How Germany Became Mexico

Choose Your Battles

We decided that where we make a stand should be based on why we are making a stand. We wanted to have a loving relationship. That means first of all we have to be able to spend time together. 

LOST WISHES, LOST WAGES, LAS VICIOUS, LAS VEGAS...

DON'T TRY TO GET UP!

I've lived in Las Vegas most of my adult life. So there is a certain comfort in that familiarity. But it had become soiled relationship. Like a spouse that get's dementia and becomes mean and violent. The outside looks the same but there is someone else calling the shots.

Too many things about Las Vegas were becoming irritating as the city changed from service oriented to corporation dominated. 

Everything that made this wide spot in the desert tolerable, even enjoyable was rapidly being eliminated. 

There was once a vibrant live music culture that locals and tourists "in the know" could count on for an affordable good time any night of the week. That's gone now.

Like so many other people we were constantly "on hustle" to get a little economic breathing room. That was causing us to be on different sleep schedules. It got to the point that we would walk the dog at different times but never together.

Empress wasn't performing enough. We had bounced from a dozen different attempts at getting a live music venue going that was profitable. We ran into ALL SEVEN of the deadly sins in Sin City. And while pickings were slim in The States. Europe and especially Germany always paid well for live music. 

THE BACK SIDE OF SIN CITY IS UGLY

Germany and Political Asylum

It started as a joke. After The Insane Clown Party Orange Cancer became president the world was in shock. Germany is one of the US' strongest allies and we watched the president disrespect the German leadership. The president was supported by Nazis and White Supremacists. Cops were murdering unarmed men, women and children " and justifiably so. 

While having dinner with a friend I joked about moving to Germany and seeking political asylum from terrorism. He is a very important local politician. He looked me seriously in the eye and said he would help. 

By this time many of Empress friends had become my friends as well. We had friends all over who were excited about our moving to Germany and offering help in a variety of ways. So we started making plans and "letting go."

EMPRESS EVEN DOES GOSPEL IN GERMANY

Liquidation was Liberating

Moving personal belongings from the US to Germany was insanely expensive. Nothing was really worth the cost of shipping. Our electronics would need adapters to work so most appliances and such were easy to let go of. We had to let go too! Nobody has money for your old stuff so you can't get anywhere near what you paid for it. So you sell it dirt cheap or give it away. When you go into "lifeboat mode" you start with your loved ones and work down from there. 

Going through your life and looking at all the things that you have accumulated, and not touched for a time is embarrassing. It's like stuff was breeding. And every decision that you make for life changes has to allow for your stuff. George Carlin has a great monologue about stuff.

Like Voodoo Magic Suddenly Germany Became Mexico 

IT WAS VOODOO THAT FREED HAITI

So after a year of planning we were finally our way to the airport headed for Frankfurt Germany. We were running a little later than we had planned because I kept procrastinating about my final packing. Empress as usual was cool but I could see she wasn't pleased. We got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare. 

And then we realized that we had brought the wrong passport! And we didn't know were the correct one was. We might have even thrown it away during the purge! So we missed the flight. But Empress had dates booked to perform so we still needed tickets. 

And we needed a new passport. There is no office in Las Vegas so the next day we were driving to San Diego to walk a passport through in a day. We got there about 9AM and the office said the passport would be ready at 3PM. Fine.

We did some tourist stuff in Sand Diego and ate at a dog friendly restaurant by the Marina. At about 2:30 Empress suggested we leave for the passport office, but we were in the middle of the meal. I said, "it's a government office, they'll be open until 5PM we're just 5 minutes away.

THE FUN SIDE OF THE WALL

So at 4:06Pm we arrive at a closed passport office. Empress was cool. But now we needed to spend the night in San Diego and get to the office at 9 the next morning. She started looking for an AirBnB in San Diego and found everything priced out of sight. Then she laughed and said but Mexico is cheap. So I laughed and said, "that's a great idea."

Rosarito is only about 60 miles from San Diego and about half that across the border. I consider it South San Diego. To me it's not really Mexico. But I had lived in Mexico for years and hadn't been back in decades. I was happy to visit again if only for a couple of days. 

So I was completely surprised when we were crossing the border into Tijuana and we were surrounded by people over every shape, size and body condition that you can imagine selling every service and product that you can carry around with you. They were selling everything from ice cream and roasted chicken to cars seat covers and windshield wiper blades.

The people were polite and smiled. They weren't too pushy and I would just say something like, "No, gracias, buena suerte, haz tus metas." And they would smile and go away. That wasn't the surprise. That's normal in border towns. 

What caught me by surprise was when Empress looked over at me and smiled. Then she said, "I love Mexico!" 

Remember the Liberation

I have some of my best life time memories in Mexico. I had small newspaper for English speakers that was a big success. Then I went into the timeshare industry and was quickly promoted to management. Then I bought horses and started doing jungle tours. I love Mexico too! It was on! 

This was a real epiphany for me. I'm still searching it's depths. I had dreamed of returning to Mexico. I missed the target date by almost a decade. It had been 20 years and I still had a huge box of old photos of the time. Photos that I had let go of and thrown out during the liquidation of dead weight. 

It's like I had to let go of the past to enjoy a new future. And we had to travel light. Much of the stuff that we got rid of would have worked in Mexico. The electrical system is the same. We would have been making arrangements for that stuff that would have limited our options. 

When you travel light you increase your options.

We Made New Plans

So now the new plan was that Empress would go to Germany and Europe for her tour. There was a good chance she would get even more work when she was there.

THE POTHOLE FROM HELL LIVES 600 MILES FROM THE BORDER

I would take the dog, the car and the essentials 1500 miles into Mexico and find us a house by the beach. She could live cheap enough in Germany to send me some cash while I found a cash flow. I needed some time to get back into some type of tourism business. 

And the Universe Laughed

Almost as soon as the tour began Empress had to cancel all the scheduled dates and make plans to return to New York. Her mother was deathly ill. When she called and told me I could hear that it was weighing on her. And she had to tell me that the me and the dog were on our own. 

I told her not to worry, we would be cool. I just needed a minute to think. 

I ended the call. I was on the malecon and it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, some acrobats were playing flutes swinging upside down about 60 feet in the air. I watched them for a minute. I walked a few steps. Waited. Turned around with my back to the ocean, not focused on anything in particular and I heard a woman say. "Money." 

She came into focus and it was a blonde from the states. She said, "oh sorry" I wasn't talking to you. I came back with, "that's ok money is on my mind too." We started talking and Michelle told me that she worked for the best timeshare resort in the area and that they were hiring.

So literally 5 minutes after Empress' phone call I was walking towards a job interview. So the stress was off of her and I felt better too. Almost all of what I got out of that job I got that day. I made some dynamite connections, some good friends and I got a chance to study the industry once again.

That's a Good Thing

The tourism/timeshare industry is almost exactly the same as it was twenty years ago. It's more polished and the properties are more lavish but it's still an industry where only the strong and long winded survive. My experience saved me from wasting time and energy. 

Now we are living happily in a better situation than we had planned. More about that later. I'm still putting my talents to work.

Manifestation in Action

To create the life that you want you have to speak it in an emotional manner. Not emotional like loud and frantic, but in terms of how you want to feel. That is why the first part of this series is about how to be happy in 30 days. 

After you state that, "I'm happy." You must have faith that everything that is happening around you is your manifestation powers working on your behalf. Learn to enjoy the complexity of seemingly unrelated events turning out to be doors to new opportunities. 

It's like a Rube Goldberg Machine. No matter what it looks like is happening have faith that in the end the mouse gets caught. One of the things that I did was to get back into the horse tour business. Kind of... 

View On Airbnb