JFK Guerrilla Tour Guides
On the 60th Anniversary Week of JFK's Assassination, I Discuss the Weirdest Part of My Dallas Trip, And How Some Random But Business Savvy People Filled a Gap
Author’s Note: Thanks to those of you who signed up for Consumer Beast by finding me through my AGGregator NM State Column. It means a lot to me that you respect my writing enough to hear what else I have to say.
Consumer Beast was created because I worked at a bank for 13 years, and I know what banks do to separate you from your money, but also how to give the worst customer service possible. I fought with bosses over unethical practices on a daily basis until they finally canned me in 2018.
I can tell you one thing though… I am a customer service EXPERT because of how low I had to go working for the bank and understanding how the “manager” is not the boss. I was a manager. It means nothing. I learned who really runs things, and I applied that to everyday life. I have written books about the subject.
So with Consumer Beast, I teach customers and even employees about how to be better at helping customers, pointing out things I see in the “wild” if you will, and more importantly, helping customers understand why things happen the way they do sometimes, and understanding bad mouthing businesses on social media will get you noticed, but it won’t fix things as a whole. I will teach you how to better communicate, while telling funny stories like the one I am going to tell you today.
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Thank you! James.
ONTO THE STORY…
(Finally writing this story now, after postponing talking about it when Grandpa died in July)
I mentioned in an earlier column that I went to Dallas in July. It was the first time I went as a tourist and not as a hired gun for Bank of America. In 2012, I was given weeks of training to learn how to make you give us all of your money, but Bank of America couldn’t even pitch in for a rental car, which meant I was dodging insane Texas drivers the whole time while walking around. It sucked, and I had zero fun then.
Now? Free vacation with the wife. I was pumped. I was going to get to see all the major sports stadiums, do a lot of shopping, eat some amazing food, and have a real vacation for the first time since I left banking in 2018.
One of the things I had pegged to visit was anything JFK. I am a history buff, mainly because I want to be on “Jeopardy” so bad (they’ve invited me to tryout 3x but I haven’t made it yet) and basically, I love learning. My dad didn’t have beyond a high school education, but he just loved knowing things, and that’s me, I like knowing things.
Dad was 5 years old when JFK was shot, so I am not sure he remembers when that happened. I don’t remember asking him, but I know since I was a young kid, with the advent of cable TV, I remember where I was and how I felt for every major event since 1989.
November 22nd, 2023, or two days after I posted this, marks sixty years since JFK was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was in the book depository on the sixth floor when he mortally wounded the nation’s 35th president. Crazy how long ago it has been.
Regardless of the sadness involved, there is a pretty in-demand market from both conspiracy nuts (which I am not, although I have questions), and history geeks that just want to see something important to this country of ours. When I learned I was going to Dallas, I immediately saw what I can visit, how much it would cost, and how far was it from the hotel I was at.
It took me approximately 13 seconds to see what type of experience I could have seeing the JFK Assassination site.
Awesome! I was so pumped. So many different tours and experiences tell me one thing: There is a big demand for this kind of thing, and I am certain I will get something amazing with the limited cash I had for entertainment.
I was not going to book anything right away, because sometimes you can get an even better deal, so I bookmarked the website and decided I would book the stuff when I got to DFW on a Saturday. My wife and I had a nine hour drive ahead of us, and I was looking forward to that just as much as anything, because I love road trips.
So we get to DFW, and we stay at an Aloft hotel (funny enough, I did a column about that hotel. Look for it in my archives) and I break out my laptop and I start to pre-plan my JFK excursion.
We were there 3 full days: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Sunday was a no-go because we were touring AT&T Stadium that day, and I was glad I did, because I got to show my Grandpa photos of that place a week before he died. Plus that day would likely be the only time my wife and I had a meal together because it was essentially a work trip for her, so that left Monday and Tuesday.
The first thing I wanted to do FOR SURE was go check out the 6th street museum website and get my ticket for Monday:
(logs onto their site)
WTF?!?!?!?!
Closed Monday and Tuesday? Are you effin’ serious?!?!? God, what a stroke of dumb BAD luck. Sunday was just not going to be an option so this means I could not see where Oswald was located.
Ok, so I can’t get to see what I wanted exactly, so maybe I will audible and still check out something cool. I noticed that the Dallas Museum of Art was nearby. Let me buy a ticket —
What the hell?!?!
Shit!
So, I am pretty much screwed. Then I realized a lot of the walking/trolley tours were also dark on Mondays…at least the good ones.
Whatever. I don’t have a car, and I am in Ft. Worth, so I was already going to take public transit to Downtown Dallas. I still can see Dealey Plaza and everything around it, but I just can’t go to these damn closed museums.
Seriously… it’s a tourist area. People go on vacation on Mondays. Why aren’t you open? Makes no sense.
I spend a few bucks and get on the DART train from Ft. Worth to Dallas early Monday morning. It is a nice mode to get to Dallas, but sketchy in the fact that it passes through areas where, well… you would expect loud trains.
I grew up in a trailer near the train tracks. I CAN throw stones because I owned a glass house from ages 10-17. It was a shitty neighborhood and I will work hard to make sure I never go back.
Takes an hour to get to Dallas from Ft. Worth, and by the time I arrive there, it is 10:30 in the morning and about 105 degrees with the humidity and heat index. I start to walk around a little bit. First thing is the memorial:
I mean…it’s just a big square. Eh.
I then was navigating on my phone to go see the 6th Street Building. My phone, which usually gets hot from navigating as most phones do started to overheat, so I had to turn it off, and just follow the roads. I ended up there about 11:20am.
To be honest, it is pretty humbling to be able to walk up and see it first hand. I then saw Dealey Plaza, and the infamous grassy knoll, so I walked there. I noticed that since a lot of the things were closed, there were no cars in the employee lots, yet there was a guy who was next to a little podium in the middle of a busy street island. More on that in a bit. I went to the grassy knoll side. There were German tourists there.
How do I know they were German? I dated a Swiss/German national for a bit 20 years ago, so I know the beats of the language, and I worked with a German girl at the bank.
They were taking selfies strategically so I knew I saw where Zapruder was filming and there was a sign that mentioned that along with other “factoids” of the day.
I was gobbling all of this up. It was cool to see, plus it was so small in terms of area, it really puts it all into perspective how close you were to the President that day.
The interstate exit was literally a second away. If Oswald or whoever would have missed, JFK could have been on the 35 (i think?) within seconds. I can’t believe it.
I cross the street to the actual “Dealey Plaza” because I see a shit-ton of plaques there, so I went there. I walk passed a weird site. It was a bunch of German women and girls surrounding this BIG 400lb guy on the bench, and it looked like he was telling them a story by how they weren’t ditching him. I could have sworn he was homeless when I passed him.
I got this picture inadvertantly when I was going to take a video of the trajectory of the shot from the building to the road.
I didn’t make much of it. I texted my wife, “It’s literally a handful of people and some homeless folks here. I like how quiet it is.”
Then I hear “HEY!!!! HEY!!!! YOU!!!!”
Most people would turn their heads at that point. I didn’t because I didn’t think it was for me. “HEY, BALD GUY!!!!”
I turn around. It’s like that board game Guess Who? For sure it is me this person is yelling at.
Does your person wear glasses?
Yep.
Uh-Oh!
I lock eyes with him. The big 400lb Black dude on the bench.
“MAN, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!!!”
Normally people would run away from a command like that. Not me, I go up to him. You got to understand something. I did a couple of columns about the homeless problem in my city of Las Cruces, and I am totally fine with interacting with people, because that’s who I am and was for years. There’s nothing out of the ordinary I will see by simply seeing what he wants.
I go up to him. He looks like Refrigerator Perry Mixed with BeetleJuice from the Howard Stern Show. He is sitting spread eagle on a two-person bench filling up the whole area. He is eating a McDonalds Value Meal, as I smell the unmistakable smell of a BIG MAC in the bag. (Remember, I am a big guy too!)
I say “What’s up?” to him in a very casual manner, indicating I am of no harm, and he tells me, “SO! What do you know about the JFK assassination?”
It’s a weird question in a way, because we all know a little bit, right? I start telling him the dates and times as best I knew them.
”NAH NAH NAH. THAT’S THE BULLSHIT THEY TELL YOU IN SCHOOL. I GOT THE REAL SHIT."
He reaches in his green backpack and pulls out this book. It’s basically a conspiracy theorists guide to the assassination.
Before I get into it, as I mentioned earlier, I saw a tall, older Black dude across the street manning what looked like a podium by the 6th street museum, and I remember seeing this book on top, and after looking that way again, that guy had a similar backpack, presumably with the books in there as well.
They were running a tour guide business under the radar. What the hell? That was so cool.
He gives me the book, and he starts rattling off this alternate theory as to what happened. He isn’t looking at me in the eyes when he is doing it, and when I look in his, his left eye is pointing the other way. I dunno if it’s a glass eye or he has something wrong with it.
Anyway, for about 3 minutes straight, he goes on and on about the Cubans and the Russians and that JFK was not making any friends with his views on possibly getting into the Vietnam conflict so soon after Korea.
I mean, the guy had the speech DOWN. You can tell that he has said that 1000 before. I was impressed. He then went into a whole spiel about
“Man, you need to carry a gun these days, because you never know who has one. If that mother-f***er killed the President, imagine what he can do to our asses.”
It was pretty grim, but honestly, I was having a blast. I loved listening to him. He was so fervent on being a tour guide sitting perfectly on a park bench.
“You carry a gun, man?” He tells me.
“Nah, man. I don’t, but my wife is a small town girl, so she’s usually strapped.” I tell him.
“Man, HOW THE HELL do you let your girl carry and you don’t? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“She’s a better shot than me.”
“Man, but you are THE MAN. You need to be the one to protect her. What the hell, man?”
It was at this point, this man talked like everyone else in my life. But I don’t care I got a laugh.
“What’s your name?”
“James”
“James, my name is Miguel, and I work for tips, because these assholes is closed on Monday and Tuesday.”
I KNEW IT! THEY WERE RUNNING THEIR OWN LITTLE WALKING TOUR OF JFK’S SITE SINCE EVERYTHING WAS CLOSED. THAT’S WHY THEY WERE TALKING TO THE GERMANS A WHILE AGO!!!
“Nice to meet you, Miguel.” I say Miguel the way a Mexican guy would since I am Mexican-American. Kinda like “Mee-Helle” without the hard G. It’s just how it comes out.
“Man, get that shit right. MEE-GELLLLLL”
“Ok. Mee-gelll.” I try to placate him, but I did realize he mentioned he works for tups, so I start to reach for my wallet. My train is leaving in about 20 minutes and I got a half mile walk to go.
I am one to tip well when I get good service or a good experience. I mean, I didn’t know that my walking around Downtown Dallas would turn into a guerilla walking tour with a sedentary tour guide with a wonky eye and a little beer on his breath while wearing basketball shorts.
But, in customer service experiences, I always say that you tip and you should remember the times that you were truly blown away. I was tipping because I was paying for a show by this guy.
Plus, him and his other friend somehow concocted a scheme to do their own tours on Monday and Tuesday, even having their own freaking conspiracy books made up. They were doing what any good small business does. They were filling a gap. Filling a need. It impressed me.
For as pro small business and customer service as I am, there’s nothing more lame that someone who claims to be a small business and support local business buying all their business supplies at Sam’s Club. You have to be all into being independent if you want to impress me. Two big older Black dudes in the middle of the Dallas heat made my JFK experience something I would never forget.
So I gave the man a $20 bill. That was basically the cost of the admission of the museum if it was open, so I just gave it to him. I shook his hand with one of those cool handshakes (I know them all) and he hugged me!
Now, I know 99% of you would not have liked that experience, but I absolutely adored it.
He tells me as I start to head out. “Man, tell all your friends about me.”
I ask for a selfie, but he refused. I guess he doesn’t want to be scoped out by anyone in Texas for operating an illegal business or loitering or something. I did get that pic of him from afar with the German ladies though.
I tell him, “Don’t worry, man. I am a writer. I am going to tell everyone about this. I had too much fun.”
I headed back to Fort Worth on the train, and finally got to shower. That was the sweatiest I have ever been, and the reason I would never live in Dallas, but holy cow, after maybe 20-30 customer service experiences on that road trip, and another 20-30 the week after that when we were planning my Grandpa’s funeral, I sat down and analyzed who was bad at customer service and experience, and who was good.
Hands down, it was my guerilla JFK Assassination Tour Guide. He lit up my day like no one else would. I hope he makes hundreds of bucks a day, because he deserves it. More people in this world should have his ingenuity.
Now that’s a small business leader if I ever saw one. JFK would be proud…I think.
James Baca - Consumer Beast