Notice how he turned it all around be all about Austin? That’s a great example of the classic rivalry that has and always will piss the rest of us Texas musicians off. Austin’s ego is so enormanous they even demand to stand next to this bomb and get their picture taken. And, he’s saying that Austin could do it even though the rest of Central Texas fell flat. Kind of putting the blame on the talent. That’s not the article that should have been written there Mikey!

I believe he did get “WUMFed” from Whippleworld’s sidebar. I repeated it to him in the one phone call we had where we were mostly laughing at all the silly parts of this thing.

I think I’m going to send Leo the writer’s phone number. He could tell them from the point of view of someone who bought tickets and got ripped off. I think he would tell it very colorfully.

It is easier to talk about something that has gone bad after it has gone bad. I read the news in several different places and I think the press was fair. . . They just should have gotten more press before it started. . .and when I did locate the advertisement to compare notes the 150 bands sounded awful fishy. . . .but, somehow they must have sold the dream to themselves.

It was unlucky that it landed on the first freeze of the season and even though it was short the wind factor could have made up the difference. . . and if that didn’t do it the flying spectator equipment landing on your head did. . . .or at least gave a reasonable excuse to cut and run. I have heard of these things going on well in upstate New York with snow on the ground.. . .The biggie was there was no “name fan band” to celebrate. . . . . .If we all are going to be faithful followers. . . .we need someone to follow.

I was still going to go Sunday even though it was a little out of my budget. I wound up hanging out in the music room at my house and played 150 good old vinyl records. . .and had a great time although it had passed in my thoughts I might be missing another “Woodstock” and let’s see. . .where was that?

Stockdale?

This is one of the good guys. I don’t know if you got to meet him at Riley’s but he was there all night. This is an email I just received that was sent out to all the bands.

***********************************************************

Cc: chasesmind@yahoo.com
Subject: FYI

To All

Thanks again for everybody’s words. Even the bad ones.
I had a great time with everyone at Rileys bar on sunday night . Bo Porter
said “welcome to the wake”. It was a very healing experience.
The roadies and the rest of us staff have nicknamed the show Cancelfest.
The ugliness of Jerry’s actions will not tarnish the memories at the
festival, Rileys and the lobby at the Embassy Suites. Extra thanks to the
bands that brought the hotel to life. The staff were blown away. So was I.

For all money questions, please call Jerry Payne. He is the Executive
Producer and also the President of USEF.

I wish I was in a better position to help the situation but I’m just a guy
hired by the charity to help organize the festival and now waiting to get
paid for four months work.

I have not been able to reach Jerry at this point. He did issue a press
statement yesterday stating that he would be taking care of everybody
involved. I am hoping for the best. But preparing for the worst.

His Info:
Jerry Payne
President and CEO
United States Entertainment Force
36290 Verde Avenue
Madera, CA 93636
Direct: (559) 645-5015
Cell: (559) 433-7272
email: jerry@unitedstatesentertainmentforce.org
Website: http://www.unitedstatesentertainmentforce.org

I noticed that the WUMF website is down and I don’t know if or when they
might close this webmail down.

My personal email is chasesmind@yahoo.com

please feel free to call me anytime.
323.228.7008

The World United Music Festival
109 East Hopkins
San Marcos, TX 78666
office: 512.392.4997
contact: chase 323.228.7008

Anyway, the oddness of the last line in the University newspaper was pointed out to me and the gist of their perspective caught me by surprise. It was this line:

“I have to have faith that it was for real”.

And this was the comment about it: Was this a cult? I mean, what’s up with “faith that it was for real”? How do you say that about this event? It’s over and it plainly wasn’t for real.”

I thought that was cutting. But true. Apply some logic to the statement. Real like in reality or real like in she wants to believe that even the dream itself was real? Somebody needs to be debriefed. Now I think that came from someone who showed up at Rileys and was very nice. Of course all the workers weren’t bad people, but as Fletcher would say, just drinkin’ the punch. I guess it says pretty plainly that she didn’t and still doesn’t want to look at the facts, she just fed off and wants to continue to feed off faith in somebody’s grandiose plan. Sounds exactly like the stuff the gatekeeper kid in front of the festival was saying to Jimmie and I in the hour after it imploded. Isn’t that cult thinking? That’s almost a dictionary entry for cult thinking. The guy builds a 500 acre city, he attracts believers from around the world. He stirs in this emotional, logic camouflage about wounded vets, he arranges for a military jet fly over, tanks… that was the stuff that first beeped Jimmie’s radar. She asked “What the hell is that, who goes to a folk festival to see a Blackhawk helicopter land? WTF?”. Jimmie’s reaction to that was a funny moment. Isn’t it a funny world?

I guess some wonder why we’re stewing about this thing. Me and all of you are happy to do little events but do them right and we care about building community and goodwill in the Central Texas music world. Why would we appreciate people coming in here and laying a turd? It’s not a huge bad deal, it’ll be forgotten… but it doesn’t help. And they just HAD to bring 50 radio people and promoters from across the country to witness it and go back home with the story about us knucklyheads down here. Thanks a bunch, dude. The guy robbed the bank and invited the police. The radio people and the hundreds of disappointed performers will forget him for sure but they won’t forget they lost a bunch of money coming to San Marcos for a big old bunch of nothing.

When you do an event you have to be an honest, logical and responsible steward of the image of everybody and everything involved. You have to stay out of the dream state and clearly focused on getting it done in the real world. When it’s done the opposite way so flagrantly it’s irritating.