One of the most interesting cats in the local blogosphere, or the Bakosphere, is N.L. Belardes, raconteur, critic (music, art, theater, literature, etc.), media gadfly (especially in reference to TBC), novelist, publisher, podcaster and full-on conspiracy theorist. I’m sure he thinks Oswald did not act alone, the moon landing was filmed in Hollywood, and the Kennedys killed Marilyn.

His novel “Lords: Part One,” is all about conspiracy. It is loosely based on the what may be a real conspiracy, the Lords of Bakersfield.

When I first landed in Bako, I wanted to make friends with N.L. I had found his blog while still in Ventura and recognized that he was sort of the center of the blogging universe in Kern County. If you’re running a local media site, I think the local bloggers should be your friends, if possible.

I tried with N.L., but I think my association with TBC made him distrust me. I was just another MSM robot trying to rape the poor, innocent local writers, or something like that.

Even so, I keep N.L. in my RSS feed and check out his blog nearly every day. Once in a while, I even leave a comment. One of those comments drew him over here yesterday, and N.L. wrote this really overly flattering post.

I don’t always agree with N.L., but his is probably the most important blog in Bako right now. I’m sure a lot of younger, local influentials read it. N.L.’s posts usually generate a fair number of comments, and other local bloggers often link to him. He may be a pain in the butt to TBC from time to time, but love him or hate him, he’s firmly entrenched in the local online media scene.

UPDATE: This is funny. N.L.
posted his article to Bakotopia, the TBC-owned
social networking site. My picture is currently on the Bakotopia home page.

I just ran into Nick at Dagny’s and we had a nice chat. He gave me the pointer
to Bakotopia.