So some bum called her a hooker....gee what gas station did  she go to???? 

Yeehaw!!!  We're toothless idiots providing fodder for the sophisticates of El Lay once again!  Let's hope everyone believes it and stays there! 

Wait. Did it actually say someone called her a hooker? I must have missed that. I heard the part about the car circling after she gave $10 to the bum who called her a cowgirl, but I didn't hear the hooker part.

I feel like she produced this story solely for the purpose of mockery, even though she didn't say too many bad things about us. It just makes me angry that people are constantly talking crap about our little town when they don't even know what it's like to live here. The only thing I really hate about Bakersfield is all the idiots who moved here from LA.

Thought it was 'call girl,' not 'cowgirl.' maybe wrong though (she did just buy some boots). and they were cowboy boots, not hooker boots if remember correctly!

I really don't know what L.A. has to crow about.  Have you ever been there?  I mean, OFF the beaten path where the people actually live?  That place looks like Sarajevo after Russia splintered.  It really looks exactly like what it is--a place where desperate people skitter around trying to scratch out a living.  It creeps me out every time I go there.  But Angelenos need some solace--some reason to believe that their lot could be worse.  So they drive PAST Bakersfield while smugly listening to NPR reaffirm their stereotypes about their country cousin to the north. 

TV and movies would have you think that Malibu is a sandy-beached paradise (not!  There's nothing in Malibu except dilapidated houses blocking the ocean view and bacteria in the water and a terrible riptide.)  TV and movies would have you believe The Hollywood Hills are a wedding-cake tiered slice of hilly heaven (not!  The streets are crazily narrow and all you can see for mile after mile is garages.  Unless you like brown, fuzzy views of "the little people" down in the poverty.)  And Bakersfield?  Well, we're all sporting straw in our teeth (or tooth) and tabaccy juice on our chin.  We're what Angelenos think of when they hear Jeff Foxworthy's redneck jokes...as they drive PAST Bakersfield...while listening to NPR.

Bakosphere, I'm prone to being wrong about things, so I thought maybe you were right. But yesterday when my Internet was still working I wanted to figure out which word it was that he had said to her. I got on NPR's Web site (I know the site pretty well...) and I did a transcript search. From June 2008 to June 2008 I typed in "cowgirl" and clicked on Day to Day, and searched to see if anything would show up. The only thing that showed was that particular Bakersfield story. Then I did the same thing and typed in "call girl," but nothing showed up. So, I'm willing to bet that he said cowgirl, and that's why she said she felt like she was starting to fit in. That's what I'm hoping, at least, because otherwise she thinks we're a bunch of hookers and pimps, and THAT would really make me mad. Then I'd really have to write a letter to NPR.

If my Internet wasn't being hideously slow today I'd get back on the site and redo the search to make sure, but it's too slow to do it today.

thanks robin.

bakosphere stands corrected.

oldblue: this is your cue