Matt Munoz was trying to batter his way into the studio with his ska elbows swinging, I was already sitting in the hot seat, albeit a comfortable chair in the newsroom, ready to drink coffee with the ever-so polite, Rusty Shoop.
Normally I am a little more behind the scenes of Noveltown, but today I spoke as an artist and as the Noveltown guy with a vision about fusing local art: literature, film, music, theatre, and more. I talked about the fusion of arts happening in Bakersfield and Matt’s very awesome storytelling ability. Oh yes, he's the ska king, the Ricky Ricardo of Bakersfield swooners. Shoop and I shared a laugh about tonight’s surprises at Russo’s Books, and I informed his audience about how Noveltown is going to take audio from tonight’s “Stories from Dust” event to create a great online shared artistic experience (and some good b-roll and interviews for another episode of Zowietown).
In the studio...
There’s a renaissance in Bakersfield art going on right now and it’s not about quality and quantity of art. It’s about art fusion. Tonight, Literature meets music meets storytelling. And just recently, music met literature met film at BIFF.
The arts are growing together… how will you be a part of it?
Attend tonight’s "Stories from Dust" event for a taste of Bakersfield literary and music culture…
KBAK 29 co-hosts, Rusty and Lisa
I had a dream the other day:
There stood the Getty Museum with every pretentious ghost of the great dead artists of the world hovering around the museum like dying fireflies. Down below the great hill of the museum, a string of pick-ups peeled off the 405 and into the Getty parking lot.
The fireflies flickered and went out.
Inside each pick-up stood great paintings of Ghengis Khan, towering over each truck like Easter Island heads. Driving the trucks were clones of the Bakersfield Art Czar, all madly laughing, cackling in their joyous glee of invading billboard artistry.
The Getty police came swooping out of the very stone building like golems. They ripped themselves from the architecture, rocky hands with uzis, ready to spray the Ghengis billboards with holes the size of human eyeballs.
The mad cackling continued.
A crowd gathered.
Bullhorns whipped into the air in a call to arms from the grinning cloned Czars of the underground art world. They stood at the Great Wall of the Getty, and in a torrent of words, hailed, “Let us in to the big kahuna cow patty in the sky!”
Oh and don’t think the guns didn’t cock with stony fingers on triggers. Many aimed at the angry paintings while a few targeted the bullhorns, and even one on the leading Art Czar, who didn't yell at all but leaned on a truck without a bullhorn, his jaw tightening while he flipped a cigarette bummed from a fanatical UCLA student from the Midwest; Midwest of Hollywood that is.
And then I woke up.
What could such a dream mean?
I had just been to the best art show the Empty Space had yet seen (check out the media blitz before the show). I had slept a few uneasy chest cold ughh nights contemplating the imperfections of Bakersfield city life. No, this show wasn’t necessarily in the Getty-style artwork of the masters, but it was in the drive and ambition of artists as hungry to storm the walls of art show success. And weren't the many buzzing ghosts of masters once hungry? One has to have the desire even before making such a conquering climb, right?
The flames of artistic passion were at an all-time high in the Bakersfield art scene.
Sure I’ve been to other galleries in town. Money flows through those like the Kern River as of late: bubbling up the banks, California gold flowing through the city center like coins rolling downhill. And so expensive to buy just a trickle. Or is it just in a name?
Let me get back to Bakersfield’s underground art movement. The themed movement that emanates from a collective spirit, the art shows that spring up at a local free theatre like strange Alice in Wonderland plants twisting from an ironic landscape of beckoning themes. And this like no other, because just like the ill tapestries of Wonderland’s maniacal scenery, there came a recent mocking of our own very city that in reality is just as confusing, yet as simple in thought as if unraveling Lewis Carroll’s speech through medicated prose between book covers:
Hear the Duchess? She growls: Be what you would seem to be—or, if you'd like it put more simply—Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
Oh, you don’t get it?
Neither did Bakersfield’s Chamber of Commerce when they made up “Bakersfield: Life as it should be”.
It’s simple if you can see between the excess verbage to the moral of the Wonderland story.
Our local Art Czar (and other brave souls) showed his mocking understanding through artistic merit in a city which he, like the rest of us love, when he triumphantly skipped around the very crippled movement of the city marketing engine—a thump whump senile footstep no different than an old man with a cane in our own city, hands fumbling for a grip on reality, lost in illusion from fanciful dreams of a perfect youth that just never was.
Ahh, the good old days.
Were they?
The city wants you to think the good old days are now. They’re the old man you know. Do I have to remind you? See the city trip off the curb?
The Art Czar: he rebelled and said, “More cow pies in the sky!” Then hung them.
Lynched!
Notice the proximity between pie in the sky and relief
He exclaimed, “This city is perfect!” Then erected artwork in the form of moths flying to the burning red light district of an illusion-filled Confederate-conservative toolbox city.
Are you drawn to the light, to the light of an elusive gilded truth… oh the gilded age of Bakersfield once again? Kern County once trapped European youth exclaiming, “Rosedale! A Garden of Eden! Tranquil! Noble! Lush!” And those very minstrel youths turned into the first Lords of Bakersfield.
What will the city create now through such illusion and lures?
And the Art Czar said, “I’ll show you roadmaps.” And he hung those too: the illusions of a grand dream that pisses away high crime, valley fever laden, smog-filled reality for a big round sucker licked by those hungry for candy dreams. Do they think they’re in a desert?
This is a golden valley.
Or is it?
When the valley turns gold, it’s fire season.
The water is gold. The oil is gold. The industry is treasure. The people are shit. Unless creamy drippings from the Häagen-Dazs Oaks (one of our ‘life as it should be’ developments for the Bakersield country club rich and famous). Are you?
And so life goes.
I commend the Art Czar and the many of the Damned who braved city storms to stand up in polite mockery of the hellish wheels of the Bakersfield City Marketing engine.
I applaud.
********
More artwork from those artists who are perhaps damned to live life as it should be:
monopoly culture: real life
fighting culture: rough life
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drug culture: sick life
the damned: our life
Don’t forget to attend “Stories From Dust” at 7PM Wednesday night at Russo’s Books at the Marketplace—for a literary treat. You'll learn about machismo there...
Matildakay has a new blog she’s writing just for Noveltown. She’s put her narrative chick flick spin on promotional writing, and it’s hilarious. Check out her first issue, titled, “Noveltown partners with BIFF”. She wrote the goods about the June 23-24th Bakersfield independent film event that was just held at the Spotlight Theatre. She’s about to post another on Wednesday’s literary/poetry event, “Stories from Dust” (June 28th) that’s being put on by Noveltown and is supported by Poets & Writers Inc., Bakotopia, MÁS Magazine, Russo's Poets, Russo's Books, and Cerro Coso's Metamorphoses Journal. That’s at Russo’s Books in the Marketplace from 7-9 PM and features T.Z. Hernandez, storytelling, Matt Munoz of Mento Buru with song and storytelling, poets galore, and more.
Heyday Books literary/poets workshop in Merced
T.Z. Hernandez
Although I was sad to miss the recent Chicana Book Club Ana Castillo event, and it was probably pretty cool, T.Z. Hernandez is coming to town. (read Castillo's blog, she writes about Bakersfield)
Tim Z. Hernandez is a performance artist and poet. He grew up at various places in the Central Valley but now resides in Colorado. You can read all about him in this week’s edition of MÁS Magazine where he granted them a cool interview ("Writer to Share Central Valley Experiences Through Poetry")
MÁS Magazine cover mentions Noveltown event
Get to know T.Z.
As for me, I first met T.Z. at the Great Valley Books Writers Conference in Merced, California (Hear about the event on the Buck City Podcast #34. Includes an interview with T.Z.). He was giving a poetry workshop at the Merced Cultural Arts Center. I sat in his workshop and learned about how T.Z. interprets the space around to write what he sometimes calls the non-poem. He had his class do the same… they wandered outside to experiment with their levels of awareness. They thought and reached with their entire bodies into surrounding space to feel and experience what they could put into words. It was a blessing of an experience and I’m sure you will get even more from T.Z while he performs in Bakersfield with a poem or two from his Heyday Books title, Skin Tax.
Reflecting on an anyday poetic experience
Music and poetry and thought
Support the arts and come June 28th, this Wednesday to Russo's at the Marketplace and meet T.Z. Hernandez and other local artists. Copies of the inaugural Metamorphoses will be given away and you can purchase copies of Skin Tax as well as the Russo's Poets book, "On Any Given Wednesday" (poets will be performing from this group!)
What is your poetry and literary awareness?
And you can even get a copy of Lords: Part One. Unless you don't like scary books about Bakersfield...
I was on a mission last Thursday to see three Bakersfield area bands: The Dives, Throatshot, and Stereotactic. I showed up too late with Flower in the Dale and her big purple broken arm to see The Dives but was in time to check out one of Throatshot’s last performances for a while and Stereotactic's tour kick-off.
Where was I?
Oh yes I did.
Here’s Jerry’s mug to even prove where I was.
Counting the change...
You can even see the dragon game (*mortal combat), guardian to one of the entrances to the treasured pit beneath the pizza parlor (check out the dude flipping me off! Cool!)
Check out the guy flipping me off... funny...
It was hot, it was humid, and the Pizza-a-go-go was waiting for me to make a descent into its cavernous subterranean bosom.
Now I heard the local cops shut down an art show of some type just down the streets from Jerry’s Pizza. They said it was a fire hazard. Maybe because Jerry’s dim basement has two exits there’s less of a chance to burn into a fiery heap if the building caught fire. I don’t know. Maybe the pizza is just that good and the local cops don’t want to piss off Jerry who might shut down and open a new joint in the Marketplace for all those spoiled rich kids to come and hear music for the first time.
OK I’m joking. Have a sense of humor. Jerry's Pizza isn't going anywhere. I saw the Kerouac of Kmart, said a few polite words to each other. I tried to snap a photo of him but he wasn't interested in his mug shot going on nlbelardes.com. No problem. Now for the show...
Throatshot is an incredible punch to the neck with industrial sounds, vibrant keyboard work from Videodrone’s old guru, Rohan, Darin’s incredible guitar work and Brad’s delightful skip-through-the-briar-patch lyrics that makes you want to put on a bonnet and suck your thumb. Yeah I’m kidding again. You should know any Throatshot concert is like living through horror movie film, and soundtrack, and Brad will scream into your ears like your worst nightmare. And let me tell you, the chicks dig the way he sways, swings from the rafters and jumps around stage, literally sweating on concert-goers. And yet he's so bashful in an interview...
You ever see Rohan flip his hair with those mad eyes staring and that impish grin on his face as he works his keyboard rig and tunes in samples of babies crying and electronic hisses, etc.?
Bakersfield music history is always alive in the cavern of rock and roll, superheated in the dim basement darkness… Look for Throatshot to have a video made by Hectic Films in horror movie fashion. Oh yeah…
I also had a nice sit down talk with Brad for the Buck City Podcast. He told me lots of good news about the band, about his writing, and what can be expected in the months to come.
My other interview of the night was with local band Stereotactic who were kicking off a summer tour to help promote their album, The Dawning. Kyle was quick to let me know that fans could catch them in Fresno on July 9th on the Warped Tour. Sounds like a blast of a time.
I noticed Stereotactic may have a few changes in the band. Missing was the guitarist with the huge fro pompadour. Where’d he go? Not sure. The music was just as satisfying as always. Stereotactic tore it up and even laid two new tracks in the laps of those at the pizza joint. Rocking? Yes. Fast-paced rock that’s as swooshing as a light saber tearing through the basement darkness. And Kyle was all over the stage as usual… with his counterpart, Todd tearing into some of the lyrics too.
Yeah, I even snapped a photo of the audience—several girls in the Jerry’s darkness shot me glances like they were the Harpies of the underground cavern, ready to fly at me and rip my head off…
But they didn’t and tucked in their talons and got back into Stereotactic’s jams as if I’d never been in the crowd, in their cavern, down in the flaming depths of the pizza-a-go-go…
*I don't know what I was thinking. This game I originally called a pinball machine. What the heck? That was no pinball game. Thanks Rob Shock...
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