American Music: A Preview of the Book in Progress
By Michael Kelman Portney
I want to present to you my newest project.
As you know, I've been documenting misinformation and pursuing truth here on MisinformationSucks.com. Now I'm excited to announce the beginning of production on my second book: American Music. American Music is a True Story of Organized Crime, Inheritance Fraud, and One Grandson's Fight for the Truth.
This is the story I was born to write.
My grandfather, Zollie Kelman, was a Jewish immigrant who arrived in America as a baby fleeing Russian persecution. He built a gambling empire across Montana starting in the 1950s with a company called American Music. What began as a jukebox business became a front for illegal gambling operations, employee harassment, and systematic fraud. He was brilliant, ruthless, and deeply flawed - and he was my grandfather.
In 2007, he made me a deal: get a business degree, and I'd inherit a piece of the empire. I did my part. I got the degree. I witnessed my aunt sign a will. I prepared to take over the family business.
Then he died, and everything disappeared.
The will I witnessed? Suppressed. The inheritance I was promised? Stolen by family members who coordinated to consolidate millions in assets that should have been distributed to grandchildren. The business empire? Sold for approximately $10 million - none of which came to me.
So I did what my business education taught me to do: I investigated.
I found property records showing a fraudulent entity named after the family sheepdog holding real estate with my grandfather's birthdate. I found trust documents proving I'm a beneficiary of assets that were never properly distributed. I found newspaper archives documenting decades of illegal operations, regulatory violations, and criminal activity. I found court cases - lots of court cases - that I'm currently purchasing and reading through.
*American Music* is the story of two timelines converging: my grandfather's rise from poverty to criminal empire, and my journey from 9/11 through the troubled teen industry to discovering I'd been systematically defrauded by the people who were supposed to protect me.
This isn't speculation. This is documentation. I'm working with court records, newspaper archives, property filings, and primary source documents. I'm taking the same methodical approach to exposing family fraud that I use on this site to expose misinformation - because the truth matters, even when it's personal.
I'm currently deep in the research phase. There are decades of court cases to read, newspaper archives to comb through, and stories to verify. This is going to take time to get right, but I'm committed to telling it accurately and completely.
The book explores generational trauma, the gap between American Dream mythology and criminal reality, and what it means to break a cycle by choosing documentation over perpetuation. My grandfather tried to legitimize his empire through me, and I never got the chance. Instead, I'm using the education he wanted for me to expose how it was built and how it was stolen.
I'll share updates as the project progresses. If you want to follow along with the research and discoveries, stay tuned here.
This is going to be one hell of a story. And unlike misinformation, every word of it is true.
