What is Forty Four?
This is the story behind the name of this Substack.
When I was growing up a lot of people in my life were working hard to bring me to America.
I was born in the Dominican Republic and eventually ended up here in the United States. My mother had come here to create a better life and achieve the American Dream. You know, that whole story.
When I first arrived I met my stepdad who would become the most important male figure in my life after my biological one had disappeared. We lived in Queens, NY. I loved it there. A small apartment but full of love and I had a little brother who came into our lives in 1994. He turned out to be one of the funniest people on earth.
In the late nineties, my stepdad (who will forever be referenced as dad going forward) opened a video store. Marcel’s Video was a small mom-and-pop business that kept residents of Sunnyside, Queens entertained with the latest releases. When DVDs came out it destroyed the traditional VHS business and shortly thereafter was ravaged again by the internet and online streaming.
The video store was the place I spent all my days in. After school, I would go there, do homework, watch movies, and then repeat. 90s movies are the best.
My parents closed down the store a few months before 9/11 happened because of those pesky market forces and DVDs. Although the store was closed it would live on forever in the 2001 film Spider-Man. I wrote a little bit about that below.
About three years later we moved to Long Island, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and embraced a different kind of hustle and bustle.
I said goodbye to New York to join the Air Force in the spring of 2010 and the rest is history. I would then spend the next 14 years serving our country before realizing that what I wanted to do with the rest of my life was different than wearing the uniform.
And so I left the Air Force three months ago, looking at my future through a hopeful and optimistic lens as my wife begins her law school journey, our son continues second grade, and our daughter embraces her seventh month of life. The next few years will be transformational because who we’ll become on the other side will be a largely more intentional and fully formed version of us now.
As I build my Leadership Consulting business, I am also starting a few other endeavors. One of which is to return to my pursuit of art through this Substack. Since childhood, I have been obsessed with all types of art and even studied graphic design in college. Read about it here.
But the newest endeavor is one that began within the walls of that video store, after school, all those years ago. After some soul searching I realized my love for film is eternal and kind of an obsession. So next year I start my Master’s in Film Production. It’s time for me to make movies like the ones I watched when I was a kid to hopefully inspire other kids.
I created this Substack to share with you, the world, and my kids my artistic journey from a US Air Force Airman to an entrepreneur, filmmaker, and artist.
The reason it’s called Forty Four is that Marcel’s Video, my childhood haven, was on Forty-Fourth Street.
