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Podcast

Explain your book, Flight of the Rondoni, or maybe before that, just explain a little bit about who you are and what your background is.

Okay, I'm originally from the South Side Chicago.

I grew up in Italian enclave, basically, you know,

5,000 miles away from Italy. We have 13 brothers and sisters, basically with half-brothers,

stepbrothers, et cetera, but for me they were always all my brothers and sisters. Lived the American

dream. First, I was in sisters. I lived the American dream.

First, I was in trouble.

Judge Clarence Bryant sent me to the military when I was 16.

I couldn't go into any military but the Air Force because they were the only ones who had what was called the late enlistment program.

So my mother signed and I went into the Air Force when I turned 17.

I got out when I was like 19 because my mother needed help at home, so I got a hardship discharge,

which is an honorable discharge. And I started working on the docks in Chicago. A friend of mine

needed someone to take a job as a runner at the Chicago Board

Options Exchange, and it ended up being me.

A couple years later, I was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey show as a rags to riches story.

Later, I was a guest on her show again as a famous American Chauvinist.

I was in Playgirl magazine with

Sylvester Stallone and Magic Johnson as one of America's most delirable bachelors in 89, I believe it was.

And I got married. My oldest son was diagnosed with a very rare blood disease in 92, October, and I

dropped everything and threw my life into trying to cure sickle cell disease and thalassemia,

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