Isn’t there something magnificently egocentric in writing about yourself? Well…if you’re gonna go there, you might as well do it right says I, so buckle in. I’m a bit of a self-proclaimed lunatic, though I’m sure there is corroborative evidence in plenty. Born in Iran to Sue and Nury, we fled during the revolution whilst I was but a young sapling because of religious persecution against the Baha’is; persecution that continues till this day. My seven-month-pregnant-mother’s obstetrician called my dad up and said that he had just rescued a patient from the wrath of an angry mob. “Get out now or you’ll lose your child and possibly your wife.” Oh the marvels of fanaticism in the human mind.

I spent my first decade or so in Quito, Ecuador as my formerly wealthy family eked out an existence in teaching English classes, finally starting a computer company that ended up turning into the exclusive national distributor of Epson. For my father…pain and suffering dealing with threating immigration types and Mafiosos trying to launder money through his rapidly growing business. For me…it was all good…all the time. Grandpa had a stroke in the early part of the 90’s and we left everything again and headed this time to Santa Fe, New Mexico…cool place now…not so cool when you’re 13.

Boarding school on Vancouver Island was next for me at the not-so-tender age of 15 as my insatiable desire to spread my wings found an opportunity to do so in the reluctant acquiescence of my parents. Go figure…I would’ve met Mr. Joshua McKenty, fellow manic-lunatic-in-residence at Bounty UP HQ, at Maxwell International Baha’i School on the shores of Shawnigan Lake. Not as romantic as it may seem given the fact that we were messy post-pubescent adolescent geeks and…well…we were both into girls.

I went back to New Mexico for a few different reasons, first and foremost the world-famous flamenco dance program under Eva Encinias. A beautiful dancer and a truly passionate soul that one. Unfortunately the removal of a tumor in the head of my right fibula hit my balance enough so as to put a strong end to my career as a professional flamenco dancer, so I finished a degree in economics instead and headed to medical school.

First year of medical school held a highly noble and philanthropic yet slightly illegal plan of implementing a tuberculosis surveillance program across northern Mexico using just over $120,000 in donated microscopes, temporarily hijacking the transportation and human resource infrastructure of the WHO, and borrowing a 1969 Cessna 210 owned by a leather-wearing Harley-riding Catholic priest, Father Bob, that we used to innocently smuggle in tuberculosis drugs for a seriously under-treated, drought-plagued, alcohol-intoxicated Tarahumara population….right….between you and me that last one…and my two amigos with whom I have some stories to tell from 12,000 ft. as we were learning to land single engine prop planes in seriously sketchy Mexican dirt runways (not to mention that Halloween when our “Fallopian swim team” made the six o’clock).

Second year of graduate school highlighted for me the collaborative creation of Amity Records with my father, pushing as our primary artist my ridiculously talented Persian violinist of an uncle, Farzad. A lot of hard work, late nights and the management of a slew of publicists, radio promoters, distributors and retail promoters led to the famed “night of.” The night before the flagship New Age music chart would come out, they would call the record labels with the news of who topped the charts such that our publicists would have time to prepare press releases. This particular night found yours truly in the throws of an insane call schedule on the OB ward getting ready to gown, glove and facilitate the miracle of birth from the vantage point of a front row seat looking into the inferior jowls of beast…medically speaking. Until my phone rang. Now…if it had been ANY OTHER NIGHT, I would have fulfilled my duties as a doctor in training and stood by my dear, sweet, psychotically screaming patient till the last bitter shudder of my unfortunate ear drum…however, I knew without the shadow of a doubt that they were calling me from the Charts. I had a Devil’s Advocate moment and my life played out two distinct and completely incompatible scenarios. Do I fulfill my duty and pretend I didn’t feel the relentlessly vibrating phone in my pocket and continue to smile at the single-minded tyrant of a Gynecology Resident over my shoulder and be a doctor when I grow up…or do I answer the phone and play out the only natural conclusion involving copious hedonism, international fame, unimaginable fortune, and living with the terrible burden of being surrounded in an endless ocean of stunning women…I took the call. You should have seen the appalled look on their faces as I said, “I’m sorry…I’m going to have to take this call.” You think I could’ve come up with a better line than that…what was I thinking?! The other end told me that we debuted at number 2 on the charts and I swear I screamed louder than my patient that night. The 8 pound 4 ounce boy was unfortunately not named after me, although I did suggest it to the less-than-amused mother (cheeky bastard would have been an appropriate use of the term), and was born healthily and miraculously without any complications, and delivered…by me! (well sort of…she did the pushing)

So I graduated from medical school and went on to work on a residential/commercial condo development project in beautiful Victoria. I had the fortune of acting as the developer, the general contractor, the project manager, and the site supervisor…ya, never again. Though it was during this time that about 9 years after the shores of Shawnigan Lake I ran into Josh in a Chinese restaurant downtown and asked him what he was doing. “I’ve been building the most sophisticated piece of spyware known to man.” To which I naturally gave the only witty comeback I could…”huh?” “I just finished building Netscape 8.0!” It was love at second sight and after I met his wife Davi and their beautiful Annabelle I knew we’d be working together sooner rather than later. Then we started hanging out and I realized the guy is business savvy and a flippin computer genius and I realized it would be nower rather than sooner.

After the condo project, Kristian Harper and I were working on launching a festival tour called The Two Fest and in an attempt to find some solutions at struggling with a rapidly changing music industry, we felt that the only natural adjunct was an online social community that we were working on with a crack team of online social community godlings. Josh had previously told me of the general premise of Bounty Up and I said…wait a minute…what if…and the rest is really future history. We brought this company under the umbrella of a business model I’ve been developing in collaboration with a couple other beautiful creatures that involves salary caps, a decapitation of traditional ownership, and an attempt to use the corporate entities within our conglomerate to fund the building of those pillars of society that we believe will actually help in bringing about a “race” of unified lovers of truth striving unceasingly to bring about the oneness of humanity. Now its about to get really warm, fuzzy, and seriously west coast so instead of curling up in the fetal position and sucking my thumb I’ll make an awkward transition to an irrelevant paragraph that I can conclude with.

So where do I get my business acumen, you may ask? Decades of negotiating with my father, the ruthless tycoon, the serial entrepreneur, for the likes of skateboard decals and extra minutes on my Equity 2+ to finally beat the last scene of King’s Quest I.

If you have thoughts on the site I wanna hear them, so hit me up. Please and thank you.

Todd