A literary perspective on the Lords of Bakersfield - By N.L. Belardes
It’s been interesting reading comments on Lords: Part One. I have been getting a lot of support, and very little non-support. The non-support mostly comes from the Bakersfield Californian angry about what they think are bullying statements from me, and God knows why they won’t write about Lords: Part One, and a few folks unhappy with the old Dim article who are attacking for the sake of attacking. Either way, folks are reading a personal blog, and that’s nice to see; although I may take down comments because there’s just too much ‘heated’ language on both sides.
I am amazed that a few haters keep commenting. Personally, when I don’t like what I’m reading, I stop going to that site. I gave up on Salon.com partly because they started charging folks, and partly because the articles weren’t interesting enough for me to want to pay money. I can get enough for free from all the many news links listed on the drudgereport.com. And when I don’t like an author or writer, I am not usually hateful about it. I just stop reading. But then as a local musician put to me recently, “Small town gossip gets hateful, Nick.”
I do have to say that a couple of the comments I received were rather uneducated and do require some comment of my own. One was a comment that Lords: Part One regurgitates what the Californian already wrote regarding the Lords of Bakersfield. They’re referring to the 2003 Bakersfield Californian articles by Robert Price. First off, they need to look at the book ‘Valley Fire’ which offers a lot more study of the topic and is where Robert Price got some of his information. That was the book that really broke the stories.
Robert Price’s tongue-and-cheek blurb on Lords: Part One being redundant was fun as well, though misguided because he hadn’t read the book. He admitted to me that he hadn’t read it so I assume he was merely poking fun with his comment. I have strong doubts whether the commenter purchased my book and read it as well. More than likely the Robert Price blurb was read and so agreed upon by the commenter. Maybe not. I’m just guessing.
But why would I say comments of ‘regurgitation’ and ‘redundancy’ are uneducated? Well for one, you have to wonder if the commenter or Robert Price have even lifted a history book. I’m sure Robert Price has. He appears well educated and articulate, though it’s his ‘redundancy’ jest that is misleading and would make a historian like me even bring up such a notion.
Why? Any good look at history is historiographical in nature, as history is constantly re-examined from new compared to old perspectives, or the varying ‘Schools of Thought’. Each view offers potential new insight, critique and debate over historical philosophies. Such multiple views of the past give greater meaning and understanding to people, events, economies, politics and society. History itself is so balkanized that good college texts all provide a historiographical approach with many ideas and views per historical topic. That means, you read about an event from the various perspectives written by the scholars. You don’t read from one perspective and that’s that. That would be uneducated. Americans are guilty of such study of the past every day. You think there can’t be new history books on the American Civil War? Think again. Studying such an event is not redundant at all, and the news stories breaking the Civil War happened, oh, a long time ago… There are new works on the subject all the time coming out of leading universities and valiantly discussed in the William and Mary Quarterly and Journal of American History by leading scholars on the subject. And the perspectives are many: Economic, Consensus, Progressive, Marxist, Feminine, African-American, and so on. Such perspectives keep history itself in check and utilizes new historical source material. Newspaper articles are the easiest source material to use, and are often some of the most biased for historians to scour… that’s why historians poke their noses into every source material available: oral histories, marriage records, video, archaeological, medical, war records, diaries, and so on and are too numerous to list.
My take on the Lords of Bakersfield is just one more perspective on events described in the local newspaper…
While my novel follows the historical path and some of the details presented in the Californian articles, in no other way can you compare the two. My psychological approach to the characters and the new fictitious details presented in telling the story describe a unique perspective to the Lords of Bakersfield.
Anyone who thinks the Bakersfield Californian is the end all for the study of the Lords of Bakersfield is merely being spoon fed history through one perspective: the local print media. History will look back on the history of the Lords of Bakersfield and say, “The articles were not enough, and the N.L. Belardes book was not enough.”
What I provide is a literary perspective of the Lords of Bakersfield that deepens an urban myth. Myth? Because there is no evidence. Although rich in historical detail, my work takes a unique path that the Californian could never write in a million years. Their tales of murder and treachery are journalist entries that suggest a possible legend. Through the newspaper each reader must make the connection and decides for themselves if the stories are true or not; that is, whether there may or may not be Lords of Bakersfield lurking about in the present and past.
My novel does not allow the reader to make the connection whether true or not. I write the Lords of Bakersfield stories as if they ARE true—at least for the sake of the novel. That’s what you have to do in a story: you must make characters believable. My job as a novelist is to make you believe at least while you are reading (whether fictitious or otherwise). If you’re sitting watching Star Wars and the entire time you’re thinking “This isn’t real.” Then you haven’t bought into the story at all. You don’t like the characters, you don’t like the storyline, and you’re bored. You might as well pop the DVD out and watch the news: if that’s all you believe.
Let me just clarify something else here: when I tell people that Robert Price’s 2003 conspiracy theory articles were inspiration for my novel, that’s the truth. His articles include an introduction by Mike Jenner that reads,
Why we wrote these articles: A conspiracy theory born in the late 1970s and early '80s had become a long-forgotten legend until last September, when the slaying of Assistant District Attorney Stephen M. Tauzer gave new life to speculation about "The Lords of Bakersfield."
The articles linked old newspaper stories, and being a Bakersfield Californian look at conspiracy, the articles were just that: articles. The information was sparse and disjointed and not rich enough for a novel. That’s why I did more research. By themselves, the Bakersfield Californian articles on the Lords of Bakersfield, though inspiring, are not enough for any of us.
But if all your faith in history is not in the scholars who analyze history through historical works, and yes, that can include literature, and instead, your view of history is through the media, then you’re really missing out and you are under-educating yourself to the high school reading level of any local newspaper.
As a historian once told me, “History is a sea of books. Learn to swim.”
I am amazed that a few haters keep commenting. Personally, when I don’t like what I’m reading, I stop going to that site. I gave up on Salon.com partly because they started charging folks, and partly because the articles weren’t interesting enough for me to want to pay money. I can get enough for free from all the many news links listed on the drudgereport.com. And when I don’t like an author or writer, I am not usually hateful about it. I just stop reading. But then as a local musician put to me recently, “Small town gossip gets hateful, Nick.”
I do have to say that a couple of the comments I received were rather uneducated and do require some comment of my own. One was a comment that Lords: Part One regurgitates what the Californian already wrote regarding the Lords of Bakersfield. They’re referring to the 2003 Bakersfield Californian articles by Robert Price. First off, they need to look at the book ‘Valley Fire’ which offers a lot more study of the topic and is where Robert Price got some of his information. That was the book that really broke the stories.
Robert Price’s tongue-and-cheek blurb on Lords: Part One being redundant was fun as well, though misguided because he hadn’t read the book. He admitted to me that he hadn’t read it so I assume he was merely poking fun with his comment. I have strong doubts whether the commenter purchased my book and read it as well. More than likely the Robert Price blurb was read and so agreed upon by the commenter. Maybe not. I’m just guessing.
But why would I say comments of ‘regurgitation’ and ‘redundancy’ are uneducated? Well for one, you have to wonder if the commenter or Robert Price have even lifted a history book. I’m sure Robert Price has. He appears well educated and articulate, though it’s his ‘redundancy’ jest that is misleading and would make a historian like me even bring up such a notion.
Why? Any good look at history is historiographical in nature, as history is constantly re-examined from new compared to old perspectives, or the varying ‘Schools of Thought’. Each view offers potential new insight, critique and debate over historical philosophies. Such multiple views of the past give greater meaning and understanding to people, events, economies, politics and society. History itself is so balkanized that good college texts all provide a historiographical approach with many ideas and views per historical topic. That means, you read about an event from the various perspectives written by the scholars. You don’t read from one perspective and that’s that. That would be uneducated. Americans are guilty of such study of the past every day. You think there can’t be new history books on the American Civil War? Think again. Studying such an event is not redundant at all, and the news stories breaking the Civil War happened, oh, a long time ago… There are new works on the subject all the time coming out of leading universities and valiantly discussed in the William and Mary Quarterly and Journal of American History by leading scholars on the subject. And the perspectives are many: Economic, Consensus, Progressive, Marxist, Feminine, African-American, and so on. Such perspectives keep history itself in check and utilizes new historical source material. Newspaper articles are the easiest source material to use, and are often some of the most biased for historians to scour… that’s why historians poke their noses into every source material available: oral histories, marriage records, video, archaeological, medical, war records, diaries, and so on and are too numerous to list.
My take on the Lords of Bakersfield is just one more perspective on events described in the local newspaper…
While my novel follows the historical path and some of the details presented in the Californian articles, in no other way can you compare the two. My psychological approach to the characters and the new fictitious details presented in telling the story describe a unique perspective to the Lords of Bakersfield.
Anyone who thinks the Bakersfield Californian is the end all for the study of the Lords of Bakersfield is merely being spoon fed history through one perspective: the local print media. History will look back on the history of the Lords of Bakersfield and say, “The articles were not enough, and the N.L. Belardes book was not enough.”
What I provide is a literary perspective of the Lords of Bakersfield that deepens an urban myth. Myth? Because there is no evidence. Although rich in historical detail, my work takes a unique path that the Californian could never write in a million years. Their tales of murder and treachery are journalist entries that suggest a possible legend. Through the newspaper each reader must make the connection and decides for themselves if the stories are true or not; that is, whether there may or may not be Lords of Bakersfield lurking about in the present and past.
My novel does not allow the reader to make the connection whether true or not. I write the Lords of Bakersfield stories as if they ARE true—at least for the sake of the novel. That’s what you have to do in a story: you must make characters believable. My job as a novelist is to make you believe at least while you are reading (whether fictitious or otherwise). If you’re sitting watching Star Wars and the entire time you’re thinking “This isn’t real.” Then you haven’t bought into the story at all. You don’t like the characters, you don’t like the storyline, and you’re bored. You might as well pop the DVD out and watch the news: if that’s all you believe.
Let me just clarify something else here: when I tell people that Robert Price’s 2003 conspiracy theory articles were inspiration for my novel, that’s the truth. His articles include an introduction by Mike Jenner that reads,
Why we wrote these articles: A conspiracy theory born in the late 1970s and early '80s had become a long-forgotten legend until last September, when the slaying of Assistant District Attorney Stephen M. Tauzer gave new life to speculation about "The Lords of Bakersfield."
The articles linked old newspaper stories, and being a Bakersfield Californian look at conspiracy, the articles were just that: articles. The information was sparse and disjointed and not rich enough for a novel. That’s why I did more research. By themselves, the Bakersfield Californian articles on the Lords of Bakersfield, though inspiring, are not enough for any of us.
But if all your faith in history is not in the scholars who analyze history through historical works, and yes, that can include literature, and instead, your view of history is through the media, then you’re really missing out and you are under-educating yourself to the high school reading level of any local newspaper.
As a historian once told me, “History is a sea of books. Learn to swim.”
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Wednesday, November 16, 2005.
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To tell you the honest truth, I kinda thought your book was complete truth, but I know it's only fiction. But your writing is so unique and discriptive I still cannot put it down.
Feeding the young mind of a lover of urban legends and conspiracy theories,
Sey
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