Sunday, October 14, 2012

Should the words "sold out" be outlawed in West Michigan? Casino flight to Vegas plus hotel for 270 has no more seats, for now.

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Let's face it. Cases of beer sell pretty well out of the beer caves of Wesco and Speedway. We actually have bars failing in Muskegon and not a lot of visible wrangling for the liquor licenses. We are like a warehouse for unoccupied liquor licenses. Sportsman Pub in Muskegon Heights sold off its furniture to the Patio, which looks classier now. One table has the budget for a Michigan Rose Bowl trip under glass, a trip during the middle twentieth century. The Time Out Saloon on Laketon has gone dark, and that looks rather pathetic across the street from the new Men's Homeless Shelter, a LEED certified building that has passive solar for heating water. Suffice to say, the low end of town has advance during the past five years in Muskegon.

So when ANYTHING works, even a stupid junket to Vegas designed to fleece the pockets of our neighbors, maybe some community funding can be allocated to it? I can think of less extreme examples. If a theater performance draws crowds, keep it running until the ticket sales taper. Milk it the way Broadway milks a hit. As for those places posting signs reading "Reading No Sunday Sales". Offer those businesses the right to sell without Michigan Sales Tax Sunday afternoon and evening. I'm certain it wasn't the divine ones intention to shut down commerce until Wednesday, when life returns to the business district.

I was excited to see seventy people showed up at a brick warehouse building on Getty to act in a zombie film. The newspaper showed close-ups of the made-up artist, and the blood and gore looked truly visceral. Saturday, I had a dollar fifty Budweiser at the Clover Bar and I sat across the bar from a crew of friends in hunting camouflage. I noticed that the bar no longer had one of those engines that cook fried food unbelievably fast. One could order a frozen pizza to be cooked in a toaster oven or a grab and go cold cut sandwich, but not a dozen bar rail buffalo wings. It's a small but significant change. I paid up and left.

I saw cars in the brick warehouse's loft, and the main door was propped open. I even saw the White work truck of Mason Mike. I was so astounded that I assumed that the film crew had returned for a second weekend. So I crossed the road and slipped into the building.

I didn't see any Zombies but I did hear a booming voice at the end of the hall. As I made my way towards it, the voice declared, "You don't need data. Data doesn't win the day. There's more and more data every day and it makes no difference!" I turned into a room with a twelve foot high ceiling and twenty men and women were sitting in the dark watching a webcast from Saginaw, Michigan. No one blinked or nodded in notice of my arrival as I pulled up a chair and sat down. A woman by a hobnail glass window was burping a newborn. I wondered if I had infiltrated a cult. Most had notepads, taking notes rapidly.

I whispered a question to a man in the row before me. The man speaking before a blue curtain lead an organization named Team. In addition to supplying members with motivational compact disks and books, Team organized sales pyramids for Mona Vie. I enjoyed listening to Mark Paul for about ten minutes as he discoursed upon fear and motivation. "If one feels fear as one contemplates making a sale, that's a very, very good sign. It means that you are about to take action!" I got up to leave and looked at the table laded with books and jewel cases. A man in the audience started to track my movements, and when I turned around, he was smiling right at me. As I walked down the hallway, a second man followed me and he caught up to me in the lobby. He extended his right hand for a hand shake and his left hand extended his business card.

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