Jorge Rivera has led an exciting life, full of stories, travel and experiences. He started FirstCoast.tv to create a media channel that represents St. Augustine.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in New York until about 11 years old. Then moved to Puerto Rico until I was about 17. My father opened restaurants and cafes. He owned a few in the Southeast Bronx and then we moved to Puerto Rico and he opened some nice sophisticated restaurants where all the U.S. baseball players would come in the winter. At night the players would come in, my dad was a big fan so he would introduce me.
The years in Puerto Rico were good to me. In New York, I grew up in the inner city and those were rough times.This was in the late 60’s when buildings were being burned down. It was a bad time in our country, Kennedy died, Malcolm X was shot. People talk about now being bad, but they don’t know how it used to be. You meet the older generation, they freak out if you throw out a piece of bread and butter, for them was a luxury.
In Puerto Rico, I married my high school sweetheart and we had a daughter. I had a friend in Rochester, so we moved there in the early 70’s when all the jobs were there, like Kodak and IBM. We stayed about four years then moved to Orlando. I had taken a course with the Florida Builders Association. There was a boom of building in Orlando and they didn’t have any plumbers and electricians. I passed and started wiring custom homes. Eventually I became a Fireman with my friend Danno. Things in Orlando were okay but not great. My wife and I had issues and the marriage ended. Eventually, she met someone else and decided to move to Connecticut with her new husband. This was an issue for me because my daughter who was four at the time and I didn’t want to be that far away from her. I figured I’d have to move north. One day chatting with Danno about this, he inspires me to audition with the American School of Dramatic Arts. Actors like Don Rickels and Edward G. Robinson went there. You can only get in with an invitation and only a handful of people can get one. Now I had dabbled in theater when I was in High School, so I thought my odds were slim, but me and Danno decided to go and audition. We needed to prepare something classical, dramatic, comedy and something else I can’t remember. Then you basically go in and do your thing. So we were in Orlando and went up to Jacksonville and we both auditioned. I was working part time as a Bank Teller on my off days as a fireman. So one day a call came in to the bank and a Head Teller came over to tell me there was a call for me. I figured it was my ex-wife and she said “no Jorge, it’s a call from New York”. They all knew I auditioned, so I got on the phone and it was American School of Dramatic Arts and they were calling with my invitation. I had ten days to decide. So I called Danno and spoke to him about it, it took me three to four days to finally decide. I knew my wife was headed north with my daughter and my biological mom lived on Columbus and 95th. Dannos family lived on Long Island, so I knew I would have a place to stay; so I decided to take the invitation. I packed up everything, my daughter came down and joined me for the drive up to New York and I moved in with my mother in New York initially.
I began working as an actor, auditioning, going to workshops. I did some play writing with Allen Davis and Marianne Cologne with the Puerto Rican traveling theater; she played Al Pacinos mother in Scar Face. She loved me and she would get me all these big auditions. I auditioned for Kevin Costner once, but I was too young for the part. Anthony Quinn got it instead.
I did off broadway, I was an extra in films. I did a lot of traveling to Europe during those years. I met so many people; back then there was no facebook, it was all post cards. We would all travel and stay at each others places. I’d have people from all over the world visit me and stay with me in New York. We had a wonderful time!
I soon realized I was starving as an artist. It was great living as an artist, but it was a struggle.
Then I started thinking about all my buddies who were also starving and living on bagels and deli coffee. I started to think about where my life was going to go.
At the time I was also a runner at the NY Public Library and there was a man named Abel. We had a nice relationship and I told him I needed something more steady. He comes back a couple of weeks later and tells me there is a position in the paint shop as a Helper. The money was wonderful and it was in the union so the benefits were great. So I got the job and was painting the New York Public Libraries. We’d set up the scaffolding, priming, painting. I had some experience in maintenance so I knew how to do plaster, prime and paint. While doing that, the head of the electrical department was talking to me about an electrical problem and I solved it for him.
He was surprised, so I told him I used to wire homes. He was looking for an electrician, so he told me to come work with him. I would be servicing all the libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. I just had to take a written, oral, and hand on test. I passed all the tests and became a Union electrician with the Libraries. It was great! I traveled to all the old neighborhoods. I went into my old neighborhood on Bryant Avenue and it looked like Germany after the war. I went out to Staten Island and it looked like another state to me. The water, the seagulls. This is the late 80’s.
So I’m living on the East side I have money in my pocket, I’m still acting as well. I get four weeks vacation. It was a great time! One day after getting home from a trip to England and Scotland, I became depressed being back in New York. The Regan years were not a good for New York. A lot of my friends died of AIDS, there were so many homeless people around. This is when I started planning my from escape New York. I needed to get out of there.
How did you plan your departure from New York?
There was a couple I met from Australia, that would travel and would work when they needed money. She was a nurse so it was easy for her. They inspired me, I started to make a plan to leave, it . I worked at the Library and took on a night job and did side jobs as well. I saved about $6,000.
I bought a car (a Datsun), for the next three months I had to do alternate side of the street parking. Any New Yorker would understand. I took care of loose ends, sold everything and found nice homes for my cats. I remember when I closed that door for the last time I heard the echo in the room, I dropped the keys off with the super and I drove out of New York and planned to head to California.
My first day was in D.C. with some friends for a few days, then Virginia with some cousins. I went west to Arkansas, stopped in Nashville and went to the Grand Ole Oprey. I saw an unknown artist named Garth Brooks. I went to Memphis to check out Graceland. I met a family in Oklahoma and stayed with them two weeks. They needed help with their equipment for their harvest of soy bean, corn and barley. I worked on their machines and they fed me and took me to honky tonk places. They were really sweet!
From there I went thru Colorado and the Grand Canyon. I took about 1 or 2 months to travel across the country. I ended up in San Francisco with a couple of friends. One owned a huge vintage store and he got me a job driving trucks for them because they were moving the store.
I wasn’t planning to stop in San Francisco, I wanted to travel around the world so I
hung around Chinatown looking for a one way ticket to Japan. I met this lovely Chinese girl and we would have tea everyday. I told her I was having a problem finding a one way ticket to Japan. She surprised me one day with one on a new airline from Malaysia. I was in Japan for five weeks, then took a ship to China. I did the Trans Siberian across Russia. I met Russian soldiers and I have a whole uniform that I wear on Halloween. I went to Scandinavia, all over Europe. I met a lot of friends along the way. Then I got wrapped up in the Czech Revolution. I made my base Dresden. It was no longer Communist Germany. The wall had just come down and I had some contacts from the past. I ended up getting a job teaching English on what was the East Side of Germany (the Russian side). By then it was a year, so my money was gone. The infrastructure was old and parts of the city were still the ruins of WWII. There was a real divide between the West and East Germans at that time. The education credits the East Germans had made over the years meant nothing to the West Germans. When the wall went down everything ended for the East Germans, the factories stopped, the products became obsolete, the businesses closed; this created chaos.The west germans looked down on them and treated them poorly.
While teaching the East Germans English, I got back into theater. The university had me put together performances in English. They wanted something real not textbook. Me and a British teacher put on plays, it was a great time for me. I was making money and traveling all over Europe and Asia. The one year I was planning to stay in Dresden turned into 14 years. I would go to the states to see my family and my daughter would come visit me; we would travel when I had long holidays.
I eventually met a French woman in theater class and we ended up getting married. We were together twelve years. We have a son named Noah. My ex and I are still really good friends we visit every summer.
We went to Vegas to get married because there was too much bureaucracy in Europe over a French and an American getting married. I’d been there before and we had friends come out and celebrate. We went back to Europe afterwards, the day before our one month anniversary the planes hit the World trade Centers and that changed everything for me. It was a bad time, all my friends went back to the states because they thought WWIII was going to happen. After two years, I missed home and wanted to go back and started thinking of where to go. I didn’t want to go back to New York though. I started thinking of my friend Danno and Hawaii and I had been there on vacation once and loved it, so we decided on Maui. We sold the furniture in Germany and then shipped our stuff to Hawaii. I read somewhere that the the post office has to hold your packages for sixty days. I started sending boxes galore, probably one hundred boxes to the Maui Post office. We took our time getting there. We had a good bye party with our friends in Germany, then went to New York to see friends and celebrate the wedding they never came to. We then visited family and friends in Puerto Rico and then a stop in California to see more friends. A month later we finally arrived to Maui. We found a realtor before we arrived and bonded with him, he’s send me a lot places and it was back and forth as we were traveling. We never settled on anything and were due to Maui in a week so the Realtor offered us his spare room for a couple of hundred a week. I didn’t think it was okay to impose and he said that is the Aloha spirit and to get used to it. I got all mushy, we went to his place of work in Lahaina to meet and then moved into his place. That week we found a nice in-law suite to rent and moved in two weeks later. We bought a jeep and once we got our little place, I said it’s time to get the boxes. All one hundred of them. I showed up at the post office, I walked in and some Hawaiian guy says “Can I help you?”. I said “I sent boxes”. His face turned into a huge smile, he says “100 boxes, you the box guy?”. He took me in a room and there was a wall of boxes. He said “Time to get them out of here”. We had bought a jeep and I think it was twenty trips to get all the boxes moved and it was an hour round trip. Our place was tiny and boxes were everywhere.
We knew we wanted to buy something but I knew I didn’t have any credit because I had been in Europe for so long. We did have money for a downpayment and I saw a property and the realtor mentioned checking with a lender on what we could afford to buy. The mortgage lender takes my social security number and tells me I have incredible credit, almost 800. So I took a look at it and there is a history of someone totally different. Someone had stolen my identity and had bought and sold gas stations and homes for the past fourteen years. I had been living out of the country so I never knew about it. I tell him the lender, this isn’t me. I asked him what do I do? He says I need to get a lawyer. I went to Mark my Realtor and told him about this issue with my credit. Mark says, this guy clearly wanted to make a life in America, he was on the up and up and did right by your identity by giving you a very good credit history. He used you, now you use him. Get your house and then go clean it up. So the next day we went out got another car since all we had was a jeep with a bikini top. We got a Honda Accord and didn’t even need to leave a downpayment. Then I applied for credit cards because I didn’t have any cards in the U.S. Then we went and looked for a place to live. We found a 2 bed 2 bath overlooking the water for $236k. We got our mortgage and moved in. We lived there for four years. I got a job with Budge Rental Car at the Airport for 3 days a week for the benefits and a job at an art gallery in Lahaina 3 days a week. I met so many wonderful people and we had a wonderful life there.
When my wife became pregnant she started missing home and her parents. We were too far away from France being in Hawaii. I didn’t want to leave Maui, but eventually I caved and in 2006 we decided on the east coast of Florida. I start thinking of where and St. Augustine comes to mind. I remember learning about the Spaniards and St. Augustine as a young student in Puerto Rico. We go on the internet and see pictures of the city and we both like what we see. I start asking family about the area and if anyone is around. Turns out I have a cousin in Jacksonville. I called a Realtor and got a woman that seemed honest. She’s wondering why we would leave Maui for St. Augustine, so I explain the situation and tell her we are coming in November. We book three days in St. Augustine at a B&B so we can spend time looking at properties. She picks us up, she takes us out to Palencia and Eagle Creek and I said no i want to be in the center of town. If there is a recession I like to be where you can’t build anymore. She showed us places that were falling apart. The timeframe is during the boom in 2006. I told her I wanted concrete block with a porch in an old neighborhood with big trees for $400k. She told me I was dreaming. We eventually turn on a road by DOS and see a house I like and she looks and says she knows that place. There isn’t a for sale sign but there is a lockbox. She knows who has the listing, calls and says that sale fell through three hours ago. We get the combo and go in. It has a fireplace, porch, concrete block, big trees; everything I wanted. The price was $390k and I got it for $387k.
We sold the Hawaii condo and got a very good return and put it right into the house.
Now I didn’t want to leave Maui, I was depressed about it. The strain of the move and the baby started to tear the marriage apart. Then the economy took a dive and the housing bubble caused us to lose the money we put into the house. In 2008 my wife left for France. My baby was only two years old then and it was very difficult. During that time, I moved into the in-law suite and rented out the house, then my mom got sick and I moved her in with me so I went back into the big part of the house. I tried selling the house for years and once Matthew flooded it, the price was too low, so I eventually let the house go in 2016.
What inspired you to start First Coast TV?
In 2014 I had started thinking about what I can do in St. Augustine. I’ve lived here 12 years. I know the city and know a lot of people. This is when I started First Coast TV, I thought no one was covering this town. I started meeting people, built the website. I had to start from scratch and get followers. I used my iPhone when I started and posted stories. Eventually the likes grew and I would get more and more comments. I would give out cards and ask to talk to a group. I’d go to democrat meetings and find out about events and give them exposure. My following grew. My website is connected to my youtube channel, I get subscribers everyday. I barter with locals businesses and groups and they carry my website and I carry theirs. I do a variety of different events in the area. I had ABC call me recently to create something for them. Three years into it and everyone now knows me.
What other types of things do you do through First Coast TV?
I thought it would be great to have St. Augustine Tonight Show. It would be like Jimmy Kimmel. I do a monologue, bad jokes, three guests and a band. I thought of Karla at the Corazon right away. She thought it was a good idea. We would do the show be once a week and for a thirteen week season. You can find the past shows on my website. It was a lot of logistics, 39 people to interview and the bands. We found that people were really receptive to it.
Everyone loved the first season, but it put me in debt. I did the second season but I needed the venue to be free. I go to Prohibition Kitchen and the lady managing it saw me and said I know you from the show. They wanted me to do it there, but it’s too noisy. Then I go to the Distillery and tell them I want to do three shows there. They said yes, went to the Amphitheater and they said yes, The Lightner even said yes. Lincolnville Museum said yes. Season two was set and we were going to do the show from multiple venues, which allowed me to use my funds for better equipment.
Do you feel St. Augustine is home for you? or do you still miss Hawaii?
I have reached a point where I am family here and that’s great. In Hawaii, I was family, but there was more of a spiritual connection that I don’t have here.
Whats your goal with your media channel?
The goal is to expose the things that enrich us in this community without the decent and the ugliness. Be fair to everyone and give them a voice.
Even when I cover something that is sensitive. For example, when I started covering the presidential candidates, I told them you are going to talk to me about why I am voting for you. If they start any negativity towards another candidate, I stopped them and told them to just give me the “why you”. Some of them struggled with that.
I had Ted Cruz, DeSantis, The Daughters of the Confederacy. They all say they love me because I am fair and give everyone a voice even if I don’t agree with them politically.
I do not like to watch the news and see a reporter roll their eyes or sigh. I grew up with Walter Cronkite and he taught me to take the information he was giving me and to process it and do what I wish.
Is the show your passion?
Yes, I love acting, I love to have an opinion, I love being creative. People tell me that I was born for it. Which means to me that I am coming across as someone who entertains them.
Check out First Coast TV at http://www.firstcoast.tv and Youtube
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