Bakotopia

larger view larger view larger view

Painting Pictures with Time, Lloyd Reading Of Bakersfield Was There 70 Years Ago, A True Blackboard Legend!

”Saw ya won’t me ta tell ya about the Blackboard ay?”

I had gone on the tour of the old Bakersfield honky tonks last week with the country music legend. Lloyd Reading . Well yesterday was time for the king of all honky-tonks worldwide, The Black Board!  I had plans to set up amps and put a converter in my old truck, so as the time drew near I packed up the gear and called Anna, Lloyd Reading daughter .  We met in front of an empty lot next door to the Kern County Museum, which had oddly enough just published an article about the Blackboard that morning in the newspaper’s magazine “Bakersfield Life”. When I first got there, I was not sure which empty field had been where the famous Blackboard stood… I set up in front of a little occupational center parking lot just north of the museum. I turned up my Hip Hot-B-Bender Stratocaster and was playing as load as I could. I suppose I was tryin’ to scar up some old Black Board ghosts, I was in the mood for a spectral dance. As I played, clad in “cowboy armor”  hat-boots-gingum (sp?) shirt and jeans . As I played there on Chester Ave, I got a lot of looks from passers by on there trek over the bridge into Oildale. Off all the looks I got, all were inquisitive.  Hey…no one thinks I am a nut! Even though it is like 120 degrees!  I played my songs “Bakersfield Girl “(magazine cover model Dolly Dagger’s favorite song SEE LINK :  http://www.myspace.com/cand... then I played a heavy blues version of Walk these Streets Alone

(The New York “Mercs” favorite song : SEE LINK :    http://www.myspace.com/hank... Ya- it is selfless self promotion…I know!

As I waited for Lloyd and Anna, I could feel a magic about the place, even though it is got, this is indeed a haunted Honky-tonk! Just about then I saw their red Dodge Caravan parked in a lot just north of my locality. I walked over to them. Anna was the first to speak, “yer in the wrong spot, the Blackboard was over here!  I ran back through the perilous Bakersfield heat and got my truck, did a u turn on Chest and came back around to the very South East corner of the Kern County Museum . “This is it!” Anna declared, and I replied –“ it is hotter than hell”, Lloyd responded; “this is Bakersfield!”

I set up, I decided it was just to hot to set up the equipment, so the dreams of me playing the original Blackboard, with one of its’ legends was not going to happen today.

It is hard ti describe the feelings I had being here, hallowed ground of the Bakersfield Sound with him, a true Blackboard Legend! I suppose it would be like a Disney fan going to Disneyland and watching the film Fantasia or Steamboat Willie with Walt Disney himself!   Anyway the heat was getting to me. So we decided to have Lloyd show me the layout of the Blackboard how it was back in the day. He did a bee-line to the chain link fence and waived his right arm in gesture;”here is where she stood” I gazed the empty dirt field with artifacts of the old place abundant all over the surface. “Here is where the door to the restaurant was” pointing to the South-East corner of the little field, next to a large weed. “Here is where the actual “Blackboards’ Blackboard was,”  Waiving his guitar pickin hand over to the West about 15 feet in from the current sidewalk. “What?”

I declared, there was an actual Blackboard! I suppose everyone in Bakersfield new this but me, but wow!  When you walk in the door, there was a school room blackboard   on your left and that is where the bands signed in to their playing slot, “played for three hours, with now breaks, unless there was a fight”. Next Lloyd showed me where the hole in the wall was where the people passed through dividing the restaurant and the bar, There was some legal or code issue, so the two had to be separate... R.T.I.…red tape issue!  After this we got our “get ares” out and got some Kodak moments on film and picked a wee bit of a tribute to the  ”Honky-tonk Angles”  OF THIS, MOST FAMOUS OF ALL THE HAUNTED HONKYTONKS!