Anthony and his personality breakdown during our trip to Macedonia.
First some background. I have met a lot of traders over the years that I was a member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange; and as a shortseller, Anthony is the King of the Hill without a doubt. His consistent performance is remarkable. That said, over the past few months, I had read some of Anthony's posts where he suggested different charities to donate money to. During a telephone conversation in March, he again talked about the Mercy Foundation. At that time, I told him about a multi year humanitarian project I started in the mid 70's involving a medical clinic in Haiti while I went to school in Miami. I then came up with the idea and aggressively explained to him that instead of giving money to charities we have not seen in action, that we should go to Macedonia and see first hand what the hell was going on. His response was that a trip like that would cost him $250,000 to $500,000 in lost trading opportunities, and it was not worth it. I had met Ana Memetaj, who lives not far from me in Chicago (a few blocks) and we became friends. She owns the European Touch Salon & Day Spa at 47 W. Polk St Chicago, IL 60605. Ana has been married the last few years to Avdulla "Michael" Memetaj, who owns TV-ERA in Skopje. She wanted to go to Skopje, but felt uncomfortable going by herself and I told her that I would go with her. I also told her depending on what day of the week it was and the mood Anthony was in, he may or may not go with us. I talked to Ana's husband, and coordinated his services to give us his press access to the refugee camps. I approached a gentlemen who is a heavy hitter with the democrats, and was able to get a letter from Congressman Robert Wexler dated April 15, 1999 addressed to Ambassador Christopher R. Hill discussing Ana, myself, and Anthony. The first sentence asked for permission for Ana to bring her sister Skelkje and niece Besarta to the States. If you want forward me a fax number and I will fax you a copy.
As the trip neared, Anthony got very nervous and told me had purchased a bullet proof vest, and did I want one. I told him no, that I believed when your time is up, it is up. I told him I had sympathy for his nervousness and the concerns for his wife and three young children if something was to happen to him. I did not have this situation to deal with, because I have never been married and have no children. It is important to point out that I also did the research on getting visa's to Macedonia for us while we were in the States, so we would not have to take our chances at the border. I also arranged for a Greek friend of mine to deliver a cellular telephone to us at the Athens airport when we landed on April 17th, while we were waiting for our flight to Thesalonika. Anthony charged a good $400+ on it, all in my name. Anyway, the first few days things went well. Then one morning, he chewed me out for having put up post #31280 on this thread. He said that this thread was his, and the only comments from Macedonia he wanted on it were his. I was truly amazed he would say that, because I thought Silicon Investors was available to anyone to put up their posts. I also thought that his statement was outrageous, since I had dragged a laptop all the way to Skopje so BOTH of us could give our views of what we saw. It is noteworthy that Anthony did not bring a laptop, but would use mine or the desktop computer of Avdulla. Anyway, I did not push my desire to put up some posts, but went with his wishes. I also realized, along with others who I will leave nameless, that Anthony was becoming more and more emotional as the days went by, and would fly off the handle over anything. Basically, he had a dramatic personality shift while we were in Macedonia. He cursed me out on a number of occasions, once even in the middle of some refugees when I tried to say something. He was playing some weird control game; that everything had to be done his way, and everyone had to drop what they were doing to immediately do what he wanted. He was also mad at me that I did not cry on a couple occasion when he an Ana did in some emotional moments with some refugees. I said that I found this whole situation very depressing, but I had seen worse, and that I am not one who cries. When a similar comment was made by a leading CNN reporter (that we met at the top hotel bar in Skopje), that being that he had been in countries where he had seen worse, Anthony flew off the handle when the reporter left and said he would get the reporter fired!
All last week Anthony was putting me in a tough bind because I was laying ground work for our trip with the media, with basically it all focusing on him; that being the big trader turned humanitarian. Remember, when the phony Bloomberg story about PairGain popped up a few weeks ago? I called my media contacts at the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, USA Today and the Financial Times. They all went with the story and quoted Anthony as one of their sources. The Chicago Tribune quoted both of us, and Anthony had the nerve to make a comment that he was bothered that I was quoted in the story.
chicagotribune.com
To sum this all up, why am I pissed off. I left Macedonia last weekend, and Greece on Monday to stick with the timetable Anthony and I had layed out when our aircraft tickets were made at Anthony's fathers travel agency. This timetable was picked by Anthony. I was only told last Friday night that Anthony was going to stay a couple more days, but I decided to stick to the schedule we laid out, with the comment from him that we would hook up when he got back to the States. Well, I have not had the damm courtesy of Anthony calling me at all since last Friday, even though Anthony had made commitments to meet face to face with my media contacts in New York, along with some players at the world's largest hedge fund. He had also made a commitment to sit down with two Senators (and their staff) who are on the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. These meetings were to discuss the fragmentation of the Nasdaq order execution process through ECN's, along with discussing and showing pictures and video of our trip to the refugee camps to Macedonia.
I will go on the record and say that during the week of April 19 I was aggressively working on my political contacts who were in touch with the highest levels of the U.S. govt. That is why the 20,000 refugees gameplan was shifted from the U.S. military base in Cuba to where they could now stay in the States. Granted, Anthony at the end of the week was working through his father, on Senator Spencer Abraham. That however, was not why the 20,000 refugees was shifted from Cuba to the United States.
I feel used for my contacts in Macedonia and with the Press. I also am disappointed that Anthony is not always a man of his word, but yet he is still one remarkable trader and yes, he still has a good heart for Albanian Moslems. For the record, when I do something that is not courteous, I try to correct it. It was pointed out to me by Anthony that I was not consistently taking my shoes off when I entered Moslem houses; I made it a point to do so when he brought it to my attention. Perhaps his Moslem faith has been strengthened over the last couple weeks, and my lack of being a Moslem is a detriment? The bottom line is that I am sunk alot of time in Macedonia which was worth it, I just feel that I should have not been used. I also an out a nice piece of change in expenses for this trip that Anthony said if would cover, and the slight decrease in credibility with my press and political contacts for all the appointments he blew off.
Fane Lozman
a.k.a. SCANSHIFT |
