For whatever reason, my old pal Brent Henderson has been eager to reveal himself as the person who was banned from the Heritage Owners Club at the same time that I was. He also wants to try his case in this forum. That’s fine with me, I don’t censor posts to this board. Nor do I particularly dislike Brent. I had at least three good deals with Brent over the past six years and I’ve also enjoyed participating in the “Parsons Street Pilgrimage” that he organizes.
However, and this is something that has wider implications than a single disagreement on a single guitar forum…
…I’ve also had some really unpleasant transactions and transaction discussions with Brent. The one that stands out is when a member of our forum, a Vietnam vet who was looking to cover some personal expenses, listed an H-357 on the forum. Brent told the guy he’d come out and see him in a week or so and negotiate a price. (It should be noted that Brent remembers it as four days and full price.) I told him I’d bring him the full payment in cash as soon as I could drive to his house. Which I did. Four hours later, I made it to Michigan and paid the man his full asking price.
This set Brent off and he promptly complained on no fewer than three Heritage-related discussion groups. “I GIVE, AND GIVE, AND GIVE,” he moaned, “AND THEN I GET SCREWED.” For the sake of preserving my relationship with the Heritage Owners Club, I promptly sold the guitar to someone else for the original net price and wrote-off the travel time and money I’d spent. But it continued to rankle Brent. He really thought — and continues to think — that he should receive preferential treatment in private guitar sales because of his self-appointed position as the organizer of the Parsons Street Pilgrimage. Insofar as Brent doesn’t keep guitars — he buys and sells them, usually within weeks, and doesn’t hold a collection as such — this amounts to a financial incentive that sellers are paying him to keep him happy.
I’d have been happy to let Brent step in front of me for a guitar that he would own and cherish. I appreciate everything he’s done for the Heritage owners community. However, I’m not interested in helping a guy who has basically done nothing his entire life but work for his dad’s construction company make a buck off a Vietnam veteran. If that makes me a terrible person, so be it.
Does it make Brent a terrible person? This is where the binary nature of modern digital communications and ideology, pun intended, comes in. From the comments so far on the other thread and on HOC, you’d think that it would be impossible for Brent to be a great resource for the Heritage community and a guy who has tried to pull some shady deals. The Internet is only prepared to view Brent as a scumbag or a hero. The truth is that he is neither, just like most of us.
The same is true for me. Certainly I’ve helped put the final torpedo in a couple of marriages. Were one of the aggrieved husbands in question to show up at my door to discuss the issue, would it be any defense to point out that I’ve made hundreds of solid guitar deals with people? That I always disclose mechanical problems when selling a car? That I have a 100% eBay feedback rating? What would that matter?
By the same token, had I resisted every temptation every woman put in front of me my entire life, would that be sufficient defense for allegations that I had cheated someone in a guitar deal or stolen a candy bar from a convenience store? Or is the truth about any given individual too large to be covered by the words good or bad?
A few years ago, Autoblog’s John Neff took it on himself to blame the victim in the Carroll Shelby sexual assault lawsuit. His line of thinking appeared to be: Carroll has been so nice to us here at Autoblog, there’s no way he could be guilty of what they’re saying. It’s wishful thinking. Like the man said,
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Some of Brent’s “multitudes” are great people. Others are best avoided. So it is with everyone.
The other guy is simply an opportunist , no big deal if he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut .
We had a similar deal with the Pres. of an Old Car Club I’ve been with for decades ~ he’d get many folks asking if they could sell their old car parts in our newsletters, he’d buy them low ball then make a KILLING re selling to the faithful ~ I’d never do this , he did and managed to screw a few Member before we gave him the boot , him yelling and crying as he went out the door .
Some folks are simply too stupid to know when to STFU .
I am guilty of this occasionally .
-Nate
“Does it make Brent a terrible person?”
not necessarily. but it does make him incredibly self-absorbed. Which can lead people like him to do bad-to-terrible things while thinking they’re doing the right thing.
Well, I dig the Song of Myself quote.
I’m kind of irregular at the HOC, and was surprised to see the news that you both were banned I have been somewhat disillusioned of late with much of what I’ve seen there lately, to the point where I’m beginning to perceive the winding shadows of indignant desert birds (to paraphrase another man). I also recently attempted to buy a 535-not from Brent-and, knowing what I do now, am glad the seller skipped me on that.
So, I should see if I can find a point before hitting the post button. I suppose it’s this: it is unfortunate that people seeking to share a passion often instead find discord-or the dreck left behind- to the point that it may tarnish the interest. I suspect some of that occurs with all communities, but when you have a smaller, more niche community on the internet things can become personal and egocentric considerably more quickly. I suspect I’ll be visiting that forum much less for a few reasons, but mainly because I believe such forums/time-sucks should enhance a passion, not detract from it. And, frankly, it took some time to regain my love of playing music after tiring of the insipid politics of music school.
So, I hope both of you can ultimately forget about all this spilth and just enjoy, say, slowly wringing out a one and half step bend over a couple bars.
South is down, north is up, everyone knows that. Except maybe some Australians. And all the people I’ve even met in real life ,or talked to on the internet, surely posess the ability to be both nice guys and assholes. All depending on situation, mood, and context.
(not taking into consideration al the ‘bleeding hearted victims’ on the net that would call me an asshole just for not liking VW etc. ,the tumblerettes that think everyone with a Y chromosome is a rapist, or Iphone owners)
I find these outbursts more than a little childish as well
->it’s just a guitar; and as Jack said, in all likelihood it would been flipped soon anyway. which is essentially making money off the Vet’s circumstance
I sold a guitar I really liked to a member there, at a very reasonable price, only to have it flipped shortly after at a profit. I should have just kept it but he was begging me for the thing. lesson learned.
as for “insulting his wife”, all Jack was referring to are the wife-beater shirts Brent wears. but you may as well blow that out of proportion too
to patch things up, feel free to send her to “Jack Baruth’s Pelvic Therapy Clinic” 😀
ps I like Brent, and I have only ever had good deals with him
I’ve sold a few things on Craigslist in the past year, every single case I told all callers that the item would sell to the first person on my doorstep with cash in hand. I don’t hold for anyone, much less the one guy who might swing by after work sometime next week to look at it. Actually had one guy wake me up at 5 am on a Saturday to buy a $600 boat, and he didn’t have the cash. Just wanted to look. Guess I might have woke some neighbors up cussing him out. Another guy got upset and started crying - actually crying - when he called and I told him the boat was sold. He was the one who “might” be able to come by after work.
Some people just need to grow up.
wut? that’s it? just those 3 posts at the top got the 2 of you banned? man, the mods are stricter than Sr. Leonard in 7th grade…
I find the term “fucktard” as employed by Brent to be strongly offensive.
It would have gotten him banned on the forum I mod on.
whoops, I totally misread that. I thought he said:
“the only thing you’re going to show me is the bowl of Jello and your wife knocked out this afternoon”
NOW THATS FUNNY