illumination.

I have been ranting a bit on here the past couple months (when I have posted) about hypocrites, and pigs. this blog almost became completely about the ridiculous behavior of a few ridiculous people. here is a little illumination on what all that was about.

First off. Me.

I used to be the Operations Manager for Salem Communications in Detroit. My duties there included making sure that 2 radio stations operated properly from a technical standpoint, production of imaging/spots, oversight of staff, and development of programs – most of which were of people who brokered their time on the air (paid to have a show). one of these shows that came to the station was “The Hughes Sullivan Show” .

I quickly struck a nice working relationship with the folks involved with that show, gained their trust, and even to a point, considered them to be friends.Sure, the guy who was the personality was WAY over the top. Sure they had a nearly diametrically apposed political view to mine. But, I found the show absolutely compelling mainly because of the tour de force that is the host. He is a bulldog. On air, and in person. One of those people who absolutely does not let anyone get in his way no matter what it is he sets himself to. From what I have seen,this has been an absolute asset to him in his life…. and a great albatross around his neck. why an albatross? Well, that drive pushes the guy to end up being frankly, a mean spirited jerk. he is incredibly controlling, especially to those in his personal life. I have also witnessed the man standing in the middle of the hallway at the radio station (one of which is a Christian station) throw a tirade over the phone with someone at his day job that was so obscenity laced that a room full of crackheads, hookers, and sailors would have asked him to take his filth outside.

Over a period of a year or so, my relationship with Hughes (not his real name, but we will get to that) and his live in girlfriend/business partner grew into me doing some work independently for them. I was warned by some folks to make sure I watched the books, and got my money up front, but hey… I liked these folks. they were good people.  The work I did for them included consulting their radio show, working on their web site, recording projects for them, duplicating CD’s and DVD’s for them, and many times… just being a sounding board for Hughes’ partner. Her name is Laurie DuMouchelle McCarron. If you look up any information about the Hughes Sullivan Show you will find her name associated with it. That is because she owns all the “Hughes Sullivan entities. I know… a little odd. but there is a reason. See, Hughes is a “Senior Vice President, Investments” at a larger brokerage firm…. one you would know, and the SEC has all sorts of rules about financial planners being transparent with all their conduct in the media. The thought on their part was, to not let John (Hughes’ real name) be involved with any of the business aspects of the show. That is Laurie’s job. He was the guy with the opinion, the big voice, and the bulldog disposition (frankly… he is one of the best RAW … VERY RAW … talents I have ever had the pleasure of working with). It was thought that by separating these 2 issues, and the fact that the show was political, not necessarily financial, that this would insulate them from having to comply with the SEC rules. It seems to have worked.

Laurie is for the most part an absolute sweetheart. She is an extremely hard working woman , who comes from a fairly well to do family, but is also struggling with being a single mom.  I really do care about the woman. Mainly because I feel sorry for a lot of the things that have gone sour in her personal life. She has been incredibly tied in politically for years worked in the justice department, worked for Senator George “macaca” Allen, and has more political affiliations with the far right in this country than you can shake a stick at. Pretty good credentials for an executive producer of any media program.

all in all, it was a lot of fun working with these folks, I really liked a lot of the projects we were doing, and I pulled away from a lot of possible clients in order to make myself available to them.Nearly exclusively.

so…. right about now… your saying…”well, what went wrong?”

honest truth, 2008 happened.

lets back up to 2007 for a minute first…

through a series of contacts and general interest, Hughes became rather obsessed with what was happening in Iraq. He had a mission. To put the war in as positive light as possible. I gotta hand it to the guy though, he put his money behind it. In May (or was it june… hmmm…) 2007 he went over to Iraq. BALLSY! He had our boy Deacon help him out with procuring a proper laptop, recording machines, etc. for the trip, and went off to be an embed “reporter” for what ended up being nearly 2 months. He came home with an ENORMOUS cache of interviews that included people up and down the chain in all facets of the war. From General Patreaus on down to the grunts on the ground, and a ton of Iraqi politicians. it was good stuff. He had material that I had never heard before. Matter of fact, this material change MY mind on what we were doing over there to a certain extent. That’s how I knew what he had was gold.

When John returned with all the audio, I was asked to help them put together what was originally going to be a series of radio specials and an audio book. It since has turned into much much more. That initial concept spawned several offshoots. One of them was a symposium in Washington D.C. at the national press club. Deacon and I drove out there with 3 duplicating towers and recording gear, in order to record/video the conference… and then turn around 1000 DVD and 1000 CD sets of 3 within a 24hr period. We did it. all in our hotel room on Pennsylvania Ave. right next to the press club. It was tough, fun work. Frankly, the worst part about the trip was finding out halfway in the mountains of Pennsylvania that the check we were givenas pre-payment had bounced, and having to convince Deacon to continue with the trip.

Over a period of a few months, the audio book started morphing into a table book project, and eventually a documentary series. This was cool stuff.

In February ‘08 I heard that Tatum Eason had passed away. While I was pretty sad, being that the guy was a pretty cool cat… I also knew that this opened up a slot on-air at WDTK. . . AAAAAND…. that Hughes wanted to get back on air…. this time with a daily program. so, I suggested to Lauri that she give the folks over there a call. She did, and with a little wrangling, they got the slot. good times. at that point, I signed on as producer of the program, for a pretty small sum of money… I just wanted to do the gig, because I liked these guys, and the other projects we were doing. Unfortunately…. being that Salem was now my FORMER employer, they wouldnt let me in the building. WAS HILARIOUS! Somehow they thought I was a threat to them. Go figure. No matter, I did my duties with the show, revamped the website, acted as amateur psychologist, all the stuff that comes with the position.

Then the slow paying started.

I was supposed be paid EVERY Friday from these folks. I would get passed off… week… after week. Again, I really liked the projects, so I put up with it. Unfortunately, that slow paying, and me putting up with it wound up cost me my truck. Banks are far less understanding than I when it comes to sob stories, and the money I was getting from John and Laurie was budgeted for the truck, and some other items… when they would go unpaid, it made for a big chunk to throw out when I would finally get money. Peter robbing Paul ensued… I would make promises based off what I was promised etc…. and then… finally, my promises not being able to be kept… the bank repo’d my beloved Durango. Damn I miss that truck.

Anyhoo… that slow paying didn’t deter me from continuing to give these guys preferential treatment in terms of projects. by April, there was word that John was going to go back to Baghdad, this time with the documentary film crew who had come onto the project, and I was going to go with to record sound. HELL YEAH! I was all for it. that trip was tentatively scheduled, and rescheduled no less than 6 times between April and August.  Lots of Important names were now involved in the projects. It had the blessing of all sorts of folks at the pentagon, there were funding proposals in front of some of the richest people in the country, and everyone was telling us that it was amazing what materials were there. it was the FULL story. yeah, it leaned toward the uber-right wing theories on the war. BUT, threw the cracks of that BS you could see the other stories that proved us going into Iraq was a massive mistake of epic proportion. . . and we changed our policies over there to reflect that.Seriously, this was incredibly important (and still is) information we are talking about. CNNMSNBCFOXCBSABCBCNBC-B.S. arent talking about the info that was/is at the core of the project.

As a part of the efforts to get the project funded, Laurie had been jumping from benefactor to benefactor who all had promises of how they were going to throw money at the project. One the organizations that claimed they would help out is a group funded by the same folks who were behind the swift boat vets…. “Move America Forward”.  This lead to them asking John (as hughes) to participate in a web fundraiser to send care packages over to the troops in Iraq. A DAMNED NOBLE cause.  It so happened that the day of the web-a-thon, John was to be at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas to do some interviews with some folks for the project. I was coordinating with folks down at Leavenworth to help them set up the webcast(video) when it became obvious that it would not be able to be done without me there. you can read about that story here.While that trip is something i am incredibly proud of, it is critically important in this whole story. Because it is some fun stuff that Katie and I did on the way back -IN OUR OWN PERSONAL TIME- that was used against me by the queen of Cant Understand Normal Thinking, Debbie Schlussel.

After the trip, there was a whirlwind of activity, and promises. First it was when we were going to Iraq, then it was going to the Republican and Democratic conventions… I had to put off other projects in order to allow myself to be available for these things. EACH TIME , they were either pushed back,or my participation was limited because of money issues. During this time, Laurie wanted to renegotiate our deal. fine. we went to an hourly deal, instead of a flat rate weekly. this had the effect of lowering my weekly pay floor to nearly half of what my retainer was, but… allowing me to gain more money on weeks where I was going WAY over the amount of hours that I had budgeted for with the retainer fee the trade off, was I would be getting a nice percentage of the GROSS of the projects. Now, many of these plans that were made, such as the conventions, had I gone on the trips as I was told I would… I would have made around $5k from mid August through September. none of them materialized, and since I had pushed other projects out of the way, I ended up with next to nothing. I was getting a little pissed frankly. and even at the lower amount, i wasn’t getting paid on time.I wasn’t the only one pissed. Everyone who is close to me… especially Katie were telling me to drop the deadbeats like a bad habit. but, I liked these guys. they were my friends… so I thought. surely they wouldn’t totally fuck me over.

I started taking another tactic. one that is common here in the world of the intertubes. I shut down the website when not paid. this seemed to free up cash pretty instantly. amazing what happens when people are motivated.But, it did serve to irritate the crap out of Laurie, and strain our friendship a bit. Most likely not the best thing with what was to come next.

all ya have to do is look back a page or 2 hear on the blog to understand what happened next.

over at the Michigan Buzzboard, there was a discussion of Debbie “don’t call me a CUNT, even though I constantly act like one, and realll really really need to get laid” Schlessel, and her media whore tendencies. So, I popped in with my opinion, on what WAS an anonymous chat board for me.  mentioned a couple of times where dear old Debbie’s ego got even larger… and she figured out who I am. she came to this site. saw Katie’s bare breast freshly pierced, and a picture of Katies ass in front of a “porn porn porn” sign …(which was incredibly funny) that was taken on the Leavenworth trip. that’s when all hell broke loose. she claimed that those 2 pictures made me a pornographer. she then decided that it would be cool to call Fort Leavenworth, WDTK, Salem corporate offices, Laurie McCarron, and others telling all of them that I am a pornographer.

the whirlwind with this lead to Laurie telling me she had to wait for things to calm down for a few days. but, in reality, I knew she was prepping to dump me. one day, I found myself locked out of the websites, and getting blown off.

since then (early October) I have been fighting with Laurie, through her lawyer to get paid for the remainder of what they owe me.  She decided to put conditions on it. one of which was a gag… or “non disclosure “. I wont ever sign one of those without some sort of compensation. I work in the entertainment industry for goodness sake. all of my experiences in life are intellectual property that I could use at any point for ideas. so, I made a VERY MODEST proposal. what would end up being less than $500 a year for 10 yrs for the intellectual property right to any of my experiences involved with their projects. she had such a violent reaction to that, she has claimed to have contacted law enforcement officials to have me investigated, and stated that she will —in her words—– “CRUCIFY YOU,YOUR FUCKING WIFE, AND YOUR DAMNED CHILDREN”— nice words from a supposed “family values” type gal huh?

All of our discussions have dragged down so far that I came to the realization that these people will never meet their obligation to pay me. but, I do have a lot of fun stories to write about. so, over time I will. not right away, I need to get away from the negativity.it is a new year after all.

so… there you are. that is that background behind all the moderately cryptic posts in the past few months.

And what have I learned through this experience?

glad you asked.

I haven’t really learned anything new, but I have had several things confirmed.

#1. Republicans are NEVER to be trusted. seriously. the people who have fucked me over most in life have always had the “family values republican” thing going for them. every single one.

#2. People who live in Gross Pointe REALLY do think they are better than everyone else. oooh! you live in a 3 million dollar house and have a trust fund? great. I live in the town where your grandma and grandpa used to come up to “the cabin” . . . I can see one of the “Fisher” estates from my back yard. . . and we have a lake you can actually swim in within a 2 minute WALK. haha. I am just a poor white boy from O.C. right?

#3. Debbie Schlussel is one of the most vile CUNT’S (yes, I promise this is the last time I will use it) in the world.  Debbie…. hint… just because you are a HIDEOUS looking man, let alone woman, does not mean you have to go around telling people that have confidence in their bodies that they need to cover them up because it damages even further your non existent self esteem.  please, for the sake of everyone on the planet… go of and lay with the woman for whom you are a plastique imitation… Mr. Anne Coulter . Go compare who has the bigger cock. Something tells me you both have one that makes me look like a poorly hung squirrel… enjoy the man/women/Jamie Lee Curtis style love, And get the hell out of the public eye. You are nothing but pollution.

#4. No matter how big the project. No matter how great it will be if all pans out. DON’T LOSE YOURSELF. These idiots have caused me to curl up into a metaphorical emotional ball on and off for the past couple months, making me doubt some things. fuck em, in the ass, with a telephone pole . Your dirty fucking money isn’t worth it…

#5. Don’t trust anyone who tries to be your “buddy” too quickly if you have nothing else in common but the activity your engaging in. THEY WILL ALWAYS TURN ON YOU.

P.S.- FOR LAURIE—– I know you read this blog. I know what you have threatened in the past. I have checked with every local law enforcement agency, and they have no record of complaint from you. If you are using your political contacts like folks in the Justice department or Sherrif Bouchard to try and threaten me, I will write about it here and elsewhere. I will not be bullied. I have never bullied you. I merely asked to be paid the remainder of a standing contract, and for my intellectual property… but you, the user and deceiver ’til the end decided not to do the right thing.  . . . and no… you will NEVER  crucify me, my wife or my children.

this has been my silkwood shower. I feel clean again.