Page 95 - Sorry, We're Not Hiring Any Visionaries Today

CHAPTER 11
bought 300 pairs and I had the most unique shoes. Every one of them was dif- ferent. Some of them were butt ugly, but they were so amazing.
One vendor on that first trip I went to recently revealed that I saved his payroll in the early 80’s. If I hadn’t come up there and put that money in, he would have been unable to pay his staff that year.
Cal Streets opened it up with a few thousand dollars worth of inventory. I sold it all in three days. I then had to restock. I was panicking. Then I sold it all again in four days.
I had lineups around the street.
I flew to California and just brought back shitloads of gear. I started figuring out the usual way of bringing it up through customs. The shop would do be- tween $5,000 and $10,000 a day in that era.
We had a few bad break-ins where somebody cleaned us right out, but that’s all part of learning business year after year.
I disagreed with my partner. He was also the landlord. At one point, he didn’t write a check to himself for the shop. As a result, he could lock me out because he wanted Cal Streets by himself.
I phoned everybody and said, you know, I’m not part of the store. And every one of them, even though my partner was a multi-millionaire and he could buy ten times more than what we were buying, every one of the people stood by me and cut off Cal Streets. That’s what I mean. I put it out of business to ensure he couldn’t run it. It took me about four years to go through the courts and get all the stuff to get the name Cal Streets back.
Years later, he gave me the rights to Cal Streets again for a dollar.
At the same time I was dealing with this crazy partner, I hurt my back. I was practically immobile. One of the weirdest things about me is that I
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