As I exchanged farewell’s with Antonio Sabato Jr. on this particular Thursday, an epiphany crossed over my grey matter, like a lonely cloud on a windy afternoon. Antonio is your typical guy, grateful for a long-lasting career, proud of his two kids (Jack Antonio, 16, with actress Virginia Madsen, and Mina Bree, 8, with Kristin Rosetti), and crazy about anything on wheels. And when his underwear is located underneath his pants (where most of us guys prefer them), he is the kind of guy you could kick around with for an afternoon, and probably end up with some pretty hot chicks just by association.

Antonio was born in Rome, Italy, and moved to Beverly Hills when he was 12 years old. His father, Antonio Sabato Sr., is a movie star in his own right, having roles in several blockbuster movies, including Grand Prix (1966), starring James Gardner and Yves Montand. Antonio went from there to the billboards as a Calvin Klein model and a popular character on the daytime soaps. He’s made several prime time appearances on television shows, such as Melrose Place, Ally McBeal, Earth 2, Charmed, Ugly Betty, and My Antonio, including some time on the big screen in the film, The Big Hit (1998).

Behind the screen, Antonio is a huge Formula One fan, and has held a professional racing license since 2001. He is also a performance and tuning junkie, having built several of his own modified vehicles, including a 2005 Infinity FX45, which he featured at SEMA Las Vegas in 2006. What else do you need to know about this man of many hats? Let’s ask him…

Eric J. Leech: What’s coming up for 2011?
Antonio Sabato Jr.: I have a movie that I did with Ashley Jones that we shot in Ottawa, which was really really cool. It is a Lifetime movie that is coming out in Spring. It is called A Mother’s Secret. Before that, I have been working on television shows. I did My Antonio, which is a TV show produced by me for VH1 that came out last year. I worked on Bones and CSI New York.

EJL: I heard you were thinking about producing some films?
ASJ: I had the chance to go to Italy to open a production company to start making some films. One of them that I was able to get the rights for is a western movie that my father did in 1968. It is called Hate for Hate, and was released by MGM. It was a spaghetti western. I just thought that westerns are about to come back, and that is a good way for me to produce a western, co produced with an Italian company. I needed to get the rights for this particular story. Mission accomplished. Now a lot of projects are coming my way. Everything just started pumping up about a week ago, so I am kind of in limbo as far as what projects I’m going to be doing.

EJL: Did you and your father ever do a project together?
ASJ: Not yet. My father has got a few scripts that he wrote about racing that are quite good. We never had the time, but we go to the track a lot and jump in some car and race around the track, so we have a good time.

EJL: Do you have a license to race?
ASJ: I turned pro in 2001, and have been racing ever since. I just renewed my license with Skip Barber.

EJL: What is your own favorite race story?
ASJ: In 2002, my first race in Indianapolis. I did not have that much racing experience and I remember jumping into a cop car, which was a GT3 cop car. It was an almost 500 horsepower race car, and I remember just sitting there on the straight away on the start/finish line, and the lights going from red to green, and I remember just how excited I was to be racing against professional race car drivers. I didn’t have any type of experience like these guys had, and I was able to finish. I was able not to crash, and I was able to keep up with some of the guys, and finish in the top 20. I remember that very clearly and I can’t wait to do it again.

EJL: Have you been doing any racing lately?
ASJ: I was talking to a good friend of mine, Lorenzo Lamas, and we are both passionate race car drivers. We are trying to put something together with the Porsche team, which for me will be going back to racing for Porsche which I raced in 2002 and 2003. I raced for Porsche cup. I haven’t raced with Porsche since, other than just testing cars and going over the track. We have an opportunity to go in as a team, me and him, and we might revolve a TV show around it. It is kind of early stages, but at the same time we have to move quickly, because if we want to jump in on the championship, we only have a couple months before the first race starts.

EJL: What about racing draws you to it?
ASJ: What draws me to it is the environment I grew up in. It is in my family. Racing is part of my DNA, my family, my upbringing. I love everything about cars. I grew up with cars around me, sports cars, Ferrari’s and Porsche’s.

EJL: What is the most difficult part?
ASJ: Everything is hard about it. It is physically hard. It is enduring. The concentration level has to be really high. At the same time you have to have a certain type of calmness about it because you don’t want to make mistakes. It is physical, it’s mental, but I love it and once you are in the car you just let everything go and do what you’re supposed to do. Learn from your mistakes, from your crashes, and from the things that didn’t go your way. Racing is always full of surprises, and it doesn’t go your way 100 percent, but as long as you finish the race and you learn from it, that’s where I’m at. I want to become a better race car driver, and it takes time and experience. The more you are behind the wheel of a car, the better you get. It is like anything else. It is like working out, going to the gym, or whatever. So that is why I try to go to the race track as much as I can.

EJL: Have you ever crashed?
ASJ: I’ve had some bad crashes. I’ve hit the wall and other cars. You walk away, let go, and learn from them.

EJL: It doesn’t affect you?
ASJ: Well, you’re always going to go there no matter what. I think that if you love it, you move on and never look back. That is the philosophy that I have.

EJL: What’s the story behind Enzo Ferrari loaning your father cars to drive?
ASJ: My father was in the greatest formula race car movie of all time, called Grand Prix. The movie was made in 1966, directed by John Frankenheimer, starring James Gardner, Yves Montand, and my dad, Antonio Sabato Sr. He played an Italian driver, Nino Barlini. He drove for the Ferrari team next to Yves Montand. The movie became so successful, and my father became a huge star over night. The movie won three academy awards. It is just the best race car movie of all time. Even Le Mans with Steve McQueen can’t touch it.

Anybody who knows about racing, knows about this film, and so basically from that moment on he became close friends with Enzo, and he started only driving Ferrari’s. It’s in our passion, it’s in our blood. My father would go to the factory and they would send him cars. At the time when Enzo was alive, he would spend a lot of time with him. There were a lot of stories about this man and the whole factory. My dad use to go there all the time. That was a different time. You could buy a Ferrari for five grand. Now you can buy one, especially those, for about a million and a half.

EJL: Did you ever get to go to the factory?
ASJ: I was too young to remember, but I always wanted to go. I have been to the Porsche factory, since I have been associated with them. I became a passionate fan of Porsche growing up as well.

EJL: If you had the choice between Porsche and Ferrari, which would you choose?
ASJ: If I had the choice between the two it would be a hard one. I know both companies and I admire both of them. I love them both, I can’t tell you which one, I would probably just have both (laughs).

EJL: Do you have a couple favorite cars in your own collection?
ASJ: Sure. I have a Porsche Carrera 996 convertible that I really enjoy. It is just a great car. It is a 3.4-liter that I’ve modified. It is easy to drive, has a lot of performance, and you can drive it every day.

I have a BMW an 05 760i, which is the smaller version of the 7-series, but it is a V-12, and that’s about a 500 horsepower V-12 that I modified, but it looks stock. I like to do little subtle things that make the car better, but it doesn’t bling too much. I like performance. I like reliability. I like durability, that you can drive it every day, and be comfortable in it and not be too rigid, or too hard to drive.

EJL: Did you do the work on these cars?
ASJ: I work on all my cars. I do stuff like LED’s and HID kits, and I do performance packages. I have an 05 Infinity FX45 that I took to Sema. It had the first true dual exhaust built by me with Magnaflow.

After my car was released at Sema and people saw it, Infinity was starting to build their FX’s with all true dual exhausts. I know they saw it from me, because the car before 05 never had it. I had the only one.

I do springs, exhaust, intake, ECU upgrades. When you do upgrades on the ECU, you can gain some horsepower, but you also gain miles per hour. I like the cars to look stock, but when you look carefully in them, and around them, they are quite different. I like to work on lighting as well. Bringing in all the LED’s and all the little lights in the car are all high definition and HD kits for the cars. High and low beams. I like the car to look cool and classic. All my cars have some personal touch by me.

EJL: You also own a few motorcycles.
I have two motorcycles that I built. I have an 05 Yamaha R1 that was rebuilt from scratch. I rebuilt the engine. It’s got probably about 180 to 185 horsepower.

EJL: That’s a lot.
ASJ: I also have a Harley-Davidson that is a 93, Softtail, that pretty much does not look like a softtail anymore. It looks like a sport bike. It has everything modified from the sprockets, the chain, the exhaust, carburetors, Brembo brakes, suspension front and rear. It’s got 180 sport tire. Just all kinds of things. I like to work on stuff, and if I can’t put it on, then I have the right mechanics and the right builders that can build it exactly the way that I want it.

EJL: Do you still own that custom made Batman Harley?
ASJ: Yeah, it was yellow. That is the same bike, only now it’s all black with copper lining, and has a copper Batman symbol. It is really cool.

EJL: Let’s get back to acting. Do you have a preference in your acting roles?
ASJ: I am just fortunate to be working. I enjoy every character I play. I think that if I had to pick one, the bad guy is more interesting. I love playing bad guys, and that’s what people tell me, that I usually play them a lot better than the good guy, so I take it as a compliment. I enjoy playing bad guys for sure. When you start a project and you get inside the character you’ve got to love it, and you’ve got to love the person you’re playing either way. I enjoy what I do, I am very fortunate.

EJL: How do you prepare for a role?
ASJ: The more preparation, the more history you can build the better. It all depends on the particular character, who he is, the back ground. What kind of life. Get inside his head. I would dive in, but I would dive in after preparing myself. Reading about him. It all depends on who I’m playing. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of time, so you have to do what you can. Sometimes you get a movie and you have to start the next week.

EJL: Is there a role you haven’t tackled that you would like to?
ASJ: I have always been a passionate fan of western movies. I grew up watching them, and I enjoy them, so I am kind of glad that True Grit is getting the popularity it is getting. Bringing the westerns back. I always thought they’d be back relatively quickly, and there you go, now they’re doing them. I would enjoy playing a western, just riding horses everyday, and being up there in a western town. The whole thing that goes with it would be pretty cool.

EJL: Do you consider yourself a good horseman?
ASJ: I have my daughter who is teaching me. She is eight years old and is a lot better than I am. She has been riding since she was three years old. I take her horseback riding, so she is teaching me. I took lessons growing up and have been riding my whole life, but nothing like my daughter, she is phenomenal.

EJL: Do you have any closing words?
ASJ: I really want to say my thanks to the country of Canada and how well respected people are, and what a beautiful place it is to work. I have worked in many cities in Canada, and this time I had the chance to work in Ottawa, which I’d never been, and I got to tell you. It is just a lovely town, a lovely city. The capital of Canada has a lot of amazing people and I just want to thank Canada in general, and I wish everyone in the world was like them, because they are just really positive people, and it was just great to be working and be around those people. Thank you very much!

Stop by Canada anytime, Antonio. They’ll leave a streetlight on for you!

Excerpts Originally featured in Urban Male Magazine (UMM)

Featuring Joanna Krupa as the cover model on the front of a popular men’s magazine, is about as surprising as featuring pale lager at a Canadian beer fest. But I’ve got something those other magazines don’t. A once in a lifetime chance to play 20 questions with one of the most beautiful women in the world.

Joanna Krupa has graced over 100 magazine covers, been called the sexiest woman, taken on Terrell Owens (Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver), Paris Hilton, the Catholic Church, and anyone who has ever donned a pair of animal fur booties. She’s been a “Juggy Girl” (The Man Show), a poker champion, a semi-finalist on Dancing with the Stars, and made a very brief cameo appearance with Snoop Dog on a Girls Gone Wild video shoot. Despite Snoop’s persuasive tongue roll to let her “freakness be yo’ weakness,” the intimate details of her body would remain largely under wraps for another couple years, until a much more persuasive man would come along in 2005… a Mr. Hugh Hefner (Playboy).

Following her Playboy debut, Krupa’s stardom shot through the roof, as she enjoyed a series of reality based television shows that would not only display her competitiveness as a performer and athlete, but give us a taste of her sometimes, impatient and feisty nature. A few of the controversies that have surrounded Krupa and her spirited persona, include a verbal tiff with Terrell Owens, whom she told media bungled their chances to make it past the first cut on the television show, The Superstars. But probably her greatest source of controversy as of recently, is a PETA ad featuring Krupa wearing nothing but a crucifix amongst a crowd of K-9 onlookers. This literally blew the top off the Catholic Church, but none-the-less garnished the public attention it set out to do (mission accomplished).

But these past escapades are all under the bridge, as Krupa prepares for her next phase in life. A phase that promises marriage, starring roles in film and television, a budding clothing line, kids, animal activism, and a growing list of spoiled celebrities who’ve earned the right to be honorable mentions on her crap list. I asked Joanna if she was up for a little game of 20 questions, and when I batted my eyes like a lost puppy dog, she just couldn’t say no.

UMM: What is a typical day for Joanna Krupa?

Joanna Krupa: It depends on the day. Sometimes when I am home and not working, I catch up on all my emails and have lazy days with my five dogs. The days when I am working, are mostly spent on an airplane.

UMM: What are three things most fans might not guess about you?

JK: I am very humble, down to earth and approachable. Those are qualities most people probably don’t associate with any model or a showbiz personality.

UMM: Which side of Krupa is the one most of your friends know best… easy going or feisty?

JK: Very feisty. (laughs)
UMM: What has been your most embarrassing moment?

JK: I make fun of myself a lot. There is nothing I have done that has made me feel embarrassed. I’m only human, and we all do stupid things at one time or another.

UMM: What is the one thing you wish you could change about yourself?

JK: To worry less and be more patient.

UMM: Describe the absolute worst date you ever had?

JK: It was a blind date where we probably exchanged two words over dinner. It was very awkward.

UMM: What is the worst pickup line you ever heard?

JK: Girl, your feet must be hurting cause you’ve been running around in my mind.

UMM: What is your biggest nitpick about men?

JK: I hate when men try to show off how much money they have on the first date. Sorry guys, a Lamborghini or a private jet doesn’t impress me. A man that is confident with a great sense of humor is what gets me going. I can’t stand pretentious, superficial people.

UMM: Congratulations on your engagement to Romain Zago. What about him first caught your attention?

JK: He is an amazing human being with a huge heart, loves animals as much as I do, and treats my family as his own. Of course, what first caught my attention was that he was physically appealing, meaning tall, dark, handsome, with a beautiful, genuine smile, and charming French accent.

UMM: What about the Canadian accent, eh? What is your impression of Canadian men?

JK: So far so good. For sure one notices the European touch, and my fiancee is French, so naturally I like the Canadian/French vibe.

UMM: What is the key to success in any relationship?

JK: Trust is the number one thing.

UMM: Who are the celebrities currently on your crap list this year, and why?

JK: I cant stand Kim Kardashian. She is famous for what? A sex tape? But my real disappointment about her, is that even though she is obviously financially successful, I still don’t see a significant amount of giving back. Plus, since she wear furs, I suspect she is immune to the fact that fur entails a huge amount of animal cruelty, as many animals are being skinned alive and bled to death. So how much can I like a person that I view as ignorant to the suffering of living beings?! Jennifer Lopez and P. Diddy are also in my opinion cold-hearted people for wearing fur. I don’t know what looks worse, them, or the dead animal they are wearing.

UMM: What punishment do you think would be appropriate for someone caught abusing an animal?

JK: Eye for an eye. The person should have the same thing happen to them that they did to the animal.

UMM: Tell us about your own animals? Do they travel with you?

JK: I have five dogs, and they are all sizes, and all adopted. My smallest one, Rugby, thinks he is boss and puts the biggest one in her place whenever she barks. Their names are Rugby (Yorkie mix), Yoda (Chi mix), Sebastian and Ginger (both Cavalier King Charles Spaniels), and my oldest, Lucky, a German Shepard mix. I can’t travel with them, because I have too many. I used to travel a little with Rugby when he was a baby, but it’s too stressful for dogs, so I’d rather keep them at home.

UMM: What projects do you have coming up for 2011?

JK: I just completed hosting Poland’s Next Top Model, and hope it goes into Season two. I have another TV project in the US, but will not be able to give more details at this point. I have a movie coming out with Michael Madson, called Six Days in Paradise, that will be hitting the festivals, if we can believe the initial great feedback. My swimwear line Kashmir for A Che is a success, and soon I am going to start working on the next collection.

UMM: Looking back over your experience with ‘Dancing With the Stars’, is there anything you’d have done differently?

JK: Nothing. I did my best and got rewarded with making it into the semi finals. Obviously, if I didn’t have the huge names like Osbourne and Osmond in my season, I would have made it to the finals. They came with a massive fan base that their families have built for decades.

UMM: If you had never made it into the entertainment biz, what alternative career would you be doing?

JK: I would probably be running some kind of business, as I am now living out my entrepreneurial streak with my own swimwear line.

UMM: What would you like people to say about you when they look back over your career 30 years from now?

JK: That I was a very kindhearted human being. Someone who helped many animals and had big success in stopping animal cruelty.

UMM: What are the top three items on your bucket list (to do before you die)?

JK: One, become the Angelina Jolie for animals. Two, have kids, and three, travel the world.

UMM: What do you think will be going through the minds of our readers as they look through your pictorial?

JK: Hopefully they’ll love it, and think it’s a tasteful shoot.

Joanna, we think this is one of your greatest pictorials ever, but we might be a wee bit prejudice. Thank you for dropping by to spend some time with us, and we hope to have you back soon!

(Article originally appeared in the 2010 Winter issue of Urban Male Magazine)

It’s just smart business to seek out easier, better, and more cost effective methods of running your company. And in an economic down cycle, streamlining and cutting the fat is more important than ever.

For decades, the following age-old words of wisdom have been passed down to future generations of entrepreneurs and business owners: A penny saved is a penny earned. But an even smarter lesson may sound something like this, “If you own a small business and you aren’t outsourcing, you’re going to struggle during a recession.”

Outsourcing is considered controversial for a number of reasons, but primarily because it has an infamous reputation for transferring jobs from American soil to other countries. But the more pressing issue, for small business, is whether they can afford to compete with big business — and carry on the country’s entrepreneurial spirit — using only their home turf, especially when the cost of American talent is so expensive.

The sad truth is, unlike the all-American game of baseball, home turf is rarely an advantage when you’re running a small business.

Rules of Thumb for Beginners

Victor Cheng, a former McKinsey consultant and current president of Bookmercial Productions, has outsourced more than 100 projects, including clerical work, Web site development, Web research, data entry, telephone duties, basic-level writing, and customer service. “Anything a big guy can outsource, a little guy can too,” says Cheng, who has sent projects to India, Romania, Poland, Argentina, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines.

Cheng’s first experience with outsourcing began just five years ago, when he posted an ad for a part time assistant to do clerical work. But he was located in San Francisco, and all the candidates wanted between $25 and $35 an hour. “So I hired a team in India,” he says. “They offered to do it for $2 an hour. They were thrilled, and so was I.”

Since that initial foray into outsourcing, Cheng has developed his four specific rules of thumb as to what a successful business can outsource:

1. Tasks performed on a computer, especially those that are repetitive, easy to learn, and boring.
2. Tasks conducted via telephone, which aren’t business-critical, such as customer service and simple telemarketing.
3. Jobs that don’t require face time with a customer or a physical presence.
4. Any activity that isn’t the reason customers buy from you. In other words, jobs where a “B” performance is good enough.

12 Specific Outsourcing Categories

Now that you have a general idea of the tasks that outside companies can perform for you, here are 13 specific job categories that can be outsourced by any business entity:

1. Bookkeeping, accounting, payroll processing, and taxes. You have to do it, says Cheng. “Your customers don’t care how you fill out your tax forms, so for most smaller businesses, just get someone else to do it for you.”
2. Web research and language translation. Jeff Rivera, author of Forever My Lady, uses outsourcing services to extract e-mail addresses from specific Web sites and determine the contact information of the people with whom he needs to speak. “I also use them for translation, not only for printing but also speaking.”
3. Human resources, employee benefits, workers’ compensation, medical insurance. “I’m a big fan of PEO (professional employer organization) for any business with more than a small handful of employees,” says Cheng. “It’s basically 400 small businesses combining their purchasing power to buy a medical insurance and 401(k) plan designed for a Fortune 500 company.” For a small fee, you save money, have fewer hassles, less paperwork, and better benefits. “And the whole service is essentially free, because it can be paid out of cost savings,” he adds.
4. Customer service. But only if your business is telephone- or e-mail-based and customer service isn’t core to your success, says Cheng.
5. Ghost receptionist. “Your first point of contact at your office can literally be anywhere in the world,” says Michael Corbett, chairman of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.
6. Invoicing, receivables, payables, and fulfillment. According to Cheng, if you own a business that ships products to customers, all of these tasks can and should be outsourced.
7. Telemarketing. “One of my clients, a commercial real estate agent, has hired a full-time overseas telemarketer at $1,000 a month to call businesses in his area and ask when their commercial leases expire,” says Cheng. “Then he can personally call on prospects whose leases will expire in six months or less.”
8. Web-based technology. This refers to outsourcing a Web site, its hosting and design. “Don’t buy software,” says Cheng, “buy software as an outsourced service. Buy QuickBooks online versus the QuickBooks software. Don’t buy back-up hard drives, buy outsource back-up storage from a company such as carbonite.com.”
9. General technology. Corbett, who helps his association members outsource effectively and uses outsourcing to perform many of his own daily business task, says, “Technology is not just the Web, but the equipment, phone systems, location, and remote hosting of much of a small business’s infrastructure.”
10. Manufacturing. “Big companies like Nike don’t manufacture anything anymore, they outsource it,” says Cheng. “I have multiple clients that outsource manufacturing for as little as $10,000 per order, which is well within reach of most small businesses.”
11. Marketing and sales. “If you’re a manufacturer that doesn’t know how to sell, you can outsource,” says Cheng. “Manufacturer reps are nothing more than freelance sales professionals who will sell your products to their clientèle.”
12. Public relations and media relations. “A lot of public relations are run through outsourcing,” says Jim Meadows, a partner in the Global Technology and Outsourcing Practice Group at Hunton & Williams. “If you look at the Fortune 1000 companies, they all maintain in-house media relations or PR departments to help spread their corporate message.” But small organizations should not be spending their internal dollars on these projects, advises Meadows, who has made a business of counseling clients on outsourcing.
13. Miscellaneous personal tasks. “I definitely outsource having my home office cleaned and organized,” says Rivera. “Who has time or interest to do all the menial things, such as making your bed or brushing your teeth when you can have someone do it for you? OK, that may be a little extreme. But it’s not too far from the truth.”

The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing

As effective as outsourcing can be to pull your small business up from its boot straps and into the leagues of big business, it is certainly not for everyone. There are benefits as well as costs with every portion of outsourcing you incorporate into your business. The number one benefit to outsourcing according to Corbett is its ability to free up your time as an owner to concentrate on more important things, like growing your business. There are so many little things to running a business that take your attention away, and while as individual tasks they may not seem like much, as a whole they probably take up a lot more time than you realize… and money!

While you are busy doing these menial tasks you are losing growth potential, clients, and sales. Progressive management, involves running a team of professionals who are good at certain aspects of a business to build on its efficiency, but if you hire even just one American professional, you are talking quite a drain on your net income, not to mention quarterly unemployment taxes. You can purchase overseas labor for somewhere around $4 an hour, free and clear of benefits, insurance, medical, or unemployment. This gives you an entire staff for the price of one in-house American employee.

With experience in helping hundreds of small businesses with his expertise as an outsourced advisory board member, Gary Patterson, CPA/MBA of Fiscal Doctor says, “Lets face it, most American’s don’t like typing data into spread sheets all day.” But overseas workers do. “In fact, they worship low value work because they can make more money and buy American goods,” says Patterson. From this standpoint, it could be said that outsourcing becomes a win-win situation for both the small business and American economy. Another thing that American workers don’t like is the reduced employee benefit plans that often goes along with working for a small business.

This handicap can be turned around according to Rob Wilson, President of Employco, a company who outsources HR to small business owners who cannot normally afford competitive employee packages similar to the Fortune 1000 companies. “Outsourcing allows the small business owner to offer a very competitive employee benefit plan at low cost that will also help with the recruiting and retention of employees.” says Wilson. There was a time when all the top ranked employees were instantly sucked into the large corporations at career fairs because of their very competitive benefits packages, but that no longer has to be the case.

Finding good help has always been an issue and outsourcing is no different. This will be one of your greatest challenges when using outsourcing. “Sometimes it takes a considerable amount of time to find someone who is not only reasonably priced, but also has the skill set to do the job to your level of expectation.” says Rivera. Patrick Clements, the CEO of BigWebApps, has used outsourcing in a variety of areas in his business, and he has just grown to expect the loss of time, comprehension, ethics, and “flakiness” that comes from using these sources. Sometimes it is not so much just a lack of comprehension and flakiness, as it is a barrier in language and pop culture.

“There is sometimes a serious language barrier, where Americans just get it more than someone from overseas,” says Rivera. “There are references and expressions of pop culture that some countries are unaware of and you just can’t explain it to them.” With a failure rate of one in every three projects hired out due to misunderstanding or inability to complete the entire task, Cheng compensates for this by hiring three different outsourcing companies and then picking the one that does the best job. “Even by doing this, the cost is still less than hiring in the US,” says Cheng.

Patterson reminds us that depending on your business, there are other reasons that can be discouraging when using outsourcing, such as the recent escalation of transportation costs. “In some cases the cost differential in favor of outsourcing has been canceled by the current cost of overseas transportation.” This brings up another point by Patterson, “What do you do if you have outsourced something for years and then need to bring it back into your company?” You will need to handle that function internally and many businesses are not capable unless they have the proper contingency plans in place, and most do not.

One of the greatest dangers in outsourcing a new and innovative idea, is it can be stolen by a copycat manufacturer. “Your intellectual property has almost no value in areas such as China,” says Patterson. “They will take your idea and within a matter of 30 to 60 days, it will no longer be just yours.” This of course happens anyway once many products are released, but time is of the essence. That several months lead time these copycat manufacturers gain, may just become the straw that breaks your camels back during your initial product release.

The Skinny

Outsourcing is no longer just for big business. There are areas of specialty work that can be outsourced by any size, shape, and income level of company. Playing with the BIG boys and girls has just gotten easier for the little guy or gal, just make sure you think your idea through to catch any of the initial unforeseen drawbacks. Outsourcing will give you a similar edge over other businesses that only the very large corporations once enjoyed, but don’t wait too long to get started. The early bird always gets the most worms!

Find Your Best Source

There are ways to minimize your risks and costs in outsourcing, and this can be most easily accomplished through a number of outsourcing rating Web sites that have come available as of recent years. “It’s kind of like an eBay for outsourcers,” says Cheng. “Their rating systems are pretty accurate, so if a company is not rated, I just won’t hire them.” Here are the sites in accordance to the type of specialty work you might be looking for:

• Technical computer, Web site design, programming, coding — Rent A Coder (rentacoder.com
• Non-technical computer, PowerPoint, Excel, freelance writing, accounting, marketing, graphic design — Elance (elance.com)
• Expert advice, business plans, CPAs, tax strategists, attorneys — Guru (guru.com)
• Personal assistants, appointment setters, booking — Get Friday (getfriday.com), Ask Sunday (asksunday.com)

(Photo via DEBATEitOUT.com, Article originally appeared in Growing Wealth Magazine)

The business exit strategy is like a Will to the private business owner. One of the most unpleasant catastrophes that can happen to any business and family is to go through a forced business liquidation because the owner had not taken the time to strategize an exiting plans before their untimely passing. Liquidation can offer as little as $0.20 on the dollar, leaving a family very little of the total estate, not to mention the taxes involved. When you leave your business, hopefully it is vertically (retirement, job change) rather than horizontally. There is no guarantees in life, except death and taxes, and at least one of these we actually have a little control of.

According to Hamilton Wright Investment Bankers, current statistics show that nearly eight percent of baby boomer’s have passed on to that big conglomerate in the sky. Out of the remaining 70 million, 12 million own corporations and only 20 percent of those are prepared to go with an exit strategy plan. That other 80 percent would lose sleep tonight if they thought about the tidbits of company value they would be leaving their family if they died tomorrow. The simple truth is that you better have a clear idea of a strategy within five to ten years before your exit or it could cost you and or your family big.

In 1990, Miami Dolphin owner and attorney, Joe Robbie, died unexpectedly; at least as unexpected as any seventy-three-year-old man could be considered. He passed that winter without a properly executed exiting plan and much of his estate ended up auctioned off at $0.32 on the dollar. As an educated servant to the law, Robbie should have known better, but his lack of proper planning resulted in a loss of $45 million in estate taxes for his family. Over the next four years, his families net worth dissolved along with their relations under the duress of financial burden. Feeling as if they had no other way to escape the downward spiral, the family haphazardly sold the one thing of value left in their position, the Miami Dolphins at a crushing loss.

Rags to riches is the American dream, but riches to rags can just as easily occur at the ceasing of a heart beat, but it doesn’t have to. The first thing that Robbie should have done, is create an exit strategy that directed his estate taxes through a life insurance and then secured a buyer for the team for a set amount of money for his wife and family. In addition, he could have limited any internal family feuds by creating “gifts” in the terms of property and ownership designated to individuals rather than lump them into one asset. There are many tricks of the trade to dealing with an exit strategy and one such expert who deals with this every day is Steve Beatty, Founder and President of InVEST Financial Solutions.

“The wrong time to figure out how you are going to exit your business is when you’ve got someone knocking at your door,” says Steve. “Advanced planning can save on capital gains taxes, but only if you incorporate an early plan devised by a qualified manager.” Once a business is in Escrow, it will be too late. Ron Memo, a client of Steve’s since 1995, sold his business Option Care of Nevada in 2005 for $16 million. Using Steve’s exit strategy, Ron was able to prepare his business for sale within four years and secure most of the profit with deferred tax, enabling him to forgo paying one large lump-sum on the total amount of the sale. “Until we start to take it out and spend it,” says Ron. “We will not have to pay taxes on it.” This will save him thousands of dollars in the long run.

Unlike the story of Robbie’s family, Ron’s family is in stable and financially secured hands. He has kept nearly all his initial sales of the business, and taxes are not going to take a significant amount of this in the long run. With this much money waiting in the bank, Ron no longer needs a successful business to support himself and has taken on a hobby and business at the same time, called Golf Tec, a high tech indoor golf lesson facility in Colorado. Ron plans on playing his new business out a few years to see where it goes and continue to work with Steve on various other investment opportunities. In the case of an early passing, Ron’s family is protected with a built in clause in the LLC that dictates how the business will be sold to his brother automatically, who is his partner in the current venture.

To get to the point of an exit strategy, the first thing that every business owner must do is learn to let go. They must step away from their baby that they have nurtured from the very start and let it walk on its own. Just like a mom during the first week her kid is away at college, the owner must allow their business to take care of itself and grow to be confident, strong, and most importantly, independent. “As a business coach, the biggest thing that I work with my clients on, is to get their business to run without them,” says Tom Maier, National Business Coach with Action Coach. “Whether you want to transfer it to an heir, key employee, or third party, the value of it is much higher if it is not dependent on the original owner.”

This is the reason that most businesses attempting to transition to the next generation fail, because the original owner had everything so reliant on them, that when they go, a lot of the customers, contacts, and inside information goes with them, leaving the business unable to sustain itself. Tom reminds us that you never know what is around the corner, so you have to diversify yourself to safeguard your retirement future and that means spreading your attributes across as many different business opportunities as you can. You can’t possibly do this if you never allow yourself the chance to exit your current business and start something new.

Tom put us in touch with Larry Janesky of Basement Systems in Connecticut. Larry is our third family and he has used the basis of exit strategy to create four successful businesses. Two of Larry’s businesses are functioning completely on their own, allowing him the time to give full attention to the other two. His profit portfolio is constantly on the upswing because his previously built businesses continue to create profit as he creates new profit avenues through new business ventures. Larry is far from retirement at age 42, but when he does decide, he can either continue to draw income from these sources through residual ownership income, or sell them as mature and independent business entities capable of a high-profit sale.

To safeguard his family in the event of his untimely passing, Larry has a buy-sell agreement funded by his life insurance policy. How it works, is the beneficiary Larry has chosen to take over his company, will receive the life insurance payout while his family receives ownership of the company. The buy-sell agreement then dictates that his family must sell the company to the beneficiary and the beneficiary must hand over the life insurance money to his family. This guarantees a buyer and seller in such an event, leaving his family without the burden of responsibility to run the business or find a qualified buyer to purchase it. If only Robbie had placed such a simple system within his “exiting” strategy, his broken family would likely be still together and $45 million-plus richer.

But, once you have let go of your baby, how do you know when it is time to take the plunge and exit? If you are on the fence with the decision whether or not to exit your small to medium company ($250,000 to $75 million), you might want to consider selling now for a variety of reasons according to Marshall Graham, Founder and Chairman of Focus LLC. Your first consideration should be future elections. “In a democratic administration– the capital gains rate will rise,” says Marshall. “Most Democratic candidates–raise taxes.” There are certainly other considerations according to Marshall, such as the (BBBF) Baby Boomer Business Flood, which has been predicted to occur within the next five to seven years.

This BBBF refers to the flood of individual private businesses going on the market as the baby boomer’s seek retirement. This increase in businesses for sale will unfortunately drive the market down, decrease value, and make sale of these businesses difficult. The third factor to consider is the relatively inexpensive means to borrow money. Interest rates have remained at a stable all-time low, offering many people of all walks of life a chance at business ownership. Last, but certainly not least, businesses sold today usually include a loophole locking the owner into the business for a period of 18 to 36 months, as the new owner become acquainted with their new business.

“Those thinking of going to the beach,” says Marshall. “Better factor in three years worth of planning before they can actually get there!”

(Photo via PicsDigger.com, Article Originally appeared in Growing Wealth Magazine)

Call it a recession, call it a little bump in the economy, you can call it anything that you like as long as you are taking advantage of the great investment opportunities going on right now. While many folks have befallen hard times as the dollar, economy, and job market slides off America’s cracker, others have taken advantage of these times to create even greater wealth than would be possible in a good economy.

Robert: “Let’s put it this way. Let’s say a T-Bone steak is selling at $10 a pound and the meat department announces that they are having a sale on steak for $1 a pound. What would steak lovers do? They would rush in the store to buy, right? The place would be jammed. But when the stock market or real estate market has a sale, they run away (laughs). The stock market today is down 200 points—it’s on sale! Now can it go lower, that is the real question.”

Eric J: What is one of the biggest questions you are being asked about the recession?

Robert: The big question is… what am I doing? And my answer is nothing has changed. Fundamentals are fundamentals. I don’t subscribe to what I call the standard financial planning dogma which is get a job, work hard, save money, get out of debt, invest in a 401K and diversify in mutual funds. I don’t do any of that.

First of all I am a cash flow guy. I don’t care about the price of real estate or stock going up or down. All I want to know is how much is my cash flow. In other words, when will my cash start to flow and when do I get my money back. I am not a specular. They go for capital gains. They want the price of the stock to go up. I don’t really care. I just want to know my dividend. If I don’t get an 8 percent dividend off my stocks, I don’t buy it. If the price goes up or down, I don’t really care.

For instance we just saw a deal in Austin, Texas that we would have had to of put in X-amount of dollars and get zero return. I said well, why would I put my money in that. The answer was, we can sell it in 5 years for more money. Well, that’s gambling, speculation, capital gains—that is not what I do. I have a very simple, simple philosophy. If it doesn’t produce immediate income (cash flow), then I won’t buy it.

I don’t save money because the US dollar is toxic and is dropping at a high rate of speed. Instead of save money, I hedge my positions by buying gold and silver. The price of silver and gold always goes up when the dollar goes down. The next primary thing I am investing in is real estate.

The reason I love real estate is because I can use my bankers money or debt. I have property for capital appreciation, I don’t buy it for the price going up. My only question is how much cash flow and what is my ROI (Return On Investment). If I put in a million dollars I want to know that I will get at least a 20 percent return every year on my money. If there is no cash flow in it for me I won’t buy.

I am also investing in oil. I hate to tell you this, but as I stand at the gas pump and feel the same fury as most people do when pumping 50 or 60 dollars into the gas tank—but every time oil prices go up, oil hit $133 today, I celebrate. My last oil deal my base number was $60 a barrel. So that means I am making $73 every time a barrel is sold.

EJ: What do you think our readers attitudes should be towards the recession?

Kim: There are a lot of people who are scared and rightfully so. I think the number one piece of advice I can offer is you can’t keep doing the same thing, you’ve got to start looking for new answers. Because a lot of my friends right now, all they are seeing is opportunity. People without any financial education are seeing fear, stress, foreclosures, and job loss.

One example I read about, there were these two women who were real estate agents in Florida. They were nervous because the Miami area was really in bad shape. So, they rented a limo and they do these limo tours, taking people to the foreclosed properties. They just flipped their situation looking for the opportunity.

I think the main thing in your mind set is if something isn’t working, then you’ve got to start looking for new answers. It takes time, but it is yours and your families financial well being and you’ve got to get out there and get yourself educated and find new ways to do things. There are going to be a lot of opportunity coming up, but if you don’t look, you are going to miss them.

EJ: Do you have any examples of opportunities at the current moment?

Kim: Besides silver, gold, real estate, and Roberts oil (laughs), I see huge opportunity in small business. I think one of the best financial security opportunities you can do is start your own business, even if it is only a part time business. It will give you a much greater financial security than getting a job these days with what’s happening in the employment market.

EJ: How do you know where to look for the best investment deals?

Robert: The number one thing is you must know the difference between capital gains and cash flow. When somebody says to you that in five years the price will be up, you are fundamentally capital gains. My response to that is will you guarantee that. I guarantee that a bond will say that they will give you 5 percent. That’s too low for me. Are you a capital gains investor, which is betting on the future, or are you a cash flow investor, which is today?

The best statement of all is when somebody says well on average the stock market goes up 8 percent per year, you just ask that person will they guarantee that. If they say no, then you know that it is capital gains. When I buy an apartment house I have to know what my total expenses are including mortgage payment and what the renter will pay. So If a renter will pay $1,000 a month and my expenses are $500 a month, I’ll take that deal all day long.

It is no different when I bought my oil field. I got to know my expenses and my income and that is my margins. It is just fundamental common sense. Would I buy oil today? Not at $133 a barrel, no way. I was just fortunate to get in when my base cost was at $60. Even at $60 most people were saying that I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I knew in the long term the trend would continue to increase. It was already at $85 when I bought it at $60, so I already had a $25 dollar margin in there.

EJ: What are the particular advantages of investing now during a “recession”?

Robert: I cannot think of a better time for investing that right now. You always want to buy low and sell high right? The average person buys high and sells low (laughs), and they do this because they are buying for capital gains. The real estate market is in trouble right now because the general market doesn’t want to touch it because they come in late when they think that prices are going up.

A professional investor is in the market when the prices are going down. It makes cash flow more realistic. Your cash flow is dependent on the price that you buy it. So right now is a great time to be in stocks, specifically silver, because I think it is under priced. I also think real estate is fantastic right now because it is going to keep going down.

This is really the time to get rich and I am very serious about that. I am buying stocks, while people are saying, but the prices have dropped. I say yeah, but the dividend is the same. I’ll pay an 8 to 10 percent dividend because when the stocks drop, technically the dividend goes up. It is just fundamentals of investing. The lower it goes, the more I buy of it.

EJ: Where does the typical person go wrong when it comes to making money?

Robert: If you look at it, schools tell you that you should go to school, get a job, work hard, then get a higher paycheck. The problem with that is the higher your paycheck the more tax you pay. In my business I pay less tax the more money I make, so why would I want a high paying job.

EJ: What can parents do to teach their children about proper money management?

Kim: Robert and I do not have children by choice. I have a big kid named Robert (laughs). I don’t know why we don’t teach kids about money in school, that just floors me. I do talk to a lot of parents and what is fun is as the parents are learning, they include their kids in the process. For example, when I mentioned the silver dollars, my girlfriend decided to go to the bank with her kids and open savings accounts.

After two months she realized the amounts they were putting in were going down because the bank fees were greater that the interest they were earning. So she went in and closed down the accounts and bought lots of silver coins. Every night before they go to bed they go online and look at where the price of silver is and they have discussions about it, so they are learning about silver and gold commodities.

I have another friend who likes properties and goes around on the weekends with their kids and play a game where they look at houses and fliers and decide how much they think each house is worth. Then they get their ice cream cone at the end of the day. I think that kids are really fascinated by money and they want to learn, but it is up to the parents to be the teachers.

EJ: How can adults become better educated about investing their money?

Robert: There are three types of people. One is the person who does nothing, which is masses of Americans. They have nothing. I have friends who have zero set aside for retirement. I think they think Barack or McKeen is going to take care of them and I doubt that. This is approximately 60 percent of the population who think that the government is going to take care of them. The second person, who encompass 30 percent of the population, turn their money over to mutual funds or money managers. That is not what I do either because you don’t learn anything.

The third group (the last 10 percent) are proactive and very entrepreneurial. They are their own investor. What all of these financial planners tell you to do is when you turn 25 with your first job, is to start turning your money over to them. That may be a great strategy for somebody who really doesn’t want to know anything about money, but I want top make my own decisions. I play the tax laws, I have accountants, attorneys, and the best real estate, business, and stock brokers. I am a professional investor.

The good news is that it doesn’t take long to become an investor on your own, maybe a couple years and you’ll be in the swing of it. This is a good time to get started right now in a bad economy. All the amateurs are gone today. The amateurs are finished, they are all wiped out. The big mutual funds are still in business, but I don’t play that game either.

When a mutual fund moves money, they can’t move it because they effect the market. Where if it was me and I move my money, nobody even notices. I might trade mine away over to Buffet, the Berkshire Hathaway Fund (laughs). But Buffet, he can’t move money. He has to be so secretive about his moves. I am just the little guy around the place and I like my little guy position because I’ve got deals that are just really nice, controllable, and manageable.

EJ: What are the top three things every person should do to achieve financial freedom?

Robert: I think they have to decide who is responsible for them. One is the government, which is who Mom and Dad thought was going to take care of them. Two, is to turn your money over to professional management, and three is to turn professional. Bogle says the mutual fund guy puts of 100 percent of the capital, takes 100 percent of the risk, but only gets 20 percent of the return. There is a problem there. I am not against mutual funds, but I’d rather make the 80 percent.

EJ: How can you minimize the risk of investment?

Robert: I always quote Buffet on that one. He says that risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing. He also says that Wall Street in the only place that people drive to in their Rolls Royce, so don’t take advice from people who take the subway. Diversification is for people who do not know what they are doing. If you turn pro, you cannot follow the rules of amateurs. Everything is risky to someone who does not know what they are doing. The other thing I have found is that while people say the higher your return the higher your risk. That is absolutely not true. It is the higher your return the lower the risk (laughs).

EJ: With the dwindling power of the dollar, where would you tell a friend or family member to invest their money?

Robert: When Kim and I had no money, we had a big piggy bank that we saved our US coins in it. When the piggy bank was full we would go and buy gold and silver coins. Today we have a ton of gold and silver coins. In 1971 when Nixon took us off the gold standard, cash became trash. That is why I don’t hold the US dollar. The reason I knew not to hold it, is that I am a history buff. Ever since the days of the Romans, Greeks, German’s, French, English, Japaneses, and Chinese, every time the government has debased money, in other words turned money into funny money, financial volatility has always come into the marketplace. This has happened throughout history and it is happening today. Oil is not going up, the dollar is going down. The US government says that there is no inflation because they pull out energy and food, so they lie to us.

Kim: I am very passionate about educating women about investing. Men or Women, number one we love silver because it is used in so many things, like cell phones, computers, microwaves, light bulbs, it is used in everything. With China, India, and all the developing countries coming up there is going to be a huge demand for silver. I think that is a very good investment for today as the dollar goes down. What I tell people is that if they are going to be saving money in a bank, you are going to be losing money most every day, so instead go out and buy one ounce silver coins. Especially if you are just starting in investing. For a very little amount of money you can gain this commodity that will be a great way to get educated by putting some of your own money on the line. You can go online and watch the price of silver climb up, down, read what is causing the difference, and just because you put a little money down, your education goes up.

My second favorite investment will probably always be real estate. I like now with the sub prime and prices coming down, now is really the time to start looking. I think prices are going to keep coming down for several years. I think it is a good time to start learning about real estate, or if you know about it, to start looking for those deals. As Robert said, we are all about cash flow, so when the market comes down and the pricing doesn’t effect us we are all about risk. I look at income producing properties that will give me positive cash flow every month. With the prices coming down, that is more and more doable than say two years ago when the prices were so high.

EJ: What economic indicators do you use to decide on buying real estate?

Kim: Something that is interesting that is happening with the sub prime is so many speculators bought these homes expecting the price to go up and were going to flip these homes. Well, that didn’t happen because the prices came down, so a lot of people are sitting on these homes that they cannot sell. They owe more than the house is worth.

Two things are happening. One, people are moving out of their houses because they are being foreclosed on. Two, they are walking away from their home and moving to rental properties. We are doing very well in the apartment industry because of this. There has been a quick twist to this story, which is all of these properties that people cannot sell, they are now renting out very inexpensively.

An indicator of success in terms of rental properties is where jobs are located. Where are people moving to find them and how much more can you build within those cities? For example, we like Portland Oregon because it has what we call a girdle, which means they can only build so much more.

EJ: What is your advice on the best way to go about paying down debt right now?

Robert: When somebody says get out of debt, I say that there is good debt and bad debt. I don’t have any bad debt. My cars are paid off, my house is almost paid off, so most all my debt goes into income producing real estate.

Kim: Robert and I at one point were overwhelmed in debt. Part of it was because we had begun to build a business and it took a lot longer than we thought, so we had a lot of credit card debt, so I understand people who are struggling right now. What the traditional financial advisors tell you about getting out of debt is not what we did. Example, they say to pay off the credit card with the highest interest. That is not what we did. Instead, the very first debt we paid off was the one that we could payoff the quickest. The reason was, that we wanted some success.

The other thing they tell you is to pay a little bit more on all of your credit cards. It never got me anywhere. We select one debt and focus on getting rid of it while paying the minimum on everything else. Once we get rid of that one debt, then we move onto the next one. There is one important rule I would add to these. If you have a lot f credit card debt, anything that you put on your credit card on the current month, you pay off by the end of the month. If you accumulate more debt that will kill you. If you are in a lot of debt, chances are you have some bad financial habits. In many cases they key is to get your personal habits in line and under control.

One last thing that we did when we had a lot more money going out than coming in, we hired a bookkeeper. People would ask why we hired a bookkeeper even though we didn’t have any money. The reason we did it is because I had to sit down with this bookkeeper twice a month and stare at those numbers and face the truth of how much we had coming in and how much we had going out. The people who are willing to tell themselves the truth of where they are financially, it is so easy to lie to yourself, can then figure out the plan of how to get out of the debt and decide where they want to go.

EJ: Would you recommend paying off your mortgage more quickly or using extra money for investing during the current market?

Kim: It depends on how much financial education you have. For us personally, we have a mortgage, our strategy is not to pay off our mortgage quickly. We want to use that money and leverage it in investments. You can make more money that way. Somebody that is not educated or does not want to get financially educated, their best strategy may be to pay off their house. They may sleep better at night. The mortgage on our house costs us money every month, that’s bad debt. Credit cards, bad debt. School loans, bad debt. Car loan, bad debt. But mortgages on our rental properties that every month make us money, that’s good debt. We like debt, but it has to be good debt!

Before you turn to the next page, think about what you are currently doing to take advantage of the great opportunities around you. If that thought makes you uneasy, chances are you aren’t doing enough and it is time to ask yourself this question. If the Kiyosaki’s are right and the middle class is heading to extinction. Do you want to be on top of the food chain when this economic downturn spins around, or in the ant hills with the rest of the amateur investors?

(Originally Featured in Growing Wealth Magazine)

What do you get when you cross the likes of the band Nirvana, Weezer, Foo Fighters, and Korn with North American music fans? The band members of Biffy Clyro are hoping it is world dominating success, and with the release of their 4th album, Puzzle, nominated best album of the year, it is looking like that may indeed by the case. From a band who calls themselves “the best band in the world”, it should come as no surprise that they were once a impoverished Scottish garage band by the name of Screwfish. This was back in the mid 90′s when singer Simon Neil and the Johnson twins, Ben and James, hung their kilt to dry in two of the roughest towns in Scotland, Ayr and Kilmarnock. Just last year a young man was killed around their old neighborhood with a screwdriver for refusing to let a few blocs take a swig from his partially filled wine bottle.

No, the members of Biffy Clyro have certainly had no overnight success and they couldn’t be happier about it. They credit much of their style and one-of-a-kind sound to all those fast food burgers and cheap hotels they had to run through to get where they are today. To give you an idea of their story so far, the trio met in high school back in 1995 and did not release their first single until 1999, which was called, “Iname”. The band grew in popularity in the U.K. for the next three years and finally released their debut album, Blackened Sky, to be followed up with The Vertigo of Bliss in 2003 and Infinity Land in 2004. Due to a legal struggle with their original label, the band was put on a leave of absence for a long stint while trying complete their signing with 14th Floor Records (home to David Gray). After completing their signing in 2006, it wasn’t until the spring of 2007 that they completed their fourth album, Puzzle, that has since leaped to the top of the U.K. Charts.

We were able to speak with Simon as he settled back home to prepare for his wedding plans this 2008. He was anxious to be coming off a European tour and ready to set to work on the next album:

Eric J: What are you going to be up to for the next few months now that your tour is over?

Simon N: “We are off tour properly for the first time since March, so it takes a while to get back into the swing of real life. We have an amazing time on tour but nothing beats the feeling of being home for a couple of weeks. I only ever write songs at home so that’s my favorite thing to do. it’s my favorite part of making a record.”

EJ: Tell us what you were like growing up, Simon?

Simon: “I was a normal, shy kid. My life changed when i discovered music as it became the only thing I was interested in. When I was about 11 years old, a mate and I dressed up head to toe in G’N'R (Guns and Roses) gear to watch one of their gigs on TV because we were too young to go and see them, but worshiped everything they did. In fact, I think I’m the only person on earth still excited about Chinese Democracy (their newest album).”

EJ: What are a few of your favorite tattoo’s?

Simon: “I always get tattooed by Kevin Younger in Glasgow. I really trust him. My favorite tattoos are my Christ of Saint George on the Cross by Dali and my two headed baby. I love weird and interesting tattoos. I only a few of my own that have deep meaning to me, but I’m going to keep them secret.”

EJ: Could you give us a sense as to what the two-headed baby and Christ of Saint George represent?

Simon: “I am not a religious person but religion fascinates me. I love the story of the bible and of Jesus in particular. I love the way Dali chose to create a new way of looking at Christ on the cross which to me highlights that religion is totally dependent on someone’s interpretation of the writings. The two headed baby is a grotesque image of an innocent soul. My fiance’s sister had identical twins just before I got the tattoo done and they were hugely premature, so they were on life support machines for 2 months. The tattoo felt like a good way to remember and be thankful that they are now healthy young girls.”

EJ: What does the flaming eight and heart on your left arm represent?

Simon: “The flaming eight is actually a sideways infinity sign. The heart and the infinity were on our artwork for our third album, Infinity Land. It’s from a surreal painting of a gas masked Mickey Mouse wearing a Nazi-esque outfit with two angels flanking him on either side. it was painted especially for the album by our friend Chris who studied my lyrics and song titles to come up with a series of pieces. I love it when people have to interpret my lyrics and create a visual form. It’s something I’m not very good at, but appreciate very much.”

EJ: I love the quote on your left hip, “Keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreaming it’s time to die.” What is the context of that saying?

Simon: “The lyrics on my hip are from a Blind Melon song called “Change”. It sums up a lot of things for me especially as I’m getting older. Being in a band can be hard work and it helps to remind me during hard times to remember my dreams and hopes. I’ve loved blind melon since I was about 13 years old and these lyrics by Shannon Hoon have always meant so much to me.”

EJ: Do you have any future plans for tattoo’s?

Simon: “I am having a Da Vinci self portrait done next week by Kevin. I’m getting it on my stomach, which’ll be nice and sore. I also love the Darren Aronofsky movie and comic book “The Fountain” which connected with me in a deep way, so I’m intending on getting some work from the comic book done to remind me how lucky I am to have a partner I’d die for.”

EJ: That’s beautiful; are there any thoughts as to what the art will look like?

Simon: “The main character in the fountain loses the love of his life, drinks from the tree of life, and spends the rest of time trying to be with his love. In the comic there are a series of 3 images of the man’s face as he finally dies and moves on to another world hopefully to be with the love of his life forever, and that’s the three drawings I’m going to get on my right arm.”

EJ: Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap this up?

Simon: “I can sum myself up by telling you my new years’ resolution; I’m going to stop being so polite to everyone all the time. Make of that what you will. Thank you kind sir.”

(Originally Featured in Walking Canvas Magazine)

Sheila Conlin has been involved with the creation of a lot of groundbreaking shows over her career:

• Nanny 911

• Marriage 911

• You Asked for It

• When Animals Attack

• Hell’s Kitchen

• Forever Eden

• Who Wants To Marry My Dad?

• Paradise Hotel

• Mr. Personality

And the list goes on…

Sheila has a brand new batch of shows in the bag for the coming season and we had the opportunity to speak with her about the upcoming lineup as well the scoop behind the successful phenomenon of ‘reality television’ in general:

How did you get started in the entertainment business?

Sheila: “I got started as a talent agent, I did music and talent.”

At what point did you begin working with reality television?

Sheila: “One of the first shows I did was Bachelorettes in Alaska. Its premise was to find women who were tired of the dating scene in their hometowns and wanted to go where there is more men than any other city… Alaska, and find the man of their dreams. Then we did Mr. Personality, Paradise Hotel, and the spin-off for that which was Forever Eden. A lot of these shows were created as we were casting. We may have had a concept or idea, but the rest of the elements never really played out until we started seeing what we had to work with.”

What has been your formula for the success of these shows?

Sheila: “Reality is a weird thing, it is not like doing a sitcom or drama. To me there is no formula. There’s an idea, concept and format.”

What is the basic format of reality television?

Sheila: “Elimination, prize and real people. Reality has to be real people doing the extraordinary—real people put in extraordinary situations. It’s taking them out of their element and framing them in another—and they will do this because everybody wants their five minutes. For example, the idea of Mr. Personality was to find a guy for his personality and not his looks. We had to know if we could find guys that aren’t good looking, but have a personality that could win women over. If we could find a girl that’s willing to date men wearing masks and then make a decision in the end that this was the one that she’d want to marry—pretty risky.”

What new shows are currently in the works?

Sheila: “My Fair Lady (working title) is a show by the Trump Organization for FOX. We are going to be taking several young ladies a little rough around the edges and send them to a ‘proper’ finishing school. We found the most outrageous wild and crazy (girls who curse, party, and embarrass their friends and family)—this does not even compare to the show, Charm School.”

“We are doing Paradise Hotel 2, which will air on FOX and MyNetwork simultaneously. We’ve got a whole new cast that is phenomenal. We’re also doing Hell’s Kitchen and working on a new game show for FOX called Nothing But The Truth (working title). The show will quiz contestants on personal questions using a lie detector. (We’re talking questions like, ”Do you like your mother-in-law, have you ever cheated on your spouse, etc.)”

Stay tuned, ‘reality’ is becoming more exciting than our own imagination… and it has only just begun!

The buzz on the street in Northern Colorado is that there are a few ‘New Kids on the Block’. Were not talking about the queer 90’s band either, as they would end up blind, burned and blistered by the heavy drive and lyrics of the band that has been born and exorcised as ARCANIUM since February of this year. Arcanium is not exactly new, they’ve been around the local music scene for awhile through different successful bands. They like to consider themselves jokingly “a Super band of shi**y local music.”

The band says that they have gone through their party days, each has a couple bands under their belts and now they are ready to get professional. So without further adieu, I introduce to you the members of the band. We have Suffercate reaping the guitar, Seth dropping the lows on bass, Thommy Razor holding his fists to the drum, The Mystress haunting the back riffs on keyboard and last but certainly not least, Myster Sinn summoning the dead on vocals.

All five members feed off of each other and there is not one member who stands out more than another. This isn’t “Seth and the Arcanauts” or “Thommy Razor and the Magical Whiskers”. It’s Arcanium, and each member represents an important element for their survival. Earth, air, wind, fire and Thommy Razor and his wood (I’m talking about the drum sticks; get your minds out of the gutter).

Arcanium is no mistake, they would be considered more like fate. They have been brewing the demise for all of Northern Colorado since they were in high school. Thommy Razor, Seth and Myster Sinn have known each other for 13 years. The Mystress and Suffercate are new, but blend right into the pack and have completed their circle and insured their fate to be the next top metal band to come out of Colorado. As Thommy put it, “In all my travels and listens, some of the worlds best metal is here… fu**ing A (and the “A” here doesn’t stand for Accident).”

Arcanium owes their current success to the buzz they have created through their website (www.arcanium.info) and the helpful hands of Rapid Fire Entertainment and Auto Fate. Just where does Arcanium see themselves in the next few years? “Going all the way,” the band members resound in perfect harmony. “We want it all,” and by “all” they are talking about a record deal, concert headline, radio airtime and a Shitzu named “Fufee”. Okay, I lied about the record deal… err, make that the doggy.

What kind of music does the band consider themselves—well, they aren’t acid rock, techno metal, thrash or easy listening… They are pure and simple M-e-t-a-l folks and there is really no other way to put it, at least without a stream of foul language and a few slugs to the kidneys. “We are the mysterious people that give you the mysterious knowledge,” says Arcanium. With accessible, driving lyrics and thrashing riffs combined with an occasional mellow ambush of soft spoken horror, no song by Arcanium sounds the same and they have promised to keep it that way.

On June 23^rd, the band slaughtered the audience at the Aggie Theater along with Cephalic Carnage, Auto Fate, Horse and Skinned. The few survivors of the show can expect to reemerge from hell only to find themselves seven floors lower into the depths at the Redfest 7 this August 11^th through the doors of The Duke (in Windsor). The line-up is going to be huge, it will have Mourned by Flies, Hellstrum, Gajebradu, Do Unto Others, Immortal Dominion, Adam’s Ruin, The Mandrake and of course Arcanium on tap for the entire evening.

It will be B.Y.O.C. at the Duke this coming August and if you don’t have your own coffin; too bad, we ain’t sharing! See ya there…

Best known for his guitar work with The Cult, Doheny, Camp Freddy and Circus Diablo, Billy Morrison is an artist, musician, singer and songwriter and has recently taken on the role of actor. Looking at Billy’s accomplishments, it would seem he grew up with a silver pick between his fingers, but he actually had to work up from the bottom of a beer keg filled with wild teenage abandon and drug addiction.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. As an only child in the UK, Billy learned early on watching the Sex Pistols, Clash, Ants and Heartbreakers, that life really could be as simple as sex, drugs and rock and roll. Unfortunately, the drugs would hold him down through the eighties and early part of the nineties. He joined the band Stimulator in ‘96 and found himself for the first time really caring about the success of a band.

It was Stimulator that first opened Billy’s eyes to the possibility of a record deal and a first album with Geffen Records. This first album would eventually be made, but unfortunately never saw the neon light under a new release rack. A massive music merger was going on at the time and the album got lost in all the shuffle. Billy has still not ruled out the release of this album at some point in the future.

Emerging from Stimulator clean, sober and goal oriented, Billy decided to grab the world by the tighty whities and show her what he could do. It was Billy’s mate, Billy Duff from The Cult, who first showed him her waist band and let him experience that all important first tug. In 2001, Billy Duff called Billy M, who was in the UK at the time and invited him out to LA to audition for the band. The next thing Billy knew, he was jamming on tour with The Cult and Aerosmith—life was good!

A year later, Billy put his own band together calling it Camp Freddy, which is named after his favorite character in the movie, The Italian Job. The band is made up of Dave Navarro (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction), Matt Sorum (Gun’s N’ Roses), Donovan Leitch, Chris Chaney (Jane’s Addiction) and Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver).

Originally put together for the purpose to have fun, Camp Freddy has actually enjoyed quite a few high profile shows over its six years. One of the bands favorite gigs has been the X-Games/ESPN party they’ve jammed the past three years in a row. Of course, with each of the band members having their own projects going on, it makes it tricky to culminate in one spot sometimes. Somehow, they always manage to do it however and not disappoint their fans.

Billy has also recently taken on the role of model and spokesperson for the True Love and False Idols clothing line. But the current project that has taken center stage in his life over the past two years is Circus Diablo. Circus Diablo consists of Billy Duffy (The Cult), Ricky Warwick (The Almighty), Brett Scallions (Fuel), Jeremy Colson and Matt Sorum.

When we caught up with Billy, he had just come back from the Ozzfest after having to leave early due to an outbreak of pregnancies the band has recently been blessed with. He was psyched about the couple shows they had done and was ready to get back on tour once Ricky and Brett got those babies settled in:

Eric J: How was Ozzfest, Billy?

Billy M: “It totally exceeded my expectations. Circus Diablo, which is the name of my band right now, is very much a different kind of rock band from most of the bands on the Ozzfest—traditional rock and roll stuff. We wondered how we were going to go down, but we were received by nothing but love and respect everywhere we went.”

EJ: With the finale of Ozzfest out of the question, what is next for Circus Diablo?

Billy: “I am currently in the middle of editing the video for the first single called “Loaded”, which is on the radio now. We are tweaking the edit and it should be out soon. We are releasing in Australia, Japan and Europe very shortly, so I am doing a bunch of press. A couple members of the band have wives that are heavily pregnant, so we are just waiting for the babies to arrive and then we can get back out on the road again.”

EJ: What is going on with your other band, Camp Freddy?

Billy: “We actually just played on Friday. This year is our sixth anniversary and it just keeps going from strength to strength. We played at the House of Blues for the X-Games party. We had Slash (Gun’s N’ Roses) there, Scott Ian from Anthrax, Robbie Krieger from The Doors, Vivian Campbell from Def Leppard. It was the usual star studded affair and we had a great time.”

EJ: The party was at the House of Blues?

Billy: “The House of ‘anything but’ Blues. That’s what it should be called.”

EJ: What else have you been up to outside of the music scene?

Billy: “I’ve become somewhat of an actor. I begin my third movie in September. I have done a couple of horror movies and a comedy so far. This one I start is more like a slasher film, I play a detective. I do that and then I go back out on the road with Circus Diablo. With the radio show with Dave Navarro, Circus Diablo, Camp Freddy, acting and a bunch of TV stuff, I’m fairly busy… which is just the way I like it.”

EJ: What are the names of the films?

Billy: “The name of the film I begin shooting in September is called Basement Jack. The film I wrapped earlier on this year was called Evilution, which is like a zombie film. The film I shot last year was called Tripping Forward, which is a comedy.”

EJ: Speaking of ‘Evilution’, tell us a bit about the evolution of your favorite tattoo.

Billy: “The tattoo on my stomach, it is the word ‘CORE’. Dave Navarro and myself both had the word core tattooed on each other because we are what we call core members of Camp Freddy, which means we were there in the beginning. Dave’s is on his neck and mine is on my lower stomach underneath my navel. We actually both tattooed each other. Mark Mahoney at Shamrock Social Club in L.A. tattooed both of us—(but) I tattooed a bit of Dave’s neck and he tattooed a bit of my stomach.”

“My whole back piece says, ‘SCARRED FOR LIFE’ in Japanese. I basically gave my back to a tattooist called Bugs in London and said, ‘I don’t care what you do, just do something cool.’ About 28 hours and weeks later I had my back piece. In fact, most of my tattoos have been done like that—both of my forearms included.”

EJ: That’s taking a bit of a chance, don’t you think?

Billy: “Yeah, well when you’re using tattooists like Mark Mahoney and Alex Benny from London, then you’re not going wrong!”

It must be nice to walk into one of the top celebrity tattooists of the world, take off your shirt and tell them to ‘do something cool’. Britney Spears might even someday follow such advice, but with her reputation in Hollywood, a tattoo is probably not what she’d receive! Baddum bum-bum…

www.billymorrison.net

www.campfreddy.net

www.circusdiablo.com

(Originally Featured in Walking Canvas Magazine)

Pierre and Yvonne have been friends, dance partners and business partners for over thirty years. Each comes from very different backgrounds, Pierre, a proud, born and raised Middle Eastern refugee from Palestine; Yvonne, a simple Chicago girl with the childhood dreams to become a professional dancer. When they connected in the world of dance, they created an expression of beauty and weightless perfection that has rarely been seen.

Pierre became a refugee in 1948 and again in 1956 when his family fled to England to escape raging war. They returned to Jordan because his father was unable to find work, but were forced to leave again when the Suez Canal Crisis erupted. It was on this England return that Pierre first began to take ballroom class, but was also the point where his father passed away. Regretfully to Pierre, he would never see the great success that Pierre has had over his long career of dancing.

Yvonne comes from the classic structure and tradition of ballet. She decided to move to New York to begin her career and ended up being offered a job at Arthur Murray Dance Studios. Yvonne’s birth given last name was Mason and due to the fact of another Mason on board the faculty, they encouraged her to change her last name. Having already the beginnings of a French name, Yvonne decided to keep the same initials but have Marceau become her last name. After she met Pierre, the name had stuck and she decided to keep it as a professional name.

Pierre and Yvonne first met in the mid seventies. Pierre was a supervisor at the same Arthur Murray studio as Yvonne. He eventually approached her with the possibility to train with him and the legendary John Delroy in England and she gladly accepted. They competed in regular competition for Ballroom and “Did okay,” says Yvonne. “But it was really evident that we were not going to have the time to pay enough dues to ever be Latin champions.” At this level, most dancers have to start out as children and advance through the ranks over many years. While Pierre had been in competitions for many years, Yvonne was still very new to this.

Their partnership eventually came to the decision that they would have to take a different route to advance their dancing possibilities and went back to New York to train with John Rudis on the theatrical style of ballroom dance. John put together a routine for Pierre and Yvonne and they returned to England at the British Championship at Blackpool, considered by many to be the most prestigious dance competition for ballroom dancers. They ended up walking away with the championship for the Theater Arts category (they won four times over the course of their career). Within a couple hours after their performance, they had collected enough offers to work the rest of the year nonstop.

Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau eventually founded their company, The American Ballroom Theater, in 1984. In 1989-1990, they received the prestigious Fred Astaire Award for Best Dancing on Broadway with their roles as a couple in Tommy Tune’s “Grand Hotel”.

In 1994, they incorporated classrooms and teachers into their American Ballroom Theater and began to teach children the art of ballroom dance, called “Dancing Classrooms”. The story of the introduction of this program into the New York school systems is featured in the movie “Take the Lead”, starring Antonio Banderas. The program is used to teach children of all ages, self esteem, confidence and an awareness of the arts and themselves.

Teachers of this program are taught extensively on the art of ballroom dance with a 60 hour course that begins the end of October with weekday classes for approximately six weeks. They have auditions for acceptance to the program; however they do not require extensive ballroom experience to participate. All that is needed is a passion for children, passion for creative and verbal expression, flexibility in schedule and a good sense of humor. Pierre has recently franchised the children’s program and you will soon find classrooms popping up all over the world within the next two years.

Vanessa Villalobos has been with Pierre and Yvonne for the past few years, first as a teacher and now as the studios manager. She told us that over the past year the studio has just been “buzzing” with young people and working professionals. “Being involved with Pierre & Yvonne,” says Vanessa. “I can say I have learned a lot by watching this wonderful duo live out their passions and be able to bring the positive into other people’s lives through their work.” Vanessa has recently taken these lessons and opened her own dance program she calls, Balorico.

We had the opportunity to speak with both Yvonne and Pierre about their career, partnership, children’s program and magnificent life of dance:

Eric Leech: Pierre, what aspects of your Palestinian background come out in the way that you dance?

Pierre Dulaine: “I have never thought of such a thing. Yes, I do speak Arabic and enjoy doing so very much. I was born in 1944 and left Palestine at 4 years old in 1948 upon the creation of Israel. I was then brought up in Amman, Jordan and for my teenage years I grew up in England….first in Windsor and then in Birmingham. At 19 I moved to live in London.”

E.L.: What is your most proud and humble experience over your dancing career that most people would never know?

Pierre D: “Having been made a refugee twice in my life…..I have been speaking about it somewhat lately, but most people do not know this. I say it nowadays because other people can actually make it and should not let troublesome situations stop them from trying harder and make their dreams come true.”

EL: Yvonne, we all know that even the most compatible teams have moments of great disagreement. Did you ever have any conflicts that almost broke your partnership with Pierre?

Yvonne Marceau: “I can’t remember that there was ever a time that we considered not dancing together. Certainly, there were differences in how do we do this step, ‘I think it should be like this and he thinks it should be like that’. I think what saved us was that we were certainly good friends but we were also a business partnership—we weren’t married. What ever happened in the dance studio you did and you went home and came back the next day and felt better. We also had a coach or third party to say this is what it should be and we both came from traditions that respected that. Dancing is a very personal thing and there is a lot invested in it. People get very anxious about how to do things.”

EL: You have given so much to society in so many different ways, is their a personal account you could share with us of a moment where you were able to see this unfold for yourself?

Pierre D: “One reaches a certain stage/age in one’s life that one feels a need to give back to society. I could only dance and so this is the route I took. I honestly did not know and or realize that volunteering myself to teach children ballroom dancing would have such an incredible effect at the beginning. I did not have a ‘business’ plan or any such thing. I just did what I knew to do well. I have always loved children and wanted them to have a better future by sharing the ‘civility’ I was lucky enough to have had while I was growing in the various countries until my teenage years.

Yvonne M: “We hear stories about this all the time, but the story that comes to my mind—is a Manhattan based school here and Pierre was teaching and there was a little boy who has kind of Einstein hair, it kind of stuck up all over the place. He was a very smart kid. He was in this dance class and at one point he said to Pierre, ‘I know as an adult I’m going to be by myself because I hate doing this’. Pierre said to him, ‘I hear what you say and I understand what you are telling me, but what I see your body say is something different’. The kids eyes just got wide as saucers, because what we’d seen past the senses to what was really going on in this child and that changed completely. He knew that we knew what he was really about and that it wasn’t particularly helpful for him to have all these defenses and he turned out to be the star kid of the class.”

EL: What parts of the film ”Take the Lead” do you feel you had the greatest influence on its audience?  Is there anything about it that you wish you could change?

Pierre D: “The message it had overall. The film is not ’based’ but rather ‘inspired’ by my life. I do not ride a bicycle to work, the children we teach are 5th graders and not 12th graders; also our program is part of the school day and not an after-school program. There is nothing I would change in it at all. I am thankful for the message it had as it has been a god-send to my dance studio actually having more people sign up for lessons and especially the younger generation.”

EL: Who were your greatest influences as a dancer Yvonne?

Yvonne M: “We went to see ballet companies when I was a child. I certainly can remember seeing Marge and Gower Champion on television (an immensely popular husband-and-wife dance team in the 50’s). All those Fred Astaire movies and things like that, it all kind of gets mixed up in your brain. When Pierre and I started dancing together, I was certainly influenced by the work of his teacher, a man named John Delroy. He was the first person that I can remember see do ballroom dancing that I thought was very beautiful. Being a ballet person, ballroom was a very different form and seemed at that time very mannered and I did not understand it from the inside out. Watching Delroy dance helped me in a way that I understood. Also our teacher John Rudis; he had a film of some kind of movement in his head that was very 30’s, but very, very beautiful.”

EL: For our readers who would like to start dancing, how would you recommend they start?

Yvonne M: “Do it, you know the old Nike thing. There are gyms; your local health club offers some kind of dance class. There are all different kinds of ways and all different kinds of schools and classes. Just go, try it once. Once you get yourself in the door, so to speak, there’s a whole world that people are happy to guide you. There is no way to start, but to begin, that’s true with anything. Everybody is a beginner once. Everybody starts at the same place, not knowing a whole lot, so one should never feel self conscience about that. So, if you can walk and if you like music… it’s fun!”

EL: Dance, as they say, is a journey of preparation, exertion and accomplishment, no matter if you win or lose. So many kids are focused on winning, how do you instill the lesson that it is the journey that truly matters?

Yvonne M: “They are curious, so I think the trick is to engage them. If you’re interest is in engaging them and helping them discover what they can do, that’s kind of where the journey starts. The byproducts of all this ballroom dancing stuff happens to them if they like it or not and can engage them to do it. What makes this truly unique in terms of all other dance forms in that you do it in someone else’s arms. Because you are in this embrace it brings out good things in people. You’re tapping into something where people want to be good to each other and it just blossoms from there. It is happening at a very deep unconscious level, they are unaware that this is what they are doing. You know, they’re not trying to step on each other (laughs).”

EL: Do you have any projects coming up in the future that you could tell our readers about?

Yvonne M: “Our immediately focus, besides the next school year you mean? We are looking at 200 and some schools this next year. I think we’ll teach close to a thousand courses, so certainly 25,000 children. The other project that’s happening is that this program is developing nationally, so we’re trying to get all that to take place. Pierre contends, rightfully so that this whole movement of children dancing is not only an American phenomenon, but a worldwide phenomenon. He was in Tokyo a few weeks ago and in England last week and it seems to be taking root there—we have had interest from Australia. People want a good world fundamentally and so you try to create one. I think that most people feel that dancing together is a good thing, it is a place where there is not a lot of contention.”

EL: Pierre, I have read an interview where you mentioned you would like to retire from these projects someday. What do you see yourself doing, if you ever do make that decision?

Pierre D: “Yes, I have said this, but I honestly do not know when. So much is happening, this ballroom dance phenomenon is now world wide. With so many countries having problems with their youth and education, so many people want dancing classrooms all over the USA, but also around the world. We are already in so many cities and growing rapidly and now in the next two years globally as well. Retire… when… please tell me. I am so blessed and so lucky in my life looking back at where I came from and the difficult life my parents had keeping us out of the war zones. Yes, I am truly blessed.”

And so are we Pierre to have you and Yvonne in our lives, creating beauty in both the human spirit and eye.

Live… dance… and be good to each other