I'd hate him also if I were in Gary's shoes.

if the fan community wants to talk to people around the band, we have to be willing to hear what they have to say--- and accept that their truth might include things we don't like to hear. That's the way it goes. We can't invite people to open up and then freak or bash them when they trust us enough to open up. . No one in this band is a saint. People in this band have behaved badly at times. Maybe even abominably. Hearing about that is part of knowing the real behind the scenes story. I'm really sorry Gary chose to back out of the Q&A. Of course everyone is entitled to talk about how they feel hearing about some of this stuff-- a lot of it is bound to be disappointing to us. But I love learning about what really went on anyway. I bet a lot of others do too.

I couldn't agree more. The crap is what I WANT to hear(as long as it's the truth, or at least their own vision of the truth). Enough white washing stuff. I'm all full up on unicorns and fairy dust farts!

Agreed. I am curious if Sara said anything about his response though. I found it annoying whenever someone would go after Richard, especially since he tried to put a positive spin on everything and seemed so sensitive.

Very true.

I'll just add that almost no one who gets to the top of their profession does it by being nice. Being super successful requires a focus and a dedication to what you want to do that excludes a lot of other things in life. I was just reading a piece on Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX etc) by his former wife and she talks about how he lived/breathed/slept his work and was just not a great husband or father because of his focus and drive in his work. She understands now that that is what it takes to reach that level of success. I've seen this (maybe not to that level) in a lot of friends and colleagues. Those who have become the most successful are the ones who wanted it badly enough to focus on their career to the exclusion of most everything else. (they may be married and have kids but aren't really 'there' for them a lot).

I think that happened in its own way with this band-- you can't be the biggest band ever without recording and touring and doing interviews and photo shoots etc etc constantly. You make no room in your life for family and relationships because then you aren't doing something (whatever it is that day) for your career. (Think of that moment in the Tusk doc where LB talks about calling his mom and realizing it had been MONTHS since he'd called). This has been Stevie from day one. And Mick to a large degree also. It's a big part of how Mick lost his first family. Yes, drugs got involved too but really that was wrapped up initially in having the energy to do all that work related stuff (coke) which included being creative (pot/coke/alcohol) and in living up to the image of what rock stars do etc etc. (again career). Or trying to de-stress some from, again, your career. This made them very self-centered and all about themselves and that doesn't always make you very nice to other people, it doesn't make you think about how life is for other people, it makes you focus on YOU and what YOU need when YOU need it and can make you a jerk sometimes. Especially when you never hear the negative feedback because you're famous and no one feels they can criticize you or give you honest feedback because they depend on you for their livelihood.

Most of the band seem to have learned some hard lessons about all that (losing families, fortunes, going thru rehab, crappy sales of albums/tours, etc). I still wouldn't count on them being wonderful all of the time even now :eek:

Sara Fleetwood let it be known on Facebook that she never authorized any Q&A session through The Ledge. The comments she got became a bash the Ledge thread consisting of several people who have been banned and blocked from here and only elle and me defended The Ledge to the angry crowd. I also let Sara know that Michele j had never requested a Q&A session for The Ledge.What seemed to upset Sara greatly was a negative comment Gary made about Stevie and Mick. Her loyalty to her friend's is admirable if you ask me.

I'm talking with her now about it. Don't worry, about a thing. Every little thing, is gonna be alright.

Yes, at least those people were suspended or banned by the Ledge. The problem with these recent Q & A things is that they have nothing to do with The Ledge. It's something that Welcome Chris concocted all on his own and I don't know why he associated this site with his personal tumblr activity.

Michele

Michele, I haven't said a word about the ledge since you told me not to. It's because in the beginning we were supposed to do it that way. That didn't work out and it's now on tumblr.

That's the problem, you were never supposed to do any Q & As on this site at all. It "didn't work out" because this site knew nothing about your plans.

Obviously, if some person affiliated with the band wants to set up a thread and say they are taking questions from other ledgies, they can do that for themselves or The Ledge administrator or moderators can set up a Q & A for people, but you can't set up any Q & As here and you should never have told Billy, Bekka or anyone else that that's what you were doing. I'm glad you're not telling them that any longer.

Michele

They were going to join as members and create a thread. Not do something on the penguin. They said they couldn't figure out how to get on to join, and to do it over email. I'm not telling anyone else about the ledge.

Does this mean I have to cancel the Jack White Q&A on The Ledge?

IDK. If he's going to talk about the new album ....

Michele

Nope. Just a scoop on Meg returning to the White Stripes.
Nothing really important.