Howard Owens, media-blogger at large with a moviestar car - By N.L. Belardes

Bakersfield is Hollywood's backyard. You can't deny it. You go to a coffeehouse, wallow amongst Bakersfield's coffee elite: the journalists, photographers, the artsy young counterculture hipsters, the downtowners and downers, the affluent shopowners, and dreamy writers. You're even unemployed, and suddenly you find yourself nose-to-nose with a budding LA filmmaker in love with the color of your car.


Howard Owens at large
image from howardowens.com (unknown photographer)

Had this person been stalking vehicles in the heat of the Bakersfield summer? And what about the guy who owns the car: he's a local journalist suddenly offered $300.00 for his car to to be a star... (I hadn't seen a car-related local blog entry this good since I got Jerry Trickey into blogging about his $200.00 car)

I saw Howard Owen's plug for his site, howardowens.com in one of my comments yesterday and just had to take a peek. I clicked and there I was, smack in the middle of a fancy pants blog on journalists, blogging, and Howard's take on the old guard and the new in the world of journalism.

He writes of blogging with the confidence of one submersed in the idea of blogging as it fuses to today's media. He discusses such controversies as one self-embedded in the very theories emanating from journalist books, blogs and classes on the subject. His favorite Bakersfield blog is black dog. I don't know his favorite candy bar. But he peruses blogs and journalism as his daily fodder, that's for certain.

I've even been called "bitching" and "petty" by Howard. I love this guy. I imagine him looking down on me with a frown, similar to the cheeseburger smirks he gave me at the Pizza-a-go-go while tip-toeing around a conversation on blogosphere topics.

Howard is the media-blogging elite. He may even deny being a media-blog guru self-planted on a cyberland mountaintop casting his watchful gaze on the rest of us, but he is; and he's watching you, and me, and many blogs around the country with his all-seeing eye of media-blog wisdom.

And then there's his entries. Does he write them to keep his sanity in a world that is as capturing in cyberspace as it is in real life drama? Who knows. There are subtle frustrations built in to the very concept of his blog titled: Media and My Life. Such begs the question: what is Howard's life? Dare you explore? Only Howard can answer such petty questions from a citizen journalist on the prowl.

And yet, Howard is writing a more intriguing blog than ever before. I stopped perusing his bakosphere blog he wrote for bakersfield.com once I realized mine wouldn't be promoted after pissing him off (I'm good at that), but now he's branched out to a grittier version; it has blog pizzazz. And so upon my perusal I couldn't help but be engrossed in his media perspective (it is interesting; dig in) and his storytelling prowess in simple life moments, as in when his yellow pony was almost the star in a short film...

I may never grace the pages of Howard Owens as a Buddy List pal, but his writings are worth a look, if only for the wisdom and knowledge of the media blogging universe he is connected to, and so wisely knowledgable.

Who knows what to expect next from Mr. Owens, maybe he's even working on a book.

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Monday, July 10, 2006. You can leave your response.