I've said what I have to say on this and I'm not in it for the drama. (edit -- apparently I hadn't said all I had to say haha)
I don't "know" PKM. I've interacted with him on Jazzfanz and met him once in a setting where I was busy and there were a lot of other people around. I have nothing but positive feelings about that interaction.
I get that my response can easily be dismissed as insecurity or whatever else. Based on this thread that's probably how I would read it if I wasn't me.
But this idea that PKM has spoken to me with the respect that one speaks to an equal with. Uhm, no.
In particular, I was unemployed several years ago and my wife's car needed about $5000 in repairs. I was expressing, in a thread in the UGLI forum, how difficult the situation was and my limited options and asking for advice. Not advice from anyone in particular, just wondering if anyone there knew of a way to navigate the auto warranty process, or if there was anything else I could do.
PKM chimes in telling everyone how he knows so-and-so who is one of the biggest so-and-sos dealing with the brand of car in question and then turns it to me and basically chastises me for not seeking him out because it would have been just so ****ing easy for him to pick up the phone and snap his fingers and a problem like mine would be solved.
He follows that up with a lecture on my negative outlook and that if I'm acting like a looser then there's no reason to help me anyway because I'm just going to continue to be a loser.
I post a response in the thread humbly asking that if it isn't any trouble if he could contact his friend. I follow that with a PM explaining my situation in greater detail.
He tells me that he'll see what he can do.
Keep in mind at this point I'm having daily contact with the national warranty department for this car manufacturer going back and fourth on weather this will be covered or not.
I tell my wife that there's this guy, oh you remember him, he came to our house with his wife for that one poker tournament, and he knows so-and-so who does whatever and he might be able to persuade the warranty dept to cover the vehicle and we won't have to figure out how to come up with thousands of dollars we didn't have.
I wait several days.
I send another PM asking if he had had an opportunity to call his buddy, you guys know, the guy he proclaimed in public he was very good friends with who could easily fix issues like this and that PKM is a winner and doesn't have to get down about stuff like this because he thinks like a winner.
His response was that he couldn't really remember what it was I was dealing with, please remind him of the details.
I explain the situation again...
That's it. Nothing else was said about that again. I was able to negotiate for the warranty to cover half the expense as a good will gesture and I had to borrow the other half of the money from my sister.
Life went on. I also had a fundamentally different opinion of the guy who proclaimed loudly how easy problems like this were to fix when you're not a loser. I bet a lot of people who read that thread assumed PKM made a phone call and helped me out.
There's also the mutiple times people have brought up this stupid idea that PKM offered to start a brewery with me. No such actual offer was ever made. Suggestions, in public, that he could do such a thing, might be inclined to do such a thing, were made. I've never seriously pursued the notion of starting a brewery. None of these suggestions came from me. And I never once considered PKM's public statements to be sincere or meaningful.
At some point much later someone brought that up and PKM said something to the effect that he'd back such a thing so long as I never once doubted that I was the best brewer in the world and my beer was the greatest beer. But if for one second I doubted myself he'd be out. Uhh-huh. Eyerolls ensued from this side of my monitor. If I ever wanted to start a brewery PKM would not make my top-100 list of people I would want to work with in that process.
Besides that, if you read any of his statements, he was never offering to go into business with me. I'm pretty sure, at best, he was offering to give me a loan. As he has stated many times that he makes most of his money nowadays from loaning people start-up money. So, you know, despite the public statements that made things seem one way, there was never a sincere offer on the table. It was all show.
So yeah, the guy who has told me on multiple occasions that I'm a loser and I think like a loser and I doubt myself like a looser says in this thread that I'm awesome and he's never once looked down on me?
PKM is pretty good at PR. I'll give him that.
