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Bako Bands, Author, Walk Streets Of Hollywood For MTV Books?

By NL Belardes, Bakotopia.com contributor

The hula dancer on my dashboard was wiggling because of stop-and-go traffic.

She suddenly lurched forward in a mega hip thrust as I pulled up to the hottest spot on Hollywood Boulevard in my fat white GMC truck. In my back pocket was the poem-essay I was going to perform on the state of the media, titled “On July 4th.” In the back of the truck, equipment from two Bako bands was stacked to the rim like someone had just lost a crappy game of Tetris.

I meet a lot of authors on MySpace. A few months ago it was MTV Books author of “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone,” Stephanie Kuehnert. Her book just came out July 8th. I offered to write a book review for ABC23, then saw she was organizing the “Rock N Read” event at Hollywood’s Virgin Megastore. That’s right across from the El Capitan where “WALL-E” was still blasting off, and nestled between The Kodak Theatre and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. I wanted Bakersfield to be a part of her event. She invited me and Bakersfield bands Dirty Spanglish and Norfolk. James Ratliff of Norfolk was the sound guy for the event.

Dirty Spanglish and Norfolk unloaded their equipment from the truck while I stared at all the freaks on the street. The fake Mickey Mouse with his big wobbly head, the Captain Jack who stopped and said to Dirty Spanglish, “You guys playing a gig?” The body builders, monsters, hip-hoppers, tourists, wild-eyed drugged up lost youth, tap-dancing bums and beady-eyed scientologists. You name it. All were passing by our Hollywood-or-bust literary bandwagon.

After they unloaded, a tourist bus pulled up and started laying on the horn. I took in the sights for another long second before pulling out and parking. Soon I thought of my spoken word crazy rap piece. The beginning of it suddenly came to mind…

On July 4th—true news story out of Bakersfield, California—Skipper the Chihuahua came up missing. I knew he’d shut the door behind him, spent the day drinking Jose Cuervo. He was slipping into tequila dreams with a margarita sheen. He was upset. Other dogs said he was small, that he had no bite, that he was uptight, a sprite. “Go fly a kite” was on his mind. He could float on one. He was that small. Could fit in the palm of your hand...

“RockNRead” was billed by Stephanie Kuehnert as a literary Lollapalooza. It was three hours long and meant to blast the ears off everyone in the Virgin Megastore. While Norfolk performed, I filmed some kids with their hands over their ears. While the bands were hot throughout, Norfolk was the only band where people were wild for an encore. Didn’t matter how loud they were. They played four songs to match the four Dirty Spanglish performed.

The youthful Bakersfield quartet Dirty Spanglish debuted an incredible new song called “Tuesday.” Yes, my kid Landen Belardes is in DS, and while Norfolk was my favorite band of the day, my favorite song was “Tuesday.” It represents the new indie sound that they’re just beginning to churn out. They’re playing an all-youth show Aug. 1 at the Gate and bringing up Wild Youth, a bunch of 14 year olds who they played with at the Pasadena Harry Potter gig. It’s going to be a great event.

I thought all of the authors gave polite readings from a list of hot books. They were all hot authors too (I was the only guy). Stephanie Kuehnert headlined. Alexa Young talked “Frenemies.” But there was also Cherry Cheva, Kim Culbertson, Rebecca Woolf, Alyson Noel and Megan Crane. 

But I wanted to stir the crowd’s soul. I wanted people to wonder whether what I was rapping was the truth, made up stories or some form of both. I started off just by talking about struggling artists, that even published authors are struggling authors in today’s publishing world. Deeper into my piece I got into the idea of where I came from to be in Hollywood:

The stories of disillusionment. You’ve read them, you’ve said them, lived them, bereaved them. Sweltered under the hot sun, them. You sweat it, you get it. These media news stories. And so, there I was this morning, leaving the Central valley, all glorious 300 miles of it. I left behind the oil wells dirt smells, buck owens fancy ovens, crystal palace country lovin, hardcore nu-metal dreadlock lore, jonathan davis, rick davis board of trade Hollywood’s backyard movie-making, the pollutions the convolutions ... the people wandering with gas masks, protest shacks, small town no civil ceremonies for gay marriage, straight marriage, horse and carriage…and so there’s all these people and dreams and I crawl into the mountains, far from the Piute smoke—the worst air in the nation—no lie again—because the valley’s under a constant choke.

I was excited to see that JFK and Isik, both formerly of L.A. band World Wide Spies had arrived to watch the fun. One of the writers of “Heroes” was in the crowd as was L.A. spoken word poet Rich Ferguson who let out a few hollers while I jazzed the crowd with thoughts of media monstrosities.

Before I got off the stage I thought to myself, It’s great to be a part of a literary spectacle… And it was. But before I was done I wanted people to question the sort of zombie-like tactics of the media, which often covers stories of what they think is fresh meat for the hungry masses:

I was driving. It was late. It was a week ago. A media man left town. I wasn’t happy to see him leave. But we all move on. And as I’m driving I see a dog. It’s not Skipper but I think of that worthless small-as-a-thimble mutt with his big sombrero and tiny guns and how news stories don’t make sense and many stories don’t even get made and are left by the side of the road. No, this is a boxer. It’s been hit and it’s just pouring out its soul, legs kicking in headlight shadows. A few moments in struggling and death and these headlights like eyes, not even blinking, but bright dusty eyes staring while this dog soul wretches and pukes and kicks and it fights the simple idea of death. And I’m thinking, what are its last thoughts, never to get touched again, rubbed again, chased again… it’s so close to a lake, a river, a sandy playbed where it could have run for miles and miles and miles without a car in sight. Just a hobo river with roadrunners and cottontails and a lone polluted inner city beaver dam.

www.rocknread.net

Story also printed in Bakotopia magazine, issue 33, 7-24-08