I have just been a casual observer/ active participant here and RGP since 99... I have seen you go after Wayne, I have seen you go after Gene, and maybe a few little things here and there. I completely understand where you are coming from, but you gotta let the rumors go. Rumors are created by people who don't know anything, they don't affect you. Let your excellent products speak for themselves. You make a great product, sleep easy at night knowing this.

The rest of this I am typing because my wife is far enough away where I can't get bitch slapped, LOL.... I participate in pinball with a bunch of men, we do manly things and light fires and eat raw meats and cheese while we drink beer. We don't participate in rumors and gossip because that is for chicks.... Don't be a chick...

ETA for clear roadshow ramps ?

Unfortunately in business it's just like politics. An non responded rumor is judged to be true by the masses.

Trust me, I sleep very well at night.

James, how will this Gene thing affect your business and the products you supply to us?

It won't adversely affect us at all. The possible upside is to be determined.

I will always remember him as the man who made Pigs Fly!
( BBB remake was done awesome)

Thank you for that Gene
All the best

Business is like politics. Politicians have copywriters that spin the message in a positive way. We're saying that you might need a copywriter. The message you think you are delivering is not what we are hearing.

Take your above comment. Sentences one and two make a valid point. Left by itself, it makes sense.

Sentence three adds emotion, that creates a negative reaction, overshadowing the validity of the first two sentences.

You mean to say that you need to react to rumors to protect your business. We hear he feels the need to justify his business's integrity.

It's all in your delivery.

You mean making a distasteful thread that gets totally nuked from the Pinside servers isn't a good delivery?

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

so who can assemble a timeline of the various offloading Gene has done over the recent years?

I've honestly just forgotten it all after Planetary Pinball was setup after buying out Wayne's attempts.

"Man who go through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok".

Confucious

Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do pay it. Don't forget.

SoCrates (said in Excellent Adventure phonics)

I hardly post on here..

But that phone thing is the most offensive thing i have seen..
please let us know what the number was as i would like to know..

it did not and would never come from myself, mark or anyone at pspa..

we do not care about your sexuallity or anyone elses is..
my hopes and prayers go to Python for a quick recovery

damien

"I can get $200 for that foot stool, someone will pay it."

PoorGene.jpg

RalphWiggum dropping BOMBS! Speak it brother. That shit is the truth.

And IMHO you can't come on pinside like this with innuendo. There are enough of us who have not been around long enough to know what your and Gene's history is. And Gene is a nice guy you meet at pinball shows to us new guys. If you have dirt...speak it. Or don't. If you got robbed tell us and don't muck about. Otherwise you come across as a hater.

It seems clear an American wrote that 'sms'. Aussies dont generally use the phrase "making it to" ( it would be "coming to" or "going to" ) and I doubt anyone here has ever used the phrase "fk that guy" ( with or without the implied 'yo') ever. It just isnt part of Australian vernacular. These are American terms.

If its legit then you're looking for another yank who wants to belt you .. Albeit maybe one who lives here? ..

Generally anyone this side of the pond with a desire to snot you would just walk and and say 'mayyyte' .. then *thwack* and do it.. then probably help you up again. You dont get a warning from Aussies.. but we dont go on and on being a dick about it either - unless you're a complete tosser you're expected to report for a beer 10 minutes later when its all done and over with.

FYI. No matter what he did to you in business - dancing around gloating over forcing an old man to lose his shirt at a stage in life when he cant earn a new one is utterly detestable behavior and would not qualify you for the beer. I can see why there is a queue.

Up to page 7, becoming my morning "Soap", what was the main topic of this thread again?

Who the hell is Thích Nhất Hạnh?

Hamlet is defined by most scholars as a tragedy but in real life, would you not classify a natural or a man made disaster as tragic? I understand that tragedy to mean inevitability or fate as in the the particular actions of a protagonist which inevitably results in their own demise. There's something plodding and fixed about a tragedy. We might all agree that this story is a tragedy. Whereas tragic seems slightly less impending and self caused; more a result of coincidence. Did these events happen by accident? No, there were too many of them as told by too many people so you would be hard pressed to convince others that this was tragic. I like to use of the word unfortunate, or in this case extremely unfortunate. I can never revel in seeing a person destroyed, even if they caused their own demise, but wholeheartedly agree with James' expressed compassion for the grand kids and great-grand kids who are affected.

Agreed; to me Gene was a mystery.

Who would drive from Illinois to Seattle in a big truck, unload his wares, then be perfectly happy to sell only a little bit here, a little bit there? Gene.

What vendor would drive that far period just to be at a show? Gene.

What vendor would I have seen with my own eyes taking keychain fobs from the raffle desk against the unbelieving stares of the person working there. Who would just go up to a prize desk and start taking a few little things that were not really for sale? I don't know what was up there, but it was odd odd odd.

Add to that all the stories that have come up over the years and you get a guy who was certainly one of a kind. I don't wish him ill, but I hope many of the problems he had apparently been involved with can now be solved.

To the poster many pages who ago said something along the lines of not being able to celebrate victory without celebrating someone else's defeat give me a break.

I have had a large amount of good fortune in life, and I don't think it was directly due to stomping down on others and kicking them when they were down. You make your own luck after a point, and perhaps Gene's actions finally caught up with him. That still does not somehow make my day bright and shinier.

His failure does not make my life any better. I hope others can make something positive of it, but I still hope they would be making the best of a bad situation rather than joyfully stomping on a certainly "different" old guy who is losing his shirt.

I agree with last part anyway.....as weird as a character he seems to be he will forever get props for producing BBB at a financial loss, His actions pale in comparison to the greed and self-exculpatory behavior of people in business today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh

I wonder what Kim will do? That place was really her life - not sure he she will have too many options....

Do you guys think there will be a auction? They still had a lot of product.

Did not know I was living close (60 miles) from a celebrity... Gotta pay a visit someday.

No.

The heat will be turned off, the roof will leak with the spring rains, and then all the metal molds will go to the scrap yard and the rest to the dump.

When items are too specialized to have an obvious "book value" (like art, cars or boats do), it's amazing how fast it all goes to the dump.

You'll be paying for it, that's for sure.

http://plumvillage.org/

Here's an example from his website of pricing to pitch a tent on his land for a "spiritual retreat" with no running water, power or toilet.

Camping (bring your own equipment) Reserve
Stay in your own tent on designated Plum Village camping sites (must provide own camping equipment). We apologize but are not equipped to provide any water/septic/electrical hook-ups.
840 € per person

He sounds more like Anthony Robbins rather than Mohandas Gandhi.

Did somebody say molds?

illinois_pinball_warehouse79.jpg
illinois_pinball_warehouse81.jpg
illinois_pinball_warehouse86.jpg
illinois_pinball_warehouse281.jpg

I see the bop ramp mold in the last pic.

And this is the shame in this whole matter. No one wants to see a family lose their shirts. Gene hoarding a warehouse full of pinball machines and leaving them to the elements and letting rats nest in them is his business. The fact that he got all of these parts, rights and tooling and did so little with it all these years is shameful and hurt us all no matter how you slice it. That is still his business to do as he pleased. On the other hand, it sounds like he has committed some serious breaches of contract which hurt James and others for MANY YEARS. Whether you are 70 or 20, you have to pay the piper for your sins. Obviously the courts agree.

So...those molds have not been used in many years, right? What a trip.

That is a shame.

They will soon be scrapped at .08 cents a pound and be on a boat headed to China.

I'd be willing to give them double scrap prices.

The price of Spirituality and Greatness...

Thanks for the info... I doubt I'll "pay" a visit for now.

That's actually highly unlikely. Trust me.

That's what we all thought when a certain Jukebox and Victrola dealer got all his assets seized.

We kept waiting for an auction or some sort of sale to start paying the creditors that forced him under. I knew probably 10 people on the creditors list.

But in the end, the landlord or new property owner or whoever took it all to the scrapyard and dump.

Many one of a kind machines and test equipment, gone forever. Not only a huge loss of $$$$, but a loss of history.

A Jukebox dealer in trouble getting their assets seized; whodafcuk knew?

I know, right !?

Nothing illegal or shady ever happens in coinop.....

People would be amazed how fast this can happen. Even in the days of instant information.

LTG : )™

If Gene had all that equipment and tooling and never did anything with it, I'm pissed at him too.

I'd hold off on being pissed. If Gene had all that equipment, doesn't mean it's usable, minimum runs you'd have to make to break even ( 100's ), and space to store it until you can sell it.

I believe they were making with pinballinc ? what could be profitably made and sold. It would be impossible to make everything and in large quantities.

LTG : )™

The condition in which those molds and forms were stored was less than optimal. It would be interesting to see how many are actually usable.

Two times in my life when I was a young teenager I was given the advice to "PRAISE IN PUBLIC AND PUNISH IN PRIVATE". I don't know Gene. Maybe I saw him at a show or two and didn't realize I was talking to him (I am an EM guy). If Gene is wrong, which seems to have been proven from stories, pictures and first hand accounts, then he should be punished in private and not on pinside. Sadly we want to know what is going to happen to all of these Williams molds and rights but honestly it is none of our business but the people involved in litigation. I have ZERO respect for the other party involved gloating about his win or distaste for the other person (Gene). I have enemies in life and have won lawsuits over another persons dishonesty. I didn't go in a public forum and either trash talk or publish a blow by blow account of what happened. For one it was nobodies business and two I punished in private and with the court system.

Didn't some of the body molds for the delorean end up as boat anchors?

Molds can always be cleaned up / restored so long as the oxidation didn't get too deep.

Yeah, but there is seriously a million other things that go into that story, so don't use it as a comparison.

Good advice, but we're all here reading about it, aren't we?

It's like driving past a car accident, you know it's not right to stare, but you can't help but look out of the corner of your eyes.