Abandoned houses, shopping carts, and more... N.L. Belardes
Shopping carts fill the yard of an abandoned house
Bakotopia user, Kindra has been writing about the cop cars zooming down Bakersfield's Forrest Street. She even took a photo of the short-lived car-speed-o-meter.
What does this mysterious Easter Island gang-tagged rock say?
I thought I would take the strangeness of Forrest Street into the realm of posing questions. Over the weekend I noticed a sea of shopping carts filling the abandoned lot near an alley across the street. I began to wonder why they are there, and if they’re all left by the same person….
It's artistic, in a way...
What do you think? And, what’s weird on your street?
Labels: abandoned house, Bakersfield, blog, media, shopping carts
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Monday, February 19, 2007.
You can leave your response.
artistic? the picture you took? YES.... the house itself all nasty and boarded up with the shopping carts in the front yard? ummmm no.
the only weirdness in my street is this crazy lady who won't let her kids play on the street and sits out on her front patio watching over them when they ARE allowed outside and she yells at them a lot when they get too close to the street. Oh, and she's always lecturing other kids that aren't hers too. Then she feeds them all dinner because they won't away during the dinner time and she always makes her kids take a fun break to eat.
What a bitch. Weird ass lady. Oh wait, no, that's me.
nope, no weirdness on my street.
wow... could I squeeze in just a few more typos and word omissions? geez. too much coffee and too happy of fingers this morning.
anyways... I guess unless you count my tweeker neighbor, we have a pretty normal neigborhood. One of my neighbors keeps chickens in his backyard, which he's not supposed to because it's city limits. But he also keeps corn and tomatos and he shares so nobody snitches him out. :)
The only thing weird on my street is the hundreds of annoying cats! Their sex-screaming drives me crazy!
Norma's neighborhood is starting to seem like the twilight zone.
Matildakay's cats were outside my house at 4AM!!
About a year ago I was walking my mom out to her car when she asked, "Is that a llama?" It was. Walking down the street trailing it's leash, and about two blocks ahead of an exhausted-looking teenage boy with a carrot in his hand. He finally caught up with his llama on 18th and B after she'd escaped from the street fair on Chester. I didn't get a photo, but we did get to pet her.
-rebekka
I forgot to mention... After I took the photos, some neighbor guy had a staring problem. I said "hi" but he just kept staring. He half walked into his house, stopped and stared. I stared back. It was a staring good time... Yet, he wore what looked like a media pass around his neck.
I'm new to my street. So, I would have to say that based off of personal observation, I'm the weird duck of the bunch.
I did however attend my neighbor's New Orleans themed bash on Saturday and witnessed a break off (break dance competition) between the host and a few other kids there. Never have I witnessed so many crackers pop locking in my life.
Oh, and my neighbor at 50 years old, schooled the youngsters... I thought the fact that witnessing a white 50 yr. old pop locking was pretty fucking weird.
Here's the deal on the rock. One day we watched (from my office across the street from this atrocity) some official looking contractor guys with a backhoe dig up a Palm tree (located where the boulder is today) and haul it off. Well it turns out that the guys actually stole the tree and somehow the ass head owner knew who it was and confronted the thieves. A bargain was struck and the owner ended up the proud owner of, quite possibly, the ugliest rock in the world. Thank you very much Mr. dickhead-owner of the house for the nice graffiti rock that now graces your piece of shit house.
ha. Dobbler, we did that once a few years ago. Good times. My cousin Kim schooled all the guys which was pretty funny, watching a girl kick ass. Oh, and one of the guys hurt his knee. That's what happens when a bunch of old farts like us think we can still spin on our heads like morons.
N.L. I felt bad on Valentines Day when I had to actually send all those kids home for dinner. My husband had made us a special dinner and my little boys invited all their friends as usual. One of the kids cried when I sent him home. I felt like such a bitch.
We had to explain to the boys that Valentines Day is a special family dinner NOT a neighborhood party.
Sex Screamers is going to be the name of my band.
Thanks Matildakay.
Rebekka: The weirdest animals I've seen downtown were a rattlesnake at Sandrini's (When it was Lucky's) and a chicken on a car. Your Llama takes the cake.
Dobbler: I would have paid money to see that.
Mike: That damn rock isn't from Easter Island? I'm not surprised there's thievery going on Forrest Street. It's the hood. I just can't believe people think that abandoned house's yard is a shopping cart staging area. Sex Screamers rocks for a band name...
Norma can't have a normal Vday. hahahahehah. Kiddin'...
Michael, Sex Screamers is a great band name! You can come over and record sex screaming sound effects for your music... my neighbors cats are nightly players at my house!
Plenty of weirdness on my street. From the cops running through our back gate to the front our the house, just to step on cats tails (there's plenty of cats on this street), to the screaming chick across the street who, always manages to beat the hell out of some poor sob who knocks on their door (I secretly believe that their dealers). Gotta love living over behind the jail.
C.L.: Holy crammoli, that MUST be a strange street to live on...
Wow... talk about awkward. I can't really think of anything strange about my street, other than the cat lady, but what street doesn't have one of those (and the crazy cat sex does get annoying). Well, now that I think about, every other house on my street is owned by gardeners. It's really quite interesting to walk out front around 6am and see half the neighborhood warming up their trucks, defrosting windsheilds with coffee in hand wearing jubilous smiles as if they were headed out for a day of fishing on the lake. If anything is strange, it's people enjoying waking up early EVERYDAY! Don't get me wrong, I like breakfast as much as the next person... just not before the sun rises.
My block wall got tagged last night!woohoo! I have an open account with 32-ERASE.
I'm in a corner house entering/exiting my hood, so I get all the beer bottle slinging, Mcdonald's bag spewing, yardsale sign stinkers, with a few grocery cart drop offs and condom toss drive by's! I found a part of a wheelchair in my bushes once...I still wonder about that one from time to time... A couple of street murders over the past few years,and a while ago, on a weekend day, a parent yelled at a kid for calling his daughter a name or something. The kid went home and told his mom. The mom drove up to the house, got in a shouting match with the girls dad, went back to her car and shot a gun in the air..."Bakersfield...Life as it HOOD be"...
I've found people sleeping on my porch couch a few times. I guess my porch looks inviting to a traveller (or a drunk) late at night. The dogs usually alert me by shoving their noses into the space under the door and making loud huffing noises.
And not as weird as a llama, but my cat followed a ferret into my living room one night. I thought it was some sort of large rodent at first, but the cat seemed a little too cautious, like she was following something carnivorous. When I saw the little weasel, I actually screamed and jumped up on a chair. I calmed down once I saw how friendly she was, crated her, and gave her to a friend. She lived the rest of her days at his house, stealing potatoes from the kitchen and hiding them under the couch. Other than that, just the random opossum families living in my basement (but that's about as unique as the parrots in the trees.)
wow! and i usually just complain about my loud ass neighbors banging on the wall connected to my and my daughter's rooms at crazy hours of the night!
i don't know what's worse...hump happy cats screaming, chickens who aren't supposed to be around, or mystery shopping carts gathering for a service...
See, I knew you all had craziness on your streets too! DW, you take the cake with your stories, though I have to say last year's tragedy one street over was the worst when those kids died from the bomb going off on Maple Street. May they rest in peace.
I live just houses down from Oleander, so I claim that the hood of Forrest begins about 2 houses down from me so *Stamps foot* I DO NOT live in the hood!
Erm sorry about that, it's just that I bought my house and the first time my sister came over a few doors down the neighbors were having a party and playing popcorn music and she's all like "Ugh, I just could not live here" then later told my father that I live in the Ghetto. Come on! It was a freakin party, not like they do that on a daily basis.
Oh but wait, there is the bird man ... I bet he was the dude staring at you NL, he wears what looks like a media pass around his neck. Black man with a gnarly beard, when he walks he makes this noise that sounds like a bird. I've been wondering what he was doing to make that noise - come to find out, he is GRITTING his teeth!!! I think he lives in the brown apartments near you, or at least is the "Uncle" of the little girl that lives there (who runs around unaccompanied all the time), but he is constantly at 7-11 asking for money (he kinda hides behind the dumpster and then stalks you as you get out of your car or head back to your car, then gets all pissed when you tell him no) and visiting the apartments across the street from me.
Oh oh oh! There's a lady across and 2 over from me whos daughter is nutty. One day I came home to see alot of her clothing and stuff in the street and she was walking quickly down the street with a large piece of cardboard on her back like a cape. I tried my hardest to get from the curb to my front door, but she saw me and started telling me I looked like someone, that she knew me, that yeah, I'm that one girls sister.
I think not. Thank you very much.
And she blew up her Dolphin motorhome a month or so ago, with all the chemicals in the backyard looks like it was a meth explosion.
Super DOOPER! Crude, maybe I do live in the hood. No, that's 2 houses down and I'm sticking to that theory.
I finally saw those parakeets (is that right?) in my trees a couple days ago. I felt special that they'd chosen my place. :) Oleander really is a neat place. Glad we moved here.
Linda: those are rose-ringed parakeets. I saw some recently, and two really pretty woodpeckers at Beale Park, each pecking low on a tree. That's the second time I've seen woodpeckers in the city...
Kayk: no, this was an Asian guy. And I am not saying anything about Forrest being the HOOD, because just a few streets East, that's a scary place!
I drove into that "scary place" a few blocks east of you this morning on my way to work, like I have for the last seven years. I saw mothers with strollers, people waiting for the bus, brothers and sisters and cousins walking each other to school, old people sitting on the porch in their slippers. It's not so scary. Those apartments on Blanche St. though...
-rebekka
Those parakeets flock to my trees early summer, to fall. They like to throw pecans at me. Neighbor told me that the bird cage (which I called Manuel and finally got rid of last week) in my backyard used to hold a few, then the family let them go, since then they come back every year in droves.
NL, if you want to see woodpeckers you are welcome to sit in my sunporch and watch the little guy that hangs out in my yard. He was so busy the other day stabbing an acorn, then flew it up one of the oaks and went to down Ta ta ta tapping.
I'll never forget the night I walked to your house to drop off a copy of my book. I heard your boyfriend skipping rope and thought the boogeyman was after me with a bullwhip.
Rebekka: I used to live on Blanche St. in the HAUNTED apartment. yikes. But I meant East of H, toward Chester...
My idiot husband mowing the grass in his undershirt, navy shorts, black socks & grey tennis shoes. Add to this charming outfit a yellow jacket attack that made him run down the street, waving his hands in the air & screaming like a girl. He was the talk of the street for weeks. So embarrassing!
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