Today’s Forecast: Sad

Well that's a bummer. They fired my favorite weather girl, Melissa Dignan. Sure, her voice was like a metal rake dragged down a concrete sidewalk, but over time you got used to it. And she used to bring her little dog, Shelby, on the set, which was kind of endearing.

They sure do burn through weather people down at KERO. She's like the fourth one to be kicked to the curb since we've lived here. My favorite was Lloyd Lindsay Young, who used to have viewers send in strange objects for him to use as pointers with the weather map. Once, it was a mannequin leg, another time it was a dildo. Come to think of it, the dildo is probably why Lloyd isn't with us anymore.

At any rate, I'm going to miss her. I hope she lands on her feet somewhere. When they fired the sports guy, he ended up in Wichita. I think we can all agree, that's a step up.

Falling Into Fall

So today is the first day of Fall, and as luck would have it, a huge defunct satellite is about to "fall" back to earth. Talk about serendipity.

On the local news they teased that Bakersfield was a potential target. From their mouths to God's ears. Only later did I realize that the target area includes basically the entire populated surface of the Earth, so I'm not holding my breath. Besides, even if it did land here I'm not that sure anyone would notice, what with all the other debris.

I'm feeling somewhat uninspired today and thought I'd just post some of the local news highlights, which is always entertaining. But that's turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment.

There's the usual sex crimes with minors. Nothing special about that.

There's handy leftover tips from "BakersfieldMom.com".

Bakersfield made another list... "Least Educated". Tell us something we don't already know.

Overall, seems to be a slow news day. Not even a single police shooting or meth lab fire.

But then I found this...

"A U.S. Airways flight from Phoenix to Bakersfield was recently delayed by more than 30 minutes because the crew ran out of seat belt extenders to accommodate a large number of out sized passengers."

Way to stay classy, Bako.

Shaken, Not Stirred

I can't help but be amused, and more than a little pissed, by the saturation news coverage of the "Great East Coast Earthquake".

Being a lifelong Californian, I easily remember the reaction of the rest of the country, and the New York media in particular, to both the Loma Prieita quake in the Bay Area and the Northridge quake in LA a few years later (that I lived through) and in a word it was nothing but disdain.

"That's what you get for living in California" they'd tsk-tsk on the morning news.

Well, ya know what? Welcome to our world muthafuckas.

Pussies.

5.8?

That'd rattle the ice in our cocktails, but not much more.

So good luck with that. I'll be thinking of you later this week when the hurricane hits.

"That's what you get for living on the Eastern Seaboard..."

To Get To The Other Side

Thank God for the local news. I don't know how I'd get through the day without it. Just when you think you're slipping into a deep funk of despair, along comes a story that makes you slap your forehead and say "WTF!" Not the letters, the actual words. I've been dropping a lot of F-Bombs this week and was trying to keep it clean today.

Today's story involves Donny.

Donny is a tortoise.

Sorry, no link. It's such breaking news they haven't posted it yet online.

As tortoises go, Donny isn't that large. Maybe 40 lbs.

At any rate, Donny's owner lives on a very busy street and the front door had been left open and before you knew it Donny had made a break for it.

Not long later..... actually, probably a very long time later, Donny's a tortoise, he moves maybe a foot an hour.... Police were called to the scene by reports of a tortoise in traffic. And once there, using rational-for-Bako thinking, they did what you'd expect...

They closed the road.

Traffic immediately backed up because of the closure. How long the road was closed, they didn't say. It was long enough for the crack Eyewitless news team to arrive and beam back breathtaking, action-packed footage of a tortoise in the road, not moving. At no point during the whole ordeal did it occur to anyone to PICK. THE TORTOISE. UP.

Donny eventually made it to the curb on his own volition, at which point the police began a door to door search for the owner. And she proved to be a winner once they found her. Judging by the teeth and the glassy stare, I'd guess she was higher than a kite on crack when she did the TV interview.

"Donny is always up to no good" she said. "He's constantly bothering my cat."

Which begs the question, "How stupid is the cat?" Can't even get away from A TORTOISE?

Anyhow, it made my day. I hope they have an update on the 11am news.

Well, That's A Relief...

It appears the crack squad of detectives down at the BPD has definitively determined that the body found last week dumped in a field south of town, the one riddled with bullet holes, was a homicide. Not a suicide, as absolutely no one suspected. Glad we put that to rest.

Now they can get to work on the garage full of human remains...

"It was interesting. I've never seen someone's head cut off before," said a neighbor who asked to only be identified as Joseph.

The Sheriff's Office is treating the case as a suspicious death.

"It could be completely innocent. We don't know," said Pruitt."

Nooz

Another day, another dead body in an orchard. It's a bumper crop this year. Police say it isn't related to the bodies found last week. That would be like comparing apples to oranges, when, in fact, they were both found in orange groves.

In other police news, the sheriff confiscated surveillance video of one of their officers shooting an unarmed man. When the video was released to the local media, the 5 seconds showing the actual shooting had mysteriously been erased. "It's a mystery. These things happen" said the sheriff. "Nothing to see here, move along". He's insulted anyone would think that they had tampered with the video.

He's also insulted anyone would think that his office leaked nude photos of an accident victim and posted them online for kicks. How that ended up happening is a mystery, he said. It would appear the Sheriff's office is "The Winchester Mystery House".

Let's see... what else...

Sinkhole swallows a man.

Another meth lab. At least they found this one before it caught fire.

And in a a bright spot for the local economy, inmate work crews are in such demand it looks like they'll have start arresting more people.

Other than that, not much going on. Slow news day.

Weather Or Not

I see they finally replaced the local weather man. The last one was unceremoniously fired back in May for being a sanctimonious turd.

He was a Born Again Christian and proud of it. Are there any other kind? He was constantly dropping Jesus references into the weather segment. It was so gratuitous it was even too much for this town. He was constantly reprimanded and finally dialed it back. But things blew up back during the May sweeps. The station was doing an exposé on the numerous local strip clubs and pimping the story with TV spots featuring possibly underage strippers wrapped around a pole.

When the day finally arrived for the big peep show, the weatherman refused to go on. Said the story violated his deeply held Christian beliefs. He offered to call in sick. They told him he couldn't - his contract clearly states he can take no time off during ratings sweeps. So he did it anyway. And they fired him.

Works for me.

His forecasts were always off, which isn't what you'd expect from the divinely inspired.

Anyhow, the new guy started tonight. His name is Collin, and he looks scared. I don't blame him.

I actually felt really sorry for him, being dumped into Bakersfield. But then I found out he just moved down from Fresno. So it's really just a lateral transfer.

BFD News Update

Well, the news as far as we're concerned is we're finally getting a new fence!

When we first looked at the house back in the Fall, it looked to be in pretty bad shape because it was a foreclosure and had been sitting vacant for awhile. But on closer inspection, most of the issues appeared to be cosmetic. The one glaring exception was the fence.

It was a wreck.

And because it's a corner lot, there was a LOT of fence.



It was in such bad shape that halfway through escrow, the entire side fence blew down in a storm. I noticed it when I walked the dogs by that morning, and it looked at first as if a car had plowed into the backyard. Which would not be unexpected here in Bako.

Legally, the bank was responsible for making it right before escrow closed and to say they did a piss poor patch job would be an understatement.



It continued to deteriorate after we moved in. Here's our front fence being held in place by an old 80's web belt we found during the move. Nice to see it's still useful long after it fell out of fashion.



We couldn't let the dogs in the backyard unsupervised because there were so many gaps and my little dog found every single one. There wasn't much we could do about it because we were poor.

Until now!

There's a whole crew here building us a new fence as we speak.

We may not eat for the month, but at least we'll have a fence.

But now I'm just being self centered. Let's take a look at what else is happening in Bako this fine morning, shall we?

Cops killed another unarmed man. Seriously, you don't want to fuck with the cops here.

A City Council member, a fireman, was arrested for having sex with an minor. A 16 year old boy. His wife was understandably upset.

A local pastor was discovered bilking the faithful out of thousands of dollars. Can I get a "Hallelujah!"

And the Killer Kern claims another victim. Another drunk dies in the river. Some would call it a tragedy, others "thinning the herd".

Normally the Kern River doesn't have any water in it. The unofficial motto of Bakersfield is "A Riverbed Runs Through It". It's usually just a trash filled gash through the heart of the city. But because of the near record rain and snowpack this year, a few months ago they opened the floodgates at the Lake Isabella dam...

because it might collapse.

So there you are - just a typical Monday in Bako.

All The News That Fits

I have to admit that I usually start my days here in Bakersfield in a pretty good mood, and for that I owe a debt of gratitude to the morning news. It's never less than entertaining, although not for the reasons they strive for. Somedays it's down right hysterical. Picture your high school putting on a newscast and you get the gist of it.

A perpetual problem is running the wrong video, which oftentimes results in some interesting juxtapositions.

"City leaders say that without a budget in place they may have to resort to drastic measures..." drones the anchor over images of a building engulfed in flames.

Actually, now that I think about it, that may have been the correct footage... it's Bako after all.

Yesterday morning the female anchor did most of the broadcast with her bra showing. It was amusing at first, but after about 15 minutes the boyfriend took pity on her. "Maybe we should call in and tell them?" he said. I said "no, they'll figure it out", and after about another 30 minutes they did.

Our current fixation is the weatherman. "Didn't he wear that same suit yesterday?" asked the boyfriend. Why yes he did. It would be hard to miss... it's brown and two sizes too small.

"I wonder how many days he's going to wear it?"

That was three weeks ago.

"Let's take a look outside" says the weatherman as they cut to one of the pointless traffic cameras. On the screen you can kind of make out a deserted road. And bird shit. The camera has been covered in bird shit for months. And the sad thing is they know about it. "Yeah, we need to get someone out there and clean that camera" he says every time, but they never do. Every morning you get to watch the sunrise over Bakersfield through streaks of bird droppings.

But the best part, I find, are the infomercials. In an effort to pad out the newscast and appear more big-time than they are, they've apparently signed up with some syndication operation that books little 3 minute "interviews". Ostensibly it's a news or lifestyle segment...

"And here to talk about childhood obesity / auto safety concerns / summer travel tips is __________."

They cut to some stranger in a studio in New York. He or she is probably doing dozens of these "interviews" for flyover country, back to back to back. To them, Bakersfield is just some name on a check list, somewhere between Altoona and Cedar Rapids. After briefly touching on the the purported subject, we get to the real reason we're here...

"It's all spelled out in my new book/ website... www.shamnewscast.com."

Occasionally, it's for some worthy cause, say Breast Cancer. And on even rarer occasions it features a real life celebrity.

"Look! It's professional golfer Phil Mickelson! And he's talking to us here in Bakersfield!"

The other day, there was one that was an absolute car wreck. It was fabulous.

It was British actress Miranda Richardson, and she was talking about turtles. Evidently, she narrated a documentary about the plight of sea turtles. I'd tell you more, but we never really got to it.

The anchor was completely starstruck and immediately started asking her about past films and co-stars. I guess she should get points for actually knowing who she was.

Ms. Richardson tried to steer the conversation to the matter at hand.

"But really, I'm here to talk about the Tuh-tles" she said in a clipped British accent.

The anchor didn't take the hint and kept up her line of Hollywood questions.

"So what was it like filming 'Harry Potter'?" she asked.

"BUT THE TUH-TLES..." Ms. Richardson implored, looking clearly exasperated.

Things were spinning from bad to worse.

"Are you going to miss 'Harry Potter'?" the clueless anchor continued.

"TUH-TLES!" begged the actress. She was almost shouting at this point.

You could see her eyes darting left, offstage, obviously hoping someone would pull the plug and put this interview out of it's misery. At one point I actually thought she was going to walk off the set.

Ultimately, it did end, too soon for my taste. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

The Circus Comes To Town

"You're on TV! You're famous!"

That was my mother on the phone last night, talking about Bakersfield, not me.

Thanks to the Sperminator, we're now known as the "Home of Celebrity Bastard Children". I suppose that's a step up from what Bakersfield is usually known for.



I have to admit, I got it wrong. I didn't think anyone would schlep all the way to Bakersfield to cover this story. Especially once it became clear that the family had been tipped off and fled town before the media frenzy broke. But by noon, the Northwest neighborhood was choked with network satellite trucks and news vans from every local station from the Bay Area to the Mexican border, with countless reporters doing live reports from the lawn of an empty house.

I have to give the neighbors some credit. It was amazing how quickly they got wise to the ways of the media. For the early news broadcasts they seemed absolutely giddy with all the attention, willing to talk to just about everyone. By this morning they had called in the cops, started renting out their lawns to the various news crews and clammed up unless someone flashed a checkbook.

What we did learn was that everyone in the neighborhood knew Ahnold had purchased the house. One woman said the realtor was a horrible gossip and spilled the beans without even being asked. And the mistress herself wasn't shy who bought her the house, claiming it was a "retirement gift". Some gift. Taken with the fact that several of the neighbors claim the boy is the spittin' image of Ahnold, I'm surprised the story didn't break sooner. The again, never underestimate the ability of the locals to put 2 and 2 together and get 3.




I really feel sorry for the boy. All the news reports piously claim they're protected the boy by not naming him or showing his photo, at the same time they're flashing photos of his mother, his birth certificate and his home. They really have no other choice now but to move. This isn't LA, where there's a new celebrity scandal almost daily and it would be easy to blend back into the background the minute Lindsay stole some more jewelry (and you know she will).

No, this is a small town and the people aren't particularly kind and now that the word is out, his future here would be nothing but grim. Time to start over somewhere new.

Maybe Fresno.

RIPPED FROM TODAY'S HEADLINES...

We made the Big Time, baby!

We have A R R I V E D.

We are the white hot center of the media universe, and all it took to get us here is Arnold Schwarzenegger's penis.

It turns out the Governator's housekeeper/mistress/baby momma live's right here in Bakersfield!

Well, that certainly trumps the other big news stories of the day, the weatherman and the stripper or the recent outbreak of horse herpes. That one's going to put a crimp in a lot of people's love lives around here.

Actually, when you think about it, it makes a certain amount of sense. If you need to lay low and drop off the map, there's no better place than Bakersfield. I wouldn't be surprised if half the population is in the Witness Protection Program, because who in their right mind would ever think to look for anyone here?

I'm sure the locals are hoping for a media firestorm that shines a spotlight on the city for days, but I don't know if I'd count on that. I notice even TMZ only mentions the woman lives "several hours outside of L.A.", not bothering to name the city. I'm sure that's to avoid having to send someone up here. I'd hate to be in the room when they drew lots for that assignment.

Still, I doubt it will last. In our tabloid culture the story is too good to pass up, so I'm guessing everyone will eventually send someone up here.

So be sure and look for Bako on your nightly news tonight!

P.S. I actually designed that piece of shit poster for Arnold at the top of the post. Not my finest hour, let me tell you, but it seemed appropriate for the day. It's funny things in life often crop back up at the oddest times. I haven't looked at that thing in years and now it came up as one of the first hits on Google.

Ah, The Circle of Life.

The Lonesome Road

I know Bakersfield desperately wants to believe they play in the Big Leagues, but sometimes the lengths they go to is just silly.

Take, for instance, the morning traffic report.

All the local stations do them several times an hour and my question is... why?

There is no traffic here.

Nada. Zip. Zilch.

But that doesn't stop them. Every twenty minutes or so one of the anchors announces "And now a check on traffic..."

They cut to a slow rotation of various traffic cams set up on "major thoroughfares", in reality desolate cross streets and an empty highway. They look like still images because there is nothing moving in them. If you're lucky you may see a lonely pick-up go by. In case it wasn't clear, the anchor will announce that there is nothing to announce.

One station used to have a "Metro Traffic Map", where they turned every two lane country road into a busy interstate with little car icons rushing to and fro. They finally realized they weren't fooling anyone and ditched it.

The best is the local NBC affiliate, KGET, which ups the ante by cutting to a real live California Highway Patrol officer, seated behind a desk and a huge CHP seal.

"And now, with this morning's traffic report is Officer So-and-so."

They cut to the officer, who always looks so serious. And three times an hour, every day of the week, he says exactly the same thing...

"All roads are clear and open. Back to you Kiyoshi."

Yes, the anchor's name is Kiyoshi.

In the year and a half that we've lived here, I've only ever seen one real traffic alert. Someone had dropped a bale of hay on Highway 99.

"So everyone, if you're out there and you see it, be sure and drive around it" the anchor helpfully advised.

There are few things in life that are self evident but I would think not driving head-on into anything would be on the list. Then again, they know their viewers. Who knows how many lives were saved that day.

“Back To You, In Space...”

God help us. The local news has discovered Google maps. Now every story, no matter how mundane, begins out in space and we ZOOM in to... East Bakersfield!

It's a bad habit they've picked up from the network nightly news, where it at least makes a little bit of sense as you hopscotch from trouble spots all over the globe. Not sure it makes much sense for a stabbing at the Deja Vu strip club.

BREAKING NEWS... BREAKING NEWS... BREAKING NEWS...

The world is a dangerous place and it's important to stay informed. That's why I tune to the local news, which is where I just learned of the latest menace...

Illegal Bathtub Cheese.

You mean to say there's "legal" bathtub cheese?

"Our Top Story Tonight... A Miracle From God..."

That's actually how the local news opened, with a "miracle of God".

No "allegedly" or "some people claim" or any of that namby pamby objectivity. Just a simple statement of fact. That's just how things work here.

The story was about an icon at a local Orthodox church, a painting of the Virgin Mary. Parishioners claim it began to weep an oily substance that smells like roses. They claim it's Myrrh. As in "gold, frankincense and myrrh" from the Bible.

OK, first of all, how many people have actually ever seen Myrrh, much less smelled it? A show of hands? I'm pretty sure if there was an oil that smelled like roses we'd be seeing Myrrh scented candles and Glade® Renuzit® Myrrh Room Deodorizers. And that isn't the case, is it?

The crack reporting staff interviewed members of the congregation, who all claimed it was miraculous and a "window to heaven". Ever skeptical, the reporter said "OK, if you say so".

They also interviewed another pastor who was surprisingly dubious. But then he was identified as being from one of the more radical Evangelical churches, and we all know how they feel about the Mary Worshippers. Gotta throw cold water on the whole "miracle" thing before it cuts into profits.

But the weirdest part of the story was when the cut back to the studio for the wrap-up, where the anchor informed us that it isn't actually a painting. It's a reproduction, manufactured by a company in Montreal. There are other copies of the same painting all over the world, and evidently they ALL weep oil.

Did anyone think to turn the thing over and check for the refillable Myrrh dispenser? It seems to me it's nothing but a fancy room air freshener.

Animal Kingdom

I've referred to this place many times as The Land of Misfit Toys, but I was thinking of the people. Evidently it refers to the animals too.

I was watching the local news, half awake, this morning and the screeching weather girl was doing remotes promoting the local zoo, called the "California Living Museum", or C.A.L.M. for short.

She'd pop up every ten minutes or so, interviewing the director of the zoo who'd feature a different animal in each segment.

The first one I saw featured and albino snake, which the director mentioned had been donated to the zoo. "Without it's camouflage" she said, "it wouldn't survive in the wild".

A few minutes later, they were back, this time with a red-tailed hawk. There was clearly something wrong with one of it's eyes and even the dim bulb weather girl picked up on it. The hawk, it turns out, had a cornea problem and had been donated to the zoo. "Without it's eyesight" she said, "it wouldn't survive in the wild".

I'm beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with ALL of their animals when the director offhandedly said "As you know, most of our animals are maimed or injured..."

Well doesn't THAT sound like a fun-filled afternoon. "C'mon kids, let's go check out the freakish, half dead animals!" It sounds like they find them all by the side of the road barely clinging to life.

As if to drive home the point, the weather girl closed with a reminder to come down and check out the new kit fox exhibit...

"They're all so cute, even if some of them are missing legs."

Perhaps the zoo would better be called the "California Barely Living Museum".

Spelchek

It looks like we're in for another day of fogg.

Yes, "fogg".

That's how it was spelled on this morning's weather map.

Cognitive Dissonance

Everyone is quite excited about the guest appearance tomorrow night at the Condors hockey game.

It's billed as the first ever visit by one of the top competitors of our times, an unchallenged champion known all 'round the world.

Kobayashi!

World Champion... Eater.

WTF?

There's really such a thing? Oy vey.

One of the local stations even has a contest for free tickets and the prizes include a special individual consultation with the champ himself.

Trust me, if there's one thing the locals don't need it's tips on competitive eating.

That was all weird enough, but then they segued into a segment about how to lose all those holiday pounds, featuring something called the "Caveman Diet".

Oh Lord, where to start.

It was all about eating meat and vegetables raw.

But... but... just yesterday they had a story, picked up from the network, about new findings that showed Neanderthals cooked their meat.

Do these people not even watch what they put on the air? Or do they just not care?

I read somewhere that dogs only have about a ten minute memory loop. You can leave them for 15 minutes or 10 hours and they don't know the difference. I guess that applies to the locals too.

Tonight’s News Headlines

"After the break - one group questions the Word of God..."

Color me jaded, but that doesn't strike me as particularly objective.

Then again, the group wasn't struck down by lightning during the commercials, so I guess that counts as "fair & balanced" here in Bako.

Oh, The Humanity...

Here's your morning traffic report:

Major pile up on the morning news; multiple words involved.

I promised myself I would lay off the morning news crew, they've suffered enough. It's really just too easy, fish in a barrel. So after the last post on the subject I vowed to give it a rest.

For awhile at any rate.

But then there was this morning's unfortunate carnage.

It started with a story about an infant undergoing a rare surgical procedure. It wasn't even a local child, so I have no idea why they chose the story. Someone aware of their own limitations would have taken one look at the name of the procedure and ditched the story, or at the very least just referred to it as "brain surgery".

But not here.

So, like a monster truck attempting to jump a row of school buses, he went for it...

"Hemispherectomy".

It was like a semi barreling down an ice covered highway and, sure enough, it jack knifed. I don't even know what a hemispherectomy is, but after watching the anchor attempt it again and again I found myself wishing he'd had one. It seemed to throw everyone off their game, what there was of it, and it started a chain reaction of botched stories. I found myself covering my face as the words just piled up.

Survivors attempted to take refuge in the entertainment report, to no avail. They launched into a story about an upcoming film based on the life of famed showman "Libber Ace".

Never heard of him? Sure you have.

Flamboyant... pianist... candelabras.... played Vegas... you know....

"Libber Ace".