The Kern County Public Library wraps up its 2007 Adult Summer Reading Program, "Summer Sleuthing," with a panel of three SoCal women mystery novelists who all set their books in the greater LA area.  You can check out their websites for more about their backgrounds, books, and samples of their writing: Denise Hamilton, Patricia Smiley, and Naomi Hirahara.  All three are members of Sisters in Crime LA.

An interview with Naomi Hirahara, a 2007 Edgar Award winner, was published in TBC's Eye Street yesterday, and you can find audio of the full interview on Bakersfield.com.  The interview, and her coming to read in Bakersfield, has gotten me all nostalgic, because, many moons ago, she took a chance on a teenaged wannabe writer and gave him a shot and an audience.  Naomi was the editor of the English-language section of the Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles' oldest Japanese American newspaper, and I was a high school student entering her youth short story contest.  She liked what she read, I guess, because she asked me to become a columnist.  Over the next two years, spanning the end of high school and the beginning of college, I wrote a column from the perspective of the biracial young adult that I was, a couple demographics that the paper, with its aging audience, desperately wanted to tap into.  I don't know if I helped at all on that count, but I do know that Naomi gave me valuable experience as a published writer that I couldn't have gotten elsewhere, back in the pre-blog/self-publishing era.

My daughter's naptime permitting, I can't wait to go hear her read.  The panel, by the way, is at Beale Memorial Library tomorrow, Saturday July 28, from 2 to 4 p.m.

--Jason Sperber

Lots of Bako-related music news floating around the web lately, and here are some choice tidbits:

• From Billboard.com:
A longtime admirer of the style and songs of Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam has crafted a tribute to the country bard on "Dwight Sings Buck," due Oct. 23 via New West. The set includes covers of all 11 of Owens' top five country hits, including "Act Naturally," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)."

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Buck Owens American Music Foundation, which serves to safeguard the legacy of Owens and his signature electric Bakersfield sound that arose from California in the 1950s. [Click thru to the story to see full track listing.]

• Ex-Korn guitarist turned born-again Christian author Brian "Head" Welch will be signing his New York Times best-selling memoir, "Save Me From Myself," at Russo's Books at the Marketplace on August 1st at 4 p.m.  [via Turnto23.com]

• Local band Soulajar won the opening act slot for the August 31 concert by Mat Kearney at the Sunset Blvd. (West Hollywood) House of Blues in Starbucks' Southern California "Does Your Barista Rock?" contest.  Congrats, guys!  [via KGET.com]

--Jason Sperber

In its coverage of the run-up to tonight's midnight release of the seventh "Harry Potter" novel, KERO's website, Turnto23.com, included an interesting article about a local band, made up of teenagers, who are performing a Potter-themed (well, Hermione-themed) original song at a Southern California bookstore's release party.

The band member quoted most extensively has a very familiar-sounding last name....  Belardes...  Belardes...  Now where do I know that name from?

Oh, I know!  That's the last name of that local blogger and novelist, N.L. "Nick" Belardes, who, if memory serves, recently crossed over to the dark side of professional mass media (muah-ha-ha-ha!) as the managing editor of Channel 23's website.

Heh.  You know I'm only messing with you, right, Nick?  We're enjoying the stuff you've been doing over there to bring local t.v. news websites into the 21st century--MySpace pages, themed community-contributed photo galleries, planned inside-baseball blogs, web-only video shorts, web-only original writing about local arts and entertainment not tied to the broadcast product, even synergistic networking with other media outlets. 

But dude, writing about your kid in a news story on your employer's news website (with no byline or attribution)?  [On his personal blog, he told me he didn't know how to insert bylines in their content management system yet.]

Two words, yo:  Full.  Disclosure.

Welcome to the Other Side.  Heh.  [And if you still need something Potterlicious to do tonight, here's our full list.]

--Jason Sperber, Digital Media Ninja

Last weekend's live-snake-eating incident at a Bakersfield "Survivor" audition has garnered a lot of attention all over the web.  [You can see the video, if you haven't already, here.]

Yesterday, the Humane Society of the United States' recruitment of 2003 "Survivor: The Amazon" winner Jenna Morasca to speak out against the stunt got the attention of AOL's online entertainment gossip powerhouse, TMZ, which ran an item under the headline, "'Survivor' Champ Spits Venom at Snake Eater."

Bakersfield meets big Hollywood gossip?  Who'd 'a thunk it?

--Jason Sperber

I've heard of flying squirrels, but not flying puppies. That's until I ran across this story on Prince Andy, a 6-month-old Labrador is gaining attention in the world of competitive dog leaping. Yup, competitive dog leaping. There's enough interest in organized leaping competitions that ESPN televises the events. Who would thunk?

Andy recently recorded leaps of almost 16 feet, and will be competing in events around the West, including the Splash Dogs World Championships in Arizona in November.

--Logan Molen

The Internet Movie Database, or IMDb, runs a bunch of movie/television-related links (some suggested by readers) at the bottom of its homepage each day under the title "IMDb Hit List."  Today's top hit is an article from our funky sister site, Bakotopia, called "How to Survive FRIDAY THE 13th."

This article also appears on page 5 of the latest edition of the Bakotopia print magazine, available all over town today.  [Issue # 6 also features a cover story about Bako's own Brooke "Pumkin" Thompson of VH1's "Flavor of Love" and "Charm School," whose unceremonious booting from the latter show we wrote about previously on Bakosphere.]

Congrats on the link, Bakotopians!

--Jason Sperber

Back in May we were excited to discover that Bakosphere's resurgence coincided with that of blogger John Jones, a.k.a. Black Dog.  This week, however, a customary visit to The Black Dog Experience yielded only a Blogger "Page Not Found" placeholder.

One of his earlier posts on that blog called it "the final incarnation of [his] blogging."  Say it ain't so, John!  Well, I'm leaving your link in our blogroll (over there to the left), just in case, okay?

[And to our other prolific local bloggers writing beyond the confines of Bakersfield.com, please look over our blogroll and make sure you're on there!  If not, please let us know.]

--Jason Sperber

Two players on the Bakersfield Blitz have apparently been arrested in connection with an alleged rape in Idaho.

Check out this story from the Idaho Statesman and another from a TV station up there.

Keep checking Bakersfield.com for more info.

-- Davin McHenry

Former Bakersfield Condors defenseman Glenn Mears has fired up a blog on the Condors site called Mears' Minutes. Mears' first post deals with life as a parent-coach.

And Condors player Scott Balan has a new blog ("Balan's Box Office") in which he is reviewing movies, giving flics ratings of 1 to 5 pucks. First up is the latest in the "Pirates of the Caribbean"  series, which he gives 4 pucks out of 5. More entertaining perhaps is this video of Balan serving up a knuckle sandwich in a game.

The new blogs join other older "official" Condors blogs that include "Condor Confessions" and "Snake Bytes."

--Logan Molen

That's the premise of a new play-in-progress by former Bakersfieldian and Sacramento English teacher Natalia Mercado.

According to the Elk Grove (Sacramento County) Citizen's news blog, "Zeus and Hera, the Later Years" "...throws Greek gods Zeus and Hera into the 21st century where they live in a trailer park in Bakersfield. The pair continually fight over Zeus’ infidelity and the trials they face with a comedic twist."

The interview continues:

“It was just a funny idea,” said Mercado, who grew up in Bakersfield. “All the gods are in it. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, works at the local strip club. Zeus is a welder; you know the whole lightning bolt thing. Hera works at Wal-Mart.”

Mercado, an English and journalism teacher at Luther Burbank High School, thought of the idea years ago while watching a talk show.

“There was this country man with one tooth and these two women were fighting over him,” Mercado said. “And I thought why would women ever do that? Then it came to me, it’s history, it’s epic. Zeus was constantly cheating on Hera but she never did anything to him, she would (hurt) the women he was with.”

[...]

Growing up in Bakersfield helped a lot with writing the screenplay, Mercado said. But so did tapping into her unknown love of country music. Strong female singers like Gretchen Wilson helped her get into the Hera character.

“I just started listening to it and I got really inspired,” Mercado said.

With a degree in English literature and an extensive background in Greek mythology, the story seemed to flow out of Mercado.

“It just all came together in this screenplay,” Mercado said. “A lot of different influences helped me create the idea.”

The short screenplay now being adapted and revamped for the stage and screen will be given a staged reading by writers' group Escritores del Nuevo Sol at midtown Sacramento's La Raza Galeria Posada tomorrow night, Friday, July 6.

According to Sacramento arts blogger Richard Hansen, Mercado, 29, has previously had work produced by the Bakersfield Community Theatre.

--Jason Sperber

SLO-based wedding photographer Cameron Ingalls blogged about a recent wedding he shot here in Bakersfield.  (Which, as we all know, is just made for comfortable summer weddings.  Heh.)

In a post called "I Heart Bakersfield!" Ingalls writes,

"Because [Doug and Megan] were getting married in the heat of Bakersfield they're [sic] wedding didn't start until 7pm. Which meant most of the portraits had to be shot before the wedding. Doug’s father recently purchased an abandoned brewery which he has been cleaning up and getting ready for commercial space. In the meantime it served us as an awesome location for pictures of the family, bridal party and especially the couple. There wasn’t a lot of light in all of the rooms so I had to be creative within the means. It was fun to be stretched by such a different environment!"

You have to go check out the the photos he put up in the post -- I would've never thought to do wedding photos like that, or that those shots could've been taken here.