by Alex Cortez

Realtor, Surfer-in-Training

Author website

I wanted to take a brief moment to extend a Happy 4th of July greeting to all in the BH community.  I was born and raised in El Salvador in the midst of an infamous civil war (infamous for its use of children as pawns in the war machine), migrating to the US in my teen years and becoming a citizen while serving in armed forces.  I have had the opportunity to travel the world for work and leisure and I can wholeheartedly say that there is no other country I’d rather call home than the good ol’ US of A.  Regardless of what cynicism is thrown out there about American greed, blah blah blah, I believe and embrace the principles and values on which our nation founded.  Have a Happy Independence weekend.

by Mark Green

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

When I graduated college in 1992, I couldn’t wait to put what little I’d learned into play.  Fortunately, I had a role model (“Who We Are”/”People”/”Ken Jones”) willing to let me shadow him like a puppy dog twelve hours a day.  Before long, I became a pretty solid “ad man”.  But it wasn’t the media planning or copywriting that inspired me.  It was consulting with our clients.  It was listening to their problems and challenges – and finding creative ways to solve them.  Problem was, the company I worked for at the time was fat and happy.  They had “enough” business to pay for our waterfront office space and their German automobiles.

I thought that mentality sucked.

At the time, I was low man on the totem pole.  Frankly, I’m not even sure my status qualified for a head on the totem pole.  This was a status I gratefully would never relinquish.  Yet, typically it was either me or Ken who opened shop every morning and the two of us would inevitably lock up every night.

After finishing the annual Port of Miami print media plan three months into the year – and by the way, you ain’t lived until you’ve duked out a 12-insertion deal with Inbound Logistics magazine – something strange happened… I ran out of things to do.  We in the real estate/mortgage profession can’t even fathom this ever happening, right?  I was getting a paycheck every two weeks and was doing absolutely nothing to earn it.

Apparently, my ass-sitting didn’t bother the owners of our ad agency very much.  But it bothered the hell out of me.  We needed some new clients – and if the owners weren’t going to get off their duffs to find some, hell… I would.  Now if you’d known me then, you’d probably be laughing right now.  I was barely old enough to buy a beer.  I’d literally just gotten my degree.  I had absolutely zero business experience.  And I was picking up the Yellow Pages and cold calling some of the largest and most prestigious advertisers in the Tampa Bay area.  I was too young, stupid and naive to know it wasn’t going to work.

Have you Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story

“C’mon, Sahib,” the Cabdriver said. “Let’s get rollin’.”

Sahib said, “Again I must remind you that my name is not Sahib. And also I must ask you again to wait. Even now I am about to win the jackpot.”

Sahib was sitting at a penny slot machine in the casino of the Stratosphere, in fun-filled-Las-Vegas-Nevada. Max coins, no less, a real player.

“Jeesh!” said the Cabdriver. “Your jackpot’s a hundred freakin’ bucks!”

“No, you are very much mistaken. The colossal-grand-jackpot on this machine is ten thousand American coins.”

“It’s a freakin’ penny slot! Ten thousand pennies is a hundred bucks!”

“Even so, I have every confidence that I must certainly hit the jackpot. By now I have eliminated nearly every other possibility.”

“No memory.” I said that. I was at the bank of machines behind theirs, playing video poker.

Sahib said, “I regret that I must ask you to repeat yourself.”

“No memory. ‘The wheel has no memory.’ Blaise Pascal. Inventor of roulette. Also of probability theory. There’s a random number generator inside your machine. Sixty times a second it spits out a new random number. Doesn’t remember the last one. Doesn’t care about the next one. When you hit the max coins button, you get the current number, and nothing you did before, nothing you’ll do later will change that number.”

The Cabdriver leaned over to murmur in my ear. “Freakin’ fascinating,” he grumbled, “but I’ve got to get this clown out of here!”

“In addition,” Sahib continued, “a young woman has promised to bring me another one of these very appealing citrus beverages.”

“Margarita,” I said.

“Again I must beg your indulgence in repeating yourself.”

“It’s a Margarita. Lime juice and tequila, plus Triple Sec or Cointreau or Grand Marnier.”

Sahib was aghast. “Promise me, sir, that I am not consuming alcoholic spirits!”

“Not here. Not by half. Here they make ’em with lime-ade and monkey-puke.”

“Thanks be to Allah,” he sighed. “I am very much enjoying my monkey-puke.”

The Cabdriver was seething. “Sahib! Hadn’t we better go about assembling your freakin’ bomb?!”

To the Cabdriver I said, very quietly, “This is Las Vegas and it’s all about fun, but since nine-eleven I Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story

“Stick ’em up!” said Clyde. I swear that’s what he said.

My first bank robbery. I was right behind Clyde in line, so I saw it all. It wasn’t what I expected…

Behind the teller’s cage was Hello-my-name-is-Annabelle, the world’s most unflappable teller. She said: “Do you have an account with this bank?”

“Huh?! Lady, this is a stick up!” Clyde had one of those cheap little .25 caliber pistols, the kind that are guaranteed for three armed robberies or one family brawl. He was wearing nylon hose over his head so it was very difficult to tell that he had brown hair, brown eyes and a pitiful little attempted moustache. I don’t think his nose is really that flat.

“I understand that,” said Annabelle. “I asked you if you have an account with this bank.” The prim people worship Annabelle as a goddess: she is primness personified, right down to the last tittle and jot. Her mousy-brown hair was wound up in a tight little bun and her little half glasses rode half-way down her nose. She wore a forest green dress with the tiniest white polka dots. I couldn’t see her shoes, but I’d bet they have buckles.

“Oh, just put the money in the bag!” commanded Bonnie, Clyde’s moll. She’s an unbearably thin woman with bleached blonde hair and greasy jeans. She didn’t bother with a disguise, since the downtown of every city that has a downtown is crawling with unbearably thin women with bleached blonde hair and greasy jeans.

“I would like to do that,” said Annabelle. “But first I’ll need your account number.”

“I don’t have a damn account!” said Clyde. “Okay?! If I had money, why would I be robbing the damn bank?!”

“Well, if you don’t have an account, I’ll need eight dollars.”

“Eight dollars! What the hell for? If I had eight dollars, I could wait until tomorrow to rob the damn bank!”

“Non-depositor’s transaction fee,” said Annabelle. She tapped her pen on a little sign mounted on the counter: “If you don’t have an account with First American Interstate National Trust, we will be happy to process your Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story

“I… uh… I thought we’d be meeting with the brands committee.” Manny Kant said that. He gnawed at his lower lip.

The Big Boss lowered his girth into the chair at the end of the conference table. He took his time, and Manny accommodated him by breaking out in a sweat at the temples.

“Naw,” said the Big Boss. “I don’t need no ass kissin’, no blame shiftin’, no idea snatchin’, no duty skirtin’. Not today. Today I need an answer, so I come down myself to see what you got to say. What you got to say, boy?”

Manny swallowed hard. “Well, I, uh… I… uh…”

“Go ahead, boy, spit it out. I ain’t gonna bite you!” He laughed from deep in his belly and the laugh turned into a crackle in his throat and the crackle turned into a cough and the cough turned into a fit. When he was finally able to stop coughing his face was florid. He chuckled and shook it off and fished into his breast pocket for a cigarette. He coughed again with the first puff of smoke but he was able to contain it.

The Big Boss was big. He was a commanding presence, and, now that I’ve seen him, he’s even a commanding absence. He was fat and fleshy and pink, but there was a power in him, a strength of purpose and a physical strength buried beneath the fat. He wore a blue seersucker suit and a starched white cotton shirt and a red bow-tie, a letter-perfect son of the South. He was bald with just a fringe of white hair at the base of his scalp and his eyes were small and dark and beady. They were overwhelmed by the flesh of his face, like a pig’s eyes.

Manny presented a nice contrast. He wore an Armani suit in a dusky plum color and a collarless linen shirt open to the third button. His slick black hair was pulled back into a pony tail and he had a tiny little triangle of an imperial mustache beneath his lower lip. Indoors, in a Read more