Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

As I have made pretty clear in the year and a half that I have been writing for the Review, I am music obsessed. So it should come as no surprise that I am gonna start a story that will eventually come around to an existential issue in Boulder City by talking about a band fight.

And fight is not an exaggeration. Yelling, screaming, threats to walk out and never come back… And those were just from me.

As is the norm in this kind of thing (which I have been through on both sides more times than I can count since the time I was 14 years old) it ended up being, really, about someone (me, this time) feeling disrespected and unappreciated. But, again, as is often the norm, the root issue was change.

We are screamingly fortunate in the band I’ve been with for a couple of years now and trying to build to the gigging point to have a talented guitar player who is also a pro booking agent. And, the two of us are close friends. But guys in bands are like brothers sometimes. We may love each other, but we fight like demons.

As we have finally finished up a promo video and begin the process of trolling for public-facing gigs, we looked at the song list and began to plug the holes that would need to be filled in order to have enough material for a typical three-set, four-hour gig. My six-string cohort pushed us to include a couple of songs from the last four or five years to supplement a set that is heavy on music made in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.

Which is where it fell apart.

You see, there is a lot of new music that I really love. I mean there is a band of 20-something girls out of Toronto called The Beaches (“Don’t blame me, blame Brett…”) that I am ridiculously enthusiastic about. I absolutely love Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” record which I think totally cements her status as, quite probably, the best songwriter of her generation.

In contrast, I thought that some of the suggestions by my musical brothers and sister to be pretty… pedestrian. Old, even. But I am not insufferable and opinionated about it. (OK, I totally am.)

Which led to an exchange that will finally bring this around to the BC issue.

As our resident agent brought up an artist that I pretty obviously yawned about, he said, “Really? But you like The Beaches and Taylor Swift?” I answered that, indeed, I do and he said, “But you are not 16.”

It was meant to be a zinger but, for me, it brought me back to some recent conversations about issues in Boulder City, and the actual root of those issues, and the subject of the inevitability of change.

My friend was, of course, correct. I’m 64, not 16. But a big part of me staying young mentally, which many would just call a refusal to grow up, is that I love the search for the new and novel and I find that most people of my vintage are instead clinging to the past and fighting change with every fiber of their being.

Which brings us to the issue that is really behind virtually every issue in Boulder City. Change. Which is really code for development.

It took me more than a year of working out here before I really “grocked” (look it up) how even issues that seemingly have nothing to do with stopping development are really about just that.

Or, rather, it’s all about stopping certain kinds of development. The Methodist church wants to build a mixed-use project that will give them a space to worship while also providing 50 affordable apartments for seniors? Well, that is totally unacceptable to a very vocal segment of the population. But, if the city announced that they are taking that land away from the church in order to give it to Trader Joe’s to build a store there? My guess is that there would be not a peep of protest.

I get trying to maintain the small-town character. But the trick is to do that while still adapting to the realities of modern life. Actually, it should come as no surprise that, demographically, BC is old. As in there is about double the state average of people over 65 living here and about half the percentage of people under the age of 18.

As someone who I respect a lot, whose name I will not use because I don’t want them to take a bunch of crud about it told me, “People moved here sometimes 30 and 40 years ago and were drawn by the small-town feel and they do not want anything to change. Ever.”

And that, my friends, is a recipe for stagnation and death.

Drive up Nevada Way and look at the string of abandoned store fronts and boarded up buildings. Does it look like a dynamic and vibrant town? Or a place that is dying because it refuses to change? And without a younger, growing and dynamic population base, what are the chances those buildings are ever anything other than boarded up?

When I started working out here, I was as enchanted with the town as most are at first. And I said many times that my wife and I would move out here in a second if we could afford to. But… I am not totally sure that is true anymore.

One grocery store. No movie theater. Not even a gym that has proper facilities to, say, change in and out of workout clothes. Maybe a proper donut place at some point but I am not holding my breath. I have been passing a “coming soon” Pink Box sign on Blue Diamond Road near Decatur for more than two years and it is still an empty lot. (Or maybe I am just hoping it doesn’t happen because I love donuts and they are bad for me…)

BC celebrates the kids that graduate from the high school and those little small town rituals are ridiculously charming. But how many of those kids stay in town? And to do what? How many of them go off to college and then come back to stay? At least before they turn 50?

This is not exactly a place that is friendly for young families. The price of housing is insane and there is pretty much zero talk of doing anything about the affordability issue. Tract 350? Not unless you have a household income north of $200K per year, minimum along with about $100K in cash for a down payment.

I do know for sure that paranoia about residential development is the driving reason that BC, in the middle of the driest desert on earth and in the middle of a historic drought, still dumps nearly a million gallons of wastewater per day in the desert to evaporate instead of recycling it as is the case in the hated “over the hill.”

Look, I get it. When I moved to Nevada in 2005 and settled in the far southwest corner of Vegas, Blue Diamond was a two-lane, undivided road and Ft. Apache (my house is pretty much at that corner) dead ended. And, west of me, there might have been a dozen old homes between my house and Red Rock. And, yeah, as I now look out over two four-lane divided traffic arteries, a traffic signal with left turn arrows and probably close to 1,000 homes (with more coming all the time), I miss my old dusty corner of the desert.

But I also understand the whole Darwin thing. You know, contrary to what many think, old Charles never said anything about the survival of the fittest. He said “survival of the most adaptable.”

Adapt or die. That is the universal law. And, as far as this outsider can see, Boulder City has been on the wrong side of the law for a long time. And it’s kinda like speeding. Yes, you can get away with it a lot. But, eventually, the cops are gonna catch up and the consequences are gonna suck. I just wonder how long BC can avoid the Cosmic Popo.