Bakersfield

Icardo Center is a 3,800-seat multi-purpose arena in Bakersfield, California. It is home to the California State University, Bakersfield, women's... basketball and wrestling teams.
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The Jam Events Center is a multipurpose arena in Bakersfield, California. Having opened in December 2009, it is home to the Bakersfield Jam of the... NBA Development League. Currently, the arena seats 420 people but it is expandable to 700. Jam owner Steve Ellis estimated in 2010 that the team is saving $500,000 a season by using the smaller facility rather than the much-larger Rabobank Arena for home games. Because of the very small seating capacity, no single-game tickets are available for any contest. This is also the team's practice facility. This dual use, while rare, is not unprecedented, even in the D-League. Starting with the 2009-10 season, the Los Angeles D-Fenders shifted some home games to the Toyota Sports Center from the Staples Center. After a one-year hiatus for 2010-11, the D-Fenders resumed playing at the Toyota Sports Center in 2011-12.
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Donald Eugene Ulrich, best known by the stage name Don Rich was a country musician who helped develop the Bakersfield sound in the early 1960s. He... was a noted guitarist and fiddler, and a member of the Buckaroos, the backing band of country singer Buck Owens. Donald Eugene Ulrich was born in Olympia, Washington on August 15, 1941. He was the adopted son of Bill and Anne Ulrich. Don grew up in the Tumwater area at 6th and Ferry on Tumwater Hill. Bill and Anne both enjoyed performing music and soon began teaching young Don the fiddle, even as early as age three. Bill also constructed a smaller-than-average violin for Don to play. His parents were quite active in finding talent contests and performing venues where Don could play. Don also moved to the guitar in his youth. Don played both in and out of school, often working the circuit in the local area playing his new Fender Stratocaster. Don was only 16 years old when he opened for Elvis Presley in September 1957 at the Tacoma Lincoln Bowl. While in high school he formed an early Rock and Roll band called the Blue Comets with his friends drummer Greg Hawkins and pianist Steve Anderson.
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Jonathan Houseman Davis is the lead vocalist and frontman for the nu metal band Korn. Davis was ranked 16th on Hit Parader 's list of "Heavy Metal's... All-Time Top 100 Vocalists". Davis was born in Bakersfield, California to Rick Davis and Holly Chavez. He has a sister named Alyssa, and a half brother, Mark Chavez, by his mother. His father was a keyboardist for Buck Owens and Frank Zappa, while his mother was a professional actress and dancer. His parents divorced when he was three years old, his mother leaving Rick for an actor, and was raised by his father and stepmother Lily in Bakersfield. Davis suffered severe bouts of asthma as a child, and had survived a near-fatal asthma attack when he was five, when he was pronounced clinically dead for several minutes. He also spoke of having a horrible relationship with his stepmother. Davis has said that his earliest musical inspiration as a child was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Superstar, and his favorite musical group was Duran Duran. He graduated from Highland High School in 1989.
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Robert Adame Beltran is an American actor, known for his role as Commander Chakotay on Star Trek: Voyager. Beltran was born in Bakersfield,... California, the son of Aurelia Olgin and Louis Perez Beltran, first generation Mexican-Americans. He refers to himself as being “Latindio” . Beltran attended East Bakersfield High School and Bakersfield College. He has two sisters and seven brothers, including the well-known Latin Jazz musician Louie Cruz Beltran. Beltran graduated from California State University, Fresno with a degree in Theater Arts and moved to Los Angeles to begin his acting career. He has been working steadily since 1979 in both theater and film. Beltran had his first film role in Zoot Suit in 1981, but his breakthrough came in 1982 when he played Raoul in the cult classic film Eating Raoul. Beltran also had a supporting role as Chuck Norris' partner, Deputy Kayo in Lone Wolf McQuade in 1983 .
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Rebekka Lynn Armstrong is a Playboy Playmate, whose announcement in 1994 that she was HIV-positive made international headlines. Armstrong appeared... in Playboy's September 1986 issue, and tested positive for HIV in 1989. When she made her public announcement in 1994, she became one of the best-known public faces of heterosexual HIV transmission. In her speaking engagements, she notes that despite popular stereotypes of the wild sexual lives enjoyed by Playboy Playmates, she had in fact contracted HIV from a relatively normal teenage sexual encounter. In an interview Armstrong had stated she was unsure how exactly she contracted the virus; she believes it could have been when she had an abortion, required a blood transfusion, of which the blood may have been HIV-tainted, or it may have been a teenage sexual encounter with a man who had had homosexual relationships and may have contracted HIV as a result of that. In the same article in which she announced her HIV status, Armstrong also said she was a lesbian. She was married to a man, Oliver Luettgenau, who died on March 1, 2009.
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Larsen Alan Jensen is a former American freestyle swimmer. He is a two-time Olympic medalist. At the 2003 World Championships, Larsen earned a... silver medal in the 800 meter freestyle, his first medal at the international level. He competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics, winning silver in the 1500 meter freestyle race, as well as competing in the 400 meter freestyle, where he finished fourth. At the 2005 World Aquatics Championships, he won silver medals in the 800 and 1,500 meter freestyle races. Jensen competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing where he won the bronze medal in the 400 meter freestyle, and also placed fifth in the 1500 meter freestyle. After the 2008 Summer Olympics, Larsen retired from competitive swimming to pursue a career in the US Navy. He graduated from the Navy Seal's BUDS training program at the top of his class in 2011. news|url=http://navycompass.
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Brian Phillip Welch , better known as Head, is an American musician best known as the former guitarist and co-founder of the nu metal band Korn.... "Along with fellow Korn guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer, Welch helped patent Korn's distinctive sound, a mix of sirenlike shards of dissonant guitar that mimicked a turntablist's various effects and rumbling down-tuned riffing that defined the nu metal aesthetic beginning in the mid-'90s." After becoming a Christian, Welch left the band in 2005 to focus on life as a father and to pursue his own solo career. He released his debut Christian album, Save Me from Myself, in 2008. Welch and Munky are ranked at No. 26 of Guitar World's 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time. Welch was raised in Bakersfield, California. Welch claims that, early in his life, he was different from most kids, and was bullied in school. He liked music, and was a big Ozzy Osbourne fan. Originally, Welch expressed interest in playing the drums, but his father convinced him to play the guitar so he would not have to haul a drum kit around. He began playing the guitar at the age of 10.
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James Christian 'Munky' Shaffer is the guitarist for the nu metal band Korn . According to Korn's video "Who Then Now?", The nickname 'Munky' is a... reference to his feet which resemble monkey's hands when spread. Munky cites Steve Vai and 80s metal guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads as his main influences. Shaffer is also the founder of Emotional Syphon Recordings, who have signed acts like Monster In The Machine and Droid. Droid was also featured on the 2007 Family Values Tour. Shaffer first took up guitar as part of rehabilitation when he severed the tip of one of his fingers on the chain of his three-wheeler. He has since performed with several bands. During high school Shaffer met fellow guitarist Brian "Head" Welch. Later on Welch and Shaffer saw Jonathan Davis singing for the band Sexart in a bar. Initially intending to stay only for a few minutes, the pair ended up staying for the whole set upon seeing Davis' performance, and asked him to join their band almost immediately afterward.
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