Hella Nation - Evan Wright [109]
It is hard to follow what happened to Warshavsky during the next three years. He does not dispute that he spent time in the mental-health system or that he moved in and out of foster homes and, for a while, lived on the streets. But he also does not offer many details. Reflecting on this period in Warshavsky’s life, Cartmell says, “I’m amazed Seth is alive.”
At seventeen, Warshavsky was on his way to becoming a hard-core loser. He was a high school dropout, he rented a room in an apartment in a crack ghetto, he drove a government-surplus postal jeep, and he sold fish outside a touristy restaurant called the Crab Pot on Seattle’s pier. The one bright spot in his life was his friendship with Aaron Seravo, a waiter at the restaurant. “Aaron was cool,” says Jimmy Kim, a mutual friend. “He was kind of scary, but people liked to hang around him. He liked to torment people. He once fed a friend of ours a shit sandwich. He made it from dog shit.
“Aaron taught Seth how to talk to girls,” says Kim. Sometimes they’d cruise First Avenue, and if they saw a car full of pretty girls, Seravo would get Warshavsky to yell something obnoxious out the window, like “Suck my dick!” If the two had money, they’d go into the Lusty Lady, First Avenue’s premier live-girl peep-show theater, where Warshavsky would amuse himself by tormenting the dancers—usually until he got kicked out of the club. “Seth became demented around Aaron,” says Kim.
In 1990, Warshavsky took his first stab at running a business when he launched a custom T-shirt venture, Urban Apparel, that by all accounts was wildly successful—he scored contracts to supply local boutiques as well as the Nordstrom department store. But even as he was making money legitimately, Warshavsky got involved in a white-collar scheme, the records of which are sealed in the King County, Washington, courthouse. According to sources, Warshavsky and an accomplice were arrested trying to cross the border into Canada to sell computer equipment they had purchased with bad checks. His accomplice drew a felony conviction and served time in prison. Warshavsky, still seventeen, got off with probation.
IN THE EARLY NINETIES, just before he turned eighteen, Warshavsky entered the phone-sex business. As with porn videos, the boom was closely tied to advances in technology. Thanks to a combination of digital telephone switches and cheap computers, phone-sex operators were able to efficiently handle large volumes of specialized calls. Audiotext, as it is known within the industry, is a business that also combined all of Warshavsky’s obsessions: his love of phone phreaking, his bent for shady dealings and the delight he took in his peep-show adventures with Aaron Seravo.
All it took to get started was a credit-card link—a little box like the ones used in restaurants and bars—along with a couple of girls willing to talk nasty from their apartments, a cell phone and a toll-free number, which was 800-GETSOME. He advertised on flyers that he posted on pay phones and in booths at the Lusty Lady. Customers who called rang directly into his cell phone. He took their credit-card information and routed them to the girls. “I was getting fifty calls a day and charging $34.95 per fifteen-minute call,” Warshavsky claims today.
Within a year of starting 800-GETSOME, Warshavsky traded in his jeep for an Acura, moved into a studio apartment on First Avenue and began hanging out at Casa-U-Betcha, an upscale Mexican-themed nightspot on First Avenue owned by two local businessmen, Peter and Jeff Steichen. “Seth was kind of a local character,” says Peter Steichen. “He walked around with a cell phone in his ear, wearing an Armani suit. And he has that snort thing. But he was endearing. He had this incredible enthusiasm and was