Novelist wanders, ponders NASCAR podcasts, and enters Chinatown LA - By N.L. Belardes
As a novelist I like to wander, to observe, to take mental notes that I can later withdraw from memory in narrative fashion. For those of you who think I’m only about the music scene, it’s just not true. My novels dwarf the writing I have done in the art scene over the past few months. Such novels have been written at a much deeper thematic level and are my main interest, love, and reason I have been getting my name out to the fine folks of Bakersfield. So when folks just call me a blogger, I kind of laugh and shrug. It’s just that people only know me as a blogger so that is the most popular perception of me right now. But hopefully that will all change. I mean heck, pretty soon people will call me a podcaster, then what will they think? Will I be the blogger-podcaster, the podblogger, the novelist/blogger/podboy?? I’m even going to start reading one of my novels in my podcasts for your listening pleasure. Talk about confusion; but all for the good of tickling the fancy of you readers out there. Thick White Crust will be part of my very brief ‘Morning Cereal with the Buck City Podcast’ program. Look for an entire art page revamping to gear up for the podcast onlslaught I’m about to make… it’s all to promote the music scene, the literary arts, performing and fine arts.
Another Bakersfield podcast
to help rule the universe...
Speaking of local podcasts, there is another local podcast you can now download. “Nascarzone: The Podcast for Racing fans” is run by big-time sportscaster Corey Costelloe of AM 1230. This guy hosts podcasts like he’s calling a Daytona 500 race to the wire. Give him a listen. He’s fast and furious with his play-by-play of the latest Nascar happenings. He’s going to be a big part of this site as we’re going to cross promote what we’re both doing for your listening pleasure. I should add that I can no longer promote myself as the only podcast out of Bakersfield, California. I can however still promote the Buck City Podcast as the ‘first’ podcast out of Bakersfield as I beat Corey’s Nascarzone by less than a car length, having my world premiere around June 22, 2005 while the Nascarzone’s debut was on June 27, 2005… that feisty Kevin Harvick might just be proud of my victory… (I know it’s not really a victory, but sounds good. Besides, Corey is top notch, with a real radio voice!)
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Back to a novelist’s wanderings, I wandered on down to Chinatown LA over the weekend. Broadway, College and Hill streets, just past Burbank. You know, that place where you can get your palm read and your future laid out for you by an aging Chinese fortune teller? You should hear the things he said to me in my one and only fortune teller experience a few months back… Anyway, I wandered up and down streets, into the dark marketplaces, hidden stores in the bowels of Chinatown, and further, to a little pet store where baby green googly-eyed chameleons that only cost 40 bucks slowly crawled on tiny branches. I was looking for material for a model to wear as I had been asked to partake in the Empty Space Theater’s ‘Exquisite Corpse’ exhibition with 7 other artists. I want mine to have an Asian theme, thus the Chinatown hunt was on. We continued past the outdoor pet store while one man tried paying 100 bucks for an already built hamster cage…
Over near the chicken slaughterhouses there was a dungy smell and cackle of chickens. Were the little beaky birds being killed, or was that an early morning Chinese chickenhouse routine? Yes, we were looking for Chinese fabrics of the most exotic kind, but how could we not wander into the slaughterhouse store where a one-eyed tapia fish hovered in a tank near chicken corpses—heads fully attached—and big flat flounders packed in ice that looked like they’d been stepped on in cartoon fashion, splat splat splat, as flat as can be.
Just up the street, Wing Hops is a little market up a slippery tiled ramp. We passed by some restaurants, a kiosk with wooden swords, toys and little painted turtles squirming in plastic cages. Near the elevator up to Wing Hops a music store played Chinese versions of songs from the little mermaid, and near a wall lazed a tiny Chinese man, asleep, head to chest…he seemed 100 years old. Of course in Wing Hops we found Chinese dragonhead masks and interesting sculptures that you could buy dirt cheap.
We soon left and found our way into a shark fin and sea cucumber store where two old timers argued over a game of Mah Jong. I looked for Gremlins in cages but saw none. The shark fins were all dried out, as were the sea cucumbers which you could buy large or small from glass canisters.
At the nearby Chinatown Plaza we bought passion fruit and green apple slushies at Via Café. That’s next to Munkey King toy store, just around the corner of the pagoda-shaped Hop Louies restaurant… Nearby, old men sat on benches and people-watched us as we all headed past to the rock fountain where we could throw coins into tin containers marked for long life, love, vacation, and more…
Another Bakersfield podcast
to help rule the universe...
Speaking of local podcasts, there is another local podcast you can now download. “Nascarzone: The Podcast for Racing fans” is run by big-time sportscaster Corey Costelloe of AM 1230. This guy hosts podcasts like he’s calling a Daytona 500 race to the wire. Give him a listen. He’s fast and furious with his play-by-play of the latest Nascar happenings. He’s going to be a big part of this site as we’re going to cross promote what we’re both doing for your listening pleasure. I should add that I can no longer promote myself as the only podcast out of Bakersfield, California. I can however still promote the Buck City Podcast as the ‘first’ podcast out of Bakersfield as I beat Corey’s Nascarzone by less than a car length, having my world premiere around June 22, 2005 while the Nascarzone’s debut was on June 27, 2005… that feisty Kevin Harvick might just be proud of my victory… (I know it’s not really a victory, but sounds good. Besides, Corey is top notch, with a real radio voice!)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Back to a novelist’s wanderings, I wandered on down to Chinatown LA over the weekend. Broadway, College and Hill streets, just past Burbank. You know, that place where you can get your palm read and your future laid out for you by an aging Chinese fortune teller? You should hear the things he said to me in my one and only fortune teller experience a few months back… Anyway, I wandered up and down streets, into the dark marketplaces, hidden stores in the bowels of Chinatown, and further, to a little pet store where baby green googly-eyed chameleons that only cost 40 bucks slowly crawled on tiny branches. I was looking for material for a model to wear as I had been asked to partake in the Empty Space Theater’s ‘Exquisite Corpse’ exhibition with 7 other artists. I want mine to have an Asian theme, thus the Chinatown hunt was on. We continued past the outdoor pet store while one man tried paying 100 bucks for an already built hamster cage…
Over near the chicken slaughterhouses there was a dungy smell and cackle of chickens. Were the little beaky birds being killed, or was that an early morning Chinese chickenhouse routine? Yes, we were looking for Chinese fabrics of the most exotic kind, but how could we not wander into the slaughterhouse store where a one-eyed tapia fish hovered in a tank near chicken corpses—heads fully attached—and big flat flounders packed in ice that looked like they’d been stepped on in cartoon fashion, splat splat splat, as flat as can be.
Just up the street, Wing Hops is a little market up a slippery tiled ramp. We passed by some restaurants, a kiosk with wooden swords, toys and little painted turtles squirming in plastic cages. Near the elevator up to Wing Hops a music store played Chinese versions of songs from the little mermaid, and near a wall lazed a tiny Chinese man, asleep, head to chest…he seemed 100 years old. Of course in Wing Hops we found Chinese dragonhead masks and interesting sculptures that you could buy dirt cheap.
We soon left and found our way into a shark fin and sea cucumber store where two old timers argued over a game of Mah Jong. I looked for Gremlins in cages but saw none. The shark fins were all dried out, as were the sea cucumbers which you could buy large or small from glass canisters.
At the nearby Chinatown Plaza we bought passion fruit and green apple slushies at Via Café. That’s next to Munkey King toy store, just around the corner of the pagoda-shaped Hop Louies restaurant… Nearby, old men sat on benches and people-watched us as we all headed past to the rock fountain where we could throw coins into tin containers marked for long life, love, vacation, and more…
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Monday, July 11, 2005.
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