A vigorous look at a bygone NYC club era—and the business lessons that can be learned from it.
Neman presents a combination of New York nightlife memoir and business playbook.
In his nonfiction debut, the author blends his recollections of experiencing the New York nightlife scene of the 1990s with the event marketing lessons he learned while living and working in that “unlikely ecosystem.” Neman went on to found the event marketing company JoonBug, and although these pages chart the founding and rise of that company, they also provide tantalizing glimpses of the wild world of 1990s club life, including some of the most exclusive establishments of the time, places like Bungalow 8, Socialista, PM, and Lot 61, which became famous for their spectacular events and the bizarre “Club Kids” who drifted from one hot spot to the next (“There was nowhere else you could find this kind of diversity, chaos, and creativity. It was as though society itself had been amplified and turned in a kaleidoscope”). Neman and his partner, Ariana, experienced this world firsthand (“both of us had lived and breathed nightlife for years”) and began to start seeing its limitations—such as its exclusivity, a business model that “isn’t built with long-term gains in mind but instead is driven by ego.” As JoonBug began to garner clients and industry recognition, Neman learned how the circuit worked and began coming up with innovative ways to update it. He’s a lively, energetic storyteller with a winning rags-to-riches success story to tell, and many of the anecdotes he relates are irresistible. The insights Neman conveys will be eye-opening to readers aspiring to the event promotion lifestyle, as when he points out that the real money-move for events is to rent a cheap venue and fill it with high-paying patrons: “Exclusivity doesn’t pay the bills,” he writes, “but by catering” to “the masses, we were able to hit paydirt.”
A vigorous look at a bygone NYC club era—and the business lessons that can be learned from it.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1637556818
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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