[glitter-fades]

I know what you mean, Mike, about sounding negative. At critical junctures in the fan club history, I've been guilty of being quite negative. I wasn't always that way, though. When I first went to Mick's board last year, before JT started the fan club, I was one of the supportive people. I wanted to believe (against my better judgment...knowing Mick's history) that the fan club was a true outreach for the band. I wanted to believe it was more than a money grab...something of a thank you to the fans. I was wrong and I feel foolish for letting my enthusiasm for the new cd and tour get in the way of my knowledge of how these people in the music business operate. Business is business. I understand that. Mick has always shown himself to be motivated by money, but I'm sure the others are too, they're just not as, in your face about it. I'm not saying the band doesn't deserve the money, either.

The one thing I don't agree with, and I refuse to accept, is the way the fan club director misled people at the outset and refuses to admit mistakes were made. When you screw up, you admit it, make amends, and all is forgiven. I was once a supporter and I left the fold as soon as it was clear to me the fan club was never about the fans. When important questions were asked and the fan club began an orchestrated campaign to stop questions and to smack down fans who asked them, I was never going back again.

At first I tried to be diplomatic about my issues with the fan club and how it was being run. Then the orchestrated flames were thrown at everyone who dared question the Knight and the club. I flamed back, but not for my own gain, and not just for the fun of it. I'm not into being the loose cannon on a message board. I just refuse to let that dude harrass me after I trusted him with my money and my personal information by joining the fan club. I felt I had a right to speak out and to ask questions. I was one of the first to ask how the ticketing through ticketmaster was going to work, and questioned why he chose to do it that way, especially to use our screen names as our tickemaster passwords. Anyone with half a brain could see that was never going to work! There was still plenty of time at that point to conduct the ticketing directly through Mick's board...if the club had really wanted to do what was best for the fans.

JT getting hopping mad now seems a little silly. Don't you think? It's not as if he didn't know a long time ago that scalpers had all the good seats. We said so after the first pre-sale. It fell on deaf ears, for the most part. This whole issue of unsecure access to the fan club ticket block is a breech of the fan club agreement. I said so when I got my refund. If there are still people out there waiting to get refunds, all I can say is...what's stopping you now?

Of course you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you never asked for a refund, and you bought then resold lousy fan club seats, you more or less agreed what happened was ok. I'm ok, if you're ok with it. I've stopped posting about the issue because I figured it was no longer important to most fans. Now that Mick's board is enraged about this scalper, I'm a little curious to see what happens next, if anything. The truth is in the details. Let's see if anything really happens.

The whole thing reminds me of the policeman in Casablanca who said "I'm shocked!...shocked!...to find gambling going on in here!" ...while literally grabbing his cut ($$) under the table at the same time. Whether the outrage on Mick's board is just for show remains to be seen. If the band isn't just taking their cut and keeping their mouths shut, I'd expect to hear something specific's being done about it, soon. Let's wait and see.