Santa Barbara

 

I was Johnnie Johnson when I first came to Santa Barbara in 1988. Since this state has one helluva grapevine, certain people knew I had a connection to “The Industry”, but they were not sure in what capacity. While at the same time, a few people did. This town has a long history with Hollywood.

For the next four years I was kinda off the grid. With the exception of some Hollywood people, no one knew I was here. I mean no one, not even family or friends.

I got really healthy. The first four years I was here I never had a single joint or a beer…nothing. I took to the beach/fitness culture almost immediately. I started running, cycling, swimming and going to the gym. The East Beach bathhouse has workout facilities. The only thing that prevented me from entering a triathlon at one point was my swimming speed. I’m just not that damn fast.

Santa Barbara was a lot different in 1988. It was much more bohemian. We still had these semi-weird Grateful Dead children hanging out. Rents were a fraction of what they are now and there were several dive hotels in the downtown area. (These places are now off the hook in price.) Like most desirable places, it has changed.

After those first four years, I started working in the telecommunications industry. Not only does Santa Barbara have Hollywood history, it has Internet history. UCSB was on the original Arapnet. Stanford, the birthplace of Google, was also on that precursor to The Internet. The Internet was never designed for graphics. When I first got on it, in the stone-age, it was all text. A few years later, you could download a crappy black and white picture, but it would take minutes. In the early 90s when the web started becoming graphical, cable companies all over America were scrambling to update their infrastructure, and we were there. Some of these people, unfortunately I wasn’t one of them, were making a pretty good living. Middle managers, without college degrees, were making a half a million dollars a year.

For years, I would come in and out of Santa Barbara between contracts. I saw a large part of this country, but always came back. Among other things, the weather here spoils the crap out of you. A not so good benefit of that profession was that I was around a lot of cable cowboys. We drank.

Practically every town I worked in, I got to know the dance clubs. Frankly, this is where my co-workers would go to pick up chicks. These guys had no bills. Based on the length of the contract, the firm would rent us out hotel rooms, apartments and even houses. Many of them drove company trucks, so they didn’t even have that expense. They had a lot of disposable income.

At first I didn’t join my cowboy cohorts in their carousing. That didn’t last long. I finally broke down and become a designated driver. (You never realize how stupid people are until you’re cold sober and they are drunker than hell.) That didn’t last long. Sitting in a downstairs dance club, (in all places, Boise), I looked at my buddies and their girlfriends and told the rather sexy barmaid that “I’ll have one of those”. I proceeded to party in every town I in worked in. Got drunker than shit in the French Quarter, on Mississippi riverboats, in Vegas, in Reno, even at Mickey Rats…and all points between.

Well, now on my returns to Santa Barbara, I was no longer hanging out at the beach, I was hanging out on State St. Santa Barbara is a great town to drink in now, but it was even better then. The live music scene was more vibrant and there were more buskers. The subsequent “aggressive panhandling” laws put a damper on that street music.

You could drink on the beach, providing it wasn’t in glass, and in the parks. On the beach, people would have huge bonfires and pits. In any park, people were always partying. The yahoos destroyed it by constantly doing stupid crap in front of tourists. The authorities had to crack down. Hell, I saw it coming a long time before it happened.

At one point, I lived in The Californian hotel. This was obviously before its remodel. It is now outrageously expensive. Back then, there was a bar downstairs called “Rocky’s”. Go out the backdoor of that place and you’re facing the elevator that goes up to the rooms. Across the street was a 24 hour coffee shop with a helluva internet connection. Behind that coffee shop was the warehouse space of one of the local street artists. I got to know him as well as some of his friends. They offered me painting lessons. I never took them up on it.

I’ve done a lot of partying here, but I’ve also gained a lot of knowledge and a little bit more humility. While my ex-wife took away some of my Chicago edginess, Santa Barbara removed a lot more. There are some incredibly nice people here, but since great good attracts great evil, we have some not so nice people.

To show my appreciation to the “nice” people in this town, I created this website.  This is the latest iteration. It has previously existed under different URLs. I got a little more egotistical in 2013 and turned my name into a domain. I had purely good intentions, but all I did was shoot myself, as well as some of my friends, in the foot.

I can’t write a chapter on Santa Barbara without mentioning some caveats. I stated this numerous times already, but wealthy and famous people attract weirdos. Not to freak you out too much, but even Charles Manson lived here a little while before he thought The Beatles were sending him secret messages. I knew a chick named “Billy Jean” who was arrested for breaking into Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch because she thought his song was about her. She did it multiple times. The scientologists used to have a big building downtown. It is now a boutique hotel. They are/were a clever bunch. They have you fill out this personality inventory before they even talk to you. Afterwards, these people know all your buttons.

Being the drinking town that it is, people occasionally get “Public Intoxication” tickets. More often than not, these tickets will be dismissed if the offender attends a few AA meeting. Well, you guessed it. Many of these groups are infiltrated by weirdos that are not even alcoholic. They are there simply to hear the repentant confessions of an occasional wealthy person, celebrity or slightly frightened student. I’ve seen some of the results.

To close on a positive note, this town has always had good pot.

© John Bielecki 2024

 

John Bielecki

Author John Bielecki

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