Re: AZNT - The now legendary Amazonian Concert transcript
Q. Okay, there’s no question pending, though. We probably just should --let’s go to document number 1833.
A. Oh, this stuff is great.
Q. Actually back up one more, 1832, I apologize. That’s a press release dated April 23rd, 1998.
A. Correct, it’s about our Web site.
Q. Did you draft this press release?
A. Yes. It’s about what we’re doing with our Web site.
Q. Eight paragraph down under the heading screen savers, the last sentence on the eighth paragraph states;
“The company anticipates the Web site to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually.”
What was the basis for that statement?
A. The Amazon concert.
Q. Concert?
A. Concert.
Q. I guess you’re going to have to explain that.
A. Okay.
Q. Briefly, please.
A You go to our Web site, you see -- you see Earthrise I, Earthrise II, Mike Pinera tapes, did you see the CD’s, okay. This is a benefit concert to save the rain forest.
Q. So when you’re talking about generating millions of dollars in revenue annually, you’re talking about a musical concert, not about the sale of products?
A. Well, it’s all part of that, okay. We are putting together -- as a matter of fact Mike Pinera will be in our office on Thursday, this Thursday because he’s also -- remember the song In a Godda Da Vida?
BY MR. MACPHAIL:
Q. I actually do and I have that record buried somewhere in my attic so I can at least say that I do know the song.
A. Okay, okay, well, that’s Mike Pinera. He wrote it and he sang it with Iron Butterfly. He’s helping us with this --he’s part of the program. He’s in I believe it’s broadcast.com King World and Gold Star and Mike Pinera, that’s one part and Amazon Natural Treasures. We’ve been trying to put this concert together now for two years or more than two years. It is a concert going to be right in the middle of the jungle, right on the Rio Negro River on a barge.
It’s going to have all the artists plus the artists that are on those CD’s plus it’s going to have the artists that were at Ittchicoo Park that Mike just performed at, about 50 artists. The concert is going to run from 7:00 o’clock on Friday until Saturday at midnight. It’s a telethon.
BY MS. MONRO:
Q. All right, let me interrupt you right there because I think we’re getting far afield, because the paragraph that I’m reading states that;
“Amazon Natural Treasures plans to harness the expansive growth and interest of the Internet5 worldwide and plans to use its Web site as a major revenue producer for the sale of the company’s products.”
So to me this paragraph refers to selling the company’s products on the Web site.
A. I’m getting there.
BY MR. MACPHAIL:
Q. Okay, what’s the concert have to do with the Web site and the company?
A. Okay, after the concert is done, people are going to go to the Web site. They’re going to go to the Web site for two reasons, well, right now for one reason. You’re going to have Sting or Elton John or whoever Mike Pinera brings that’s going to be in the concert, the telethon and he’s going to say or Mike Pinera, or whoever is performing at that time go to AmazonNaturalTreasures.com or PlanetATree.com with a link:
“Do your part to help save the Rain Forest, help save the lungs of the planet by planting a tree. For $29.95 you can do your part to help save the life of this planet to have enough oxygen to breathe. Go to www.AmazonNaturalTreasures.com and do your part or call 1-800.”
Okay, then behind the drummer on - this thing on satellite, pay per view, broadcast.com. It’s going to be big; it’s going to be huge, absolutely huge. No one knows about it yet. We didn’t tell anybody about it. We’re putting it together. Mike’s going to be in Thursday and we’ve been trying to do it, but we just couldn’t get it on because of the shorters but now nothing is going to stop us this time.
BY MS. MONRO:
Q. Okay, what —
A. And then they go to the Web site and you can everyone is going to know Amazon because behind the drummer is going to be our logo and we’re sponsoring the concert. So after this you’re going to have all the millions of people that are buying the trees for $29.00, which Amazon gets $12.00 a tree, plus the $4.95 that they can go and they can get a free membership to our Web site.
That means you get the virtual reality glasses that you put on and plug into the back of the keyboard and then you get a disk and you’re actually going down the Amazon River. Everybody is fascinated with the Amazon. You’re channel surfing and you see the Amazon, you see a bug crawling across the ground, you stop and watch it. Everybody does because everybody is fascinated with the Amazon.
Well, here at our Web site, our pay part of the Web site, you can actually travel down the Amazon River. You can go with the Indian. You can get out of the canoe. You can walk on the grass. A snake will go right by your head. It’s fantastic and then every month you rejoin because of the live 24-hour pictures from the jungle.
You lock on, you put your password in and you get yourself a camera and you can zoom in on a bug or an ant or monkey in a tree.
Q. I’m going to interrupt you here because we’re going — that’s a long-winded answer to a question I thought was a little bit more concise. What leads you to believe that you’ll generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually from that concert?
A. Okay, the concert is going to be an annual event. It’s an annual event. We’re going to have it once a year just like Jerry Lewis. We’re going to start the concert every year.
Q. Do you have any proformas or any other type of documents that would support the statement that you could make hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues?
A. We have a projection, yes, that we have listed that we got from the — in the conversations with Mike Pinera, broadcast.com and things like that.
Q. Do you have any proformas or any other type of documents that would support the statement that you could make hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues?
A. We have a projection, yes, that we have listed that we got from the — in the conversations with Mike Pinera, broadcast.com and things like that.
Q. So Mike Pinera has produced documents to you suggesting Amazon could make hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually?
A. No, in the conversations that we had, and in some - what was written to us in a letter that we put together of how the potential is of how many people will go to the — to buy the pay per view, it is projected, okay, it is projected. It’s not written anywhere. We didn’t say anything. No one knows about it. It wasn’t even projected at this time when this press release went out okay. I just want to let you know. That Amazon Natural Treasures has a good chance of collecting $388 million from the proceeds from our quarter of the pay per view.
Q. What contracts or agreements did you have as of April 23rd, 1998 with any singers or any other potential --
A. Mike Pinera has all the singers, okay. He has all the singers and we’re partners in the omnicasttv.com which is the company that’s going to do it, okay. And we’re putting that together and we’ve always been —
BY MR. MACPHAIL:
Q. That’s O-M-N-I-C-A-S-T, omnicasttv.com.
A. Tv.com.
Q. And Mr. Pinera’s relationship is what with oinnicasttv.com?
A. Okay, what omnicasttv.com is going to be is 50 percent is Amazon Natural Treasures. The other 50 percent Mike Pinera, Gold Star Entertainment, King World, you’ve beard of distributing the Oprah Winfrey Show, Jeopardy, King World and — you never heard? Come on, you don’t watch Jeopardy?
Q. We’re just a bunch of poor government lawyers. We don’t even have the ability to afford cable TV, so I --
A. No, no, regular NBC, Jeopardy, you know, do, do, do, do. You never watched Jeopardy?
Q. Never heard of King World Productions in my entire life and I have watched Jeopardy, but continue.
A. Okay, well, that’s distributed by King World. Okay, and the broadcast.com.
Q. Is that, Broadcast.com is a current existing company.
A. Correct.
Q. Okay, but ominnicasttv.com is not.
A. No. That’s going to be an existing company as of Thursday.
Q. All right, I thought AZNT didn’t have any money. So how are they going to sponsor this concert?
A. We don’t pay anything.
Q. All right, what will AZNT give of value in return for sponsoring?
A. We’ve made all the arrangements to plant the trees and we got the permits and the licenses to hold the concert. And we am doing everything in Brazil. We’re setting up the hotel, the plane, the security, the lights, the generators the whole deal. Franko is doing all that with a consultant and other people.
Q. Who’s going to pay for all this?
A. They put up the money ahead of time.
Q. Who is “they”?
A. Their half of omnicasttv.com.
Q. Their, who is “they”, Mr. Pinera?
A. Oh, Mike Pinera, right, Pinera.
Q. What’s Mr. Pinera’s phone number?
A. I don’t have it off-hand.
Q Where does he live?
A. California.
Q. Where in California?
A. Malibu Beach, next to -- who does he live next to? Barbara Streisand, one of those --
Q. Okay, and has Mr. Pinera-
A. No, O’Toole.
Q. Has Mr. Pinera given you the names of the famous artists who have agreed, in fact, to play at this benefit concert?
A. Yes.
Q. Who are the people?
A. Everybody on those tapes —
Q. What tapes?
A. On the CD’s on our Web site, the same group of people plus everybody that went to the Ittchicoo Park Concert.
Q. Why don’t you give me the names of the artists who Mr. Pinera has told you have agreed to perform at this benefit concert?
A. Okay. I will but I’ve got to get them from the tapes.
Q. Well, is Sting one of them? You mentioned Sting.
A. Sting, ye
Q. Okay, Sting is one of them. Okay, he’s told you that Sting has agreed to perform.
A. Right, Sting, U-2. Do you know what --
MR. MACPHAIL: Let’s go off the record.
(Off the record.)
MR. MACPHAIL: We’re back on the record after a short break during which the witness made a cell phone call and a male voice on the other end said that Gloria Estefan had agreed to be one of the artists to perform at this benefit concert.
THE WITNESS: Right.
BY MR. MACPHAIL:
Q. But Mr.Pinera is the person that would be best equipped to answer these questions I assume.
A Correct, he’ll be in on Thursday.
Q. Okay and you don’t have any other information besides the information you got from Mr. Pinera concerning this concert.
A. Right, but it will all -. we’ll have the whole thing done on Thursday. If you want, Meredith, we can call you from the office Thursday. |
