The Elitist Press accuses N.L. of working for Bakotopia - By N.L. Belardes

Me doing a really bad job of secret photos at the Elitist Press meeting.


“You’re the premiere writer in Bakersfield.”

“No I’m not. You are,” I said. “Black Dog, you can outwrite me any day.”

I joked around. Why not? Black Dog was full of shit to compliment me like that. It’s fun to joke. But I would never take such a compliment seriously. I’m just a small time writer who has a lot of prose under his belt.

He wanted me to attend a meeting about the start-up of a local newspaper that was to be ruled by committee. Did he think I had great ideas? Could I help shape a local paper? Sure, I have ideas. They get stolen all the time. But who would listen? Black Dog? Would he listen to the idea of “instant hard news” and a co-op blogosphere of writers and a print version? And what about his partners? Who are they? And what is their mission? And the name of their paper?

In the end, no. I didn’t feel like I had a voice. I didn’t sense a committee atmosphere, and I didn’t even feel like the star reporter that Black Dog had built me up to be. I felt more distrusted, a nuisance… I got a “what is he doing here?” vibe in the first meeting. The second meeting I wasn’t even officially included. Three possible writers however contacted me. “I hope to see you there,” wrote one. Some of the writers liked my ideas. Cool. And so I write this article because at least here, I can say what I want to say and not feel ignored.

Heath Dobbler called me up. “Hey you going to this Elitist Press meeting?”

“Sure,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Pizza Palace on California.”

Sounds like my kind of party to crash. Something was up and I wanted to find out. I put on my favorite hat as of late: a Bakersfield Blaze cap with the bill flipped up. I was blazin’ on the trail of something, that’s for sure. Might as well throw on my “Dirty Spanglish” shirt too.

Black Dog and I met online because he was venting on his blog and took it out on me and my book before he read it. It’s really the only bad press I received on my book. I’m proud of it. For a long time he thought his blog was unreadable, that journalists weren’t reading his words, and that he could use his online words as a personal diary of sorts. Howard Owens tried to start a blog war by tipping me off to Black Dog. I gave the old black doggy a “whisper-in-the-ear” reply on his site. It was ghost-like. He jumped (His instant karma follow-up).

We became friends.

Nearly a year later, the Blackboard Free Press, Bakersfield’s underground newspaper kicked the bucket. Jason Ricketts hung up the towel, leaving room for existing niche market newspapers with a cultural slant to flourish in the ring: MAS Magazine, The Northwest Voice, The Southwest Voice, and a few others. Even Bakotopia and the Paperback Writer blog on nlbelardes.com suddenly had more wiggle room.

And you never know when Paperback Writer or Bakotopia might go into print. I stretched my legs. Traffic went up a few hundred unique hits per day. I’m holding steady at 2000.

Why not Bakotopia and Paperback Writer in print? Both cater to an audience wanting to be in touch with music, literature, theatre, and the occasional hard news and weird blogs. We compete, but in a friendly open love sort of way. Yes, we cross promote. There would be room for both papers if we did it.

In comes The Elitist Press, Bakersfield’s newest underground paper, run by the two people blurred in the background of this photo, and possibly one other:


Black Dog and Nicole (sp? unknown last name)

Black Dog is one of the folks running The Elitist Press. He wanted me to come and write for them. I offered to attend their first meeting. He claimed they were going to be run by committee. Was he even going to be on that committee?

The name of the paper had already been decided before the first meeting: The Elitist Press. I get it. It’s some joke that really states that mainstream media are the elitists showering down their perspectives of the universe on innocent readers. Kind of silly and stupid—definitely arrogant. A trap waiting to slam shut on itself perhaps? I think so. For instance, what if the tiny Elitist Press became successful, or mainstream? Would they change their name? “People aren’t going to get the joke,” I said to Black Dog. “You’re going to take heat.”

A newspaper name in my opinion needs to be straight forward, or hip and funky enough to cater to the audience they’re trying to target: 18-35. A name should not detract from trying to get a story. A name should not be controversial to the point where local folks might distrust honoring a press pass. Sounds too Aryan Nation and not multi-cultural. It’s too full of itself, even for a joke of a name.

I can already hear the snickers at the Californian. There are suits and ties and Mary Lou Fulton grimaces and shakes her head in sorrow because she might actually want to see an underground press flourish, but reads the name, The Elitist Press. She vomits.

Doesn’t matter. Black Dog mentioned one of his co-partners had been wanting to use The Elitist Press name for a long time. So much for a committee there… Black Dog was overruled.

The first meeting was held around October 3rd. The second meeting was last night. I showed up just before 7PM. I walked in as Heath Dobbler ordered a calzone. I kicked him in the ass.

I saw James Mongold in the crowd. He’d just been recruited. If anyone had great ideas, it was him. He’d been tipped off by his buddy A.S. Ashley on a great story about businesses being run out of a certain section of town. And Mongold has just enough stabbing prose and passion to write a great piece.


Mongold downs an energy drink at meeting #2 while the guy next to him talks about a bully story...


Punk man Heath Dobbler at the meeting. "I'll just write something. They can either use it or not," he said later.

“It would be nice to see a familiar face in the crowd,” Heath had said over the phone. He turned around and we shook hands. We wandered over to the V.I.P. because there was no alcohol at the Pizza Palace. Heath stepped up to the bar and bought two cold ones. We tipped Bud Lights, watched a bit of the Mets vs. the Cardinals and talked about my short story, Oilhead. Then he said, “I don’t know what they want me to write about. I don’t want to write politics…”

Eventually we wandered back to the pizza joint where a good number of folks hung out at a table.

A week before I caught wind of The Elitist Press mission statement written by… a committee?

Mission statement:

the elitist press is a group of local writers and artists committed to the ideas of free speech and expression. our goal is to shine a spotlight on local subcultures that are often overlooked by mainstream media and better represent the whole of kern county. the elitist press aims to become the premiere alternative news source of kern county and to showcase bakersfield. the way it is.

Once again, bold. This message bashes every other news source and alternative news source in town, including my own Paperback Writer blog. If I’m a premiere writer according to Black Dog, and yet, then… you get the logic. A fascist press in the making? Perhaps. What I can surmise from the mission statement is extremely fascistic, suppressing opposition like any good fascist outlook would.

Yet, what I was beginning to understand was that Black Dog was indeed, a silent supporter of me, that the elitists were really not the mainstream and other alternative medias the newspaper name was supposed to poke fun at, but the very people in command of this not-yet-running press, and possibly a husband/wife duo, with one of them hiding their true job, though I wouldn’t lump Black Dog in with such a mess… he seems like he's just there for the ride... and during the meetings, hardly even spoke.

The Elitist Press was no joke after all. By the second meeting, its own elitist nature touched surface.

During the meeting, one of the possible leaders of this newspaper tried to verbally combat me on a story idea.... that’s this guy Joe in this fuzzy photo where you can't even tell what he looks like:



He held up his hands, not wanting a photo but I got this shot anyways, albeit fuzzy. What was he hiding? What was this I heard later that identities had to be hidden or people might lose their jobs from a young female writer outside of the pizza joint? Why was Nicole allowed to take photos at the first meeting, but I was not? The girl asked why I didn't take more photos. Obvious confusion there. She mentioned some identities were hidden. Why? What kind of newspaper lurks in its own shadows and hides identities while claiming a need to be professional? Joe spoke up several times about the need to be professional.

Someone in the room had just talked about a story about “Crappy Santa Clauses”. Cute idea. I then offered up an idea on a story about interviewing a convicted killer, the very person the narrator in my story was based on. Joe went on the attack: “That’s a bad idea. No one wants to read about that. It doesn’t fit our 18-35 target audience.”

“You think an article about crappy Santa Clauses is more important than an article about the Lords of Bakersfield, and the very guy who was a teenager when he committed crimes? Kids can associate...” I had just offered a huge story. But Joe seemed to have it out for me. So did his wife, Nicole. Yesterday I received three messages from people in the room who loved the idea. One wrote to me that if she had sat closer to Joe she would have shover a boot up his tush... I laughed.

Nicole went on to say, “We want to review books.”

“I do that on my blog,” I said.

“We want timely books.”

What kind of moron is this Nicole? When do I not review timely books? And what is a timely book? I review books sometimes before they hit the bookshelves. I reviewed If It Bleeds and Oracles just recently, with Punk Shui, Futureproof and Drugs are Nice in the pipe. These are all hugely important books. Well, maybe not Punk Shui... She needs to read Paperback Writer. Oh wait, she’s one of the fascist leaders with the no-joke elitist mission statement: the elitist press aims to become the premiere alternative news source of kern county and to showcase bakersfield. the way it is.

Needless to say, I left their meeting feeling like I had gathered some good information on the true nature of The Elitist Press.

Someone is being duped. Innocent writers? Maybe. James Mongold’s ideas were fresh. I hope they don’t dictate to him.

Later, over the phone Black Dog mentioned that some people didn’t want me to attend because they thought I worked for Bakotopia.

What? Am I taking money as Matt Munoz media bitch?

I do?

Don’t I always say here that I don’t get paid to write my blog?

I DON’T GET PAID.

Give me a break. Bakotopia is a promotional tool. Matt Munoz helps get the word out. Sure, I’m careful to not include all of each article I upload to their site. But we work together. I’m not part of some big media scam where I get paid. That’s crazy talk. That’s paranoia and no way to operate a paper.

In the newspaper business you’re supposed to be fearless, courageous… honest.

If they were smart, they would take advantage of the blog capabilities of the local news outlets to promote their own paper. That's an in right through the back doors... they could steal readers. Or borrow them as I do.

That’s if they took their fascist blinders off their Elitist name, and dishonesty out of their intentions.

I had other problems with their meeting. Joe blatantly made fun of disabled people after someone brought up a story idea about disabled folks being taught to vote. Sure, he was joking. But this was a PROFESSIONAL atmosphere. And one guy supposedly wrote a funny article how bullies need to come back and rule the universe, not geeks.

Screw that. Bullies suck. Wasn’t a bully mentality part of the cause for the Columbine shooters attack on innocent kids and teachers? That’s just incredibly lame and insensitive.

I will say one thing however: makes you wonder if their newspaper will be half as good as the drama of this article.

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Thursday, October 19, 2006. You can leave your response.