#490 – The Expat Files: Has-Beens, Gringos, and the Latin American Advantage

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 up to play and now I wonder Hello there all you expat 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 work play 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 Okay, everybody wants a new expat Eddie story and I will give you one today But first remember that I've always said that anyone who had a going thing Lecturing in the 80s and 90s on stuff like real estate house flipping timeshares option trading

[00:46] You know all those thoroughly outdated has been 80s and 90s ideas that came on CDs even cassette tapes Yep, I remember way back when I was a sucker for that option stuff, too Never made a dime You know how I've always said that people are coming down reheating those old moldy ideas and translating them into Spanish They find out there's a brand new untapped Latin audience down here not just getting a dead cat bounce But breathing brand new life into these things back then when those thoroughly burnt out lectures were all the rage here in Latin America They didn't even have the internet yet Even the most educated Latins in the 80s and 90s never heard of an option or a timeshare or a real estate flipping But believe it or not all that stuff from the 80s and 90s

[01:31] We laugh at now is all the rage down here in Latin America In fact down here people brag about having a timeshare whereas up north to admit You got sucked in on one of those is a big embarrassment. I mean, come on It sounds crazy, but what are we talking about a 20 year lag time with that stuff down here? Anyway, I noticed lately that a lot of big-time has-bends are setting up conferences and seminars and cleaning up So we've got has-been first world speakers and has-been Dinosaur rock and rollers all just hoping for a dead cat bounce then finding out to their surprise They're actually kind of famous again Like one of the guys from that really moldy oldie band America Remember them horse with no name and tin man venture a highway stuff like that in the last few years

[02:18] They've toured Latin America and not once but four different times Well, one of the guys in that band told me just about two years ago If you're a broke has-been rocker and you definitely need a second wind That is before you need hip replacements like Eddie Van Halen might as well do it in paradise Now in a past show I mentioned a certain one-hit wonder has-bends who've been down here on tour like patch Adams and jerk off Giuliani Yep, it's not just faded rock bands. It's faded lecture gurus, too Then there was that Venus and Mars guy John Gray. He did a couple tours down here and sold out Oh, and by the way, just three months ago Chris Gardner came down now You may not know who this guy is but he's that guy that will Smith portrayed in that movie in pursuit of happiness

[03:04] You remember that rags-to-riches story about a down-and-out guy who hit the skids and eventually became a super successful stock trader Now the lag time factor on that guy and his one-hit wonder movie is like 10 years And just three months ago, he did his dead cat pounce and sold out everywhere and he speaks zero Spanish So he had a translator along with him at all times. So you got an idea whose time is come and gone up in the States Come on down and give it a shot What have you got to lose even if you speak zero Spanish just crawl up in the attic and dust off those old cassettes You might have something. Oh, and I forgot Zuckerberg made the tour through here and sold out to obviously didn't need the money So why'd he come down then you tell me though? I wish I would have run into him somewhere

[03:50] I would have punched him right in the face Book and it seems every couple of weeks in the newspaper There's some new first world has been coming on through and cleaning up In fact, guess who's big fat bearded faces all over the billboards these days Why it's good old Steve wasniak the was aka the Wizard of was actually the technical brains behind Apple No, it wasn't Steve Jobs. He was the marketing brains I know all you listeners are way above average. So you're probably picturing his grisly Adams frame in your head right now I'm dating myself, right? So anyway, I'm seeing his ugly mug in the papers and on big billboards these days He's coming on down through Latin America, even though 99.9% of Latin's don't know who the hell he is

[04:37] Now I know that most people in the States don't know who he is They wouldn't recognize him if he belly bumped him in an elevator yet He's doing the big tour through Latin America, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and from there parts south So you have to wonder if the average guy wouldn't recognize him or his name up in the States How do they successfully book this guy south of the border? Well, it's easier than you might think but it's got to be planned Right now I know a couple of marketing guys who work for a big hotel chain down here in Latin America And I found out that guys like Wozniak have an advanced person up in the States who sends out a barrage of emails basically press packets announcing the dates he's gonna be in a particular Latin country and his

[05:24] Availability as a paid speaker and they send them to the marketing people and all the big first-world style hotels like the Intercontinental The Barcelona Marriott Princess Holiday and Radisson chain Yep They got them all down here and they send press packets in English and Spanish out to all the big cell phone companies and distributors And in Woz's case because he's purely a nerdish technical guy to all the big computer electronic store chains and all the university administration and science departments not to mention all the Latin government tourism boards, oh and of course all the local and national TV stations too and what they end up doing is striking sponsorship and Promotional deals as well as partnering up with hotels computer stores tourism boards and marketing agencies

[06:11] So he comes in and everyone else provides the promotion and the media stuff Not only that most has-bends and almost famous gringos get two separate fees if it's at a university For example, they'll pay him a big speaker's fee as well as a percentage of the gate So all you guys and girls out there if you want to rebake an old idea, why not? It obviously works You can start small test the waters and still clean up Oh, and by the way, this would be Steve Wozniak's second dead cat bounce Because you see four years ago when Steve Jobs got a personal phone call from the guy with the big iPhone in the sky suddenly the world focused on and dissected Steve Jobs like they did to John Lennon when he died and

[06:58] Suddenly his closest ex-partner Wozniak was in great demand for interviews and as a speaker In fact, they made two Steve Jobs movies and Wozniak was a paid consultant So I can imagine he must really like or miss the spotlight. He certainly doesn't need the money. That's for sure Unfortunately, if you ever heard the guy speak or in an interview, well, let's be kind and say he's short on charisma So besides the fact that he was once connected with Steve Jobs, why is he making such a splash in Latin America? It's all part of that gringo advantage and you know, you have it too But you have to have an idea to get it rolling and don't let the fact that your Spanish is crap stop you There are countless nice Motivated affable college kids down here who will be glad to work for you as a full-time English Spanish translator

[07:47] For a cool three to five hundred dollars a month and remember we're talking about college kids. So they won't just be translators It'll be more like tour guide driver and executive secretary all rolled into one that said about a week ago I got a phone call from expat Eddie. He said Johnny. I'm looking to buy some good quality gym equipment He knew that I knew which brands were good and which ones were crap Which ones you could easily get parts for stuff like that. So anyway, I said first thing Eddie, let's get on Olx.com and he's in Salvador So all you have to do there is put in olx.com and automatically you're in this sort of Craigslist for all of El Salvador now that's true of any Latin country happen to be and you type in olx.com and that country's all

[08:34] 100% free Latin style Craig's list will pop up to and note that since I found that thing maybe about a year or so ago I use it all the time and by the way for you crappy Spanish speakers. Don't worry It's a great way to learn your Spanish. For example in Eddie's case. He wanted to get a nice high-quality Elliptical trainer now when we got on olx.com, of course, you have to put in the word elliptical in Spanish Which is elliptica last letters and a and suddenly? 86 of those machines popped up along with the price various photos and the seller's phone number Now, like I said in the past show Craigslist does exist on here, but it's nothing compared to olx.com I take that back the only place that Craigslist and OXL are kind of running neck-and-neck is in Mexico

[09:23] But I don't recommend you live there anyway, so we don't need to talk too much about that But to say that the reason why Craig's list is quite popular in Mexico is because well Mexico is kind of like the unofficial 51st state these days now, isn't it? And by the way in the mind of most Mexicans it is the 51st state God bless America. Let freedom ring and all that horse So congratulations to all you guys and gals living up in an Obama land now I guess pretty soon they'll have to add another star to the flag right and those flags of course will be made in China But I digress as usual anyway So Eddie and I are looking on olx.com El Salvador and there are no less than eighty six elliptical machines posted Now note El Salvador is a tiny country But it's still got 15 what you might call states or departments if you look on a map you can see how they're sliced up

[10:13] Anyway, if you go on olx.com if you're in El Salvador You'll get the main page on the Salvador map broken into those districts or departments And in this case on the map they'll list how many elliptical machines are in each department now Of course Eddie could afford to buy a brand new elliptical machine He could even buy one of those life fitness jobs and pay who knows four thousand bucks But you see that's why he brought me along and Eddie's no fool He was brought up kind of lower middle class and lived in a trailer court when he was young So doesn't matter how much money he has now. He knows the value of a buck and he doesn't want to overpay I said, okay, Eddie. Here's the plan. We're gonna pick the five or six most expensive machines We'll get the brand in the model from the description and in those cases where they are painfully short on description

[11:03] You know, this is Latin America details details in that case We'll zoom in on the photos and pick the brand and model number off there Then we'll go to Amazon.com and check out equivalent models and prices now note as I've said in shows in the past Latins do know investigation like this themselves so as you might have figured maybe 70 to 80 percent of all the elliptical machines on oil Lex are pure flimsy junk from Walmart or as seen on TV commercials. Yep. They got that down here, too In fact, they actually have as seen on TV stores down here Even though it's English as seen on TV is English sure most lands when they see the store They know what it is, but they only understand the TV part in the title why they don't translate the as seen part into Spanish

[11:54] I'll never know Anyway, when you do see that stuff on TV, you know The ab cruncher the clapper the bowel mover the pocket circumciser most are again Nothing more than the original 80s and 90s versions of the same commercials You saw on late-night TV after creature features or Don Kirchner's rock concert Remember those sleazy vegematic commercials? Well, they're all down here now dubbed in Spanish So if you don't think you have a huge leg up due to the lag time effect and the gringo advantage Well, come on down south of the border flick on the tube and you'll see what I mean Hey, who knows you might just be one of those behind the curb Americans who invested badly and is now stuck with a warehouse in Cleveland full of rusty Ginzu knives and dusty chia pets

[12:43] Well, I know exactly how you can get rid of them, but I digress as usual boy Did I digress anyway? So Eddie and I are looking at the top five most expensive elliptical trainers on oxl.com And we got a couple of very high-end machines and Nordic track Pre-core the high-end commercial models that are in health clubs and believe it or not That's exactly the kind of machine you want for home But you don't want a new one because those machines cost anywhere from two to four thousand bucks new we check that out, too Anyway, I noticed one of those machines look like a star in the group a life fitness machine that retailed for 2,500 bucks by the way, the funny money in El Salvador is the US dollar and the asking price on this machine 1,500 bucks. So Eddie dialed him up and he said wait a minute. You're a gringo, right?

[13:31] Come on over. So now Eddie's thinking that's the few downsides of being a gringo But because the guy already published his price There was no way he could jack it up just because that he was a gringo But also to an extent there is the gringo advantage because the guy immediately knows you're not a scammer You probably have the money and you're not a no-good Nick Latin's Stereotype us gringos that way and that's why he was glad to invite us over immediately Now expat Eddie recognized by the address that the guy lived in an upscale guarded community and why wouldn't he? He has a $2,500 piece of exercise equipment only a wealthy Latin person could afford an extravagance like that Then the guy told Eddie you're never gonna find my place on your own

[14:17] So he said let's meet at so-and-so shell station and it's true It's very difficult to find addresses down here because remember most Latin American cities are not laid out in a grid It's all mountains valleys volcanoes and plateaus and well streets and avenues tend to end abruptly even change names in midstream and More than half of the houses and buildings do not even have numbers posted on them So good luck getting around even if you do know you're Spanish and as for a street and Avenue signs Well, you could go for miles sometimes and never see a single one That's why as much as I hate the thought of getting tracked a GPS Really does come in handy down here And by the way, it's a great antidote for road rage. Anyway, Eddie said sure we'll meet you at the shell station

[15:04] What kind of car do you have? He said it's a new 2016 Audi q7 SUV and he says, okay, we'll be right there He hangs up and looks at me and he says we're not gonna get a deal from this guy He's driving a brand new $65,000 car then Eddie made a crooked smile and winked and said unless Unless Johnny and then I said, yeah unless like so many Latins with nice new cars He's overstretched laid on his payments maxed out on his plastic and is deep in the hole Then Eddie says let's not write this guy off. Let's see him So half hour later we get to the shell station and sure enough There's that shiny new SUV and the guy gets out big fat guy in

[15:53] Hospital scrubs turns out he's a gastrointestinal surgeon and comes the usual questions cuz we're gringos. Where are you from? Chicago, huh? What a coincidence I have a cousin Julio and Boise and all that crap like Chicago to Boise's a 20-minute ride on the L train Then he says follow me So as we're following the guy up the side of a mountain to a very nice guarded gated community And he says look at the guy hundred pounds overweight and he's selling his exercise equipment Something's wrong here. So we go through the usual guard checkpoint very nice subdivision Like I said except his house is pretty nonsense script In fact in the States you might call it a starter home He definitely had one of the low-end houses in the neighborhood and I'm thinking there's something wrong here

[16:43] His car is worth almost as much as his house, but that can be typical down here in Latin America For Latins, it's what you drive how you dress and what kind of smartphone you have However, those social status rules do not apply to guess who gringos our own eccentricities are well tolerated Believe me. In fact, I can't tell you how many times I've been in a mall or an elevator Whatever and I have overheard two Latins kind of cutting up on another Latin saying in Spanish, of course Why do you still have that old model? Why don't you get a new phone or my sister's boyfriend bought a Kia? But my dad has a Honda they're better all that stupid one upmanship You see in the upper middle class is in the wealthy here So if you know you're Spanish you can pick up on conversations like that in upscale malls where all the gringo wannabes are now as

[17:32] For the middle class common man in the lower middle class guy on the street You don't hear that kind of stuff was I digressing there Anyway, we walk into this doctor's house Remember a gastrointestinal surgeon say he was on the hard side of 50 and then Eddie says Do you speak English because you know down here you realize that almost all professionals at least the ones under 50 anyway Speak English because all the cutting-edge research development and articles are on the internet now in English Surprisingly enough this doc said no, let's speak in Spanish, which to me threw up a red flag It's rare to find a doctor down here that doesn't want to speak English with you because they want the practice So anyway, we go through the foyer into a living room and all of a sudden a tiny dog runs in out of a bedroom somewhere

[18:20] Starts yiping and humping on Eddie's leg now if that's ever happened to you You know that usually as you try to shake the dog off and kick it away. It comes back for more Meanwhile the fat old doc is standing there. Oh, don't worry. He doesn't bite. He's just being friendly does that to everyone That said I am gonna digress here because I know I said this in a past show long time ago But Latins never train their dogs I mean you could be in the nicest upscale Latin house, and it'll be a wild-ass dog like that Jumping up on you one minute pissing on the kitchen floor the next minute Chewing on your shoes or the furniture and you know it doesn't matter if you're in a poor guy's house in a tin shack Sitting on the couch or sitting on a sofa in the billiard room of a pompous ass Latin senator

[19:05] Almost all of them have dogs and when you sit on a sofa One guess who's gonna try to jump on your lap or bury his head in your crotch if you guessed the senator well Maybe but usually it'll be his dog So anyway the dogs humping Eddie's leg and the doc finally throws some food in the dogs bowl And he's diverted to the kitchen and now we're in the bedroom where he's got this beautiful life fitness elliptical training machine sitting in the corner Then the doc says you know I bought this thing about a year and a half ago from me and my wife was around 2,500 bucks, but they were running a deal And I got it for two grand and the fact of the matter is I've only used it about three times myself my wife about Five maybe seven times I guess we'd do better with a stationary bike

[19:52] He said and when I sell this thing I'll get me a good one and I'm thinking I don't believe you can get a stationary bike with a tractor seat on it That's when expat Eddie said doc give me your best prize and the doc answered the lowest I can go is 1250 for it because as you can see it's like new except for the dust now Eddie knowing most of the tricks that I know Ask the guy if he could use his restroom so Eddie went into the restroom, but did not use the bathroom instead He just fleshed a toilet pulled out his money pouch Peeled off 800 bucks and stuffed him in his pocket when he came out and faced the doc He dug in his pocket and slowly pulled out his wad and peeled off 800 bucks and he said to the doc Well, you know, that's all I have on me and that's all I can afford to spend

[20:39] 800 if you can come down to that we got a deal then the duck says yeah But you know, I take really good care of my stuff as you can see Meanwhile back in the living room You couldn't help but notice that there were dog pee stains on the cloth sofa and the throw rug and the dog had chewed The corners off the end table. Yep. The whole house had that disturbing essence of dog about it Not only that if I could tell by the neglected garden and the peeling paint that he really took care of his stuff You should have seen the bathroom The paint on the toilet seat was worn down to bare wood And he laughed when he said the doc couldn't splurge 10 bucks on a new seat By the way, I've seen that dozens of times it is pretty disgusting Anyway, when Eddie was waving the $800 in front of him, then the doc said something strange

[21:28] He said look tell you what you give me a thousand bucks, but don't give me the cash go down to life fitness That's where I bought this machine and you give them the money and you tell them it's for my account And now Eddie and I kind of figured out what was happening This guy was paying for this machine on time and he's headed a year and a half now And he still owes a thousand bucks on it Imagine that driving a $65,000 car obviously up to his balls and payments on that too Probably tapped out completely then Eddie took his $800 and he slowly Counted it in front of the guy and he said look this is all I have then the doc said well I got it go down to life fitness Give him the 800 and charge the other 200 to your credit card and put it on my account

[22:14] Then Eddie said but I don't use credit cards I do everything with cash then the doc looked surprised and said really I don't do cash I just do credit cards anyway Eddie counted it is $800 slowly and carefully in front of the doc once again, and he said look doc 800 is my limit And here's my name and number give me a call if you don't get the price you want But I am looking to buy a machine in the next day or two So we walked back through the living room and the dog started humping Eddie's leg again Then all of a sudden the dog backed away and started going into an epileptic fit I'm not kidding you have you ever seen that happen to a dog then the doc said yeah Yeah, he's an epileptic when he gets too excited sometimes. He has a little seizure

[23:00] So Eddie and I are looking at this dog and watching him have a seizure, but he wasn't really having a seizure What he was getting ready to do was vomit now if you have ever had a dog They have a particular way of signaling you that they're gonna vomit in about 10 seconds They kind of hunch up and their body starts contracting and you're thinking uh-oh time to get out of here So we left just as that dog started vomiting on the carpet couldn't a timed it better Then as we hit the front lawn that he said Johnny. I think I know why dogs love me So it's the old spice gotta change brands So in the end Eddie, and I drove into the sunset well not actually into the sunset But the nearest Latin version of a 7-eleven called a super benti cuatro benti cuatro is 24 meaning

[23:51] It's open 24 hours a day, but they're really not good net funny Yeah, they have all kinds of convenience stores etc down here that claim. They're open 24-7, but they're really not yes Dear listeners only in Latin America Can you have a 24 hour place not open 24 hours or better yet a country club that doesn't have a golf course? And how about this I was looking to get some 100% mobile one synthetic oil for an oil change only use that you know Your car will last forever your engine will anyway So I pulled up to an auto parts supply store called an a set area the Spanish word a set a means oil You know like oil change anyway the whole outside of the building was plastered with mobile insignias including mobile one So I asked a guy for four quarts, and he said we don't stock mobile one

[24:39] And I said what about those big painted signs outside with the mobile one on them. He said nope sorry Don't stock it and since this is Latin America the same thing happened to me three times that day three different places Gigantic mobile one insignias all over the place, and they all said the same thing nope don't carry this stuff But we have all the other mobile products which I didn't want so anyway Eddie and I are in that super benti cuatro You know that Latin version of a 7-eleven So Eddie could stock up on his usual diet of cheese popcorn and chicharrones and believe me You don't want to know what chicharrones are and guess what he gets the phone call $800 will do so 10 minutes later. We're back at the docks house Then he says to Eddie go on down to life fitness pay him the 800 bucks

[25:28] Bring back the receipt and come and pick up the machine and when we got back to the docks house to pick up the machine With Eddie's pickup it was obvious to us that the doc was checking his watch way too many times He wanted us to see that it was a real Rolex, which I'm sure he was paying on time Hey, I made a funny time watch And I said doc what hospital are you affiliated with and he said oh I work at the military hospital Then I looked at Eddie and he looked back at me. Yep. It was an aha moment We knew the docks whole story now why the docks car was worth more than his house Why he only used credit cards why he was still paying for that machine on time after a year and a half Why he didn't speak English?

[26:14] He fit the profile exactly of a government flunky albeit a professional government flunky a slug with an MD Probably graduated in the bottom five percent of his class That's the profile down here anyway and probably in most of the rest of the world Those are the kind of guys that make a career out of getting lost in the government bureaucracy In fact, you'll never hear a medical student down here tell you his goal is to get out and work for government Huh and even more revolting working in a military hospital So don't think that other Latin doctors are like this guy note There are fantastic English-speaking private sector doctors down here and some of them even donate time to the public hospitals Couple hours a week Simply because they feel sorry for and want to help all those poor folks that are forced to get treated in those crummy

[27:05] medieval public hospital dungeons Yep, another digression Anyway, if you're the kind of person who likes estate sales and yard sales and rummaging There's a real handy rule of thumb when you're buying used stuff Which by the way doesn't apply to clothing never pay more than half of the original retail price So in the end with his new elliptica, can we look forward to a healthier expat Eddie? Probably not because he bought it for his girlfriend You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border Email me the expat files at gmail.com and don't forget to check out expat wisdom calm to sign up for your free

[27:51] Reports on Latin America. See you next time nos vemos