1971 16mm TV News Film - Seedy Downtown San Diego, Neon, Adult Theaters, etc

[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] hi welcome to Bob Mills San Diego well it's not really my San Diego it's your San Diego but I love this town anybody that lives here has got to love San Diego we've got everything the mountains the desert the ocean the beaches the climate it's all right here after all where else in the world would you find them stopping traffic to let an airplane cross the street and where would you find an old wooden pedestrian bridge this long just to let people walk over the freeway it's all right here in San Diego and so are a lot of other things that's what this program is going to be all about the people the places the things around San Diego the well-known history and the little known sidelights and I'm dependent on you to help me too because I know you'll have ideas for stories so give me a call let me know about them we'll try to get them on Bob Mills San Diego on this first program we're going to walk down lower Broadway with an Evangelistic preacher from the south the chaplain of Bourbon Street New Orleans then we're going to travel down that long Lonesome Highway in an old 1910 Packard and we're going to visit that Tower right out there it's an oceanographic Tower that's Run for the Navy but how many people are on it how long has it been there what's it for what's it going to do all these things we'll find out in just a moment on Bob Mills San Diego Bourbon Street down in the French Quarter of old New Orleans is supposed to be one of the wickedest streets in the world Jazz started out on Bourbon Street and along with jazz came killings and drinking and gambling and dope and prostitution and sex and perversion in just about every sin you could possibly think of that's why I thought that was kind of a strange place for a minister to have his headquarters but that's where the Reverend Bob Harrington goes as he says if you want to go fishing you go where the fish are his story is told in a book that was published by Doubleday back in 1969 it's called the chaplain of Bourbon Street Bob Harrington visited San Diego recently I thought it would be interesting to take him down on our Bourbon Street not on Lower Broadway so one night we went down there walked up and down the streets and just talked about life in general here are his comments they have been wholesome films here at your local theater to start connected realism I wonder what the science would look like in Sodom and Gomorrah they had Marquis out of the street one of what lot would have seen when he walked into Sodom and Gomorrah before the fire Brimstone was sent down by God did they have those when you were in San Diego in the Navy yeah they had the same type all night theaters and I'm sure they were patronized by the sailors as other people and I was one of those guys because I had no other place to go didn't know what a better way of life of Living it's amazing how God whipped us up like he did made woman different man different I'm glad for the differences well the first things I'm going to ask him is why he whipped us up like he did put all these gadgets on us and said don't use them because there's nothing evil about sex sex is a great gift it's a great gift it can use or abuse it can be a guide to a marriage or Miss God to a marriage the reason we don't have as many homes as we should is the man doesn't know how to be the sex leader in the marriage that he should you have many men like this in your town of New Orleans yes we surely do you minister to the derelicts yes we we certainly do everywhere we go down to New Orleans and here in other cities we have we have French Quarter down that we have the rescue mission High plunge up in New Orleans oh I'm San Diego strictly San Diego huh 43 years uh-huh where do you live just here in the town of well he's raised here when the Navy here or something no I went to school here I was raised up in Chicago Illinois you ever you ever give your heart to the Lord you believe in the Lord [Music] you walk down the streets of San Diego and you see these new buildings but you got the same old problems you look at these high-rise skyscrapers but in there you've got some low living characters 25 stories did you know there's many problems in that 25 stories as they would be in the ghettos of San Diego a lot of rich men uh it's almost a known that yeah it doesn't work in that building it was hard for them to get into heaven as it is for a camel to go through the Island that's what the book says I can't comprehend all the fullness of that I think one of the reasons it's difficult for rich men to be converted is the fact that we who are converted are a little bit sheepish about witnessing to rich people we all like to always like to think of the wino the drunk the derelict the has been but we ought to think of the potential of these men that are giants in your community he doesn't take the Lord any more power to save a banker than he does a trucker it doesn't take him any more power to convert those people in that 25-story skyscraper as it were the entire ghettos of San Diego because this is your country club drinking crowd this is a group that if they get too much they call alcoholics and not called drunkards if they have too many drinks they called over social drinking they not call Winos and booze heads because that's the group down further here in the city they're the ones that go out to the country club because they have padded bars that way when you pass out you know pop your chin there may be some multi-millionaires in that building but I guarantee they're going to be prayer warriors when they start dying if we had one more earthquake here in California that bank was in the middle of it every one of those people would become missionaries before they reached the ground Bob have you ever been with men who were dying yes I've been with many and I've never met an atheist on infidel or cusser a smoker a drinker a doubt of when they're dying everybody I meet when they're dying when they know they're checking out they want to be sure they're checking in with the Lord so I tell people that the Lord's good enough for you when you die and you'll try them when you're living he's not gonna hurt you one bit is there excitement to living with the Lord yes it's much excitement much exciting very much yes he's talking to me now I'm a chaplaining I'm a Baptist evangelist from New Orleans what do you girls do here you do well do you folks know the author of The Bible [Music] you know they you know the Lord that's the one I'm talking about but he inspired man to do it yeah the other one no they published it this is the book you're talking about right here I have it with me I keep it with me I jot little notes and things down on the side well we sell largely families and you'd be surprised the guys who do come in here and see Babel as well they want to talk to them I should sure they do where are you from I'm from Scotland I thought I heard you one of the greatest revivals in the history of time was in Scotland John Knox yeah great Revival many John Knox Presbyterian people here are you friends with John Baptist so it's good to see you good to see that you got the book good to see you soon thank you thank you oh you got the answer there you know the author of The Bible yes divorce or or did you put him down everything they were saying they're selling their Bible that's not all they selling them you can rest assured of that yeah but uh he said do you know the author of that book and I says yes it's divorce the more publicity company I think we worked for bless their hearts I tell you that was a statement of the knife racial expression on that oh Lord I thought I'd known the answer I said yeah I couldn't quite get your take on that either hi how you doing [Music] well here's a Susie all right yeah please don't come in okay [Music] um the right down in the heart is it this weekend yeah when you come into my office you go by the Blue Angel nightclub to come into my door you turn to my right prayer room and the left it's a stripper's dressing room so this is where I locate this is where I am this is where I go to witness the Bible said when you're part of the Lord you will come fishes of men so if you go fish go where the fish are and we had a pretty good fish hole right now here in San Diego too when I first got saved and started witnessing to these prostitutes and Street Walkers and things it used to bug me when they'd laugh at me and ridiculed my Lord then I got to thinking if they don't do that then they immediately have got to admit to they are wrong and they are living in sin so these that laugh at me sometimes later I get calls from them and say preacher I'm sorry I sure would like to talk seriously with you and we always available and ready to talk have you ever had any converts from the show people down there yes we had one working in office right now when we gave her her first paycheck she said that the first money she ever made without laying on a bag and she's doing a tremendous job of secretary work with them we send her to a business school we trained her because we not only try to get people saved we try to locate them in places of service and opportunities after that new life begins you do an injustice to someone who just pointed to the Lord and drop them and leave them and ignore them and we've led many strippers to the Lord who later go into beauty school or go into PBX operation we try to place them I have a board of friends that help me find places for these bartenders you know a guy who's a bartender wonders what can I do after I get right with the Lord so we help Supply what he can do yesterday when I was discussing with you whether there's any prophecy that you see in the Bible we're telling the end of times and it looks like it's near expand on that a little bit but we're walking right in the middle of it everywhere you go when the times will wax worse and conditions will get like they are today and the Bible says as the days that were before the flood they were situations similar to what we're living in today the days of Sodom in fact I make this statement about this area of San Diego California if God's judgment doesn't destroy this type of life then he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology because when we walk tonight would have been identical or even a worse condition than where a lot himself walked in the streets of Sodom and Gomorrah so the last year there were a half a million Vehicles registered in the county of San Diego Generations we headed for San Diego's back country it was a sunny day and the hills were beginning to Green up following the disastrous fires last fall so if you're a car buff or if you like the scenery let's go down at Longmont [Music] in my place [Music] one of these days [Music] thank you [Music] I love leaving I'm gonna say [Music] I will be [Music] ready [Music] um