Man, I have been dying to tell this story, but it is a long one. I have never cared about the rules of social media until now and there is no point in trying. If you don’t have the time or think there should only be a certain number of words in a post, this would be the time to move on. I think it’s a good one, though.
I got my first job in the sixth grade, as a waiter at a delicatessen on Fresh Meadow Lane, right down the street from PS 173, where my friends would come for franks and fries at lunch time. I was paid 50 cents a day and I can’t even describe the nascent feeling of independence. On and off, all the way through high school, I worked at Turnpike Men’s Apparel as a stock boy and salesman. Al and Milt treated me like a real person and I gained a sense of poise amongst grown ups that has stayed with me.
I was hooked on the feeling of having my own money and high school had me spread my wings. I worked for two summers at Lido Beach on Long island, at a beach club catering to Jews, excluded from many other places. They rented a piece of sand and surf and felt they mattered. The first summer, I fried in oil, making hot dogs, burger and fries. The second summer, I was a locker boy, catering to the whims of the members. In my senior year, I worked at a terribly depressing, assisted living facility in Rockaway, everyone sitting on inner tubes, drinking warm milk, waiting to die.
In the early 60’s, I started at Queens College, living at home, feeling far smarter than I actually was. In ’64, I got a job at the World’s Fair, working for Greyhound, driving a golf cart with a couch in the front, for visitors flying in from Paris for a day or two. What a fabulous experience! After getting laid off at the end of the summer, I embarked on a cross country adventure, one of my all time great stories that I can’t possibly get into now.
While in school, I got a job working the Johnson-Goldwater election in the Fall of ’64, which lead me to getting a job as a page at NBC, working the Tonight Show, when Johnny Carson was at 30 Rock. After a stint in the US Army Reserves, another hysterically long story, I came back to NBC, forced to hire me back after my service, if you could call it that.
I guess this is where the story of my employment actually begins. I was hired back in the Station Clearance Dept, making sure that independent affiliates carried the network’s programs when they were supposed to. As a result of clearance problems with one of the soap operas, I met up with a guy from an advertising agency sponsoring this show and so began a decade long odyssey in that industry.
Between 1971 and 1981, I worked at four very large ad agencies, in the network programming departments. In the beginning of national television, sponsors put shows on the air, like the Lucky Strike Hit Parade and these departments were vestiges of that era, which had now degenerated into buying commercial time in network owned shows. I spent millions and millions of dollars in advertising time on behalf of a long list of corporate giants. Initially, I moved to Young and Rubicam and then an increase in pay and responsibility sent me to Ogilvy and Mather. Then, it was on to Doyle, Dane Bernbach, where I began to get a bit filled with myself, until I was coldly fired in an industry-wide cutback, which hit right around Thanksgiving.
While out of work, I had a run in with the mafia, which could have gotten me killed. I bought a bunch of records and cassettes, which “fell off the back of a truck” and while I can now say it was a very colorful chapter in my past, going through it was incredibly frightening. I had visions of being the Al Pacino character in Godfather II, a delusional episode and for another time.
Life ended up stabilizing for a number of years, working at Dancer, Fitzgerald Sample. However, it became obvious to me that my iconoclastic tendencies were getting in the way of my upward mobility. I decided that media sales were better suited to my skill set. Around ’82, I began work at the USA Cable Network, very early in the history of these new networks, with no track record in the marketplace. While at USA, with my shocking profit sharing from DFS, I bought an interest in a bar called Flickers, painted purple and located in the broke down town of Easton, PA. What a disaster!
Over the next few years, I bounced over to the Financial News Network and shortly after to the Weather Channel, when it had just begun and good luck selling advertising time in it. Before leaving the City, my last job was the VP of Advertising Sales at All American Television, a distributor of television shows. By that time, I was well on my way to being a misfit and eventually, I just ran out of time and couldn’t do the circus tricks I needed to do in order to survive.
I headed west to Santa Fe, NM, having bought a little adobe womb south of town with the money my brilliant accountant had reclaimed from the disaster of Flickers, the purple albatross that crashed in Easton, PA. In less than a month, I found myself working on a John Huston Film Festival, taking place in the Fall of ’87. It fast tracked me into meeting a bunch of fascinating people that weaved in and out of my life for the 15 years I was there.
Right after the festival, a former page buddy of mine, who worked at McGraw Hill in NYC, scored me a gig setting up a magazine in NM, called Careers, a professional road map for local college grads. I networked with all sorts of people in the State, great exposure for me. He got canned and that ended my magazine career.
In my early travels there, I befriended a wonderfully talented writer and story teller. He brought me into his publishing company, Lotus Press. I spent a year attempting to get distribution for his work and books relating to Ayurvedic healing. I did the best I could and it just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to.
As a result of relationships from the film festival, I found myself promoting a major concert series, called Music in the Pines, during the summer of ’89. We staged it on the side of mountain, on the way to the Ski Basin. The biggest name was Bonnie Raitt and I’d love to write about it, but we don’t have the time, this time.
I was pretty well networked into the community, even becoming a volunteer fireman with the Turquoise Trail Volunteer Fire Dept. One of the guys was connected with someone, who owned a British record label, Run River Records. I spent the next several years getting US distribution for the label, which I accomplished, but the music business is a pit filled with vipers. The owner, who had Hemingway life style tendencies, pickled his liver and died.
Somewhere in there, I got myself involved with Belize. I created a company called Planet Patrol, importing herbal remedies and crafts from the country. I even established an exchange program with a school in Pojoaque, NM and Maya Centre in Belize. During one summer, I had a Belize booth at the Teauque Flea Market, selling all sorts of things from the country. Boy, did it lay an egg!
I promised myself I’d never have a conventional job again after leaving NYC, but the absence of money has a way of changing your mind. I became General Sales Mgr for a new radio station, KBAC-FM, Radio Free Santa Fe. I helped create a very important member of the local community, a source of quiet pride to this day. I stayed a long three years and then had to leave when it was sold to new owners, who would be much more intrusive than the original ones.
Belize stayed a part of my life from my initial introduction. My travels there prompted the co-creation of a nature tourism consultancy called Naturegate. I met and befriended a life long friend and our adventures for those few years were incredibly special to me. I traveled throughout Central America, a magical time. Our biggest client was the Wildlife Conservation Society, owners of the Bronx Zoo. The partnership ended in divorce, the friendship remains.
Moving on, I spent months researching and creating a report for a company called Aquasonics. It dealt with desalination, a subject new to me. I learned that water will become terribly precious in the years ahead. The report was circulated amongst members of the House of Representatives. Right around then, I also promoted a couple of yoga workshops, one in Santa Fe and the other in Baja, Mexico.
Somehow, I was introduced to a guy, who had a unique baby bottle, made of silicon and shaped like a breast. The company was called Adiri and the product was the Breast Bottle Nurser. I handled press relations and worked and on securing distribution for the product. Oh my God, this was one of the great ones for me. Money ran out, the fate of many start ups.
At the Tesuque Flea Market, I befriended a wonderfully colorful character, who talked about going to Belize to video the herbal healer, whose products I was selling. We became friends and toward the end of my stay in Santa Fe, we came up with the idea of selling Gospel music videos on BET, Black Entertainment Television. The Gospel music world is very special. I became pretty well acquainted with it and have nothing but praise for those artists who devote themselves to their beliefs. This is the income flow that would ultimately allow me to come to Kauai.
The last thing I did before leaving, was to actually get paid for writing, a first. I worked with Golden Temple, a Sikh owned company that manufactured Yogi Teas and Peace Cereals, amongst other products. I wrote “tea stories”, short vignettes that were printed on the tea boxes, similar to those made famous by the Peterman Catalog. I loved making up stories about my “travels” in India to the Taj Mahal, etc.
I am so sorry it has taken this long to get to Kauai. Income from the Gospel music videos paid the bills for a while, but that ended and it was creative time once again. My buddy from my nature tourism days got in touch with me, wanting to know if I would start a blog that championed conservation in Costa Rica, where he now owned an airline, Natureair. Suddenly, I became an advocate for Leatherback Turtles, etc. and ended up being instrumental in saving their breeding grounds, speaking no Spanish and living here. It was a fascinating experience.
I started a long term relationship with the Kauai County Farm Bureau. I created a program called Grow Kauai and wrote a monthly column called Grower of the Month, which ran in People Kauai. As a board member of the Farm Bureau, I helped to create the markets at KCC and Kukuiula. I even wrote a grant for the Kauai Hybrid Papaya Project. In 2008, I served a year as the Sunshine Market Monitor for the County, visiting all the markets and attempting to maintain a semblance of sanity.
In my growing circle here, i befriended a very interesting and charismatic fellow, who was purposely growing Albizia trees, taking advantage of their ability to generate very rich soil under their canopy. I spent several years attempting to create a cubed horse and cattle feed that consisted of the high protein, guinea grass growing under these trees. We called it Paniolo Feed and its demise was personally devastating to me, because I believed in it so strongly.
I decided I needed to leave Kauai, which I did. I threw a tear flooded party at the soon to be opened Kauai Beer Company. I put my entire life into two suitcases and left for Costa Rica. After four days, I bought a ticket to come home, my forever home, Kauai. I managed to buy back my motorcycle for exactly what I paid for it, an affirmation for me. I began working at the beer company and here I am, nearly seven years later.
Experience is the currency of a life. I am a rich man!