endlesschris - 2017-04-26
You think at some point somebody would've said "maybe we can sneak a joke in this video somewhere."
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cognitivedissonance - 2017-04-26 It was a Kickstarter campaign video. He used the Kickstarter campaign to get the down payment for a loan from the state of Kentucky. He was actually a pretty successful businessman, and ran a touristy-type novelty store in Louisville, and was a promoter for a Big Lebowski convention. Also, to read the stuff posted to local media outlets before the place opened, he was pretty open about his mental illness issues, admitted he had been homeless and bankrupt, and they treated it as a community interest story before it all went south.
But, he should never have been given money by a state government. See also 38 Studios and the failure of Kingdoms of Amalur.
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endlesschris - 2017-04-26 The production values are pretty high. That's the weirdest part.
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StanleyPain - 2017-04-26 To be fair, the whole 38 Studios thing was a flat-out scam. Not so much on the game end...the devs were honest and sincere, but Curt Schilling et al were, of course, gigantic fucking crooks.
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endlesschris - 2017-04-26 Was he? I always got the feeling Curt Shilling wasn't so much a crook as he was a terrible businessman.
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cognitivedissonance - 2017-04-27 Point is: local governments do not properly vet loans they give out for tourist or economic development purposes, and because they're frequently amateurs themselves, they're willing to listen to a charismatic huckster out of sympathy. The Cult of the Amateur is possibly the worst aspect of American civil religion, and it's killing us.
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endlesschris - 2017-04-27 Yeah. That old yarn about the evil banker who won't give a down-on-his-luck guy a business loan... its because the evil banker doesn't want to lose his job after funding a 'Funtown Mountain'
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cognitivedissonance  - 2017-04-26
So, this guy is the Rockafire Explosion guy, and he has been running Lebowski Fest for years. He bought a defunct amusement park and was going to use it to host his collection of wacky pop culture paraphenalia, as well as build a permanent music amphitheater. Everything went well for the first month, and then he missed a payment to the state of Kentucky, who floated him the loan to buy the place. He had a nervous breakdown and allowed people to freely loot his collection, which included such things as original puppets from Pee Wee's Playhouse and Lestat's outfits from "Interview with the Vampire". He then started throwing paint around the gift shop, his entire staff walked out on him, and he disappeared. The state of Kentucky attempted to serve him papers, and they couldn't find him. He's in hiding currently. The state declared it unfit for human habitation and took the property back, and now it still awaits a new owner, with all the crazy garbage still up on this mountain, only accessible by an inoperable chairlift.
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Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-26 Wow, he's like the 21st century Horatio Alger.
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