Gentle Fudge: February 2008Gentle Fudge

Gentle Fudge

religion, politics, current events, and other fashionable dinner conversation.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The Plot Thickens

I'll be interested to see if anyone touches this company with a ten-foot pole. Or 20. What happens in Vegas, right? Riiiiiiiiigggghhhtt.

As of February 2, Adam Frank and Kirk Sanford, the leading executives at Xyience, announced their resignation from the board of directors. According to prominent sources, they were not even paid employees. According to my favorite source, MMA blogger Rich Bergeron, Frank and Sanford were brought on under questionable circumstances "with Frank having a serious breach of contract lawsuit hanging over his head and Sanford wrapped up in an internal investigation at Global Cash Access Holdings after he suddenly and suspiciously vacated his position there as President and CEO."

Greed breeds corruption, but we don't "know" the whole story. So they say. (Can you sense the sarcasm here?) My pal Rich--well, I refer to him as such as he is one of the few media sources I trust in this whole story--has been following this scandal from the beginning, has been sued, and is still rising to the top, in search of the truth. A few associates of mine have even been in contact with Adam Frank, at his request. What a small, small world...

More info on current press coverage reads:

This case continues to develop and raises more questions with each passing day. So far, only a select few independently driven fight news Web-sites have dared to delve into the really meaty details. The Las Vegas Review Journal has published only flat reports about the bankruptcy and what appear to be one-sided allegations of death threats claimed by the current Xyience brass.

The Review Journal's lack of any hard-hitting or critical coverage of the real heart of the story here may be related to the close ties between the Fertitta family and the Greenspun Corporation. The Greenspun-owned Las Vegas Sun is distributed in The Las Vegas Review Journal. 50/50 partners on the development of a 2005 hotel and casino community called Aliante Station, the Greenspun Corporation and Station Casinos go way back. It is also not the only project they've corroborated on.

Anyway, the latest link to the pending sale of Xyience--known as the Enron of the UFC--and all the rest.

Labels: business, fraud, scandals, Xyience

posted by Sara @ 11:33 AM 3 comments

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Neil Young's Epiphany

How many people does it take to change the world? Back in the 60's, it just took one. Just one guy (or gal), an acoustic guitar, and a dream. At least, that's what our parents generation wanted to believe. "All you gotta do is believe in yourself, man," I can hear them drone in that dusky, hazy voice that best sits behind oversized shades. "Just believe that you can do it... don't let anyone tell you that you can't do anything... you can do anything you set your mind to..."

I see this sermon preached again and again to over-indulged, tone-deaf GenY kids who exit the American Idol audition room, sobbing into a parent's arms. "There, there... you are a good singer... you will make it..." the lies ooze. "You will make a difference. You can do anything that you want. You just need to try harder."

But if you can't carry a tune in a bucket, how much practicing will it take?

Lie to me... go ahead and tell me everything is alright...
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies...

Great songs. Now quit lying to your kids.

Despair.com a great little snippet of wisdom on this--"Incompetence: When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do."

Which brings me back to the original singer-songwriter, Mr. Young.

I'm not ragging on him. He is an excellent lyricist, a musical legend. Not my style of music. Still a great musician. But he just realized what GenXers have known most of our lives -- music can't change the world.

Duh.

He made this statement to the Associated Press February 7, 2008: "I think that the time when music could change the world is past. I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age... I think that the world today is a different place, and that it's time for science and physics and spirituality to make a difference in this world and try to save the planet."

The rest of the article, Mr. Young portrays himself as a cross-breed between an aging, crotchety hippie who wants the youngins to git off his lawn and a Nirvana burnout stuck in 1991, still angry and angst-ridden, beating it out in the garage.

From my limited and biased view of history, I remember the Me Generation boldly going forth into the 60's and 70's, proclaiming that they were going to "make a difference." And they did, don't get me wrong. The civil rights movement happened. But building blocks had been put into place before then by previous generations. Women's rights and women's lib happened. But again, a foundation had been laid thanks to womens suffrage and other progressive thinkers generations before. A spiritual awakening took place and freedom of thought began to flourish. But this again was not new. The turn-of-the-century previous brought new ideas in religion. Pentecostalism, the charismatic movement, revivalism, spiritualism, spiritism, and even a short rebirth of interest in the occult and mysticism. Many forms of religisiosity were laid down which brought the birth of fundamentalism and is now presently fighting underneath new emergent movements.

The quick fire of the Boomers died out when they discovered that the ideals were not easy coming and the fading youths found that money and fame did not come from this brave new world overnight. The Boomers soon were over 20 and 30, whom they had warned themselves not to trust, found that had children, and had to make money, so they settled into business and politics, and decided to make change that way.

The world was not the way they had envisioned. Music would not change the world as they said it would. People would not sit around in hippie drum circles, sharing everything they owned in one big happy commune, singing Kum-Ba-Yah. Instead, money becomes king, materialism becomes god because we must give our family everything we "never had", and layoffs becomes a way of life. The bottom line becomes more important than the worker bees, the little man becomes a number, children become a nuisance and the spouse becomes a roommate. Then, when the mid-life crisis hits, life suddenly becomes more than just an image that we stare at in a mirror, and we decide to sell it all, try to live simpler, and flirt with moving to Fiji because it's pretty there.

But is that really the answer? So Boomers get a life coach, a therapist, eat healthier. Maybe run twice a day.

There's a reason we GenXers are the way we are. We watch everything fall apart and feel we have to clean it all up because that's what we've done our whole lives.

And Mr. Neil Young suddenly has this epiphany a week ago that we need to change the world through other means.

Welcome to the real world.

Labels: Boomers, general, GenX, GenY, spirituality

posted by Sara @ 7:44 PM 5 comments

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