The Dismantliing Of Tourism

I returned to the U.S. back in 2009, after living in Peru for the previous 3-1/2 years.  I got back just in time to be in the middle of the worst depression in the history of this country.  I’d lost everything, I’d been lied to, manipulated, but that’s not my story for today.  Today, I want to talk about tourism in America.

If you have read some of my previous pieces here, you know that I devoted my life to my music dream.  That being the case, I’ve been in many tourist cities and towns, including Hawaii (Waikiki), Las Vegas, Nashville, San Francisco, Austin (Texas), San Diego, Reno, Tombstone (Arizona), Virginia City (Nevada), and a few others.  In 1980, if you would venture down to Waikiki, you would have found crowds of people, you would find restaurants and bars, shops, art galleries, a movie theater, beaches, hotels, hula shows, and real Hawaiians doing real Hawaiian stuff - and every inch of Kalakaua, Kuhio, and all the streets in between would be packed with people.  If you didn’t make reservations at least a year out, you were not going to get a hotel room.  Every bar and restaurant would be full of people, many featuring live music of every kind, dancing, and lots of hula shows with authentic, traditional Hawaiian music.  The name artists all had a nice showroom to do their shows - and they were always sold out.  Youngsters would cruise Waikiki.  Downtown Honolulu was also thriving, it was the seedy part of town, but thriving.  The Hawaiian culture was alive and well.  Fast forward to 1985, Waikiki had become deserted, with a few druggies, a few prostitutes, and other such derelicts walking the streets at night.  Waikik Beach would have a few people, but not the crowds like before.  You could go there on a Friday or Saturday night, 10 at night, and find a few stragglers, empty restaurants and bars, and empty shops and galleries.  They had brought in a bunch of junk wagons, owned by Koreans, where they sold nothing but junk - cheap jewelry, cheap t shirts, and other such cheap souvenirs.  They did away with most of the live music, and none of the name Hawaiian artists had showrooms.  The streets were deserted, kids had found other things to do than cruise Waikiki.  They built a monstrosity on the makai (ocean) side of Kalakaua - a four story, two block long shopping mall full of high end outlet stores - Gucci, Chanel, etc, it was horrible - and empty.  The Ilikai Hotel, one of the major hotels in Waikiki, had many of their rooms remodeled, with kitchens, so they could rent them out as apartments, because as a hotel, the occupancy was way down.  I spent most of the 90s working in Waikiki, and somewhat regularly being there on some evenings, same - deserted.  I left Hawaii in 99, with Waikiki being a ghost town.

After returning from Peru in 2009, I fumbled around, Austin, San Francisco, Tucson, then Portland, Oregon.  From there I moved to Reno, this was in 2010.  I found Reno to also be a ghost town.  I looked for places to play music, was locked out to beat hell, but in the process of looking, I found Reno to be empty.  The area of North Virginia Street, where most of the casinos are (El Dorado, Circus Circus, Silver Legacy, and others) are - dead, same as Waikiki, the streets only having the druggies out and about - and not even very many of them.  The casinos were empty, live music was rare.  The Atlantis (a few miles from the downtown area) seemed to be doing fairly well, at least on the weekends, same at Peppermill, which was a few miles down on South Virginia Street.  The only time I saw people in Reno was when there was en event - Hot Augusts Nights, Street Vibrations, stuff like that.

Three years ago, I was in Las Vegas for about three months - during the summer.  Same story there - nothing like it was from the 90s on back.  There were people there, but overall, the casinos were mostly empty.  Most of the big showrooms had gone dark, with just a small handful of major stars doing shows.  There were very few live music venues where local bands, duos, or solos played.  I can’t say the place was deserted, but it was nothing like it was pre 2000.

Same story in Nashville, five years ago.  They had given the place a facelift, and had extended the bar/live music scene down to the river - which was maybe two extra blocks from where it was before.  Most of the live music was horrid, by the way.  Friday and Saturday nights, 10 till midnight, there would be a few crowds of youngsters hanging out in a few of the places on Fifth and Broadway - I figure most of them were locals, but other than that, pretty much nothing.  Some of what used to be stores and shops were boarded up - empty, out of business.  Printer’s Alley was dark, Gabe’s Lounge was gone, as were all the outlying music venues that were around town in the early 80s.  I’d also been there in 2004, same - dead compare to how it was in the early 80s.

San Francisco in 2009 - dead, Tombstone Arizona in 2010 - deserted, Austin, Texas - dead, except when there was an event such as SXSW.  Very few music venues - mostly tiny coffee shops - maybe three or four in the whole town.  Virginia city, Nevada - dead, except when there was an event.  Same goes for San Diego, Portland, Oregon, Sedona, Arizona, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona - all devoid of tourists.

I’ve now lived in South Lake Tahoe for the past five years, playing mostly at the restaurant called “Gunbarrel Tavern and Eatery”.  I did well there for the first three years - where Tahoe would be crawling with people during the summer months, and during ski season.  It would slow down during the “Shoulder Seasons”, but for the most part, Tahoe was doing very well.  The past two years, though, I noticed a drastic drop in numbers - during both summer and ski seasons.  The owner of Gunbarrel told me last winter, that they were down thousands of dollars A DAY from what they were the previous years, and that New Year’s Eve, 2019 was a full $10,000 down from the previous New Year’s Eves.  The shops and restaurant/bars out on Lake Tahoe Blvd, where the casinos are, up until two years ago, would be packed with people, and the traffic was crazy.  There have been plans, for no less than ten years, to build a second complex in town, complete with casinos, hotels, restaurants and bars, and shops.  There has also been plans, for no less than ten years, to built a “Loop Road”, to supposedly alleviate the traffic problem.  I happen to know that any big money outfit is going to send out surveyors, to assess the situation, look at the numbers, survey the environment, the location, pretty much everything involved, to see to it that there would be money to be made.  My prediction is that both projects will be abandoned, because no large outfit is going to put out millions of dollars if the profits will not be there.  I guess we’ll see soon enough.

With the numbers in Tahoe being so far down like they are, Gunbarrel has only had music on the weekends for four months now, which made it impossible for me to make any kind of living - after the previous four years of doing pretty well.  There are a few other venues around town, part owned by an egotistical jerk, Ted Kennedy (not the dead senator, but a guy who apparently failed at being a real estate agent in Las Vegas, and came up here to see what he could get away with).  Ted is a 50 something year old guy who has learned to plunk around on a guitar, sing a few songs, and thinks that if he hires a bunch of drugged out, talentless plunkers, that when he walked onto the stage, it would make him look good.  Well, it doesn’t work that way, but the guy’s ego tells him it does.  I’ve heard the comments from his workers and managers, and I’ve seen him in action - so, no, Ted, it doesn’t work that way.  The guy has locked out any musician who was worth his salt - including me.  At California Burger, one of the places he has bought into, the other owner, Jeff, came to me after I’d played there a few times, and said, “We’re not paying you what we normally pay, I’m doubling your pay, because you earned it”.  Well, shortly after that, Ted pulls rank, takes over the booking, and locks me out.  Lucky for me, Dan at Gunbarrel appreciated me and kept me working.  He left the restaurant in the summer of 2019, at which time a new manager was hired, and doesn’t seem to care about the music, or the restaurant at all, for that matter.  After seeing the writing on the wall - after the damage had been done, mind you, I got a job as a bellhop at Marriott’s Grand Residence.  The money is decent, and I have projects to pay for.  I have my idea for the clothing and jewelry line that I’d been working on for the past three years - having wasted $5000+ having a crooked manufacturer in India make my shirts.  They were unsellable, so I donated them.  The plan is to get a legitimate American company to make my shirts, I found one that sounds like it would be a good fit for me, but it’s not cheap, and neither is the advertising.  I also have plans to write enough songs to complete an old school, traditional Country Music album, and an old school, traditional Bluegrass album - with me playing all the instruments and singing all the songs.  I plan to get my clothing and jewelry line up and running, so I can have the time and money to write and record the songs.  Here’s the crazy part - not to me, but to most people, I would love nothing more than to expose Nashvville’s corruption.  It will not be easy, nor will it be quick, but that’s my plan.  I digress, sorry.  My point here, tourism is being successfully dismantled by the Powers That Be.  Many people are in denial, but as I always say, you cannot deny reality.

So, I carry luggage to and from hotel rooms, get paid an ok wage, and keep my plans at the front of my mind.  In the meantime, I can’t really do much music related work, because there is a person in my life who hates it that I have my music.  Another whole ‘nother.

See ya next time.

Two Questions, Two Answers

For Cesar:

Question #1:  What would you tell your younger self if you could?

Never underestimate how fucked up the world is.

When I was 17, I went out into the world thinking the world was a good, joyous place, where good people prospered, where good won over bad, where love conquered all, where there were unseen forces that helped good, and fought against bad.  Well, after 50+ years of being in the real world, I learned - the hard way, that none of this is true.  My dad told me, “Work hard, get good at something, be honest, keep your shoes shined and your hair combed, show respect, and you’ll be successful in life”.  Well, while I sleep well always, every other kind of “Success” has eluded me.  I got good at something, I devoted my life to it, I worked my ass off at it, I took risks, I was always respectful and kind, I did everything right, and got stifled at every turn.  For the record, I was not kind and respectful because my dad told me to be, or because I’m supposed to be, I was those things because that’s who I am, it’s who I’ve always been, and who I always will be, I don’t know how to be any other way.  So, I’ve been out in the world doing these things, always being honest, and paying big for all of it.  The sad part is, most people see respect and kindness and weakness, traits of a person who is to be taken advantage of, to be exploited, to be manipulated, to be cheated, to be bullied.  If I were to do anything different, it would be to be kind and respectful and all, but to be a little smarter on how to make a living, because when you depend on other people, bosses, co-workers, clients, most will see you as a threat, and do vicious things to take you down, to stifle you, to hurt you, to cause you grief.  You’ll have to think outside the proverbial box, because every conventional way of making a living, of having a business, has been tried, and at some point, stifled.  When people in power - government officials, large corporation ownership and upper management - see people slip through the cracks, they patch the cracks.  I, myself, have a good business idea, but I thought of it way late in my life, after doing the conventional - trying to get signed by a major record label.  That was a mistake in today’s music business - but that’s a whole ‘nother - maybe for another time.  I stand here seeing my music business having been done away with - after forty years of devoting everything to that dream.  I’ve had to take a sidestep to do something other than music to make enough money to pay for my projects, doing a job that is totally foreign to me, but I’m doing it, and I seem to be on my way.  Having one’s own business is the only way to break out of the rat race that is society in 2020.  If you can come up with a product or service that you know you can sell, you know who you’ll be selling to, you know where to advertise in order to reach that base, chances are you’ll do ok.  Again, outside the box.  Just an example, I met a guy in Santa Fe just last year who would harvest lavender and sage, bundle it, and walk around downtown Santa Fe selling the stuff.  The guy made a killing, but he did have several run ins with cops.  This is just one example of thinking outside the box, saying again, every conventional business idea has been tried, used, and now stifled.  If you look around you in any city in America, you will see that most true small businesses have disappeared.  Today it’s Walmart, Home Depot, Starbuck’s, McDonald’s, Les Schwab Tires, etc.  All the true small businesses that were the backbone of my once great country from the late 70s on back are gone.  We don’t see the TV repairman, the washing machine repairman, the cobbler, the suit maker, the seamstress, the artist, even the auto mechanic is on his way out.  Just recently, somebody came up with the idea of delivering fast food - as a separate service, not hired directly by the restaurants, but as a separate entity, and they’re doing very well.  The Amazon guy did something unheard of, the guy who started “Pet Rocks” made a killing for a while.  So you see, there are ideas, good ideas, great ideas, you just have to look around, brainstorm, research, and take risks.  You may not succeed with the first idea, or the first 20 ideas, but one thing for sure, if you set your sights on being a sales rep for Sony, or a manager at Ace Parking as being your lifetime vocation, you will not be happy, and you will never be financially successful - ever how much the upper management and ownership tries to convince you that you will.

Do your own, outside the box.

Question #2:  If you have any advice for a young person, what would it be?

Never believe anything anybody tells you.

Also when I was 17, I lived in a trailer park in Poway, California.  I hung out at the rec center of the park, where I met this older guy - Dave McCarthy.  He had been a pool shark most of his life, and did well for himself.  One day after knowing him for a couple of months, he told me, just out of the blue, “You know, you’re too damn honest for your own good”.  I thought, what a dumb thing to say, as I had no idea what he was trying to tell me.  Well, 50+ years later, I know without any reservations, precisely what he was trying to tell me.  The world is full of dishonest and mean spirited people, people who would do ANYTHING to get what they want - whether it be financial and/or personal gain, control over another person, and many people’s objective in life is to cause grief and loss for any person they cross paths with.  The human ego in most people is beyond my comprehension, as I didn’t get the ego gene.  Such people’s ego will drive them to do some of the most vicious and ruthless things you could ever imagine - and the better you are as a person, the better you are at whatever it is that you do, the more vicious they will be.  They will lie, they will cheat, manipulate, steal, slander, bully, even kill, for what they want.  I went around life thinking that people were good at their word, that a handshake meant something, that most people were honest.  Let me tell you, that is very much not the case.

The other thing I remember Dave telling me was, “If in your entire life, you meet ONE person who will be a true friend, you’re damn lucky”.  I thought again, “What a dumb thing to say, I have all kinds of friends”.  Well, all those people I hung out with, the first bunch from the time I was 12 up until I was 17, and the second bunch from 17 to 22, not a single one turned out to be a true friend, not by any stretch of the imagination.  Every one did everything humanly possible to establish superiority, to let me know how inferior I was, how much smarter, better, tougher, better at athletics they were.  While none of this was true, they did everything they could to prove themselves anyway.  I have not seen any of them in 45 years, and do not miss any of them one bit.  In my music business, I have had people tell me some of the most outrageous things, in order to get something from me.  A few succeeded, with their lies and their manipulation, their slander, and whatever else.  Had I known how dishonest and vicious people were, I would have steered clear of all of them, and done whatever I was doing on my own.  No matter the promises, the the smiles, the flattering, they only wanted to squash me so they could satisfy the ego.  Funny thing, I’ve always believed that there is room for every person to succeed in every way, that there was enough for everyone, and I believe there is, but with such people being everywhere, you own success will be solely your own doing, unless of course you have wealthy parents who are willing to hand you a life, which very few people have.  Short of that, the only way to be happy, to have any financial security, would be to do your own, not depending on any person - especially the charming - generally, the more charming, the more charismatic, the more full of shit they are.

So, take a lesson from a guy who has been on the receiving end of such people all his life - there are unseen forces that protect and support bad people, that will work against good people, and, that most people are not team players, most people are not kind, most people are self serving, self righteous, and vicious.  Keeping in mind one again, the more charming, the more charismatic, the bigger the promises, the more full of shit the person is.

You will take risks, you will fall face first in the mud, you will be lied to, cheated, exploited, and whatever else, but take those as learning experiences, as part of life.  Then, when you remember this piece of writing, and you learn that what I’ve said here is the reality of life, you just might find your own path - and don’t be afraid to follow that path, no matter the discouraging words and actions from people.  When you do this, whatever successes you achieve, or, whatever mud puddles you fall into, will be of your own doing.  There is nothing worse than doing what other people tell you to do, fail, then be angry at yourself because you listened to somebody tell you what to do, how to live, how to proceed.  Do your own.

One last thing, don’t let anybody throw the word “Negative” at you.  One thing I know for sure today, there is nothing more negative than being dishonest.  Denial, hiding from reality, pretending things are peachy when they’re not, allowing your ego to drive you, being mean spirited, vindictive - those are all in the “Dishonest” column.  Don’t do it.

Ok, all for now.