Why Me?

Occasionally people will ask, "Why should I do business with you?"
BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT'S IMPORTANT TO BORROWERS:

I'm HONEST and ETHICAL, I'LL GIVE YOU A STRAIGHT ANSWER. If I don't know the answer, I'll find it and get back to you.

I WON'T WASTE YOUR TIME (because I hate having mine wasted). What this means is you're going to get all the information and pre-qualification up front.

My goal is to SAVE YOU TIME AND MONEY, MAKE YOU SECURE and INSURE YOUR PRIVACY.

You can have the comfort and SECURITY OF KNOWING THAT THE INFORMATION IS CORRECT because I KNOW WHAT TO DO AND I'LL DO WHAT I SAY.

Although I may have to ask you a lot of questions, I won't invade your PRIVACY once you are QUALIFIED.

Usually people come to me because other people didn't call them back (one study of the banking industry reported that 8 out of 10 people who left messages never received a callback) or if they did, the callers didn't know what they were talking about. I'LL CALL YOU BACK, JUST LET ME KNOW WHERE AND WHEN.

Top 10 Reasons Why You (or Someone You Know)
Should Consider Doing a Loan with Me.

CMG	Luther Burbank
Cole Taylor	Mortgage Solutions
First Mortgage Corporation	North Island Credit Union
Flagstar	Pinnacle Capital
GMAC	Plaza Home Mortgage
Guild	PRMG
Icon	Sierra Pacific
Interbank	Wells Fargo
Kinecta

8. Closing costs (non-recurring fees) approximate only $3000 OR may be zero, if you wish.

9. Once I have your info on file, I can refi additional real estate with a minimum of muss and fuss on your part.

My background and experiences in the financial sector are extensive and far more varied than that of a conventional loan officer.

To begin with, I graduated from UCLA with a Masters Degree in Finance Theory. In 1978, I was licensed by the California Department of Real Estate as a salesperson.

In addition, at one time or another, I've sold most every security instrument commonly available; among them, commodities, stocks, bonds, LLP's, LLC's, mutual funds and life insurance. In accordance with these positions, I've held series 6, 7, & 63 NASD licenses as well as being life insurance licensed in California.

Further, having worked as a Financial Planner has taught me to look at an individual's overall financial situation so as to suggest ways to improve a borrower's cash flow through tax deductions, debt consolidations and restructuring of their loans, which the average loan officer might overlook. I can also show you how to trim years off your mortgage with no increase in your monthly payments through bi-weekly programs. There's also an interactive calculator that allows you to test drive this loan and enter your information to see how much you could save and how fast you could pay it off.

Lest you be left with the impression that this is a one-man show, I assure you, it is not. I work with a team of mortgage professionals to render the best service possible. I am affiliated with Cypress Realty & Mortgage, a full service brokerage firm that can assist in purchases, refinances, construction loans, debt consolidations, cash out for home improvements or whatever you might wish as well as reverse mortgages and commercial loans. Though I am not active in all of these areas, I can refer you to someone within our organization that is.

Disclaimer: Please understand that ideas presented here are the distillate of my experience and opinions and they do not necessarily reflect those of Cypress Realty & Mortgage. (Department of Real Estate License Number 0184 4138)

The Rod Haase that writes this newsletter under the pseudonym of Morty is the very same Rod Haase that was once the star of TV and films, not to mention numerous commercials. I’ve always downplayed my acting exploits because not only was that 25 years ago but when someone learns of my previous career I get the inevitable (but well-intentioned question) “What have I seen you in?” Politeness requires one to rack one’s brain for film & TV credits from more than a quarter century ago. Having been through this exercise on numerous occasions, I’ve found that people hardly ever make a connection with me, my character’s role or the episode I was in. Consequently, they usually try to salve the imagined bruise to one’s ego of not being more memorable by saying, “Well, I don’t watch much television, anyway.”

Our society’s fascination with the cult of celebrity seems a sad commentary on contemporary mores. Simply because one was on TV, no matter how inane or innocuous the vehicle, one is accorded greater prominence than the content of one’s character or the substance of one’s accomplishments. Yet, it persists to the present day. Given the popularity of “You Tube”, “People” magazine and TV shows like “Entertainment Tonight and “Extra” it would seem that as a culture we have choose to fixate on the meretricious and the superficial. The masses seem intrigued by celebrity, with everyone craving their Warholian “15 minutes worth of fame”.

I got into “the business” in a rather unusual way. Being an avid reader and the beneficiary of liberal arts curriculum, by the time I entered college I had amassed a wide spectrum of inconsequential information. One day, while watching some game show, I thought to myself, “How could that guy (a contestant) not know the answer to that question? It was so easy.” At the end of the show, the TV announcer invited viewers to be contestants by writing for tickets and auditioning for the producers. I did and found that I was every bit as good at doing them as I thought I’d be. I managed to put myself through college partly off my winnings. Over the course of 10 years I’d won nearly a quarter of million dollars in trips, cash and cars by appearing on such shows as the “The Dating Game”, “PDQ” “Funny You Should Ask”, “Hollywood Squares” etc. It was easy, fun, and lucrative and I was very comfortable in front of the camera.

In my senior year at UCLA, in exchange for room and board I had the great, good fortune to be hired as sort of a modern-day “Friday” by a screenwriter named Clair Huffaker. Clair was an unforgettable character in the truest sense of the word. He had an ineffable ability to look at someone and say just the right thing to make them feel better. Not surprisingly, he was a unqualified success as a womanizer. In the two years, I worked for him, I was only aware of him sleeping alone on three occasions. Given his frequent companionship, he was a surprisingly prolific writer. He would usually write at night attired in his bathrobe and omnipresent cowboy hat, with a vodka rocks close at hand. As such, my job was relatively simple—to keep the bar and refrigerator stocked and the names of his lady friends straight and what they drank. He was a cowboy to the core and prided himself on his spirit, compassion, and simplicity. He was a hero and surrogate father to me. Were he still around, I think he would smile at my authorial bent and his influence on me. It was through him that I gained my entree to “Hollywood”.

As an author, Clair wrote mostly “white hat, black hat” westerns for television and film. Among his more best-known films were those starring John Wayne “The Comancheros”, “Hellfighters”, and “The War Wagon” (also starring Kirk Douglas). Other westerns that garnered attention were “Rio Conchos” with Richard Boone and Stuart Whitman, “100 Rifles” with Jim Brown and Raquel Welch, “Flaming Star” with Elvis Presley, “The Second Time Around” with Debbie Reynolds, “Posse from Hell” with Audie Murphy and John Saxon and “Flap” with Anthony Quinn.

It was, also, through Clair that I got my first (and last job) in Public Relations working for Jay Bernstein. Jay had some major clients like Sammy Davis Jr., Anthony Newley, Farrah Fawcett, Suzanne Sommers, Mac Davis, Glenn Campbell and the music group “Blood, Sweat and Tears”. But working for Jay was not a good introduction to show business. Although he was a terrific salesman, he was a tyrant to work for and short on scruples. Ironically, Jay was envious of his clients and sought the one thing they had—fame. After 6 months I ended my tenure with Jay Bernstein Associates because the business struck me as a meretricious and more or less dedicated to making people appear to be something they were not. The one thing I learned from my experience there was that celebrities were just like you and me—only more famous.

In grad school I managed to do some modeling and the transition from it to commercials, television and film was very similar in that it was easy, fun, relatively lucrative, with plenty of time left over to do other things. The other great perk was that you got to meet some of the most attractive women on the planet.

We’ve all heard of the expression to be “type cast”. Being blond, tanned, and fairly buff (back then) I was cast as the “California type” (surfer/beach boy). Interestingly, this also seemed to lend itself to another character genre—the All-American super hero. I portrayed a number of such characters: Captain Avenger, The Flash, Flash Gordon, etc.

Type-casting got its appellation during the early days of the Westerns when it was known as the “white-hat, black-hat” school of casting. With the exception of “Hopalong Cassidy” the heroes always wore the white hats and the villains, the black. At 6’4”, I was tall, rather more so than many of the series leads, which more often than not, led to my being cast as the lunk-head or villain. The thought process seemed to go something like this: “if he’s big, he’s dumb”, or “if he’s big he’s mean”, and finally, “since he’s big, he, could be both dumb and mean”.

Given the gamut of emotions I was directed to convey, my television career was less than stellar. One of my first roles on episodic TV was portraying a Neo-Nazi named “Jumbo” on “Medical Center” with Chad Everett. (In this one I was just supposed to be mean). On “Policewoman” starring Angie Dickinson I was a not-too-bright (dumb) porn star. At NBC, I recall driving an LAPD squad car and pulling over someone on “Chico & the Man”. I don’t recall if it was Freddie Prinze or Jack Albertson. In “Trapper John, M.D.” the only things I remember about the show were that I was a greengrocer with some truly witless dialogue and that the Gregory Harrison was one of the most “down-to-earth” TV stars that I’d met. On “Battlestar Galactica” with Lorne Greene, Vince Edwards directed a two-parter where I appeared as Lloyd Bridges’ lieutenant in the Star Fleet Command, in “The City of the Angels” Wayne Rogers as the series detective discovered that I was the tow-headed murder. And in “Hunter”, with Fred Dryer I co-starred as the love interest of his partner, Dee Dee McCall.

Though my filmography was hardly illustrious, I did work with Mel Brooks on “History of the World, Part One” and I appeared in “The Gong Show Movie” with Chuck Barris. George Schlatter (from Laugh-in) directed my portrayal of a bodybuilder with an unmitigated lust for statuary (unbelievably stupid) in “Norman Is That You?”. I was Captain Avenger in “Hero at Large” which starred John Ritter and I had a cameo as a clumsy surfer in Joan Rivers’ “Rabbit Test”. The films were not major, nor the roles memorable.

Along the way I managed to appear in 9 or 10 TV MOWs (Movies Of the Week). I was Jane Seymour’s arrogant boyfriend in “Captains and Kings”. Dick Donner, the director, and a former neighbor, cast me as the drunken lout that raped Linda Blair in “Sarah T.—Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic”. I played Stella Stevens’ boyfriend in another MOW that was a pilot for Raymond Burr’s series “Ironside”.

Looking back on my checkered career in front of the camera, I probably have more affection for the 50 or so commercials that I did than anything else. I was part of the Jack-In-The-Box campaign to blow-up Jack-in-the-box clown and simultaneously introduce their Spicy Chicken Sandwich Supreme. Another campaign that was a lot of fun was one as a spokesman for Magic Mountain Amusement Park in Valencia (now Six Flags). I did 6 or 7 commercials for them as Speed King, a fictional “super hero” type character that was responsible for building the world’s greatest fast ride park along with “Colossus” their mammoth wooden roller coaster and introducing “The Revolution”, the first roller coaster to do a 360 degree loop.

In view of my professed disdain for the present cult of celebrity my engaging in blatant name-dropping and recounting my credits must surely seem an exercise in egotism and hypocrisy. There is, however, an ulterior motive. There are two old sayings that apply: 1) “There’s method to my madness” and 2) “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em”. Though I may decry society’s elevation of unmerited celebrity, the internet also attributes a similar value to fame, no matter how old or dubious.

Thus, the purpose here of mentioning my exploits before the camera and those with whom I shared screen time was to bolster the visibility of something of which I am proud and passionate about, my web site, www.mortgagestraightTalk.com So, I am willing to sacrifice my anonymity in exchange for a better ranking from the various search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN because I believe that it provides more straight-forward unbiased mortgage information for the average borrower than 98% of the other mortgage websites out there.

Lastly, however, I must confess though my former profession may have been silly, it was also fun and exciting. And, at this point in my life it is strangely comforting, to have been a “has been” rather than a “never was”.