#1075 – The Expat Files: Life, Music, and the Road Less Traveled in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now that I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat wannabes I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America the show that tells you just what it's like to live Workplay and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here So let's get started. All right a couple of emails first. This one's from Ben from down under he says G'day Johnny Thanks for the water filtration info you gave me just a couple of things though I was listening to your commentary on music the other week on how people mainly go to see the Rolling Stones

[00:48] For example for Keith and Mick agreed I wonder if you're aware of the travesty taking place in the USA with a bunch of phonies going around Calling themselves a little River Band the lucky prick who runs that show was from memory their bass player for about ten minutes In their declining years even then he bought the name little River Band somehow and bugger all all right me Johnny here bugger All is Australian for dickhead or f off. I can't remember anyway Then Ben says now the guy packs houses in the States and the gullible yanks no offense Johnny I know you're not one of those think they're the real deal the real little River Band However, there's none of the other original members or songwriters whatsoever. Anyway, Johnny. That's not why I'm writing

[01:34] I'm wondering about doing a phone consultation with you, etc. Cheers mate sign Ben from down under Hey, Ben funny You should mention the fact that classic rock bands are touring all over the place You know trying to squeeze the remaining blood out of surviving nostalgic baby boomers Well, of course kovitz kind of strangled that option for the time being anyway But nevertheless a lot of those old geezer baby boomer bands At least the guys who are still alive and not in nursing homes are hobbling out on stage In fact, I'd say even on this show eight or nine years ago I did a segment about all the classic old rock bands touring Latin America Most who had been relegated to oldies stages at state fairs and doing gigs at Indian whoops I mean native american casinos man. Talk about boring gigs

[02:19] I did a few of those with my old rock band in states many moons ago kimosabe The thing is lots and lots of has been oldie bands have gotten a second win by touring central and south america who'd have thunk, huh? Especially since 95 of their audiences don't even speak english well enough to understand the words Not that I anyone else or even his mother has been able to understand mcjagger that goes for elton john, too But you know and i've mentioned this a hundred times before practically anything gringos produce will go big here in latin america It's that perpetual gringo wannabe thing. You see all the time down here Of course, not just any gringo band could show up in latin america and have an audience. They gotta have some name recognition Unfortunately, I saw how that happened and how it developed

[03:05] You see when I was the morning and late afternoon drive by dj before I got this gig about 11 years ago You long-time listeners may recall. I mentioned that I was syndicated In 21 latin american radio markets all the big capital cities throughout latin america from around the year 2000 to about 2008 you could hear me blathering in english from 7 to 9 in the morning and on some stations from 4 pm to 7 pm. I was the drive time gringo guy My shows were free form. I took calls and played maybe one song every 15 minutes Nobody told me what songs I had to play. I chose my own now back then in every big latin american capital city Usually they had one station with a gringo like me because obviously the advertisers and marketers knew anyone who spoke english or liked

[03:51] english rock and roll music wasn't a higher Socioeconomic bracket then the sweaty masses and so the marketers and the advertisers piled in with high-end products like heineken Gold's gym hotel and resort packages harley davis and even hooters So for around 80 years, I had that niche and my audience were gringo wannabes So they had the dough to buy certain upscale and imported products that the advertisers would promote However, if a station or a station chain is going to have a gringo voice They have to pay a lot more money than a latin dj. In fact, you're gonna laugh at this I was told by the bosses at those radio stations I was the highest paid disc jockey in all of latin americ and my salary a thousand bucks a month I know that sounds pathetic But I only worked two hours a day and it was a hell of a lot of fun and the perks were tremendous

[04:36] Free dinners lunches concerts hotels harley rallies emceeing tons of events but you see at the time the average latin american dj made around 250 bucks a month and believe it or not probably up to half of latin american disc jockeys worked for free or What they call kanghe kanghe is when your advertisers give you freebies Like for example free dinners at restaurants hotel rooms health club memberships, etc Let's face it. Most people go into the media because they want to be famous And that's why so many latin american djs will work for nothing Because they get a tiny bit of fame and they love that so where am I going with this? Well, no matter how big the latin american city whether it was san jose costa rica Tagusigapa honduras medellin columbia panama city panama There was only room for one big radio station to have a real born in the us gringo dj

[05:26] There just weren't enough upscale latinos who spoke english Or expat gringos in the area to make more than one station with gringo programming rentable rentable means literally rentable a money maker The thing is I was the only gringo dj the rest of the programs and djs on the station were purely in spanish Again, that term dj is a misnomer as far as what I did Like I said, I probably only play one song every 15 minutes or even every half hour The rest was just babbling taking calls telling stories having contests crazy guests Anyway, the other stations that couldn't afford to have a gringo on staff yet They wanted to tap in that higher socioeconomic marketplace what you might call low budget gringo wannabes They want to buy everything gringos have but they just don't have the resources. Well starting at around

[06:12] 2005 they bought into a cheap pre-packaged service coming out of la called kiss fm kiss fm If I recall it was around 150 bucks a month and how that worked was there was an english dj in la He didn't talk much except to introduce the songs and it was just the gringo top 100 songs of all time Over and over and over again, you know bg's stairway to heaven air supply eagles rod stewart stevie wonder michael bolton kenny g double And to most musicians even b grade musicians like me It's mostly vomitus stuff and even if a song was good like stairway to heaven you'd hear it so many times They'd beat you to death with it that even the good songs should end up hating So anyway by around 2008 the era of the real gringo dj in latin america

[06:59] Was coming to an end not just because of the internet But because every major latin american market had bought that pre-programmed pre-canned kiss fm Synthetic programming with the same 100 songs over and over and over again So in the end we could thank the gringo advantage the fact that latinos are diet in the world gringo wannabes They love everything and anything coming out of the states even the real junk We produce more and more latinos started tuning in to kiss fm And the secondary effect was that those top 100 songs even if latinos didn't know what the artists were singing about Because they didn't speak any english became latino favorites and oh by the way Practically every professional officer walked into doctor lawyer accountant engineer would have kiss fm piped into their lounges lobbies and elevators

[07:44] A sort of virtue signaling before they even invented the term. Don't you think though? Of course by around 2015 internet music streaming thankfully killed kiss fm But 10 years of that repeat monotonous programming had its long lasting effect The result if you happen to have been one of those has been gringo bands on that top 100 list Who couldn't even get a gig on the oldie stage at the ohio state fair? Well, suddenly you had a brand new market latin america You had something like 20 countries you could tour and sell out stadiums full of people who have no idea what you're saying about Those are the unintended consequences of a constant rotation of the top 100 gringo hits of all time Now let's face it. The average latino does not drink heineken or corona except maybe at a wedding or

[08:30] Kinsay años party when the booze is free But there is an ever-growing middle class of gringo wannabes and just have a zeppelin bgs or arrow smith t-shirt to them seems ever so cool Now, of course, there have been some famous us bands A lot of them has bands again that have toured latin america and they weren't in that kiss fm top 100 Beach over the head till it hurts rotation like for example jethro tull and metallica It worked in metallica's case because heavy metal is big with the college crowd down here There's always a segment of entitled bohemian latin american kids who go to private helicopter schools The jet black hair black t-shirt black fingernail polished goth crowd into heavy metal In fact, there's a pretty active subculture of latino metal bands, too That basically just copy every lick of successful american metal bands, but that's what latinos do

[09:21] In fact, if you analyze latino rock, it's really big down here By the way the musicians even the top musicians haven't got a creative bone in their bodies It's all copied ripped off and read digested american rock music with even less interesting spanish lyrics Now as for me latin music scene is very disappointing and being a b grade musician who did quite a lot of touring myself I'm sort of hyper critical when it comes to music and i'm not saying latinos haven't produced some pretty catchy tunes They have and i'm not saying they haven't produced some great dance music. They've got some truly fantastic musicians I've played with a few myself, but 99 percent of it's oh so boring and derivative But then again since around 1985 as far as i'm concerned american music's pretty lame, too In fact, it's beyond lame, but you know, it's true that bond to the music of your adolescents

[10:08] Even if music at that time was pretty lamin in a terrible dry spell when you're in your adolescence You never know that forever after it's your music In fact last time I mentioned there was nothing new under the sun since 85 I got a load of emails telling me how wrong I was I just have to listen to this guy or that one again You're never going to convince someone that the music they love and are bonded to from their adolescent period is seriously lame Or just plain sucks because those are our formative years and we bond to the music of our age Now of course to you whatever musical era you grew up in your music doesn't suck other people's music sucks Your era was the best hmm now going back to ben from down under's comments about popular bands with fraudulent members I remember about 15 or so years ago when my own rock band was playing in costa rica

[10:55] Guatemala panama and the mayan riviera I remember a couple of times sitting around with the guys in the band saying you know What would really be fun and the latinos would fall for it? Just pick a gringle band that's famous because of the kiss fm top 100 rotation Just pick a band that's had a few hits on that list But no one really knows what the individual members look like no standout guy Now remember we're talking in the very early days of the internet at least here in latin america So you couldn't look up things very easily at all And the idea was to learn the songs from that band and tour under their name who would know? It would be easy to get away with for example. You could call yourself the steve miller band I mean who knows what steve miller looks like or stepin wolf or bachmann turner overdrive Hell most fans in the states don't even know what the front men look like most people even fans wouldn't

[11:41] Recognize those guys if they were sitting right next to you on the subway So the point is many many classic rock and disco has been bands have toured through latin america and they just sell out Yep, bands like america air supply casey and the sunshine band even credence clearwater without the brain's talent and voice John foagarty even they roll on through and sell out stadiums. How is that possible only in latin america? Imagine if credence clearwater without john foagarty tried to set up a gig in chicago I bet no one would show or they'd get laughed off the stage But classic rock bands do tour in the states and down here in latin america with practically no original members That's very common Especially when a group hasn't had a hit in a long long time and their popularity dewains oftentimes all they've got left is their old

[12:27] catalog which isn't selling much anymore, so One of the band members pays off the rest of the guys or whoever owns the name It could be the band's long time manager They buy the right to use the name exclusively put together a few young guys and tour Trying to squeeze the last drop of blood out of the stone then once in a while lightning strikes again In the form of hollywood who are always dredging up old tunes to use in their movies and then comes the second or third wind Though oftentimes has been bands don't even own their rights to their own songs anymore In fact once a long long time ago right before I left for latin america about 31 years ago I was at a summer resort spot in northern wisconsin. You may have heard of it wisconsin delves I was sitting in a bar and restaurant joint and there was a band in the back room on a little stage

[13:13] And I heard him do a song the song was let's live for today a number one hit I think in the late 60s by a group called the grassroots and damn it sounded Exactly like the original the singer a perfect mimic during the break I walked up to the singer and said man you really nailed that he said I hope so I wrote it He says we are the grassroots minus I think he said the drummer and the bass player who now owned the name So he and the rhythm player the singer and songwriter can't even tour with that name I can't remember what they called themselves, but it wasn't the grassroots now for you youngsters who don't know who those guys were They've sold over 20 million records and had 14 top 40 records But that was in the 60s and 70s and after their winning streak dried up things began to look pretty bleak Though a decade or so after that hollywood saved their asses too snapped up a few of their songs for various soundtracks

[14:03] They regrouped have been on the oldies circuit ever since and that should sustain them as long as baby boomers are able to get day Passes from the nursing home Oh, and by the way, I understand the grassroots have been touring since 2012 as the grassroots with no I said no original members even worse than down under ben's example But since they never had a standout member for fans to hone in on people who attend their concerts in the states Even are none the wiser their members as with previous example bachmann turner overdrive and steve miller are Unrecognizable by the public even people who buy their records though The thing is since they haven't had any other hits on the kiss fm moldy oldie classic 100 rotation list They could never really make it here in latin america down here. They've got no song or name recognition

[14:51] Are you seeing how this works now? I do believe with all this talk of classic moldy oldie lists and second wind touring for has-been bands here in latin america I must be showing my age, huh? Well, i'll give you a hint I was too young to go to vietnam so i'm not quite nursing home material yet In fact, that's how I got hired into a very well-known rock band in chicago Got drafted went to numb and I because I was too young to get drafted was his replacement. In fact, I was so young I had to have my parents sign a statement to allow me to be able to play in the nightclubs bars and strip clubs Now you might laugh at this But my mother was so catholic and knew so many catholic priests when I played at a well-known strip club Was called the cheetah. In fact, we came on the day after gary lewis and the playboys had a gig Remember them they had a few top 10 hits anyway

[15:36] My mother asked one of her young catholic priests friends to visit the cheetah strip club To make sure all was on the up and up and he walked in had a few drinks gave me a high five and left You know those priests they like to drink especially the irish ones By the way someday if i'm not boring you too much I'll tell you about the time I was playing in the cheetah club and during the break I sat down in the bar and a guy came over sat next to me and said he was going to kill me He was a former drummer in my band and we kicked him out because he was schizophrenic though. We kicked him out gently You know schizophrenic and all that we thought we kicked him gently Anyway, he came in sat down looked at me in the eye started talking crazy He held up a pitcher of beer to my head and said he was going to smash my brains in dead serious, too Maybe i'll tell the rest of that story sometime by the way within a year. He was dead and he was only

[16:23] 21 what a life, huh? You never know. All right. Am I born yet? Yeah, okay Let's get back to latin america. That is the theme, you know Let's talk about vaccines and vaccine passports. That's a huge topic these days, right? You must have heard the fact that when eric clapton got vaxxed, he thought he was going to lose his talent forever He just completely spazzed out lost all control for a couple of weeks and couldn't play his guitar Thought it was permanent damage became a complete anti-vaxxer In fact, he said he will not play a concert anywhere unless they let non-vaxxers in So naturally the wokeers and the twitter mob came out in mass calling him an anti-vax hypocrite with the twitter and fakebook mob going way back 2030 even 40 years ago picking and choosing little things he said in public that are now considered racist and sexist You know the drill if you want to destroy somebody go into their past

[17:10] You'll find something even if it was appropriate for the time before those toxic wokesters reared their pimply heads comedians everyone all of us could say things nice nasty and otherwise And if the people around you didn't like it, they could argue the point or just drop you back Then you could be controversial even an a-hole and not lose your job lose your friends Maybe but not your job not if you were competent at it funny Though how the twitter mob and the wokesters are biggest hypocrites of all you got people like merrill stripe sean pan Alec baldwin robert de niro and a thousand other hollywood wokesters people who don't know a thing about science Telling us what we should and must do with our own bodies But when one of their own or previous own like eric clapton does not tow the party line anymore because some really nasty Secondary effects happen to him the wokesters circle their wagons dig out little inconvenient quotes from his past life and try to destroy him

[18:03] And if you're following that story, you'll see they're digging out age old embarrassing things. He said while he was extremely drunk Hmm. Have you ever said anything crass or that you regret while you were extremely drunk? Of course not though expat eddie says if you don't remember it doesn't count but I digress as usual By the way The reason clapton said he'll play for the non-vaxxed is because two days earlier united kingdom prime minister boris johnson Said that vaccine passports will be mandatory at all public venues like music concerts beginning in september And clapton said shove it but man, they're rolling out the gestapo tactics For example the upcoming foo fighters concert at madison square garden Get this not only do you have to get vaxxed before you attend You can't attend unless you've had the second dose at least 14 days before the concert

[18:50] That is if you've had the phyzer or maderna Covid it fax or if you've had the johnson and johnson covid it vax You must have had at least 14 days prior to your first single dose What can I say, but I am just so glad and lucky I live in latin america now take lame street media What hypocrites are so full of shit? I'm reading this from an article in the los angeles times this week the article saying and it's not an op-ed piece It's a real article. It says here. We go again in regards to clapton vaccinated celebrity types discouraging vaccination for the masses Where she had guys like clapton making vaccine hesitancy seem heroic a revolt against tyranny for art Then this pus-brained fool says and just as the delta variant delivers death around the world

[19:36] Are you getting this? It's okay for pus-brained hollywood celebrities to tell everyone to get faxed Then the wokesters he preys on him But when a celebrity type says the opposite based on real evidence a bad secondary effect The guy must be silenced cancelled and destroyed and now the lame stream official news is saying and this is too sad to be funny They're saying the official advice is to open a window to increase ventilation and slow the spread of covid an added Incentive being the virus could be spread by farting flatulence According to suspected cases in australia and well-documented cases of diseases spreading through waste pipe ventilation During lactons in hong kong when the u-bend had dried out the u-bend being the p-trap that you see in your sinks

[20:22] And there's one below every toilet too that's there to prevent the back flow of gases through sewer pipes into your room By the way down here in latin america. They don't call those plumbing p-traps They call them c phones Spelled just like a siphon they call them siphons or c phones here though We all know you siphon with a tube, you know like siphoning gas out of a car or motorcycle It's got absolutely nothing to do with the way a p-trap works again a p-trap It's there to prevent sewer gases from backing up into your room So when you call a plumber and he's talking about c phones, you know, he's talking about those p-traps Speaking of being so so glad that I live in latin america I understand now that california will require all state employees and all health care workers to provide proof of the covidia Vaccination or get tested weekly with a stick up your nose and this you probably don't know and one of the reasons why california

[21:13] Is a completely bankrupt failed state. Did you know there are 246 Thousand state employees in california and starting on august 2nd this week All need to be vexed or take a stick up their nose once a week Oh, and by the way, the covidia vaccine requirement also applies to everyone working in adult senior residential facilities homeless shelters jails, etc Even if they're not state employees working for private firms. So all you guys and girls living in california I've got no sympathy for you. You've been seeing the writing on the wall for years and you're still there I guess california's new state motto is stay woke and go broke Same thing with new york mayor de Blasio announced that public sector workers will get jabbed by september

[21:58] Or else they'll be routinely tested with the old stick up your nose test, too So while you new yorkers you happy about that for years you've been seeing the writing on the wall, too You had plenty of time to get your ducks in order to get the hell out of dodge I know I know you've got your reasons and a million excuses. Don't you? All right. Let's take an email from mary and carl She says hey, johnny. It's been far too long since we've corresponded I am the flight attendant who visited you at my husband maybe five years ago Bringing some vitamins you asked us to bring we've since moved from texas to florida over the bs lies and covid The restrictions lockdowns, etc. I quit my chicago airline and my husband also retired We're sick of government restrictions. We will not take the highly suspect and possibly poisonous vaccine

[22:47] Question is if we relocate to guadamala, will we be free? Are they requiring masking? Are they pushing the vaccine? Must you show a vaccine card? We just want to live someplace in the world where the government isn't in our faces and our business 24-7. Thanks again signed a former chicago flight attendant p.s Can you explain how to access your old podcast? We like to go back to march 2020 and listen to your covid it podcasts as the pandemic played out All right Let's answer the last question first, you know, a lot of people want to know how to get to the old podcast They go back 11 years. It's easy and they're free Just go to the expat files all one word dot pod bean p o d b e n dot com Once you go there you'll see you can access every show by month and year and each show has a description with some bullet points

[23:35] Though as far as digressing there's no possible way to list all that stuff So again, you can download every show all the way back to 2010 by going to the expat files all one word dot pod bean p o d b e n dot com And as far as the covid it restrictions in guadamala, I just talked to my number one seminar lady rita Today her dad is a well-respected guadamalan surgeon and he says there are covid it cases in hospital emergency rooms But they don't end up in the hospital at all If they take ivermectin and hydroxy chloroquine as soon as the flu like symptoms start He said people who take ivermectin and hydroxy chloroquine Never end up in the hospital It's those advanced cases when people have pre-existing conditions that haven't taken anything that end up in emergency rooms

[24:23] And by the way, you can buy ivermectin and hydroxy chloroquine right over the counter at any drug store No prescription necessary a five-day treatment and that's all you'll need for the both of them will cost you under 20 bucks by the way, the recommended dosage is 200 milligrams of hydroxy chloroquine once a day for five days and approximately 18 milligrams of ivermectin Once a day for five days now hydroxy chloroquine comes in a 200 milligram pill easy But ivermectin at least the way i've bought it myself I've got a store of it just in case it comes in little six milligram blister tabs With the onset of symptoms you take three of those six milligram tabs each day for five days Now, of course, some people are taking ivermectin prophylactically All they're doing is taking one of those six milligram pills

[25:11] Once a week even once a month and one of those 200 milligram hydroxy chloroquine tablets as well And that seems to completely eliminate the possibility of you ever getting the covetiot strain In fact, that's how they found out those two drugs work against covetiot They found out people in third world countries and africa who take those drugs prophylactically hydroxy chloroquine because it's anti-malarial and ivermectin because it's anti-parasitic, you know, it eliminates Intestinal and other parasites well doctors found out that the poorest of the poor most susceptible to covetiot just weren't getting it Looking deeper into the phenomena. They quickly found out they were taking prophylactic dosages of hydroxy chloroquine and ivermectin In fact, they were taking very small dosages sometimes only once every one or two months

[25:57] Yet, it still protected them completely from the covetiot strains, but you knew that already, right? Or did you in fact many doctors here in latin america are calling ivermectin, which is the drug that really knocks it out A modern day penicillin. Oh and as to your question about being vaxxed in guadamala Well up-to-date statistics reveal that only two percent of guadamalans have been fully vaxxed Which is pretty odd because the president of guadamala is an md So if any of you out there think the guadamalan government carries a big stick all I have to say is really Obviously you've had no boots on the ground down here Oh and one more thing before we go a few parting words from the famous captain mango Who is a connoisseur of rock and roll even some bad heavy metal rock and roll He says in regards to the profound effect music has on people's lives. Let me add my two cents

[26:47] Surely you've heard some people think if you play rock songs backwards, you'll hear satanic messages Others say if you play country songs backwards You'll get your girl back your truck will work and you'll be ahead six months on your trailer park rent Some say if you play rap backwards or it's even more moronic latin american version regga ton The cops will be your friends. Your rap sheet will disappear. You'll open doors for women pay your child support start flossing Donate your gold teeth to charity learn how to spell Your iq will pop over a hundred and your parents will smartly jack themselves back up to your waistline hmm Now if you play a jazz record backwards you'll get jazz You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america

[27:36] If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com nos famos