I would like to introduce myself, I am Bret Alexander Mazzei - AKA - Bret Amazing - AKA - OODIA BABA - AKA - Alexander Mazzei

alexandermazzei (46)in #introduceyourself • 6 years ago

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Just out of pure curiosity, would you read my story to discover the series of events that took place that brought me on this adventure called STEEM?

My name is Bret Alexander Mazzei. I was named after Bret Maverick a professional poker player traveling alone year after year through the Old West from riverboat to saloon on a tv show and Alexander the Great. I LOVE finding out new things about myself. As far back as I can remember I struggled with the concepts that were used to segregate us into groups. I don’t really belong to any ONE group nor do I ever wish to. I discovered many different layers of myself along my journey of finding my purpose. This will be the first post I have ever written to reveal the real me that I know, and to share parts of me that have never been shared including the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Thank you for taking this journey with me. I appreciate you reading the BEGINNING of this introduction!

Will you try reading more because now I am about to share the really interesting stuff?

I was born a simple child who was always smiling and enjoyed life to the fullest. It wasn’t until I got older, when I realized how complex and difficult it was to connect with people on a core level. By my early teen’s I discovered some TRICKS which over time became “crutches.” I used these tricks to communicate with others, however at the same time I was always wearing a mask and letting no one or few to see the real me.

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My parents introduced me to the World at a very young age. My mom was 8 months pregnant, while taking a tour of the Great Wall of China. If I decided to come out early, I could have been Chinese or at least had dual citizenship. Nevertheless by the age of 2, I was on a family trip with my parents and grandparents. While on a helicopter tour in Skagway Alaska, my grandma was curious what the name of the glacier was we landed on. The pilot was telling her there was no name for it. She asked, “Well who was the oldest client you had landed on the glacier?” He replied, “87 years old man.” She continued to inquire, “Who was the youngest client?” He said with a smile on his face and pointing at me, “He is!” She said, “Why don’t you name it after your youngest client?“ Years later my grandparents had friends go to Alaska and confirmed that the glacier was named after me. So from a very young age I knew I was destined for Greatness. I was blessed to have seen so much with my family and being able to have strangers decide that i was important enough to have something like a glacier named after me.

My real journey started when I was going to grade school. Going to school and making friends wasn’t exactly easy for me but I seemed to manage. During summer vacations my parents took me on adventures around the World until my brother was born 4 years later and we continued to travel in the United States. The travel bug was installed since birth and is something I continue to enjoy. In middle school I seemed to get into some trouble and made friends with some other trouble makers. I became very angry with life during middle school. I am not sure what triggered it but I was definitely going down the wrong path. Drug use and other temptations were offered to me but I had this fear of losing control of my consciousness. I noticed how others behaved and was not really interested in anything that would influence my state of mind. This choice had seemed to separate me from connecting in almost every social setting. I dedicated my time to becoming a showman and magician. In 8th grade I was a “C” and “D” student. After learning magic, I actually cared and I got involved with my school work. I became popular and discovered I was blessed with the ability to entertain. By my last year in high school, I made honor roll with straight “A’s” and proved to myself and others that I could do anything if I put my mind in to it.

The magic opened some pretty amazing opportunities. First I took my first name Bret and then my middle initial A and added it to my last name. Than added “ng” to make Bret Amazzeing. For 10 years I performed magic and puppetry under this name. I started a non-profit organization called “We Share Smiles.” I was introduced to Richard Basciano who some may know as property developer, others may judge and point their finger at him because of the businesses he invested in, but when I met him, he was boxing despite being in his 70’s. I walked in with my puppet Maurice, a lion, and Richard stopped sparring and came over to me and greeted me with the warmest welcome. He invited me to join him to entertain the homeless people of New York on Christmas Day. I decided that it would be more important to share my blessings with those who were less fortunate. After the job he requested that I give him an invoice. I was not sure how to respond. I didn’t see it as a job, it felt good and I really enjoyed making a difference in those people’s lives. My dad’s advice was to bring Richard a bottle of Sambuca. I can still remember how happy he was whenever he saw me, and would never forget the day I gave him a bottle instead of a bill. Richard donated some money which empowered my organization to go to Mexico and hand delivered 250 custom made little Maurice puppets to 10 orphanages. At a very young age I realized there was a lot more people who didn’t have and who suffer on a daily basis, and I was very grateful to have the opportunities and the abilities to go around the World and make a difference.

Richard was a true friend of mine, and I miss him. He recently passed away, leaving many sad. I will always have a place for him in my heart. Here is a short video I shot for Richard when he was training. He motivates me after watching this video.

I continued to travel the world making each step count. While I was on tour with Felipe Rose, the Native American Indian, and the Village People in Australia, I met some aboriginals who took me to their tribe. I was invited to come film a short documentary of their sacred lands, where I experienced ancient hand paintings, learned to play the didgeridoo, and throw a boomerang to hunt for kangaroo. This was a very exciting moment that I decided to extend. I stayed in Australia for a few more months exploring more cities and attending a world music conference. I stayed with couch-surfers along the way. Exactly a year before this trip, I stayed with a couch-surfing Ambassador in Houston, Texas. She told me in a year, we would meet in India at an orphanage. Remembering this statement while I was in Australia, I decided to make it true by booking a flight to India. Shortly after meeting her, she introduced me to one of her friends who picked us up and gave us a tour of Northern India. We went to the Himalayan Mountains, Ganges River, and many temples before getting to his palace in Churu. I was in awe, but shortly after felt trapped. So I would sneak out and go explore on my own. During my walk, I performed some magic to street children. Their eyes lit up with delight and they named me OODIA BABA. After the second day, the street kids were calling for me. They wanted more magic. Climbing to the top of other buildings and standing outside the palace walls screaming my name. I came back a year later for the royal wedding, I was required to get a royal gown made. Feeling like a prince I got dressed up and the name Oodia Baba came to life. This family took me in as their own and showed me the hospitality like no other for which I am forever grateful.

I was on my way back to the United States when my dad and step dad both passed away within a few months apart. Two of the mentors in my life who shaped me were now gone. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and now we had to liquidate two estates and sell off everything. After waiting years for the the real estate market to go back up, we decided to take a loss just so we could move on with our lives. I coached my mom to find a place she wanted to wake up to and would be her paradise. She selected Jupiter. Not the planet, but the town in Flordia. So we packed our van and took a trip to find home. After helping her settle in, I continued my quest.

With all the pain I was feeling, I decided to go to a place where things were worse than the pain I felt inside so I booked a flight to Sierra Leone West Africa. There I spent my time working with kids who had their arms and hands cut off for blood diamonds. I found some of the happiest people in my life there. They had nothing, but somehow they had a smile on their faces. When I gave them a toy they cried of joy. I struggled with this, because if I gave a kid in the United States an iPhone, if it isn’t the latest and greatest they would scorn me. I thought I was going to Africa to help them and little did I know, I was going to be helped just as much.

My journey continued to Los Angeles where I went to visit some friends I met in New York at the Learning Annex the week my step dad passed away. I went to the magic castle and in a dark hallway saw Tony Picasso, a gangster close-up magician from South Africa, standing in the shadows. I met him about 10 years before at the magic convention “The Dessert Seminar” in Vegas. Catching up with him, I totally lost track of time. I was supposed to meet someone at 9 pm in Venice Beach, but when I looked at the time it was way after 11pm. I thought I would be able to just get a hotel and I would take a cab in the morning to visit my friend in Venice. BOY WAS I WRONG! The BET Awards were in town and every hotel was booked. I was dressed in a mustard yellow 3-piece suit, dragging a massive double sized hard suitcase down the streets of Sunset Boulevard. Stopping at every hotel and motel just to find they had no vacancies. So after miles and hours of walking, I got to the Laugh Factory. Richard Bassciano brought the Laugh Factory to Time Square, so I knew the owner and I felt a little comforted by seeing the big bright orange sign. I walked a few blocks and found a bench. From exhaustion, I sat down to take a break, and fell asleep sitting there. I woke up to a policeman kicking my foot. “You can’t Sleep here,” the cop said. I woke up and was a little taken back. I didn’t look homeless, but I guess it didn’t matter. I got my suitcase and began to walk again looking for a room. I found a broken down shelter where I was able to stay. This was by far the worst shelter I have ever seen, however I had no more energy to keep going. My friend came and picked me up and saved me from this horrific night. While in LA I was introduced to a model from Toronto who needed to upgrade her portfolio. I literally just bought a Canon 5d Mark II and really never shot anything before. This didn’t scare me, instead it fueled me to go and learn as much as I could. I downloaded everything I could find on YouTube and discovered the right methods to use the camera. I flew to Toronto and used her experience and my ability to listen and follow instructions to capture some amazing shots.

I visited my mom and wanted to continue to build my portfolio, I ended up in Hollywood, Florida. I hired a makeup artists, hairstylist and two models. The location I wanted was closed the day I booked everyone, so one of the models invited me to her mansion in Miami. Her boyfriend was one of the top Playboy photographers and she said it would be great to meet him while we film. I was setting up my gear and left a camera on a short ledge and the strap caught my leg as I was walking away. The camera crashed to the floor splitting in half. One of the most important moments in my life and my main camera just broke before shooting any pictures. Luckily I had a backup camera. I went to see Jarmo, the Playboy photographer and asked him for some gaff tape. He was curious what I needed it for and when I showed him the camera broken in half he shout, “You can’t fix that with tape.” I knew that, but was trying to have fun with the situation. He was on Skype with the editor of Playboy and showed him my camera. After a good laugh, I captured the models and came away with some awesome shots.

Jarmo invited me to come on set on one of his jobs so I can see what his work flow was and he began to share what he learned from being in the business for many years. Like a sponge I absorbed as much wisdom and knowledge he was willing to share. After a few jobs with him, I told him I had access to some yachts, planes, helicopters, and even the Batmobile. He got excited when I said Batmobile, so I set up a meeting with Michael Dezer who had one of the largest car collections in South Florida. Jarmo set up a date to shoot a seminar at the Dezer Museum.

Around the same time I met a man named Fish who built stages for the biggest outdoor festivals and needed help on weekend and asked if I was available. Little did I know by saying “yes” would change my life drastically. My first install was at Ultra Music Festival in Miami. I had no idea what electronic dance music was. Ultra was insane, and it was really pretty awesome. I got to see a lot of things that opened my mind from lighting and stages that were enormous. From Ultra we went to set up stages at Country Music Awards,Nascar, Miami Dolphins NFL home games, Monster Jam, NCAA Championships and so many more. I was traveling weekly to different cities and working the biggest events nationwide.

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Years seemed to fly by and the events just didn’t have the thrills as when I first started. Fish and I decided to move to Los Angeles to join Sam Sewell. I introduced Sam to his future wife while we were in Miami. Sam was working on a few projects out there and I was excited to see what would unfold. Our friend from New York got us involved with bitcoin just before we drove to Los Angeles. I noticed that the only way bitcoin would take off was user adoption. So I dreamed up an idea. My vision was creating an Electronic Dance Festival where everything was using a crypto currency as its only method of payment. Every ticket sale, valet parking, concessions and even the tips left to the towel guy in the bathroom. Furthermore,100k people in each city would learn and understand how this whole new concept would work, collecting over one million people at the end of a year. I also wrote a movie that would take place at this festival. I wanted to crowdfund it for the audience to be able to pay and get access to different locations and Celebrities where you would be filmed and guarantee to be in the featured film. This would be like a time capsule where anyone who attended would have something to talk about for the rest of their lives. I felt by being in Los Angeles would be the right place to build a team to execute my vision. I invested my life savings, and after pumping everything into it, the team fell apart and the money invested never went to the projects. I felt robbed. With a little hope left, I invested whatever was left into Hoverboards. I had models coming in daily to shoot photos with the Hoverboards creating @hoverboardhotties on instagram. We were wholesaling the hoverboards making a decent living. Things were looking good until the boards started blowing peoples homes up and it was all over the news. Customs had held two shipping containers worth of boards freezing our assets and putting us into the worst possible outcome. From there I got involved with some people who were going in directions far from where I saw my life going in. I decided it was time to cut my losses and move on. With no idea what was going to happen, I found myself living on skid row. I was feeling a bit lost, and hopeless. I met some people who gave me hope and I hitched a ride to about 56 cities before getting to New York. I made many stops and met with people who promised me opportunities, which none of them panned out.

Pushing through hopeless and confusion, I stopped Upstate New York where I stayed with Fish and some other friends who helped me get back on my feet. I started to work construction, and realized quickly I was not a physical laborer designed to dig holes. Used my talents and gifts to capture content, build websites, videos, and photos of the stream restoration. After months up there, I was feeling hopeful again. I took a ride to Long Island where I reconnected with more friends who knew me better than I knew myself. I was offered to work full time creating content for a friend’s company. I agreed to stay and worked on getting my life back. The business closed after a few months of working because one of the business partners left the company.

Meanwhile, I met a well educated beautiful Bulgarian who I have been building a future with. This past year we got to explore Mexico and visited Chichen Itza, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Riviera Maya. Over the Summer we traveled to Bulgaria and Malaga, Spain to meet with some friends and finished our journey at the end of 2017 in Tampa to celebrate the New Year. Life has been unpredictable and adventurous and as I am getting older, I Feel it is time to start working on building my own family.

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After doing a lot of research, I came across @jerrybanfield who has some pretty awesome and inspiring videos on youtube. I took a few months and learned some new skills that he shared. Thank you for being so selfless and sharing your life experiences to make this World a better place.

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Thank you very much for reading and I hope your day is filled with hope, love and blessings. I will do my best to read and respond to each and every comment!
Keep Smiling,
Alexander