Blog: California Tour Guy

California is like summer or the Christmas holidays.  The unhappy children think that they are supposed to be having a good time, and they imagine that everybody else is having a better time.  Thus the pervasive mood of envy and the feeling, common especially among celebrities, that somehow they have been excluded from something, that their names have been left off the guest list.
Lewis Lapham

The comments on this blog are designed to be controversial. I want to show people new ways to see California. If you agree or disagree with the comments please let me know. A blog is only be as good as the community of people it helps foster. Send your comments to me at paul@thebigbluemarble.com. I promise to post your comments on the blog (unless it is spam, of course).

In my mind, I have read no news more alarming in recent months than the possibility that the US could effectively fence off our country from Mexico.  A San Diego based Republican leader, Duncan Hunter, has succeeded in garnering a large and vociferous group of Americans (which I am afraid probably represent the majority of American citizens) who want to build a fence along every mile of our 1100 mile border with Mexico.

In 1994 these groups managed to place the establishment of approximately over 200 miles of this fence between all the areas where two cities of the border abutted each other (like San Diego/Tijuana and El Paso/Ciudad Juarez) as part of the NAFTA negotiation.  As a result over 3000 Mexican (and other nationalities) have perished trying to cross the border in the extreme areas where the fence doesn't exist (which are mostly in sparsely populated desert regions).

I have seen the fence between Tijuana and San Diego and it is truly formidable.  Anyone trying to cross faces a labyrinthe of defenses included a tall concrete post wall (deliberately designed so that deer but not people can cross), constant helicopter and Border patrol surveillance, and gun towers that to me look like something I would expect on the border between North and South Korea.

These formidable barriers have admittedly reduced the number of immigrants coming over these borders to a trickle.  I visited a shelter in Tijuana for immigrants that was (since it was built before 1994) only a third full (most of the migrants were people who were exiled from the US).  Residents along the border reported massive reductions in the number of immigrants transiting through their neighborhood.

Yet, I can't help but wonder what will happen if the wall is built out as Duncan Hunter wants.  People will invariably find new ways to enter the US that will endanger even more of their lives (I suspect that they board  topsy-turvy water craft to enter the US, like Haitian and Cuban immigrants do today).  Many of the poor communities on the US side of the border will dry up as they lose all their Mexican customers. 

More than anything else, however, the US (California particularly) will be sending a powerful message to the world that we want to be insular.  We will say effectively that we need to curtain ourselves off from, in a xenophobic (and probably ultimately elusive) effort, everything -- good and bad -- that the rest of the world has to offer.  We will be rejecting the fundamental assumption that accepting and assimilating influences from the rest of the world has made our state and our country beautiful and unique.

California and the Southwest were founded by Mexican and Spaniards.  Everything in our environment from the names of our cities and streets to our architecture reflects this heritage.  While we often blame the recently immigrated offspring of this heritage for our problems, there has never been an effective, rational study that has determined that the overall effect of immigration in the US is bad (or good) for our economy or society. The US has been accepting immigrants for much of the past two centuries.  Anti-immigrant feeling has swept our country before but we have never set down a limit as powerful, and ultimately irrevocable, as a 1100 mile wall. 

Accepting immigrants (particularly from Mexico) is, both our heritage and our way of life.   I, for one, roux the day when we give this up.

Commentary #7

My Hate (Slowly Evolving into Love?!) Relationship with My Current Hometown, Cambria

Almost two years, I moved here to Cambria (a small, beach resort on the Central California coast) to live with my parents while I set up my business.

I came here with some mixed emotions.  Right before I left, I lived in an area about as different from Cambria as possible in California -- a somewhat seedy, commercial area just north of the Paramount Theatre in Oakland.  I was scared of missing the joys of urban life -- ethnic restaurants, museums, bookstores, and quirky, multicultural neighborhoods. 

I also looked forward to seeing what life was like in a small town.  My parents seem like this place fit them perfectly.  They love the ease that they could make friends here.  They quickly joined all sorts of social and political communities (including, and I am proud of my parents for this, a successful campaign to establish a dog park).   When my father got sick here in 1999, the community seemingly lept in to give him and my mother support and help.

However, after only a couple of days, I felt trapped here.  My parents tried to help me feel comfortable here by inviting many of their friends to meet me.  Most of these friends were very accomplished (sometimes so accomplished that they were a bit intimidating), opinionated, and quick witted people.

Yet, I began to also feel that the people in this town had this feeling of superiority that grated against everything I believed.  I blanched every time I heard them say how blessed they felt to live.  It seemed as if they said this not because they felt comfortable here, but, instead, because they wanted to escape from the supposed crimes of the more diverse, interesting, and energetic places in LA and the Bay Area that they called home before coming here.  Everytime I heard anything that seemed to reflect the view that they want to close their community off to new people out of fear that they could "pollute" this pristine place, I felt like I wanted to scream and run away.  I believed, and continue to believe, that the desire to close things off to newcomers runs counter to everything that makes California special (see my blog entry #5 below). 

Recently I have began to question whether I am hearing what people are saying correctly.  Several years ago when my parents tried to build their home here, they encountered a vociferous group of people dedicated to walling this community from outside influence.  I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that this sentiment continued to pervade this community.  I also became so enmeshed in my natural disdain for anything that even smack vaguely of exclusivity that I stopped recognizing the benefits of this community -- mainly its capacity to form close human relations and its stunning natural setting (Note: prior to starting this business, I served as a coordinator for affordable housing programs in several cities in California and began to believe that our State's strict growth standards and seemingly excessive planning and building standards were mainly created, not to improve our quality of life, but instead to insure that property value continue to increase, denying more than 30% of our State'a population (whose stories I encountered daily in my work) access to decent, safe housing).

I know that many people consider me blessed to live in this quiet, safe, beautiful and human-scaled community.  Now that I am beginning to see things differently, I am learning how to appreciate this place again.  I realize that I may have even been a victim of a strange form of culture shock and that just like anyone else coming out of its grips, I will see this place for what it is -- both good and bad-- and learn to feel like it is my home.

Then I will find out that Cambria is just like everywhere, both blessed and cursed.  It is just a matter of your perspective.

Commentary #6

The Main Reason I'd Rather Live in LA than San Francisco

Though I am a native Southern Californian, I relished the chance eight years ago to move to the Bay Area.  I looked forward to enjoying the area's beautiful natural surroundings, extensive cultural and educational opportunities, and freewheeling, Bohemian lifestyle.

When I got to the Bay Area, I fell in love, and continue to love, it.  I enjoyed the people and communities I encountered.  I treasured the incredible views of the Bay from the San Francisco and Berkeley Hills, shopping in the great used book stores around UC, eating terrific, low-cost ethnic eats in "the City" (as San Francisco is known to Bay Area locals), and having stimulating conversations with the tremendously well-educated and diverse people who populate the area.

Unfortunately, after a while, I encountered a cloud over all the area's great features that I never could really accept:  the Bay Area is probably the smuggest place in the US.  As a lifelong resident of Los Angeles and Orange County, I was inevitably told by everyone I encountered the same thing, "You must glad to leave Los Angeles, what a _____" (fill in negative descriptive noun here). 

After awhile, this begin to rub me the wrong way.  I don't recall ever hearing anyone in Southern California denigrating the Bay Area.  Instead, almost everyone there, enjoyed their visits to San Francisco and respected the place.  As I began to ponder why I always heard these comments, I could only come to the conclusion that people in the Bay Area were either ignorant, close-minded, or jealous of their neighbors to the South.

I couldn't understand how so many people could judge such a diverse, beautiful, and intriguing place as Los Angeles so harshly.  It seemed unfair.  I felt a continuous need to defend my hometown against the assault.  I found myself constantly saying things like "Well, people in Los Angeles like the Bay Area alot.  If they have any prejudiced against another place, it is probably New York.  However, they seem so busy creating things, that they really don't have time to denigrate anywhere like you do here."

Commentary #5

Why I think Downtown Los Angeles is the most beautiful place in California (if not the entire USA)

Generally people associate beautiful landscapes in California with golden hills, oak trees, and sweeping, dramatic ocean and mountain panoramas.

While I, too, find such scenes beautiful, I think viewing these landscapes as the only places that are beautiful in our environment, is akin to judging people as beautiful only if they look like top models.

Beauty in places and people is more than just skin deep.  To me, the single most beautiful thing about California (and to a lesser extent the rest of the US) is our entrepreneurial spirit, diverse multicultural background, our ability to constantly reshape ourself, the creative energy that seemingly oozes out of our skies, and the opportunities that we have to grow -- personally, professionally, and culturally.  This unique combination of ingredients imbues our cities with energy, dynamism, and hope.  It creates communities that throw off the traditional boundaries of more established civilizations to establish the real-life possibility of seemingly endless opportunity.  Yet, most people fail to see the beauty of this incredible, unique limitlessness in favor of the skin-deep beauty.

Nowhere is this more true than Downtown Los Angeles.  Perpetually assigned a role in our collective imagination as a smog-cloaked, bum-ridden, modern-day hell-hole, anyone willing to look just a little bit further can quickly unearth one of the most dynamic, special places anywhere.  Downtown Los Angeles features some of the nation's best architecture (check out the spectacular Art Deco Southern California Gas Company building, the fabulous Spanish colonial tiles at the Fine Arts building, the incredible interiors of the restored movie palaces on Broadway, and the gorgeous frosted Lalique glass screen in front of the Oviatt building), the country's second largest and stunningly appointed municipal library, one of the finest assortments of concert halls (check out the contrapoint provided by the Dorothy Chandler, with its somehat subtle, 50s style and the showy, new Disney Concert Hall) anywhere, and probably America's most unusual and powerful modern Cathedral (I admire the way that the new Queen of Angels Cathedral manages to integrate LA's multicultural background into one of the human-scaled designs of any church anywhere).

If you take the time to carefully look at Downtown you get a sense of people building their dreams all around you.  Merchants from throughout the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia sell colorful, rich fabrics (in the nation's largest Garment district) that are turned into prototypes for new clothing lines for the masses worldwide (Los Angeles is the world's largest center for sportswear design).  Hundreds of great, innovative greasy spoons, and high end restaurants offer food from the far flung corners of the planet (where else could you find the "Home of the Kosher burrito".)  Suburbanites flock to downtown to recreate their lives in a wide range of old office buildings now being turned into loft housing and townhouse.  If you start looking carefully at the history of the downtown's myriad older buildings you'll quickly discover stories of long past con-artist, swindlers, and dreamers who came to this fertile ground to make their fortune (check out the history of the Fox building).     

Commentary #4

Go Out and Live Your Dreams

Over the past couple months, in the process of teaching throughout California, I have learned a lot about myself and the world around me. These revelations have been the greatest gift of pursuing my dream to see the world and trying to piece together a new life dedicated to teaching others about the joys of travel.

Here are a couple of revelations that come to mind:

• People who are passionate about their lives are more attractive than those who are not. Far too many Americans give up passion for security and money. Many Americans seem resigned to a life that it is too small. As a result, our society is not nearly as progressive and exciting as it could be. Truthfully, most Americans are somewhat boring, until someone hits onto our passions (which thankfully almost every American has if you dig deep enough). Once our passions come out, we spring to life.

I like the hidden tours that will be featured in my California Tour Guy website so much because most of the guides love their topic. Their enthusiasm is contagious. Thanks to their enthusiasm, I have discovered several new passions -- including wine and moviemaking-- that I would have never thought interesting before.

Imagine how exciting the USA would be if most of our citizens were pursuing their passion rather than merely security? Everyone would have infectuous enthusiasm, like the tour guides, and we'd constantly discover new and exciting things about the world around us.

• The greatest gift that Americans (and anyone who lives in a post-industrial society) have is the ability to pursue their passion without an undue amount of limitations. Nowhere else (at least to my knowledge) is the right to pursue happiness engrained into the legal system. We can truly do almost anything we choose, if we are persistent, dedicated, and compassionate. Most of the legal and moral limitations placed in our way are there because someone in pursuit of their passion forgot that importance of making the world a better place. As long as we try to make the world better, most of the legal and moral limitations are almost insignificant.

The revelations have convinced me that everyone who harbors a passion should somehow find a way to pursue it. We owe it to ourselves and, more importantly, to our country and our world.

Inspiration is Everywhere if You Look for It

I will admit sometimes I get a little discouraged as a new entrepreneur. However, almost everytime I begin to get into a funk, I find some inspirational story to keep me going.

I have two such stories I'd like to share. The first one is the story of Walt Disney from a tour I took at Disneyland called "In Walt's Footsteps". The second is from a movie called "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill".

• In Walt's Footsteps: Walt Disney was a truly inspirational character. Several times everything seemed to go wrong and he recovered and proceeded to make a fool of his distractors. Here are three examples from the tour:
  • His first cartoon was a mild success. His distributor, stole his rights to the cartoon, essentially leaving him destitute. On the train back to California (after meeting his distributor in New York), he drew up the character from Mickey Mouse and later decided to take the risk of developing the first talking cartoon character. These decisions made him more successful than if he'd stayed with his original cartoon.
  • In the midst of the depression, Walt Disney released Snow White. At a cost of over $1 million, no one believe it would succeed, especially since movie tickets only cost between ten and fifteen cents each. Yet, succeed he did. By the end of the decade, Snow White made almost $8 million.
  • Disneyland was almost a complete disaster for Disney. He spent his fortune on the park. Everyone told him it would fail because there was no alcohol, the park was too family oriented (most adults went to amusement parks to socialize with friends while the kids went on the rides), and the park was in the middle of nowhere (40 miles from LA). On opening day, it looked like his detractors were right. Everything that could go wrong, did. Problems with his laborers meant that the asphalt parking lot was not finished and that there was not sufficient pressure for water fountains. It was one of the hottest days on record in Southern California. Most of the women at opening day lost their heels (high heel shoe were popular at the time) on the unfinished, hot asphalt. Critics lambasted Disney for denying people water accusing him of forcing people to buy drinks from concessionaires. Tomorrowland, which went on to become Disneyland's most successful feature, only had a couple rides. Most of the area was filled with weed patches (Walt cleverly put up signs with the scientific names for the weeds so that it felt more like a botanical garden than a weedpatch). Fantasyland was not even ready to be opened. Yet, people discovered Disneyland nonetheless. Within a couple months, Disneyland had its millionth visitor.

How did Disney succeed every time? I think it was his passion and vision. He lived at the park when necessary and constantly asked the visitors for input and suggestions. Such dedication is rare and inspirational

• The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: While on one level this is a lush and entertaining portrait of a flock of parrots in San Francisco, it is also a truly inspirational story of a man who finds his right calling in life. Until he became infatuated with the flock of parrots outside his basement room, the protagonist drifted between jobs, often living on the streets or squatting in someone's vacant apartment. As he began to learn about the parrots, people became enrapted by his story. As a result, he wrote a best selling book about the flock, several academic articles, and even met his girlfriend (who was the movie's producer). He found his right livelihood and as often happens, it rewarded him beyond his wildest dreams.

Commentary #2

Treasure In My Own Backyard

Over the past couple weeks, I have started to teach seminars. One of my most popular is Guide to Great California Tours.

For four years, I spent many weekends researching tours. I've published a couple magazine articles about tours and am working on a book and a website (www.californiatourguy.com) that will feature some of the most exciting findings.

I suggest that every one visit the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael. The Marin County Civic Center was the only government building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and was one of his last commissions. The story behind the building is entertaining and inspiring. I particularly loved the story of how Wright responded when asked why he did not design a jail into his plans. Instead of saying it was an accidental omission, his response was, "Why would anyone in such a beautiful place commit a crime?"

Whenever I tell people this story, they shrug their shoulders and say something to the effect that obviously Wright was wrong, since there is plenty of crime here. While there is obviously crime here, I can't help think that Wright was right in a way. California is so blessed that no one has a right to do anything to hurt themselves or others here. Violence, in any form, represents a rape of the spirit of this magical place.

Look at how blessed we are here. We have a temperate climate, rich lands capable of producing everything from spectacular wines to cotton, stunning ocean, desert, and mountain panoramas, many of the world's most gifted scholars and finest universities, unbridled entrepreneurial spirit, and unprecedented wealth. How could anyone once they understood how blessed we are, not want to honor this place by respecting themselves and others?

NOTE:  This commentary is also posted on my other website: www.thebigbluemarble.com

In order to keep my business from getting stale, I have recently redesigned my website, started a seminar series, and written several handbooks that contains a lot of useful information for travelers. I want to build an audience of people who are dedicated to traveling like a local and to serve as a focal point for this community. I hope that you like what you see. Please let me know if you have any comments.

I recently went to a three day seminar in Las Vegas put on by Barbara Winter and Nick Williams about running an inspired business. Of all the seminars that I have taken, their seminar was the most useful. It helped me to see my business in a new light. I now see that in many ways being an entrepreneur is a lot like being a college student.

The time I've spend researching travel and learning how to run a business is akin to getting an AA . The first couple years of running the business are like getting a BA or MA-- you are just beginning to learning the ropes. Then, with time, you become more and more skilled and people begin to slowly seek out your services. The only difference is that as an entrepreneur you control your educational program more.

Successfully traveling like a local and being an inspired entrepreneur are also very similar. Every day you learn new skills, become more and more comfortable in a new environment, connect with people you never knew before, and even have to deal with similar crap (like officious bureaucrats). You also have to commit yourself to always learning. While more traditional jobs (and travel experiences) require planning and education, eventually you reach a plateau where you stop learning a lot. As an inspired entrepreneur or a traveler, there is always something or someplace new to explore. The only real limit is your patience, desire, and imagination.

Here is a picture of me (Paul Heller) the editor of this blog. The map in the background is a Peter's projection map. Traditional maps are Euro-centric. Greenland appears larger than Africa, even though Greenland is about 7% of the size of Africa in real life. The Peter's projection attempts to correct this discrepancy. Want to learn more?