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Downtown Bakersfield’s risky cocktail
Topics: Violence, downtown, Bakersfield, Bakotopia, The Dalloways, Syndicate Lounge, Sandrini's, shooting, February, 2008
Posted by thenovelist Tue Feb 19, 2008 15:16:17 PST
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0 responses 3 comments Location: 19th & Eye St., Bakersfield, CA 93301

Downtown Bakersfield’s risky cocktail
A rare night out in Bako offers more than just a good time



By thenovelist / NL Belardes, Bakotopia.com contributor

There’s a reason the BPD are out flexing their muscles on the corner of 19th and Eye streets these days.

In the daylight I feel very safe: there’s food, fun, and hip culture.



I normally avoid downtown on weekend nights, partly because I just don’t like big crowds, and partly because through the years there has just been too much fisticuffs going on in a bar scene I think gets too flavored with Bakersfield’s finest thugs.

But then, you don’t have to be a thug to be a drunken idiot looking for a fight, or someone who just thinks carrying a gun into a downtown bar is the way to go.

I’ve been downtown before, watched someone walk into a bathroom, and saw a gun slip out of a pair of loose pants. What do you do? You look the guy in the eye, try to play it off with humor and hope he doesn’t shoot you in the back while standing at a urinal.

Before a recent show on Feb. 9, I wondered if the Sandrini’s crowd would be receptive to local Brit pop hustlers The Dalloways. I’m not a big fan of Sandrini’s bar, not because it’s underground and I feel like I’m in a Hobbit hole, or because it’s the kind of bar that gets stuffy during the summer. I think it’s because I always feel like the location is temporary. Downtown Bakersfield bars sometimes change names the way Cher does costumes. And the downtown Bakersfield weekend clientele, sometimes rough around the edges, might not dig a sensational band like The Dalloways.



The Dalloways: Take the best of Brit pop, put them in a teleportation machine á la the movie “The Fly.” Slip an American flag in the other end. Then watch the fusion. Only it’s not monstrous at all or fake like Jeff Goldblum on insect steroids. It’s just what it is: Brit pop with an American “shoegazy” feel.

Or should I just say dreamy with a hard American edge?

Anyway, I was proven wrong. Their show was really better than anticipated.

I already knew the music was going to be good. I’d been spinning the Dalloways’ new e.p., “Dirty Money, Filthy Love,” and loving it.

I should add here that “Dirty Money, Filthy Love” is an energetic step from their first album, “Penalty Crusade.” If their first album was Industrial Revolution Brit pop, then their follow-up is a London music genre gone green, because their song “Me and Thomas Hardy” is an uplifting bass-driven slide into a new-and-improved Dalloways.

Enough said. I dig the music. You get the point.

That night, Rickey Bird and Jason Sanders from Hectic Films set up a projector for the music video presentation of the Dalloway’s song, “Dirty Money, Filthy Love.” These guys are so guerrilla they taped a sheet onto the brick wall, which I should say turned out nicely for a screen.

The video is a creepy bar-scene love story. OK, not really a love story, but there’re some funny moments. I make a cameo as a drunk guy at the bar who encourages a young stud to go for a hot chick. And the Dalloways are all mafia-looking in their fashionable attire.

The show ended as upbeat as it began with the cover of Bowie’s “Young Americans,” feeling entirely fun and fresh. The backup singers and saxophone added a lush touch to an already incredible lineup that would make Bowie proud if he were to step into the B-Town underground.

After the show is another story. While I played some music in a car for Jason Sanders to listen to as part of a soundtrack for Hectic Films’ upcoming zombie movie, there was a downtown shooting. Hectic Films’ Rickey Bird had filmed the aftermath and was on the run after being chased. He claims to have run three blocks before jumping into his car.

He met up with us - sweating, paranoid, and in a slight panic.

He had heard gunfire, grabbed his camera, and headed to the Syndicate Bar, where he filmed a man covered in blood and another man subdued by bouncers. The scene was chaotic. He played the video, and to be honest, it looked like a scene out of “Cloverfield:” jumpy, jerky, the camera angles were odd, almost nauseating.

But such video you’re drawn to. You want to see what happens. There were shots of a crowd, some yelling, some yelling at him. Luckily no monster in sight that would drop bug parasites and stomp the city.

Let’s face it: downtown Bakersfield is not going to be attacked by any kind of downtown monster other than ourselves.



Is it thuggish angst? Or simply drunken disrespect of society that makes people carry guns into what’s supposed to be a relaxing, cut-loose downtown atmosphere filled with people from everyday walks of life who just had rough work weeks?

After making sure Bird wasn’t followed, I then headed into the chaotic scene with my mini-HD camera rolling. I could tell within the few minutes since Bird had been down by the Syndicate the crowd was more subdued and beginning to be guided away from the scene by police.



Yet the crowd was still around, hanging in the energized air, curious, angry, wondering, some drunk, some looking for trouble, some trying to find friends and get to cars. There were a lot of thuggish-looking brutes giving me the eye for filming. I could tell they weren't about to start anything because police had the area covered in personnel.

One guy walked up to me and drunkenly told me I was nosey. Of course he had just walked into the scene to find out what had happened himself. His friends sat on a nearby wall, smoking cigarettes and wondering how word could have spread so fast in the downtown scene. I guess we were both nosey.

Seriously, such events deserve being covered. Allow me to just get patriotic for a moment and say that the blood of our forefathers was shed so that people like Rickey Bird and I can cover a story and shoot video from public streets and sidewalks. People read and watch the news. People want the stories. And such stories like this one, filled with both positive and negative aspects of the downtown Bakersfield scene, deserve to be told.



I had seen enough. I stuffed my camera into my pocket and headed to Zingo’s for some biscuits and gravy. It had been a long night and a long day, mostly spent revolved around music. Yet I couldn’t help but think about the last song I’d heard and all the youthful faces I just saw in the downtown scene.

Ahh the young Americans …

Originally printed in Bakotopia Magazine, issue 22, 2-21-08

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Comment From: matt

Excellent article, Nick! Thank your for keeping an eye out on Rickey and Popeye! Comment From: Dizzyfingers

Booze,ignorance and violence...ahhh...time honored Bakersfield traditions...Thanks N.L. and Rickey for the courage of your art...Perhaps some of these Neanderthals will think before acting out their baser instincts if they believe there's a chance they'll be caught on film.....BUT I HAVE MY DOUBTS......Peace....... Comment From: seafaire

Wow. Working on the "streets of Rosedale", trying not to get run over by buttheads w/hummers and too big trucks to match too little brains--I now know why I stay away from downtown. Which is so sad because folks like us have money to spend not bullets to send. Hard to say but GOOD JOB BPD!! xxoocf