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MY MISSION
& HOW I GOT HERE
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My deeper, personal mission here is to make super-affordable, long-term, far-reaching advertising campaigns that any local small business can easily afford and then showcase them to a large regional & worldwide audience through our TV shows, web and retail distribution. And just like any startup/small business, it took me over 20 long years of incredibly hard work, endless obstacles, false starts & failures, 5 other TV shows & companies in New York, Massachusetts and California to even begin to get it right. But through constant learning and personal, professional development and the utter determination, focus and perseverance, I saw it through to ultimately, create the media company, shows & multi-platform distribution channels you see today. It took more twists and turns than I can count to get here and literally almost killed me a few times. And anyone who knows me, knows just how true that statement is.
The contributions from the thousands of small, local, Main Street USA Mom & Pop businesses, have not only helped me develop my company over the last 20 years, but also, helped promote their specific small businesses as well as their specific towns and or industries and bring them all to a large regional, national and international audience. You see, I come from a long-time, 32 year, family restaurant that could have greatly benefited from affordable, far-reaching advertising. And when I started this company, in what feels like a thousand years ago, my mission was the exact same then as it is now. And that is, and always will be, to make sure that any locally owned and operated, small business could afford to advertise on any of my shows, websites and all of their accompanying, peripheral media. Whatever that may be over the years. My company simply couldn’t exist with the support, kindness and patience that I have received from small local businesses and I simply cannot thank them enough for helping me fight the good fight here, everyday. We are truly, in this together. Now, more than ever! As far as the company, shows, creative, production and business day-to-day around here is concerned, well, for now and for the last few decades, 90% of what you'll see, read & hear here was created and produced myself. The additional 10% was contributed to by a few teachers, seamstresses and a couple other puppeteers for Moon Valley Manor and Roc 'N B & Friends respectively. Yes, yes, of course, the plan was and is to open this up to others. But now is not that time. Hey, I’m not getting any younger here and this was intended from the start to be handed off to others and let them take the reigns when things became profitable enough to do so. |
And no, none of this means I’m an off-balance, Jobsian control-freak. I just simply have a very specific vision and work incredibly hard to make that vision come to reality. And that is that. Most days, I work all day until I pass out. It is literally all I do and all I have done for decades. It’s my entire life.
I, like so many others in this field have a distinctive vision and feel like I have a very limited time on this Earth to see all of this through and purge myself of what I am driven to create. I offer no apologies and have earned every stripe and deep scar that has come from living such a deeply purpose-driven life. So, how did I get here? Well, in short, I stated playing guitar at the age of 7, obsessively dedicating myself to the instrument and by the age of12, I began performing locally and composing my own music. By the time I graduated High School, I had learned a few other instruments, built a full, professionally appointed recording studio and a record company to boot. Jump ahead a few more years and I became equally obsessed by all things graphic design and worked hard to developed those skills which naturally led right into cinematography, editing and all things film related and music videos. This organically led me into expanding my record company and recording studio out of the dire and depressive confines of WNY over to New England for four years to ultimately end up in California for a bit of a level-up-career jump into my ultimate life adventure creating and producing television shows. As far as the writing and sketching (I’m not an great artist by any stretch, but really a frustrated cartoonist), these two things have always come very natural to me. I sometimes think that I growing up in the aforementioned regionally famous family restaurant with an unrelentingly thankless workload, surrounded by the constant chaos of such a busy establishment embedded in me the stubbornly-hard-nature of someone would be just foolish enough to choose to try do this for a living. But, over the decades, I found that the similarities to the business I grew up in and this one are more similar than they would ever appear on the surface. From a creative standpoint, they both feed your heart and soul, and from a customer-centric, straight-up-business perspective, they are both deeply-rooted people story businesses and they will both always be. No matter how far technically forward we may become. In the end, I guess you could say… I was born for this. ~AA |
