was a single large tent with sour orange juice, Twizzlers, a TV and VCR. The movie Candy Man played on a loop the entire time.
Flames were now shooting from one of the engines. Apparently, the fire bottle, whatever that is, wasn’t fixed correctly. We were going down. At a 45 degree angle, I could see green grass through my window. It was getting closer.
The next minute of my life is a blur. Zero recollection. All I know is we made it.
I spent the rest of the week at a German beach resort in Mombasa, Kenya. On a walk through some bad neighborhoods, I overheard a business deal going down. “Twenty is too much, mon,” said one guy. The other countered by saying he would throw in a small bag of weed. “Done,” the first man said. The next day, I saw him selling the two dozen wooden figurines for fifteen dollars each. All 24 of them were sold to tourists before lunch.
Back on a plane. This time, a smaller C141 jet would be taking us to our final destination. As we approached the airport, an announcement was made saying the landing strip was hot and the plane would not be stopping. We were told to jump out and run straight ahead, towards the cafeteria.
I was one of the last to deplane. I stumbled a bit while stepping off the still moving aircraft. As I regained balance, I could hear heavy machine gun fire all around. I stopped to look around. “Are you stupid? Run means run, asshole.” I don’t know who said it, but it was clear he was yelling at me.
In the cafeteria, we laid down next to rows of neatly stacked sandbags. CNN International was playing on a big screen TV. Coincidentally, the story was about Mogadishu, Somalia. We laughed as the woman reported there has been no hostility in almost two weeks.
It had been twelve days since Bloody Monday, the day two U.S. Blackhawks were shot down. The incident was later retold in the movie Blackhawk Down. My team was there to document what was going on. I was part of a joint Combat Camera unit made up of combat photographers and video producers from the Army, Marines, and Air Force. We were part soldier, part journalist.
During my time in “The Dish,” I would link up with various units making their rounds throughout the theater. From kicking in doors on weapon searches to a local medicine man tarring and feathering a young kid who was injured playing with a grenade, I videotaped it all, while practicing the fine art of knowing when to put the camera down and when to pick the rifle up.
A couple of months into the deployment, one of the major TV networks realized it was the one-year anniversary of Marine forces storming the beaches and they wanted to put together a last-minute special. Word got out to journalists in the region that the networks were seeking any and all footage from the previous twelve months. I tell my commander that we could make a fortune. He laughs, as if I were joking.
It was around midnight when an independent producer from South Africa knocked on the door of our makeshift video editing suite. He said he acquired permission via the Freedom of Information Act to make copies of all our unclassified footage. I was told to gather tapes for him and make the dupes.
The next day, he tells me he sold twenty of the 90 minutes of our footage at a thousand dollars a minute. Being in the military and seeing all the business that goes on around the military is painful to an entrepreneur. It’s like watching the world pass you by.
From the beaches of Kenya to the battlefields of Somalia, business was happening all around me and I was inspired. People were getting rich, oftentimes by taking advantage of other people’s work. I took mental notes and I was ready. Ready to go home. Ready to make my mark. Ready to make my millions.
CHAPTER 2
SPAM
I got a call from Matt, a kid from the old neighborhood in Boston. He had just graduated from broadcasting school and wanted to talk about starting a production company.
The timing was perfect for me. I was freshly out of the military, had a ton of real world experience, and looking to start making some real dough. The only problem was money. Both of us were broke and we would need to buy some production equipment. Matt suggested we talk to his dad about a loan, so I flew back home for the meeting. His dad agreed to lend us $5,000 and accept interest only payments for the first year. This was enough to get us a quality camera and a couple of editing decks. We jumped in Matt’s car and made the trip from Boston to Biloxi in less than 26 hours.
Matt was a year younger than me and never had a girlfriend. In our high school years, he was always a third wheel, often whining that he was bored while everybody else was paired up and making out. After high school, he became obsessed with Billy Joel. OK, everybody loves the Piano Man, but when he came down to live with me, he hung a poster of the guy above his bed. Quite strange for a twenty one year old.
I was working the seven to midnight shift at Kicker 108, our small market country music radio station. I hosted a show called “Cryin, Lovin, Laughin, or Leavin”. Tweens and young teens would light up my phones all night, so they could share their problems and express their never dying love for each other. Small market radio didn’t pay much. I took home about a thousand dollars a month.
During the day, I was working on generating leads for our new company. We called it Ace Video Productions. Biloxi is a casino town, so the name was fitting, but the real reason we chose it was to show up first in the Yellow Pages.
My girlfriend was a massage therapist at a chiropractic clinic. She set me up a meeting with Dr. Cleveland and I explained what the company could do for his business. The next day, Ace Video Productions had its first gig producing a video about back rehabilitation.
As the weeks went by, the phone rang more and more. It was not steady work, but these small jobs were paying the bills.
I came home from the radio station one night to find Matt sitting in front of a new computer. I was pretty pissed that he would spend the last of his dad’s loan money towards something so expensive, without first consulting me.
The computer box sitting on the floor was about two feet tall and almost fifty pounds. The weight of the bulky monitor made my flimsy kitchen table top bend. There was a phone line attached to the back, allowing us to dial in to America Online. AOL was the shit. You could read the news and search through the members directory for local girls to stalk.
I went to work that night and gave my email address out to my listeners. I felt so cool, as I was one of the first people in my circle to have an electronic mail account. When I got home, I had three emails waiting for me. The wheels were spinning. There had to be a way to make money from this.
On a trip to Office Depot, I was browsing the software aisle. Actually, it was just a section of an aisle, as there weren’t that many titles to choose from back then. I spotted a package that made these cool looking printouts about the day you were born. You type in the date and it spits out a framable document. It was ten bucks, so I bought it.
AOL had a section where you could place free classified ads. I figured I could take a shot at selling these birthday history thingamajigees.
First week: two sales.
I didn’t have a way to collect payments online, so I had the buyers send me a check for five dollars. I had already made my investment back. All future sales would be pure profit.
Two sales in a week were impressive for such a cheesy product, but it was not enough for me. I decided to get a little aggressive. I went through the AOL member directory and started pasting copies of the ad in emails to the members. Later, this practice would become known as spam, but back then it was
