Chapter 5 pages 70-73

Chapter 5

Office Wars, the Terrorist Strikes Back, and the Return of the Gambler (The 2001 Betonsports.com football season)


The summer of 2001 was not one that I want to recall much of considering it took a brutal toll on my personal life and for all of my sacrifices I was shortchanged on the money end by BOS, Big Time! Even worse that summer Odinga, the girlfriend left me along with her son. Even after we broke up I had a great talk with her son telling him I would always be there for him as I played a fatherly role with him. Hopefully the proceeds from this book will pay for his soon to be college education.

Towards the end of the summer I was working from sun-up to sun-down and when the sun went down on the weekends, the play time was starting to begin. With the girlfriend gone now, I was living alone in Torrance with Sparky and I was hurting. I tried not to show it either, so masking it with multiple sex partners was an excellent remedy for the pain.

When Shaun found out I broke up with the girlfriend he thought it was great so I could have a single focus on work. He really was an asshole when it came to dealing with people.

When my mother found out about the break up with Odinga whom she liked, she sent my younger brother, James to California to make sure I was ok, and I sent Jim home with a terrible hangover. Jim showed up in California asking me what had happened and I really wasn’t worried too much and told him apathetically, “Sooner or later they all come around”. Wow was I wrong!

Jim recently married and I was not the greatest of influences on him at this time. Within hours of getting off the plane we were down at Shooters Beach Bar in Redondo Beach baking in the sun while knocking down drinks with my best buddy in SOCAL, Rosie and a few friends all full of ecstasy. It was a blur of an afternoon where my head didn’t quite clear up until we got back to my apartment to blast off a few mini-sticks of dynamite that I had imported from the island of Curacao. It wasn’t dynamite but they were big red sticks with fuses on them that would knock out a chunk of sand or turf wherever they landed. I figured since I was leaving the neighborhood soon I didn’t mind leaving a little present to some of the racist neighbors I had in Torrance.

The second day Jim came out to check up on me kind of flowed straight from the first night with more drinking and partying as we ventured off to Orange County for a Booze Cruise in the Newport Beach Harbor. The cruise was a blast. Plenty of women mostly taken or not my type as I prefer a serious tan but the booze was flowing and there were plenty of old friends to hang out with and enjoy the evening on a big floating 60 foot yacht. By the time the cruise was over I convinced Jim that we should return to LA County considering we didn’t want to be drinking and driving and still had to cover the 40 mile ride back up north. After grabbing a bite to eat and downing some water we drove back to my apartment then grabbed a cab down to the Lighthouse Bar on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach, CA. Jim was having a blast reflecting back on his single days but appeared to be a bit nervous in having to go out with me. Meanwhile, I was trying to work out my game with women that had not seen much practice in the past three years while devoted to my recently walked out love. At the Lighthouse I hit on a few girls with less rejection than I had gotten the day prior which was a good sign. I was striking out but seeing the ball better and that helped me get ready for upcoming weekends in Costa Rica.

Just prior to the flight to Costa Rica I met up with an old college bed buddy from Ohio State and than a couple of fat cousins out of TGI Fridays in Torrance for a three way blowout before heading back to Central America all primed and ready for enjoying 100% of the culture this time around. When a guy has been off the market for long enough he can’t expect to get back into the game and lead off with Beyonce. Need to get in a few warm up tosses with old steadies and have to lower the standards too, so I won’t sicken you with details.

Upon my return to Central America I was ready physically, mentally, and playfully. My previous two trips I refrained from indulging in some of the nicest female natural assets and I was ready to enjoy!

This time I was picked up by the Chief Operations Officer, JR, a Dutchman who I had met in the spring and kept in contact with. This time to Costa Rica was the first time I started to feel a bit different and it started with meeting JR at the airport. I felt something strange that I have never felt before at BOS. I think it was respect. Heck! I earned it!

I was immediately brought to a nice Condominium which I was to share with JR. JR was an average sized, soft spoken guy with big legs from playing soccer for years. He had also held a gaming license in Europe for over 25 years. He was at BOS to expand on his bookmaking talents that he brought from Holland to take them to the next level of online gaming. We had a nice condominium just a short walk from the Mall San Pablo and between us and work was the All-Star café along with a handful of other bars that ranged from punk, reggae to nightclubs blasting Ricky Martin’s La Vida Loca. I am only too happy that I never was in Costa Rica during the mid-90’s and the “Macarena”. We also had a very strange roommate by the name of Michael who was certainly a budget tech guy that worked on the phone systems. Michael was a tall skinny character. He was a strange cat that was overly friendly and would sit in the living room with all the lights out snorting cocaine when you came home at night. He didn’t last long and for that matter I was only to spend 3 weeks in Costa Rica before heading back to Southern California to get my little canine girl Sparky back from friends.

I went over to the Mall San Pablo this time unaccompanied and walked straight into the reception area where this time I was met by Peter Wilson who welcomed me with open arms while he kept repeating “thank you, I thought you would never get here”. He was getting worked hard and getting paid little. For the past couple of months Claude and Shaun put Peter into the marketing department to assist me with anything I needed since I was now the head of electronic media and a large chunk of the BOS budget. Pete was thrown into the wolves, he had no clue to the world of advertising and more often than not Pete was abused like a red headed step child by the Ripners to take care of the communications because Shaun was probably too busy hiding in his office and really couldn’t comprehend the trade talk of electronic media. Claude and Shaun understood print and with the football season coming soon they needed to tend to print rather than learn the intricacies of electronic media.

After a brief hug and hello, an excited Pete took me on a tour of the renovations done at BOS since my last visit. They erected a state of the art 10th floor playground with a full bar, casino tables, restaurants, gym, VIP guest rooms, covered pool and sun deck on the top floor. None of this was for employees and I chose to work out in the public gym on the 4th floor of the mall which had superior equipment. I am not sure but this might have been an innovative move by Claude. (It was.) The pool, bar, and casino were beautiful. The VIP rooms were unfinished and so were the restaurants. Originally this elaborate facility was meant for big bettors but eventually the brain trust started thinking and realized that media giants such as The Jim Rome Show, which was bringing in more new customers than any single source of media was the type of people they needed to schmooze in Costa Rica.

Chapter 4 pages 67-69

I did encounter a few setbacks in my preparation for the 2001 campaign. I failed to get on KFXN in Minneapolis. That state was just tough to crack. I got my way in the Bible belt with the Carolinas and Louisiana. I convinced the good folks up in Washington State which was a bruiser of a state when it comes to moral laws. Of the top 50 sports stations in the country I failed in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Tampa. I was able to get the consolation prize in both Seattle and Tampa as we settled for highly rated talk radio programming and 2nd rate sports talk show respectively.

In 2000 Claude wanted to be on WQAM in Miami. In 2001 the crown jewel was WFAN-New York. This was the big sports radio station in his hometown of New York City. Claude already had the crown jewel with the Jim Rome Show but WFAN was his personal big prize. So I spent a lot of time working with top executives at WFAN. Since I had already dealt with Mel Karmizon the CEO of Infinity Broadcasting and co-CEO of Viacom through Brett the doors were open at WFAN, an Infinity station to deal directly with the top guy. I cannot remember the guys name because we never cut the deal but we spoke frequently for a few weeks during the summer of 2001 trying to iron out a deal. I was able to arrange a time to meet with him when he came out to Los Angeles. We met at Brett Rateaver's office on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles just down the street from Peterson Publishing and Larry Flynt's Hustler building. During our meeting, the President of WFAN demanded a $1,000,000 commitment from BOS to get on the air. I knew Claude wanted WFAN and it was the top local station in the country in the #1 market in the country so I wanted it also because the numbers were 2nd to only Jim Rome. I responded to the President of WFAN by saying that I couldn't get him a larger budget than what was placed on Rome but I could come close. Our meeting ended as I informed both Brett and the president of WFAN to not hold their breath and I would see what I could do and come back to them with a reasonable offer.

I tried to convince Claude that the $1,000,000 commitment was reasonable and we should seriously consider offering WFAN at least $400,000. This was extremely tough for Claude to swallow. He could only relate to KNBR in San Francisco and KTCK in Dallas. Both of those stations BOS alone was spending in excess of $105,000 for a ten week campaign. Also Jim Rome had a weekly audience of 2,000,000 listeners; WFAN had about 1/5 of the audience. I emphasized the limitations that Premiere Radio had put on us by limiting us to one spot per day and with WFAN we would be running around 15-20 spots per week. This just never sank in with Claude and he told me to counter with $200,000 for WFAN but not a penny more. Unfortunately the deal died which I consider one of my biggest failures when it came to online gaming advertising. I should have pushed harder. Based on our results from Jim Rome I estimated WFAN with a $400,000 buy would have been 2nd to Rome and one of our top local stations.

The preparation for the 2001 campaign certainly took its toll on my personal life. I was committed to taking advantage of the opportunity afforded to me by BOS. I would work around the clock putting together schedules, lining up talent, writing scripts, negotiating terms for advertising with the media, traveling to radio stations, media companies, etc. By the time the 2001 ad season was to start I was prepared 10x over and could rattle off all of the stations we were on, the times when the spots were to play, the talent recording the spots or announcing them live, the rates, the talent fees, the sales representatives, the laws of each state, the terms of agreement, the ad copy, and the breakdowns based on each of the brands. I knew everything short of the station’s mascot and I knew some of those too. What I did that year they needed about 20 professionals to replace me. I also was paying bottom dollar which Claude loved and I did it by consolidating the dollars from all the brands. We also eliminated a lot of competition by consolidating dollars and setting up a group consisting of the sports books in the Mall San Pablo just like the BCS which reserves the top bowl games for the big money schools conferences and tries to shut out the small schools with less revenue.



*There are a lot of good and bad online gaming companies out there. If I were to recommend one where you can expect the best in customer service, get treated fairly and most importantly get paid with no run around I would recommend Diamond Sportsbook International. I am very familiar with them and know you will be treated with the utmost respect!

Chapter 4 pages 65-67

Tommy along with Chuck were two owners that appreciated my work, paid me with regularity and planned on having me around for years to come. I also really liked Tommy's family as his daughter and sons were both a joy to be around socially.
A couple other offices included MVP and Jaguar. Jaguar was interesting because they had considerable success in radio in San Diego County during 2000. I noticed it was the excitement of Arnie Spandier the afternoon host on Los Angeles 1150. Sonny the owner of Jaguar a social gentleman in his late 50’s was very nice but let me know that he was happy with his current agency, Bob Elkington out of Sherman Oaks, CA. It turned out that Bob would be one of my greatest allies in working with all the Mall San Pablo companies in 2001. Sonny would be the first of Claude’s partners to leave and he did so before the 2001 season. Turns out Claude accused Sonny of stealing which was the norm for Claude, who accused everyone of stealing as a way to establish fault on someone else before allegedly stealing their company. Rumor has it Claude locked Sonny out of his offices and took over the offices hiring a young guy named Tim Bradley out of Providence, Rhode Island.

Brad as I referred to him seemed to be a nice guy but then again I thought that about everyone. Some would disappoint me some would please me to know them. As great as it is to know Chuck it’s equally as disappointing to know Brad. Brad would later end up running a questionable online pharmacy out of the Dominican Republic for the Ripners and later be the head guy at another current gaming company. Rumor has it Claude stole the database from BOS after the company went public, tore up his non-compete agreement and opened up the doors to another gaming company. I approached the company as a prospective client and thought I would speak with Brad over the phone but he refused to take any of my phone calls or return any of my emails. I guess I must have upset him along the way in life. I am like any other human being and usually I tend to piss off women and authority figures. I never would have figured this with Brad. After he just moved from Providence down to Costa Rica I invited him out drinking more than a few times to help him get acquainted with Costa Rican social life. I also set him up on live interviews with WSKO sports talk radio in his hometown where he would talk sports betting on the air with the show’s hosts. This would prove to be great for his business partnership as the head of Jaguar sports with a heavy influx of new customers from the Rhode Island area. It also established a trend of utilizing contests to get complimentary programming time on the air in exchange for services which included betting account prizes from the sports books.

One of the ongoing list of problems with being a partner of Claude was his company, BOS was stealing from you. I was aware that the phone systems were set up to intercept calls going into the sales offices for all of the partners. People would call in for the partner companies of Infinity, Millennium and Gibraltar to the BOS sales office to sign up, instead of transferring the call the word was to sign them up. Jaguar usually avoided this since Claude owned 100% of Jaguar. When I informed Shaun of this he just gave me the keep quiet sign with the finger to the mouth and ssshhhhh. Other forms of deception would include charging for media and not paying the media company or the agent that was responsible for the media placement. This made the partners of Claude look bad and he would use bad performances against the other partners to squeeze them out of money. I have to assume this one on Shaun because one of his numerous excuses for not paying me included the partners were not paying which I doubted because the partners were always prompt on payments with me before Shaun force them to filter the payments through BOS.

More tough work was to come when I returned to Los Angeles. ABC/ESPN, Citadel, and Jefferson-Pilot were easy accounts to handle. The companies felt at ease accepting the business based on the contracts with Fox Sports Radio and the Jim Rome Show. There was some caution on the part of Clear Channel stations especially with XTRA Sports 690 and 1150 in southern California. Claude didn’t want to be on those stations considering he had knowingly stiffed them in 2000 and the stations had hesitation with taking the business from other online gaming companies closely related to BOS. XTRA 690 San Diego was in my opinion the best sports radio station in the country with great personalities that included Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton and Steve Hartman of today’s XTRA Sports 570 in Los Angeles which is a combination of the old 1150 and 690. Hartman also co-hosts for a Los Angeles television network with the esteemed Jim Hill. XTRA 690 was the station the late Chet Forte from Monday Night football built and the station that put Jim Rome on the map en route to be the top sports program in the country. And I cannot pass up XTRA 690 without mentioning Bill Werndel, the best local on air product endorser I dealt with. I could not leave these stations out because I wanted to get my clients results and this would be a nice media platform for Infinity and Millennium to get out from under the shadow of BOS.

When I proposed Southern California during the first weeks of the 2001 football season, Chuck Bauer and Tommy Miller jumped all over the idea. They spent around $30,000 a week between the two southern California stations and the results were very positive.

Claude’s perception of California was a huge underestimation that was mind boggling considering the history of California and gambling. I proposed Southern California stations to the Claude and his response was, “The stations do not work, southern Californians are not gamblers, they play at the beach instead of betting on football”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Southern Californians built the gambling capital of the world, Las Vegas. I-15 was the original bloodline for money into Las Vegas and even today nearly 30% of the revenue generated in Las Vegas is from California. For many years it was more than 50%. Southern Californians gamble. Folks forget that there is more to Southern California than the beach bums in San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles counties. Riverside County, San Bernadino County and San Fernando Valley are not beach adjacent communities so filling up a sports bar with avid football fans is a common sight on Sundays in Southern California. Furthermore working in the beach adjacent southern California sports bar system during my early twenties it was standing room only on NFL Sundays and there were plenty of sports bar customers making phone calls on the payphone before cell phones became common.

Chapter 4 pages 62-64

After my proposal I was immediately passed around the San Pablo Mall to other holdings of Claude’s partners. That is when I started to really establish a great relationship with Chuck Bauer the owner of Infinity Sports Book and Casino, probably the smartest, most motivated online gaming owner in the industry at the time. We certainly do not see eye to eye on everything about the online gaming industry but we did agree on how to deal with customers. Treat them as if they are your lifeline. Chuck would leave Infinity a few years later to help out his mother after his beloved father passed. To this day I still believe in Chuck and I know his followers and employees believe in him as he is a top advisor for “BetOnline” today in Panama. He is also a young guy. He was in his late twenties when I met him in 2000. Chuck would regularly speak in person with his customers and would not get off the phone with any unhappy customer until they were happy. The offices of Infinity were small by comparison to BOS with wagering clerks, sales, customer service representatives, and linesmen all in the same room which was about 1500 square feet. Chuck was the only owner in the Mall San Pablo that paid me in full for my services. Chuck was everything that Claude wasn’t in a successful online gaming owner. He was respectful, humble, and good to his employees, not to mention he loved sports as much as I did. Ironically he isn’t even a citizen of the United States but dang he loves college football, especially SEC football and the legend of Paul “Bear” Bryant. His employees were much the same, charismatic, happy, enjoyable to be around and that is why when I wasn’t in the sales, VIP, or marketing offices of BetOnSports, I spent quite a bit of time down on the 6th floor with the good folks of Infinity who have mostly moved over to BetOnline based on referrals from Chuck Bauer.

As a matter of fact, I just spoke the other day with Andrew, the General Manager of BetOnline. Andrew is a friendly Jamaican fellow that had been around the Caribbean working for various online gaming companies. He came immediately when Chuck announced he was advising for BetOnline, and re-iterated my thoughts in a phone conversation about Chuck being a winner for the industry. What more would an employee want than a boss that takes care of his employees while walking the walk with hard work and getting the same performance out of his employees.

Chuck might have been the most personable person in the office and he was a workhorse. He didn’t always have time to spend out on the town for a young fellow. He did go out occasionally but Andrew took the role of leadership for Infinity when it came to going out on the town if Chuck was not present. He acted the part taking care of the hard working Infinity employees by buying them drinks while hanging out at the All-Star café across the street or at one of the many other establishments throughout San Jose.

When anyone asks me about a good online gaming company to play with I make sure to let them know about “BetOnline”. Chuck has a new name at BetOnline, as his buyout from BOS forced him to relinquish his name because it was very strong with his customers. If you call BetOnline with a problem there is a chance you will be speaking with Chuck and if not you will speak with one of his employees that represents themselves in the same manner Chuck does with the utmost respect for each and every person that might encounter a problem with their account.

I hate to say it but one person that I referred to Chuck beat him for about $23,000 while betting numerous money lines during the New England Patriots run to their first Super Bowl title in January of 2002. The guy got in and out quickly winning and never did give Infinity Sports Book and Casino a chance to win it back. Chuck paid the guy promptly upon request and I never heard any complaints. A few months later I am sitting around my friend’s apartment in Redondo Beach and he gets a personally signed letter from Chuck thanking him for his business. So that is exactly what you can expect from BetOnline these days great service and you get paid when you win with no stipulations or delays.

An example of good media and good business going hand in hand is BetOnline and www.Gambling911.com. I have read some great articles by Sting in favor of BetOnline. The articles seem to flow naturally because it’s so damn easy to talk about the truth as opposed to candy coating garbage. I have done both. I candy coated BOS till I couldn’t take it. As ugly as BetOnSports became there are great companies like BetOnline and great media like Rome and Gambling911.com.

Across the hall from Infinity was Tommy Miller at Millennium Sports book and casino. Tommy was a quiet small man with a very course voice due to years of smoking. Tommy when not busy was very interesting to speak with about his other ventures in Aruba and Curacao. Poor Tommy always talked about getting out of the online gaming business dating back to 2001 but his health was a problem as he suffered from cancer and needed the money to pay the medical bills. I also think Claude pressured him to stick around by his tactics with other owners that he ousted with no compensation. Tommy wanted to be as independent as possible from BOS by paying his own bills and dealing directly with me instead of working through BOS. He knew his place though around Claude as he was cast in a big shadow.

I thought Tommy was a nice guy but there was also hearsay that said otherwise. I heard rumors that he managed a company in Curacao and stole the database to start up Millennium in Costa Rica. He also apparently had a history of acquiring substantial amounts of prescription drugs and distributing them but again that is all hearsay.

Chapter 4 pages 59-62

Sadly to say I would have to deal with more ugly human realities over the course of the next year in the Mall San Pablo and have to buy a ticket for a Dutch girl that was fired by Millennium, one of the companies that was partnered with Claude. The girl was the mother of three children that was verified by her former employer, another client of mine at Royal Sports in Curacao.

As for business my main responsibility in Costa Rica during May of 2001 was to present to Claude a national electronic media campaign. I went down to the VIP room and Claude was as usual very quiet and stoic. I presented him with the Jim Rome Show, Fox Sports Radio and support by local radio with strategy of using all of their brands to fill up category limits for online gaming companies advertising on the stations to eliminate the competition along with utilizing the top local talent again eliminating competition while getting the first right of refusal for 2002. Neither, Claude or Shaun had any idea who Jim Rome was so I explained to them their familiarity with Rome was irrelevant and all that mattered was the 2 million avid sports junkies that listened to Rome every week. Then I compared Rome to print media that meant more than two issues of Maxim Magazine which had about a 750,000 circulation back then and the monthly costs for doing Rome was less than Maxim. That caught their interest and upon completing my proposal Claude lifted one finger and immediately Shaun gasped with eyes bulging out stunned that I had just gotten a one million dollar budget. Seconds later Claude raised a second than a third finger. I went down there really just hoping to get the budget for The Jim Rome Show of $500,000. I didn’t want to be embarrassed like I was in 1999 with Time Warner and Sports Illustrated. Getting $3,000,000 was beyond my wildest dreams and I was pre-planning in my mind to buy a house in the south bay of Los Angeles and taking my girlfriend and her son on vacation once I completed the 2001 campaign. My agreement with Claude was I would get 10% cash commission off of the top and I would get paid once the media was paid. The media was to be paid directly. The normal agency commission was 15% but my proposal with figures I received from the media were just too impressive. I believed this was going to be a financially lucrative year for all of the sacrifices I had made in the past for my business.

One thing for sure when it came to working with sports celebrities the Ripner’s were clueless. They requested a national endorser for the Rome show. I originally brought them the “Golden Boy”; NFL Hall of Famer, former Heisman Trophy winner out of Notre Dame and Vince Lombardi favorite Paul Hornung. When I first left Paul Hornung a message and he called back I immediately answered his every question with “Mr. Hornung”. The guy is a legend and I was in awe. All football fans should know him and those involved in sports gambling should know Paul Hornung since he was suspended for a season in the 1960’s for gambling. I told Shaun and Claude, Hornung wanted $100,000 for the endorsement deal but I had a hunch he would settle for $50,000. Shaun started laughing saying that no one was worth $100,000 to endorse and that they could get handicappers from Las Vegas to endorse BOS for a fraction of the price. This is true but then again you get what you pay for. Pay a premium for Paul Hornung who can make national news at anytime during the football season as the voice of Notre Dame Football or get Jim Fiest the annoying little fella that sends out obnoxious mailers to prospective gamblers around the country that has gotten more than a few guys in trouble from wives, parents and girlfriends.

Shaun and Claude had no idea who I was talking about in Paul Hornung and I am not sure they knew anything about Heisman Trophies, Notre Dame, the Packers or Vince Lombardi. To make matters worse Claude had this love affair for a Las Vegas handicapper with a slicked back thick head of hair and a cable television show with the production quality on par with the Saturday Night Live skit, “Wayne’s World”. The handicapper named Wayne allegedly got lucky with one of the customer service girls and Doogie would constantly ask the girl, “How was Wayne’s root?” With Mr. Las Vegas on the horizon my mind was now working hard to convince Claude to go with option number two, Steve “Mongo” McMichael. Mongo was fresh off an all-pro NFL career and was the top afternoon radio sports talk show host in Chicago after playing for years with the Bears. “Mongo” achieved national broadcasting fame with the World Wrestling Federation watched by millions on TNT and TBS. I ended up getting my way with a bit of concessions. The concessions were Mr. Las Vegas would do the television endorsements and Randy White the former Hall of Fame Defensive Tackle from the Dallas Cowboys would split the Rome show spots with “Mongo”. Now Randy has great football credentials but when it came to personality even in Texas, “Mongo” a former All-American at the University of Texas outdistanced Randy White by about 100-1 when it came to signing up new customers. As for the Mr. Vegas television experiment, it failed so miserably that BOS failed to capitalize on the power of television advertising which would launch Party Poker to the top of the food chain in the world of online gaming while BOS would plummet in the years to come after a key event in 2003. Had television shown signs of prominence than I believe Claude would have invested heavily into television. I made it a point to stay away from television due to the strategy which was similar to the early radio with bland ad creative. TV though in my opinion is the ultimate medium for gaining social acceptance in the US market.

Chapter 4 pages 57-59

I continued into the Central American night on a mission of whooping it up at an assortment of bars that would conclude at the Del Rey Hotel. Seeing that I was partying for two people (Tom and I), I picked up two beautiful black girls and brought them back to the apartment. By the time I got back to the apartment everyone was asleep. Meanwhile, I was fired up on hormones and alcohol. The good thing about my entry into the apartment was it was almost sunrise and Tom and DD would need to be eventually awakened by someone so they could head off to the airport. On the downside I am not sure they were expecting the ruckus that would ensue. DD always complained about the damn birds that were waking them up in the early morning just outside their window. She wanted to kill that bird. As bad as that little bird was it was not nearly as wild as being awakened by yours truly giving two Spanish speaking chocolate beauties some phallic discipline as I chased them out of the apartment while butt ass naked slapping them in the hind quarters with my manhood.

If the girlfriend were to ask me today in a profound President Bill Clinton response I could exclaim, “I did not have sex with two girls in Costa Rica!” I might have gotten a similar impeachment though for a lack of agreeable interpretation. Tom as usual was jovial and came out of his room laughing while DD wore the look of shock that she would soon get over and chalk up to more Costa Rican madness as she had seen plenty in the 12 months they spent in Central America. If only Tom and DD were witnesses to that act I would have been ok, but at the time a newcomer to BOS, a young 22 year old kid that would later become the customer service manager had just relocated from the UK and was living in the apartment also. The young man’s name was Jaime and he would become a longtime employee with BOS until the day they closed their doors as the head of customer service and the influential Jaime spread the legend. Heck, according to other executives at BOS Jaime picked up the slack when I was not around, staying out till the early hours of the morning and making a name for himself at the local brothels. I get a warm feeling in my heart knowing that there was at least one young kid that was influenced for better or worse by my actions outside of the BOS offices. Once in the office, even with sales I was exceptionally professional. I had a mentor also and he would end up taking his act on the road to Thailand. If Jaime is reading this he will be pleased to know that I have stepped up my act but with a little bit more class than our early encounters that bright sunny spring morning in 2001.

Four years later while having a very nice dinner in Costa Rica during a business trip with my boss, Lance Hanish from a Santa Monica ad firm, my longtime friend Johnny Ray or JR for short, a former executive with BOS, his wife Marilyn and their son Marty; this guy comes up to the table and soon as he hears my name blasts out a robust “BLACKSAW!!!!”. Then he went right into the story of the two black girls and my phallic discipline chasing these two girls out of the apartment, down the stairs and past the security guard to catch a taxi in the early hours of Tom’s escape from Costa Rica without a stitch of clothing on my bare ass. I am not sure if the boss heard the guy speaking because I immediately jumped in trying to drown the guy out and doing my best to shush the guy.

The guy’s name was Eddie King, a local radio DJ that did internet radio for an online gaming company. When I returned to Southern California I listened to his show regularly a couple of times a week for an hour a day when I could. He had a great show. It’s too bad his employer let him quit because he was great on the air. We would often email each other during commercials as we shared laughs about our perception of life in Costa Rica which could be just as twisted as that morning when Blacksaw was borne. Sometimes while he knew I was listening he wouldn’t bother with the email and just say exactly what he had to say to me over the airwaves. Not sure what Mr. King is doing these days but he should be on the air for an online gaming company because he could draw a crowd. He certainly didn't like Jim Rome out of professional competitiveness. I think with the right platform and dedication to the craft Eddie could draw a better crowd and compete with Rome. But that is a big “if” because Rome is proven. Much like you hear about great playground basketball players that should be in the NBA; if those players made the sacrifices to be the best they would be there, those that come up short just don’t always make the sacrifices.

In regards to Tom, George took him to the airport for his final departure from the San Jose International Airport. Later Shaun was considerate enough to say what I did was nice while re-iterating that Tom and DD were adults and not BOS’s responsibility to take care of them. Just a sign that Shaun might not be a total ass and has what I thought was a glimmer of human decency. As a business owner myself if someone in my company makes a mistake than as the owner I have to take responsibility because I hired them. If I promise someone to fly them to and from a specific job I don’t fly them in and then tell them once the job is finished they are on their own. People have different perceptions on how to run a business and part of the greater Ripner family business plan included, once you get everything you can out of someone despite any prior agreements you are not responsible to uphold your end of the bargain because it might cost money, every penny that is not paid is another penny maintained in the grander scheme of becoming a billionaire. I wondered if $50,000,000 was not enough to live off of by the Ripner needs.

Chapter 4 pages 52-57

Although Corky deceived me on ad creative, she was integral with her persistence of low rates and was the first person I ever heard coin the term, “BOS”. She constantly referred to BetOnSports as BOS and the term would eventually stick. Prior to BetOnSports and BOS they were known as the North American Sports Betting Company or NASCO. Claude loved that name.

Now I had the Rome show, Fox Sports, and just about every major local radio station ready for my pending presentation that I would reveal in my upcoming trip to Costa Rica in May of 2001. I presented to Claude my strategy of focusing on national radio advertising and supporting it with local programming. I flew down to Costa Rica and stayed at the same three bedroom apartment I was at before with Tom and DD. This time when I came to the airport there was Tom with a big grin waiting for me with one of the Tico employees driving. Tom was a super friend and a great salesman. He supplied me with plenty of first hand information from customers after I had left my first trip to Costa Rica which only lasted until early September of 2000.

Unfortunately, Tom a 45 year old worn out party veteran was suffering from the Costa Rican nightlife. On our last trip we often went out drinking and smoking some of Costa Rica’s finest. This time I was stunned to see Tom in really bad shape. He was throwing up at the office, falling down in the office. It was a bad situation. Meanwhile Claude and Shaun ignored the problem Tom was having as an employee. According to Shaun, Tom was not needed until the start of football season. This annoyed me because the sales employees were flown into Costa Rica with the agreement that when their services were completed they would be flown home upon their request when they completed the season. Tom was certainly entitled to this respect considering he was one of the finest salesmen in the office bringing in millions of dollars in new accounts. I was appalled by Shaun’s response to the problem when I brought it up.

On top of Tom's health problems neither he nor DD had much money considering the simple wages they earned. An airplane ticket home would cost them over a week's worth of work. An argument could be made that Tom didn’t help matters by spending all of his money on booze but that wasn’t true. Tom was actually very frugal in spending money and would usually buy a couple of small bottles of guaro or vodka and chug them without the benefit of a mixer from the local discount stores on the lowest floor of the Mall San Pablo. So he was not paying bar prices by any means and if he did go out to the bars he would spend nothing more than a few thousand colones or $10 – 20 at most making sure he chugged a few beers before heading out and usually did the brown paper bag walk en route to the bars. DD did her best to save by cooking at home and managing the dollars so they could buy a couple of plane tickets back home. But the reality that faced them at home was they would have no money to get an apartment, car, or anything else due to their dilapidated funds. The choice for Tom and DD was let Tom kill himself with booze or fly back home and than once they got home it's live with the parents or be homeless. Watching the Ripner’s neglect this responsibility sickened me.

I was making decent money and was due a lot more plus I had a nice comfortable home situation back in Torrance, California with my lovely girlfriend Odinga, her son, Deron whom I took on the fatherly role and our family pet, my personal pride and joy “Sparky” a Halloween born mutt that came out of an alley exactly 1 block away from where the 1992 LA riots in South Central Los Angeles erupted. She has the softest fur with a lovable friendly demeanor that endeared her to all the dogs and people in the neighborhood. Meanwhile back to reality in Costa Rica, Tom was in bad shape. I couldn’t stand seeing him drink himself to death anymore. I took on the responsibility of getting Tom and DD two tickets to Arizona so they would have enough money to get an apartment when they got home.

I knew Tom and DD were going to be taking off a day before me in the spring of 2001. I figured it’s time to go out with a bang! Tom and I ended up starting out at the All-Star Cafe, where Tom faded fast and opted out with an early night. He was in horrible shape and just couldn't handle one more drink. Since Tom couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain with the drinking, carousing and playing around I pledged to him that night I would honor him by pulling double time. This was probably the night that the legend of Blacksaw took full flight. I had been nicknamed Hacksaw during the 2000 football season and during the spring Doogie and Joel started calling me Blacksaw for my love of women. My girlfriend was born in Zaire with a deep dark skin tone and I love the Williams sisters in tennis, especially Serena. More times than I can count while having sex I fantasized about Serena Williams. Thank you Serena and sorry to any women I have offended.