Youngsters in Delano, California's Philippine Weekend Parade
Philippine Weekend in Delano, California is supposed to be all about Filipino society in America. Or is it? At Cecil Avenue Park I saw very little in the event structure that made me think of Filipino culture. The parade harbored cultural glimpses of beauty pageants, floats, and more…
People gather on the shady side of the parade route
Get the best Halo Halo and slushies in Delano
I grabbled a hot dog and a vanilla Coke and wandered downtown and people-watched. I snapped a few photos including of the parade itself: the beauty pageant floats, the children in cultural dress and the walking martial arts team…
What is the Filipino-American dream?
Yet at the park I saw a big inflatable tunnel and slide, a rock climbing tower, booths that represented businesses such as real estate and banking, and merchandise such as sunglasses and silk-screened clothing. Food barely represented any Filipino culture with only one booth designated for cultural food.
The taming of the new Filipino-American dream?
The lone Filipino food booth
At least one maker of Filipino foods was refused a booth at the event.
Other food booths at the event represented Kettle Corn, Thai food and Chinese food. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I thought this was a Filipino cultural event, not an Asian cultural event. Instead, the event mimicked the Americanization of the culture of business with glimpses of Filipino culture sprinkled throughout dances and a festive Saturday morning parade.
Headed to the Filipino-American food both
The line at the Filipino food booth was the longest, and so the event could have benefited from more Filipino food booths. I peeked in the back of the tent just to see how hard folks were working… and yes, they were.
Prepping ingredients for Halo Halo
I was also refused a booth where I planned on promoting literary arts about Filipino culture. I had hoped to talk to youth to find out just who some of the Central Valley Filipino Central Valley poets might be. Instead, I did see some rather empty slots, a booth jammed with politicians: the Parras, who are not Filipino, nor represent Filipino culture other than possibly through common-shared American interests. They were there for votes. Can’t blame them for being politicians. Yet you have to ask if a Latino-politicized event is a Filipino cultural event.
Pete Parra helps politicize Philippine Weekend
Is someone in this car responsible for the lack of culture at Philippine Weekend? Did someone not return a phone call?
Political motivation behind not filling all booth space?
Missing was the Filipino historian from last year who was on a mission to create awareness of Filipino farmworkers in American history, and also missing was the booth promoting Filipino-American novels and history books from last year. I heard the historian didn’t even show up on the second day last year. Was no one at this Filipino cultural event interested in history and the arts other than through traditional dance?
I would have stayed for both days had I got a table OK’d.
And it’s not that I mind not having a table, although I would have loved to promote the literary arts through my short story, Pinay printed in Metamorphoses, and through the novel I’m working on with a working title of Mamao. What I minded was the politics involved that prevented me from having a table where cultural interaction could have taken place, where I could have learned and helped guide poets and literary-minded Filipino-Americans with my expertise, knowledge and love for cultural literary arts.
Through a contact I couldn’t even get a return call; so, no table at the event was allocated to help promote Filipino cultural literary arts; a sad day because of unspoken politics, no doubt.
I attended the festivities, and though I saw thousands of Filipinos, and mixed Filipinos, I’m not so sure the event was cultural as many hoped. The reality is the Americanization of Philippine culture and a dislocated youth from their own past. It happens in any transplanted culture to the Americas.
QYORK represents the Americanization of Fili-youth. Their music is an often politicized Hip-Hop journey through the American and Filipino-American landscape
Americanized? We’re all Americanized. But we do want to learn culture through more than the few traditional dances. People want to read, to discuss, to capture through other artforms: film, literary, theatre, fine arts.
In the end I drove around Delano, to historic sites and down Glenwood Street to see remnants of the old Delano Chinatown/Filipino section. I snapped photos and asked about old bars, restaurants and pool halls where a certain old manong and his old friends hung out…
Possible site of Agbayani Village *Agbayani Village may be on the west side of town...
Old building from labor camp now at historical center?
Boarded up remnants of gambling hall, pool hall, restaurant?
Americanization boarded up for post-modern fast food culture
Old Delano transformed into new youth culture?
Some people call this area Chinatown because there were several Chinese restaurants
We drove past farmland where workers ate Table Grapes off vines, not thoroughly washing them, and bearing children who entered a world of cancer clusters and racism, a world where education meant escaping small town Delano—not a bad town, but a farming town where Filipino generations fell into conflict about old traditions versus new…
Here’s a few paragraphs from an early draft of the novel I’m working on. It's the story of a young girl and how her generation conflicts with two other generations of Filipino-Americans:
Mamao
By N.L. Belardes
Dust filled the air on the drive home along County Line Road. As the van rocked and bounced I imagined a boat sailing through Delano, California, skimming upon a lonely river, spitting up particles of itself, even letting out an occasional cough as we moved along vine covered shores toward the coming darkness. I strained to look to the north, for the silhouetted wings of a monster flying low over the grape vineyards. As we headed away from the sun I could see the fields stood empty of workers. Leaves glistened under a dying day; the sun sunk its glowing eye in a far western Central Valley rim of coastal mountains; heat waves rippled along the sun’s curvature like golden welling tears. Even so, the falling sun didn’t keep me from looking over my shoulder. If there was another glowing eye, I was convinced it was that of the mamao.
“You’re my princess, Neneng,” Papa smiled. I called grandpa, Papa, and my daddy, Tatay. Don’t let that confuse you. I called mother, mother and grandma, grandma, though I am still often called Neneng, which means baby girl to my Filipino family. We often traveled together as a close family unit and were on our way home from picking table grapes off the six-foot tall grape trellis lining the fields just off County Line Road.
Papa seemed especially happy as he sat and wiped his hands with a handkerchief. He smiled to me and out the window as if he were in defiance of the very mamao herself. I leaned my chin into my hand, my fingers touching my lips as I stared. In a low voice Papa whispered, “Don’t put your fingers in your mouth, Neneng.” He was leaning close and I could feel his breath on my ear. I pulled my fingers away but continued my search.
I thought I could hear her flying low, swooping her wings in a frightening beat that made a distinct clacking noise; wak wak wak her great wings went as she searched with drooling jaws for the taste of me, and more appropriately for her, the taste of my liver. That’s the mamao’s feast. It’s what mother said she would take, what legends say: the aswang, the manananggal, or our tagalog slang version, the mamao who tears into liver flesh with vampyric intentions. She would scrape it right out of my body with her long talons. But only if I wasn’t inside the house before dark. That’s what both mother and grandmother said. In the meantime what did she do in the day? Hide in the vineyards and poison the fruits with her long mosquito-like appendage? Like a skunk maybe she sprayed the fields… Or would she just sip the juice from each orb like water-blood as she hid in a hole in the earth, her wings folded around her like a suit of snake scales? No, unlike my liver that she would like to feast on I was certain she was a contaminator. She would spread her sickness across the entire valley, each grape her victim; only if she weren’t so bent on finding me.
For a moment I thought I saw her. I opened my mouth to scream, thinking her black wings had stretched above distant fields, naked as they flapped and searched for me, perhaps even waiting for me to leave the steely safety of Tatay’s car. Papa sat next to me. He looked wizened in his little black glasses with his eyes staring from beneath a head of grey hair. He held one arm around me while I nuzzled into his plaid shirt, right into his armpit and against his steely blue and silver pen that he always carried in his front shirt pocket. “Look at that plane, Neneng,” he said. “There is no mamao above the vineyards today. Don’t act so afraid.” And so the shadow transformed. What I thought could be a mamao was just a bi-plane possibly headed to Porterville or some farm property hangar.
The only refreshing thought other than the monster being a plane was that I could play in the fields and not get caught in the next day’s early morning light by any mean field workers. Only if my cousins wanted to go. They always loved to go.
But the day darkened as we drove along and for now I was consumed with thoughts of the mamao and what she might take from my insides. I was maybe five years old. Car lights drifted past as if boats jumping from island to island. And soon sleepiness fell on me too.
That’s how early childhood was for me: being afraid of the approaching dark, afraid of the mamao that my mother and grandmother put in my head when I was so filled with energy. And so I threatened to run into to the vineyards.
“You can’t go there,” mother said one day after my cousins and I wanted to play in the fields. It had grown late in the afternoon; there was barely any more light left to sneak across the street into the vineyards; yet it was still too early for me to believe a monster would come and gorge on my insides.
“No,” grandmother agreed. “The mamao will eat you up! And what it doesn’t eat, it will leave on a hill of bugs!”
That afternoon I went and sat in the backyard. There we had a pool where no one swam. What good is a swimming pool if you can’t use it? Didn’t matter, none of us in the house knew how to swim. Not even Tatay. I thought maybe Papa knew from when he was a little boy in the Philippines, or as a young man harvesting sugar cane on Oahu. Weren’t those tranquil lands of jungle rivers and lakes? And in the San Joaquin water once flowed in a giant system of lakes fed by many rivers. In hydrants and deadly canals crisscrossing the Central Valley with a deadly force as rivers fed their hungry arteries. Few dared go there. And Papa was now so old it didn’t matter. I couldn’t imagine a pair of swim trunks on his skinny old body. He in his khaki pants, with his notebook and scratched glasses; and me wondering as I always did about what Papa’s life had been like.
I picked up a rock and threw it into the swimming pool, wondering if there were fish inside and watching the water change into a greenish-brown color from the tainting of rocks and dirt. My cousin, Johnny stood nearby. Barely older than me, he threw rocks into the water too. He was like a brother to me. For the first few years of my life we lived in the same house as many Filipino families have had to do when trying to make ends meet. My three younger brothers were nowhere nearby. They were far too afraid of the water and its creepy unknown depths to even stand near the edge.
“I wonder if there are fish in there,” I said.
“That’s dumb. There’s no fish in there. Just a mamao. It’s going to eat your head!”
“Stop it!” I yelled, wanting to push him into the water. Usually I punched kids who made me mad. And that went for my cousin too. Just because he was older than me and a little taller didn’t mean I couldn’t sock him in the stomach and watch him cry. I almost did but for once I held back my anger. I knew I could get in trouble, especially if he were eaten by the pool’s hidden mamao.
At first I cursed A.S. Ashley. Hell, he could be that Pynchon of pinash, that thomasjacksonwalker in a straight man cape and painted on moustache. He still might be. Yet, the ghost himself has resurfaced in blog comments, and, has written his second favor for the artists of Bakersfield.
The cape flutters in the wind...
God knows what sights the poor man may have witnessed driving from the land of tinsel to the land of joey minstrel. If he actually drove up from the lusty southland, that is.
Ah, but I digress. My friend A.S., I take credit for dropping off the final S., which he knows depicts his true nature; anyway, we discussed this particular piece... and I rebelled against thomasjacksonwalker's ghostly prose, but alas, I recognize that there is value in consensus rather than conflict. And besides, thomasjacksonwalker is funnier than city council shit running out of their plugged toilet meetings...
You should have heard my diatribe. A.S. didn't say a word as I came full circle in logic, talking to myself more than to him, sounding reminiscent of Cameron on Ferris Bueller, and in the end stuttering, "I'll go. I'll go. I'll go. I'll go..."
Now read on and look forward to MORE articles from thomasjacksonwalker about whatever he wants to talk about on this site...
~the little red barn that could. by THOMASJACKSONWALKER
You know how these places work: They’re stupid little dinner theaters that appeal to the silver haired crowd. The theater owners buy a tired old script, plug in a bunch of young amateurs to perform it, and pray the “nostalgia” factor keeps the doors open. Pathetic.
I don’t know what A.S. ASHLEY was thinking when he asked me to come up from L. A., see a play at the local Melodrama, and write a review.
I loathe local theatre. I’m spoiled: I’ve seen “first run” Broadway plays since THE SOUND OF MUSIC; my mother used to torture me by breaking out in song every time I said a word that reminded me of her unrelenting musical library; and my father, a brilliant, frustrated, armchair director. Don’t get me wrong. I support local theater, but I understand it to be only the “teething ring” from which all greatness is born. I still can’t help from being a harsh critic of its obvious flaws.
As I made my way across the grapevine and entered into the boiling bowels of the “Golden Empire”, thunderstorms, God's thermostat set on nuclear reactor, and wind blowing dirt and dust in every direction, didn’t make the prospects for an entertaining evening any better. Bakersfield’s proposed slogan “life as it should be” mocks this metropolis “wanna be”, as I crawled down the traffic choked Rosedale Hwy toward my final destination off of Allen Rd..
There it was. A clean, cute, super tidy, little barn of a theatre (yes, it looks EXACTLY like a barn!). The parking lot was full. People moved hastily to the ticket booth in hopes of a quick exit for the brutal heat. Inside the concession area you saw the bustle of patrons gathering the necessary refreshments and goodies needed to sustain them through the first act. All the servers are actors in the production. Nice touch. Here you could see them made-up, up close and personal, as they sang for their tips like pirates for your pleasure. I took my seat at a back table to watch the play unfold.
The first bit of business was to look over the program for SAM SLEUTH and the FALL OF THE COFFEE BARON, which reads like an EVENING NEWS EXTRA (called, the MELODRAMA MUSE) with the headline: COFFEE TYCOON MISSING!
The Tycoon is a mannequin( ah, real mannequin). And according to the playbill.. .is played by Manny Quinn. The playbill also lists another actor, Harold, “the Owl”, who plays the part of Stu, the “seeing-eye hawk”, for “Fats"(James Mongold), the blind, jazz Trianglist... what a “HOOT”!
Here’s how Harold, the Owl’s Bio goes, “Harold is making his debut here at the Gaslight Melodrama after living most of his life in various wooded regions. ‘Playing the part of a seeing-eye hawk was a real challenge for me,’ Harold says. ‘Mainly because... I’m actually an owl.’ Harold doesn’t expect to audition for any other plays, but is planning on starting a film career. Currently, he’s co-writing a series of cop/buddy films with a woodpecker friend of his...”
Have I lost you yet? Then don’t come see the show. You’re too dense to appreciate it. This show is fast, sharp, and furiously funny.
This work is the virgin brain-child of James Mongold, co-authored and directed by Michael Prince. The brothers “grin” wanted to do a film noir, black and white “who-done-it” detective story so tongue-in-cheek, you have to wonder how many cans of “chew” they packed in there. Answer: plenty. They manage to satirize everything within reach: the story line, the cast, neighboring towns... even the intermission: after holding stage position from the first Act into the second…
~ACT 2 Scene 1 In the House house, Sam and Maxwell are still squaring off. Chazworth and Winthrop are still on the ground. MAXWELL: You see you see what happens? I’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes waiting for the intermission to end, and my roast has gone and burned to a crisp! You smell it? SAM: But you’re not standing. MAXWELL: How dare you, sir! You like to pick on the handicapped, do you? SAM: No, I’m just saying,......... MAXWELL: Shut up! Look, while we’ve been up here waiting for that mousy little girl to finish selling ice cream to all those people, my supper has been ruined! And on top of that, my two man-servants have died! You’re in a lot of trouble, Mister! SAM: Uh, I don’t think they’re dead. Suddenly, Chazworth sits up. CHAZWORTH: No, not dead at all, really. A bit groggy, perhaps. I mean, a dart in the neck is no swim in the park. Winthrop sits up. WINTHROP: And getting punched in the mouth hurts too. CHAZWORTH: Does it, old boy? WINTHROP: Oh yes, in fact! MAXWELL: Shut up, you two! Chazworth and Winthrop fall back to the floor, unconscious.
Ok, that’s all I’m giving you. I’m no “Spoiler”!
There are no “stars” in this production. It is truly an ensemble effort whose loyalties are to the jokes and gags. Michael Prince weaves the characters beautifully and at break-neck speed (don’t blink).
If this comedy doesn't slay you, stick around for the VAUDEVILLE REVIEW! (This is normally where I make my exit; there’s a REAL drink waiting for me somewhere!) Vaudeville Reviews usually bore me to tears, with their stupid comic routines and stale list of classic musical numbers. But not here folks! How about starting off with an ETHEL MERMAN IDOL Competition!? That's right! Male contestants in drag doing their worst impressions of the Broadway diva. Scream! The sardonic humor shifts into high gear for this show’s finale.
That’s it. I came, I saw, I laughed my ass off! Kudos to all at the Melodrama for bringing “Something Completely Different” (Monty Python), and making my visit to this cowtown well worth the ugly ride up here.
SAM SLEUTH and the FALL of the COFFEE BARON (July 21st-August 26th) THE GASLIGHT MELODRAMA ~Call (661) 587-3377 for reservations 12748 JOMANI DR., BAKERSFIELD, CA 93312
CARNAGE ASADA: It's a BBQ. Bring meat. You have to know where I live to attend and it's 2$ at the door. Why? Because you get to be entertained by Dirty Spanglish (And it's his birthday).
This is late notice, but if people find out I had a BBQ, made homemade salsa and cooked lots of meat and didn't invite... well, there would be hell to pay.
Yes Shantell, I will cook veggies for you if you show up.
You never know who shows up. Could be no one, could be lots of artists to mingle... but remember, it's about the BDAY HEAT MEISER OF SPANGLISHLAND.... so show up and pay your respects to his old age of some freaky teenage number(16?, 18?, 13?)!!
At first I cursed A.S. Ashley. Hell, he could be that Pynchon of pinash, that thomasjacksonwalker in a straight man cape and painted on moustache. He still might be. Yet, the ghost himself has resurfaced in blog comments, and, has written his second favor for the artists of Bakersfield.
The cape flutters in the wind...
God knows what sights the poor man may have witnessed driving from the land of tinsel to the land of joey minstrel. If he actually drove up from the lusty southland.
Ah, but I digress. My friend A.S., I take credit for dropping off the final S., which he knows depicts his true nature; anyway, we discussed this particular piece... and I rebelled against thomasjacksonwalker's ghostly prose, but alas, I recognize that there is value in consensus rather than conflict. And besides, thomasjacksonwalker is funnier than city council shit running out of their plugged toilet meetings...
You should have heard my diatribe. A.S. didn't say a word as I came full circle in logic, talking to myself more than him like Cameron on Ferris Bueller, and in the end stuttering, "I'll go. I'll go. I'll go. I'll go..."
Read on and look forward in the future to MORE from thomasjacksonwalker about whatever he wants to talk about on this site...
~the little red barn that could. by THOMASJACKSONWALKER
You know how these places work: They’re stupid little dinner theaters that appeal to the silver haired crowd. The theater owners buy a tired old script, plug in a bunch of young amateurs to perform it, and pray the “nostalgia” factor keeps the doors open. Pathetic.
I don’t know what A.S. ASHLEY was thinking when he asked me to come up from L. A., see a play at the local Melodrama, and write a review.
I loathe local theatre. I’m spoiled: I’ve seen “first run” Broadway plays since THE SOUND OF MUSIC; my mother used to torture me by breaking out in song every time I said a word that reminded me of her unrelenting musical library; and my father, a brilliant, frustrated, armchair director. Don’t get me wrong. I support local theater, but I understand it to be only the “teething ring” from which all greatness is born. I still can’t help from being a harsh critic of its obvious flaws. As I made my way across the grapevine and entered into the boiling bowels of the “Golden Empire”, thunderstorms, God's thermostat set on nuclear reactor, and wind blowing dirt and dust in every direction, didn’t make the prospects for an entertaining evening any better. Bakersfield’s proposed slogan “life as it should be” mocks this metropolis “wanna be”, as I crawled down the traffic choked Rosedale Hwy toward my final destination off of Allen Rd.. There it was. A clean, cute, super tidy, little barn of a theatre (yes, it looks EXACTLY like a barn!). The parking lot was full. People moved hastily to the ticket booth in hopes of a quick exit for the brutal heat. Inside the concession area you saw the bustle of patrons gathering the necessary refreshments and goodies needed to sustain them through the first act. All the servers are actors in the production. Nice touch. Here you could see them made-up, up close and personal, as they sang for their tips like pirates for your pleasure. I took my seat at a back table to watch the play unfold.
The first bit of business was to look over the program for SAM SLEUTH and the FALL OF THE COFFEE BARON, which reads like an EVENING NEWS EXTRA (called, the MELODRAMA MUSE) with the headline: COFFEE TYCOON MISSING!
The Tycoon is a mannequin( ah, real mannequin). And according to the playbill.. .is played by Manny Quinn. The playbill also lists another actor, Harold, “the Owl”, who plays the part of Stu, the “seeing-eye hawk”, for “Fats"(James Mongold), the blind, jazz Trianglist... what a “HOOT”!
Here’s how Harold, the Owl’s Bio goes, “Harold is making his debut here at the Gaslight Melodrama after living most of his life in various wooded regions. ‘Playing the part of a seeing-eye hawk was a real challenge for me,’ Harold says. ‘Mainly because... I’m actually an owl.’ Harold doesn’t expect to audition for any other plays, but is planning on starting a film career. Currently, he’s co-writing a series of cop/buddy films with a woodpecker friend of his...”
Have I lost you yet? Then don’t come see the show. You’re too dense to appreciate it. This show is fast, sharp, and furiously funny.
This work is the virgin brain-child of James Mongold, co-authored and directed by Michael Prince. The brothers “grin” wanted to do a film noir, black and white “who-done-it” detective story so tongue-in-cheek, you have to wonder how many cans of “chew” they packed in there. Answer: plenty. They manage to satirize everything within reach: the story line, the cast, neighboring towns... even the intermission: after holding stage position from the first Act into the second…
~ACT 2 Scene 1 In the House house, Sam and Maxwell are still squaring off. Chazworth and Winthrop are still on the ground. MAXWELL: You see you see what happens? I’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes waiting for the intermission to end, and my roast has gone and burned to a crisp! You smell it? SAM: But you’re not standing. MAXWELL: How dare you, sir! You like to pick on the handicapped, do you? SAM: No, I’m just saying,......... MAXWELL: Shut up! Look, while we’ve been up here waiting for that mousy little girl to finish selling ice cream to all those people, my supper has been ruined! And on top of that, my two man-servants have died! You’re in a lot of trouble, Mister! SAM: Uh, I don’t think they’re dead. Suddenly, Chazworth sits up. CHAZWORTH: No, not dead at all, really. A bit groggy, perhaps. I mean, a dart in the neck is no swim in the park. Winthrop sits up. WINTHROP: And getting punched in the mouth hurts too. CHAZWORTH: Does it, old boy? WINTHROP: Oh yes, in fact! MAXWELL: Shut up, you two! Chazworth and Winthrop fall back to the floor, unconscious.
Ok, that’s all I’m giving you. I’m no “Spoiler”!
There are no “stars” in this production. It is truly an ensemble effort whose loyalties are to the jokes and gags. Michael Prince weaves the characters beautifully and at break-neck speed (don’t blink).
If this comedy doesn't slay you, stick around for the VAUDEVILLE REVIEW! (This is normally where I make my exit; there’s a REAL drink waiting for me somewhere!) Vaudeville Reviews usually bore me to tears, with their stupid comic routines and stale list of classic musical numbers. But not here folks! How about starting off with an ETHEL MERMAN IDOL Competition!? That's right! Male contestants in drag doing their worst impressions of the Broadway diva. Scream! The sardonic humor shifts into high gear for this show’s finale.
That’s it. I came, I saw, I laughed my ass off! Kudos to all at the Melodrama for bringing “Something Completely Different” (Monty Python), and making my visit to this cowtown well worth the ugly ride up here.
SAM SLEUTH and the FALL of the COFFEE BARON (July 21st-August 26th) THE GASLIGHT MELODRAMA ~Call (661) 587-3377 for reservations 12748 JOMANI DR., BAKERSFIELD, CA 93312
Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen, aka Dr. BLT is not going to be left out of the Bakersfield artists' quest to educate city leaders. Yes, The World's First Blog n Roll Artist has recognized the use of poor marketing slogans and city sign ideas that are better left as seals for crusty parchment paper...
I asked Bruce about his inspiration.
He wrote:
I was inspired to write this song after reading the disparate opinions of readers of the local paper concerning the proposed new logo for Bakersfield, and after writing my own letter to the editor concerning my feelings on the leafy symbol and the motto: Bakersfield: Life as it Should Be. As a psychologist, I am often in the business of contrasting the delusional fantasies of patients with reality. While I'm sure the person who came up with "Bakersfield: Life as it Should Be" was not delusional or psychotic in the clinical sense, I thought they may be able to use a "musical prescription" to align themselves with the reality in Bakersfield. In the song I tried to transport the listener beyond the despair that often accompanies stark, cold reality to a place of hope and optimism about what Bakersfield could be.
Check out his song, "Bakersfield: (This Ain't) Life As it Should Be"
You never know what’s being produced in a farming community. Could be tomatoes or potatoes; could be melons or citrus, grapes or lettuce… or even a rock and roll band. Just check out Arvin, California. A few dozen miles southeast of Bakersfield there’s one high school, lots of good Mexican food, and lots of youth energy, all grown on the vine...
A little bird once told me that kids who want to ditch class at Arvin High literally step out of class and walk right through agricultural fields to who knows where. Maybe they go practice in a rock and roll band, maybe they run off to smoke some cigarettes or pot. Who knows? Everyone has their reason for sneaking from academia or rebelling against the MAN, or just seeking feelings of independence.
Music from the desert... Eyes Set To Kill
But don’t get me wrong. Lots of good students are involved in the rock and roll scene. I’m just sayin’… kids in farming communities get bored, and you don’t have to be hiding behind a trash bin from your health teacher to pick up a guitar and scream about broken society.
I was at Backstage last night. It was Sarah’s birthday. You probably don’t know Sarah. She gets crap from some people for supporting the music she likes. I don’t give her hell. I went to high school with her pop—a long-haired boy back in the day… and I just support her and Bakersfield music in general.
Sarah on myspace...
Daniel from Studio 99 gets junked on Net
So I showed up and there she was working the cash box, addicted to myspace right there at the Backstage Studio. And she wasn’t the only one. I slightly drooled as Daniel from Bakersfield’s Studio 99 also jumped online.
We can’t get enough. But I was there to cover a show.
KRAB DJ Hammer is faced toward the camera (without hat)
DJ, Hammer from Hell was in the house kickin’ it, while I meandered to the front of the crowd to photograph a bunch of Arvin kids from The Young Death rocking the stage. The music, post-hardcore screamo, was, to put mildly, ear-wrenching angst-filled music squeezed from Central Valley farmland. My ears burned, rung, and I desperately wanted to jam silly putty into my brain to stop it from vibrating—these kids rocked. I waded my way through the darkness and sound, got some good shots of these youth, these 16-year-old rockers who have been rocking in their band The Young Death for three years.
Look at Jorge screaming while Raul rips bass (Tyler and Weenie are shredding in middle of photo)
“How many times you guys play Jerry’s?” I said after the show to the most youthful kid in the band. He’s sixteen, but a youthful sixteen, and will thank me for saying such when he’s my age.
“Maybe seven times.”
“And your favorite venue in Bakersfield?”
“Studio 99.” That’s over by Buck Owens Crystal Palace.
“What about in Arvin? Where do you perform there? Do you play at the high school?”
“We’re allowed to play there at lunch. We do house gigs a lot. Wherever we can play.”
I asked what their parents did for a living and was told various jobs with at least two working in the fields. This is rock from farm labor country we’re talking about.
These kids piled all their gear and ducked down dusty roads in the severe heat just to perform and sweat in Bakersfield. For what?
Because they choose to?
Subliminal message in the posters of Backstage?
Hell yeah, why not? Backstage is an all ages venue, with posters on the wall, a few tables and a big fluffy couch—plenty of room from any potential mosh pit shenanigans…
I dig it.
I also saw Eyes Set To Kill from Chandler, Arizona. Chandler lies in the greater Phoenix area, in case you’re wondering… This mostly chick band destroyed what was left of my hearing, with one vocalist screaming at decibels I thought only jet aircraft could roar. Yes, Brandon was that loud.
Brandon from Eyes Set To Kill screams
I couldn’t understand a word he was saying; and just like the previous band, one vocalist screamed, while the other, in this case, the beautiful young Lyndsay, sung in a poppy tone that wowed all the strapping rockers in the crowd. It was a strange mixture of lovely and terrifying… but that’s just today’s post hardcore flavor.
