Hello Mr. Kays! Welcome to Fiction Scribe. By way of introduction, tell us five words you feel describe you best.
Analytical, focused, satirist, observant, fragrant.
You’re currently on virtual tour with your book Virtual Vice. Can you tell us briefly about the book?
In short, the book follows the rise and demise of a sociopath, Scott White, who transitions from the organized crime of the Cali Cartel to the organized crime of Wall Street. He begins his professional life as one of the largest cocaine distributors on the West Coast. When the DEA closes in, White evades apprehension and launders the drug money by founding an Information Technology startup, Metropoleis III Multimedia. Certain organized crime contingents remain silent partners in his new business. MIII is a Seattle based broadband content provider, streaming audio and video from live rock concerts to subscribers over the Internet.
Although business is thriving, its CEO soon falls back to old habits, structuring MIII as a Ponzi scheme and embezzling from investors. When White is found out, he flees Washington for Arizona and mounts a similar scam. As external scrutiny, and civil and criminal suits mount, CEO White begins to come unhinged, as do his progressively more crazed and bizarre business ventures.
Targeting the Sedona market, he attempts to tap into the New Age zeitgeist. After several false starts, he uses his broadband media delivery system to back an equally opportunistic religious huckster in peddling a New Age theology to the masses via the Internet. The cybervangelists garner the attention of a global press for all the wrong reasons. The klieg lights quickly put White’s silent partners ill-at-ease and all hell breaks loose.
You mention in your biography that you are an ‘intellectual property attorney’. Will you tell us a bit more about what you do?
I work in the Information Technology sector, primarily with software developers, performing trademark and copyright review and related transactional matters. Essentially, the objective is to protect the original work product of an engineer from theft by a third party. The same body of law protects an author’s writing from plagiarism. Prior to that I worked in the field of entertainment law doing IP work, contract review and putting together deals.
I have been around computers and technology since my childhood in the 1970’s, and have always had a passion for the cutting edge of IT. That enthusiasm is reflected in my writing and will be a focal point in my next book, Mainstream. Regardless of topic or genre, I believe that in order to maintain relevance, it’s essential for writers to stay current with social and technology trends. If one doesn’t, the exercise becomes one of narcissism and not one of art or utility.
How much does your occupation play into your writing?
My legal background played a major role in writing this book for two reasons. Firstly, the book is a legal thriller involving a complex trial and the legal maneuvering that entails. Secondly, the novel is creative non-fiction and 85% factual: it’s largely autobiographical and explores my daily work as a lawyer in both the entertainment and IT sectors. That said, I’m not the focus of this book. The protagonist is Ponzi scheme con man, Scott White.
The context within which I practice law, particularly the colorful characters in the entertainment business, make this and future books engaging. The book’s focus is people, perspective, pathology and psychology. Not the legal system. I do not find the law, as a profession, interesting enough to merit a book. I think the subject has been exhausted in popular culture by the myriad of talented authors like Grisham and Turow, motion picture and television drama. It’s reached saturation levels.
I will always have that experience and skill set to draw upon, but am trying for something more inventive. The next book will also involve a character that is an outlaw and, as such, the law comes into play, but has a lesser role, because the protagonist is more skillful in circumventing it.
If you were a character in your book, who would you be?
I am a character in the book, so that’s an easy one: Ian McKenzie.
Are you allowed to tell us about what true events your novel is based on?
Yes, because the client effectively waived his attorney-client privilege by aggressively soliciting counsel to perpetuate a criminal enterprise. The book is creative non-fiction and 85% factual. It was inspired by my representation as a lawyer of a most unpleasant client during an eighteen month period, Gregg Scott Luce. The client, a former drug trafficker, allegedly laundered drug money through the IT startup, Millennium III Corporation (MIII), after the DEA shut down his previous venture.
MIII was a Seattle based broadband content provider, streaming audio and video from live rock concerts to subscribers over the Internet. Although business was thriving, its CEO soon fell back on old habits, structuring MIII as a Ponzi scheme. Aggravating the problem, Luce, as acting CEO, embezzled money.
Seven years after the founding of MIII, I was retained as counsel to review intellectual property issues in August of 2001. Approximately twelve months into my work, original note holders began contacting me, expressing concern that they had received no annual statements from MIII — for that matter, no communication at all from the board of directors or corporate officers for several years.
More troubling, to a man, every investor had demanded buyback upon maturation of their convertible note loan agreements in 1997. Luce refused to honor the promissory notes. The paper trail showed Luce used money from the non-accredited investor pool to line his own pockets, and money from new investors to pay contracted employees that held stock options; thereby, perpetuating the ruse. A textbook definition of the classic Ponzi scheme: using money from new investors to pay dividends to original investors.
I approached the CEO with my concerns. He was non-responsive, as was the board. As I dug deeper into the CEO’s history, unearthing a deep list of accounting firms, law firms and contractors owed money, I came to learn that one of Luce’s tricks was to secret money in his attorneys’ client trust accounts, knowing that the lawyer would be obliged to release the funds to Luce as client, regardless of whether the money was dirty. In addition to confronting shareholders with Luce’s malfeasance, I reported his actions to attorney general offices in two states. Formal investigations into Millennium III and its CEO commenced.
Luce fled Washington State and setup shop in Arizona. He laid the groundwork for a second Ponzi scheme, this time focusing on holistic cures, naturopathy and controversial quasi-medical procedures. Con men will often select a business where product and performance are difficult to quantify and grade. The New Age market lent itself perfectly to this model.
After his last remaining anchor investor pulled funding in 2007, Luce relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He had now reinvented himself as a sort of schizoid renaissance man: part shaman, fitness guru and self-proclaimed “Internet genius”. As surety in case his genius fell short of the mark, Luce misappropriated the intellectual property of a group of Santa Fe and German technologists to defraud a Los Angeles music industry venture capitalist out of $500,000. He was ultimately found out and relocated to Huntington Beach.
In an ironic twist, life has mirrored fiction to an extent: in the book, MIII establishes a New Age church and exploits gullible parishioners. I recently learned that Luce partnered with a real estate developer and is in the process of establishing a New Age “church” in Hawaii.
Do you feel that technology-centric books – crime or otherwise – is a growing genre?
I believe so. Crime thrillers have always enjoyed a large following . . . and a measure of disdain by those that review books. I think, in part, because the perception is that they are less “literary” and more accessible to the reader looking for escapism and entertainment, and not an exercise in Aristotelian criticism. The genre is less threatening to the average Joe; hence, their popularity. The general perception amongst academics that crime thrillers are devoid of artistic/literary merit is a fallacy.
Few college lit professors or NYT critics could knock out a novel comparable in quality to any one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s masterworks. The nice thing about crime thrillers is that their authors, as populists, are attuned to the zeitgeist; they do not work in a vacuum. This is the reason you see more books in this genre now set in the historical context of emerging technology: relevance.
Their popularity, as with all crime thrillers, is also attributable to an element of schadenfreude. This phenomenon is exaggerated during times of economic recession: people take perverse comfort in knowing there is someone else out there worse off. If only due to sociopathology.
Do you ‘find’ time to write or do you ‘make’ time to write? What is your routine like?
I write full time. Lawyers are wordsmiths by trade and training and we write for a living: that’s at the core of our work. I still consult as an intellectual property attorney, but am focusing most of my time and efforts on creative writing. I took a sabbatical from the practice of law to devote myself entirely to turning out this book in a two year period.
I’m presently working on my second novel, also a work of creative non-fiction. I write mainly by day, as I am task oriented and treat the process seriously, as I would any 9-5 job. I am also a night owl and tend to do my best creative work in the evenings. Often I’ll come up with a new story arc or character in the evening then hammer out the details during the day.
What are you working on now?
A novel focusing on the shifting roles of sexuality and erotica in American culture with the introduction of the Internet. How erotica made the Net commercially viable and drives much of the innovation in ecommerce and technology today. A look at the colorful pioneers in this market sector and how they left irrelevant the Hugh Hefners, Bob Gucciones and Larry Flynts of the world.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
In general terms, no. By that I mean do not seek counsel on what to write — write what you feel compelled to put to paper. Write what you must; not what you think you should or is expected. Don’t seek input along the way. That will either inflate or emaciate your ego and neither is healthy. Finish the book then hire the best editor you can afford, heed her advice and let the self-flagellation begin.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I would like to thank the readers for their interest in Virtual Vice, and Fiction Scribe for being a valuable asset to the literary community.
Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Kays. I wish you great success with Virtual Vice.
***
Jason M. Kays is an intellectual property attorney with fifteen years experience in both information technology and entertainment law. Kays is an accomplished jazz trumpet player and his passion has always been music, technology, and convergence of the two in today’s digital age. This is his first novel.
You can visit Jason online at http://www.virtualvice.net/