Mike South posts on his website mikesouth.com: “Otto and Audrey Flake and Get Fired – Otto Bauer and Audrey Hollander have reportedly been released from Ninn Worx, they were booked to appear at the Tampa Show here but apparently blew it off in favor of going to the IVD Open House.”
Gene sez: I spoke to Otto Bauer this morning, and it didn’t sound like he intentionally blew off the Tampa Show. But it also sounded like he had one of two decisions to make. He was invited both to Tampa and IVD, and IVD’s a business relationship he’s had for a number of years. Besides, it sounds like some invitational wires got crossed.
“Mike South has a way of putting things not that it’s correct,” says Otto.
“We’ve been going to the IVD show for years. So this put me in a very awkward position having two invitations.”
While Otto said he had been excited about the prospects of going to Tampa, he didn’t learn until late in the game that he was invited for the IVD function which was over the same weekend. Otto truly thought he had been overlooked this year in the scheduling for the IVD show.
Then he got the call from IVD.
“You guys come to all these shows- we’ve got your booth ready,” he was told by IVD.
“If Mike South is mad at me, I don’t blame him,” Otto concedes. “Because that’s fucked up to not go. We’ll work things out and no one’s going to get dicked out of any thing. I sincerely apologize to the fans and the media and everybody else in Tampa.”
“I love Dirty Bob. I love Mike South,” Otto continues. “But as a producer and a man who owns his own product, where did you have to go this last weekend if you plan to exist in this market? If you’re invited to the IVD show, you better go. Because only a handful are invited in the first place. There were only five companies represented, and I was one of them. And I was representing the Supercore masthead. Besides, IVD is our number one source of income in the United States And when yoy get an invitation, you’re going to tell them you’re dropping out?”
“Another thing is Ninn Worx_SR does our distribution,” explains Otto. “We are not employees, and Mike South shouldn’t be putting shit in Michael Ninn’s mouth. I haven’t been fired by anybody. I own my titles. You’re going to fire me for having my own titles?”