Did you see what Ada did!

Her carpal tunnel was acting up, so she made this with her FOOT:

WITH HER FOOT!

Of course, that is what artists do.

We make, and we do, and we make do.

And we help each other.

While the rest of the world is whining about their lot in life, and blaming others for their problems, and wasting time on grants, festivals, and reality shows instead of taking care of customers, not to mention tearing down an iconic older than America historic building (for no reason whatsoever), and ... well, you know.

We make, and we do, and we make do.

With her goddamn foot!

Here's what they should put in a Sugar Loaf ad; instead of "Shop Local" (and certainly instead of "Make time to Loaf") they should say:

With her goddamn motherfucking foot!

A big thank you to all the people who have dropped by the Endico studio to thank me personally for putting together this repository and clearing house of Sugar Loaf history and information, plus commending the way I handled all the senseless attacks against the hamlet online; it was my pleasure and an honor. Like that woman in Warwick said to Mary Endico, "Other towns may have community, but Sugar Loaf is an über community." - Bob Fugett

Sorry to intrude, but at tonight's Sugar Loaf Guild meeting I promised the artists they would receive mention in the Guild Forum, so here is the main group that continues to drive Sugar Loaf's strongest economy enjoyed since the 70's:

The A Team:
  Aaron
  Jennifer
  Ada
  Doug
  Clay
  Cookie
  Jessica
  Nick
  Elie
  Paula
  Kiki
  Yaron
  Bruce
  Cheryl
  Joann
  Charlie
  DJ
  Peter L.
  Amie
  Debbie
  Peter Von.
  Manon
  Connie
  Ray
  Terry
  Andy
  Ron
  Fa
  Beth
  Don
  Dana
  Tim
  Deb
  Maureen
  Richard
  Susan
  Denise
  Anne Marie
  Rachael
  Alan (local)
  Alan (Glenmere)
  Matt
  Walter
  Israel

Special group mention:
  Chester Historical Society

That is just off the top of my head, so I hope I haven't missed anybody.

I should have taken notes.

One group who has helped immensely is Barry, Sophia, Bob, and Marc over at the Delaware & Hudson Canvas Magazine.

It is the only regional publication that focuses specifically on the arts, and they have been fans of the Sugar Loaf Guild website from the start.

Back when I was closely tracking every hit and browsing pattern on the website, I became acutely aware that the IP#'s associated with the Canvas were READING THE SHIT (for lack of a better term) out of these pages.

Many readers have never noticed the little hint links I place throughout articles which allow me to time how long somebody is on a given page before clicking through or checking out a linked side issue.

Therefore when I say the folks at the Canvas are READING THE SHIT out of these pages, that is not idle chatter ... that is a documented, objective, verifiable, timed fact.

Sophia once got so excited reading articles here that she posted:

I am just going to keep this simple and sweet:

I LOVE THIS WEBSITE!^[1]

The people at the Canvas also use these pages for basic research about what is happening in Sugar Loaf and have run two dozen separate articles on various artists in town under the banner heading "Spotlight on the Sugar Loaf Guild".

Thus they have been granted a lifetime supply of Sugar Loaf University t-shirts which they continually wear to shreds and come back for more.

We are more than happy to gift them as many t-shirts as they want, because we like to do nice things for people (wink, wink and a nod toward flagrant self promotion).

While the surrounding local communities sink deeper and deeper into the bedroom community doldrums, Sugar Loaf continues to expand its base in light manufacturing which provides a local self-sufficiency like few places on earth, and that is even without considering the over the top artistic excellence of the local products.

Things like the following article stolen from the Canvas sure ain't hurting our efforts none neither.

Delaware &
Hudson Valley
Canvas cover
Dec. 2014

Ada Joe Hunter
Guild Banner Article
Page 5, Dec. 2014

Take it from me, you cannot pay for such exposure!

I've tried.

The entire collection of the architectural images are absolutely stunning.

They are an amazing historic archive.

Well done!

I'm certain everyone appreciates such a great photographic presentation of the treasures they live and work in and will hopefully pass on to generations to come as they did from generations before them.

LS

Sugar Loaf does look nice doesn't it, and old!

I am thinking your next run for Town of Chester Supervisor is going to be spectacular!

I hear the committee meetings are moving forward superbly.

Forum is periodically divided by year and partial year to maintain fast loading.

Forum periodically divided by year and partial year to maintain fast loading.

It was one of the sweetest events ever in Sugar Loaf.

Rivaling Ada's recent art opening, Jessica's wine tasting yesterday harkened back to the good old days.

A gathering of people who more than anything were just there to enjoy being around Jessica, basking in her creative light, and being part of the scene.

It reminded Mary and me of the time our hair dresser put together a "color matching" seminar, and everybody from Sugar Loaf came to it, even though we could have cared less whether we were a Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter.

The product wasn't the point, the experience was.

It is people like Jessica who keep this town running.

Ostensibly it was a sales presentation, but it felt more like an intimate gathering, fun and homey.

In fact it was so homey and so much fun, nobody seemed to mind at all when we explained, "No thank you, we don't drink ... that's right, not at all. We're just here to hang out with Jessica and enjoy the company. Hope the wine people are paying her a lot of money to put her imprimatur on it!"

As we were leaving, the tasters were chattering like they were friends (which they were) while Jessica had stepped aside to help a customer who wandered into the scene.

Old timey Sugar Loaf ... doesn't get any better.

I will move it back down where it belongs tomorrow or something.

I know I never use the Guild to toot my own horn (in fact it is specifically designed to toot every other horn not my own), but once in a while, I just have to reveal something. [01/07/2015: Done!]

Look what I did!

This will impact our business LESS than zero.

First off, it absolutely positively will net zero (I ran the numbers), but even if it ever did mean a painting sale, I could make more money working at McDonald’s (a lot more considering how much time this took), and no I will not do this for anybody else ... too damn hard putting together all the sourcing material required to make it stick.

Otherwise, I am a musician, so if I can't toot my own horn who the fuck can?

12/31/14
  missed by
    SUV7

12/29/14
  missed by
    SUV1
    SUV6

12/28/14
  missed by
    190
    SUV1
    SUV3
    SUV4
    SUV5

12/27/14
  Connie Rose
  missed by
    SUV1
    SUV2
    SUV3
  on 2nd prompting LS read:

12/25/14
  Brad Kibler
  190

The studio is closed today, and it goes against every grain in my body.

When I was a kid, my parents had a restaurant that was open 24/7/365, and my dad always said to me, "Bobby, we have to be open. People depend on us to eat. If we aren't open, they are still going to eat ... just somewhere else. And they won't be back."

It is how I was raised.

I spent many Christmas Eve's flipping burgers.

Plus you just took time to write in the Guild Forum.

You are a laborer, and it is in your nature to work.

Relax and stop worrying about it.

Just be happy you are not hungover like most of the rest of the world.

In our own super secret dog park, the mountain bikers have a crew that shows up en masse to maintain the trails.

That is why nobody got upset at the bikers for scaring a skittish rescue Pit Bull.

Follow up to that story: Bill said that when Daisy found and circled their group near the end of the top field then bolted, soon afterwards the mountain bikers came by hauling ass.

That means Daisy got spooked by them, started following her mom's scent back up the trail they had been travelling, and probably decided the mountain bikers (following the same trail) were chasing her.

Daisy's prior experience with people would have lent credence to that belief.

The world is full of people.

Some abuse dogs, some tend trails, and some whine about their businesses they only show up for part time while believing that "just passing along goods" is an acceptable business model (Sugar Loaf).

I prefer to spend my time out amongst the trail tending types.

My advice: follow the trails of tenders, not the tales of trenders.

Tara ran up to us just as we were finishing today's walk in the off-leash, run as you might, out of control, total happiness, heavy breathing of actually being alive out in the wild, super secret local dog park.

"Did you see Daisy?" she asked, "The two mountain bikers spooked her and she took off. She managed to hold it together for the first mountain biker, but I didn't know there was another one coming behind, and I let my guard down. The second bike was too much for her."

With the sweetest rescue Pit Bull in history now missing and gone, Tara was in tears, so a few seconds later texts and phone calls had gone out.

Therefore all the people in every group of dog owners in the 4 square miles of mountain trails, open fields, and lakeside spots were alerted.

Tara headed up toward the field where we had just left Bill, Mike, and Grace, while Bob and I continued down toward the cars with Robbie whom we had just run into near the middle tree-covered trail.

Bob took off running to the cars, just in case Daisy had circled back, but soon he phoned she wasn't there, so I told him to drive up to the upper parking lot to check.

By the time Bob was getting back, Robbie was already alerting new arrivals and planning to take his dog, Chuck, home in order to free up the day to come back and engage in the search.

I was already half way up the first trail covering all bases.

The amazing responsiveness of the ultra close-knit local dog community is really something to see in action.

The final phone call came while I was trying to figure out how to leave Bob there for the search, while I would come back to Sugar Loaf and open the studio.

Daisy had found one of the groups up in the third field, circled around them, bolted again, and ended up at the north end of the lake where her mom rushed to get her.

All is well, and Daisy is back with Tara (who will probably stop crying sometime later this afternoon).

I must say, I feel very sorry for people who have never experienced community and the power it holds to get something done fast.

Especially about how hard we have worked to be able to make our living selling handmade items that buck the trend of cheap commodity goods made by the quickest easiest cheapest automated processes.

Or if something similar does happen to be carefully made by a human's hands, it is always done by third world slave labor.

The only problem I have with "community" is how quickly it can turn on you, for cause or not, and how intractable the negative result can be on unwary businesses that are often owned by people with such hubris they don't see it coming before it is too late.

On the good side, just as a lasting good reputation in a community can never be made on lies, it can also never be lost on lies.

The truth always carries the day, maybe not today, but some day.

I used to believe it important for me to cry, "The king has no clothes," but now I understand that the king's own massively jiggling gelatinous cottage cheese giant bare ass does a much better job of getting the word out than I ever could.

BRUCE ROBERTS
handmade
PIN

Photo updated from the earlier article titled WORKERS UNITE (now updated there as well) which was about observations from the Welcome Center.

It's all about how precisely a piece is described.

Your plan would probably be rational if not for the fact Slippery Jinks will be back by early April, and he always changes the Tuesday Key Bank ride to the mountainous course.

Just so you know.

Twin

We should probably move this discussion over to American Road Cycling.

Here's the story about Sharon:

Let me say it again, I think that a little B&B cycling excursion is a business just waiting to happen here.

People wouldn't even have to stay at your house, and you guys could just provide great coordinating services for the whole affair.

During the day, during the week, the roads are dead (almost no cars), and there are rides to rival any in the world, with a variety from the flattest flat to the cutest old world climbs.

But don't get me started.

You will never get me to show up for a party, but you might get me to show up for a ride.

Of course, Larry would have to work on getting his fat ass in shape, but it shouldn't take him very long to be kicking my own sorry ass (severely weakened by 2 years working on the Guild stuff) ... and you can tell Larry for me right now, I will not in the least enjoy having my ass kicked.

In the meantime, you can enjoy the Sharon story.

-b

I know you are just going to say you hate to waste time, so if you are writing, write for the Web, but still ...

... now you think you have something to say?!

Here is the definitive explanation of why Sugar Loaf is hated so much.

The quick summary is that Sugar Loaf is full of workers who have taken over the means of production, and who own their own lives (often their own homes and business locations), and who do not respond well to the standard bullshit people are expected to respond to in ways such as, "Well, the group wants it, so I have to go along with it."

Is it any wonder that corporate retailers hate us so much?

They cannot set the prices of our products; they cannot stick us into a sweatshop working for slave labor wages while we beg for a "shot" at notoriety, fame, and fortune.

They cannot even sucker us into wasting our time by being herded into one of their so-called art festivals.

We have built our own reputations while we answer to no one (except our customers from around the world), and we are running efficient little businesses with processes that are the envy of big box stores who only wish they could wrest the same level of performance out of their trapped, bored, unskilled, uninspired, and unholy employees.

Of course they hate us!

Let me give you a quick overview of a few things I learned while I was handling the Welcome Center this summer from the porch at the front of Romers' Alley.

I learned a great deal during the two weeks that I spent living full time on the Sugar Loaf main street, like a homeless vagrant free from any responsibility other than the absolute necessity to learn the realities of the street by means of a focus that only the desperate to survive can achieve.

I learned a lot, but a few things really stood out.

Here is a reprise of a photo which was typical of my interactions with people who had come to town hoping to find the best:

JUST A NON-DESCRIPT
SUGAR LOAF MONDAY

The photo above shows a typical Monday in Sugar Loaf, and yes I am entertaining, and yes Mary happened to be passing by to loan me her phone for the picture.

So that sets the stage, and following are some things I learned about the hamlet by viewing it from the front row seats.

To numerous people just like the two shown above with Mary, I constantly presented Sugar Loaf products from the table of wares I was collecting throughout my time on the porch.

One of the things I always presented was this little leather purse (shown below) made by Eli Aji who works just two doors down from the Welcome Center porch:

ELIE AJI
handmade
LEATHER PURSE

The purse above is possibly my strongest memory, because the first time I observed people's reaction to it, it was like getting punched in the stomach.

Totally unexpected.

They would grab it out of my hand, rip out the business card, and start turning the purse over and over, opening it up and looking closely at the stitching, putting their fingers inside, then repeating the process several times over and over while cooing and awing.

I had never seen people carefully fingering such an object, drinking in its presence with their fingers, holding it close to their eye to confirm that what they were feeling was what was actually there.

They would end by popping the business card into their pocket and asking me again (breathless), "Where did this come from?"

"Two doors down that way."

Now pay attention readers: you will notice there is not a designer name of wide renown on that purse.

The shoppers were not being blown away because this was an item they had seen sprayed all over the Internet and popping out at them from sickeningly fragranced pages of fashion magazines while waiting to get their hair done.

They were having a raw reaction to uncommon excellence, to rare authentic quality.

To me it had just been a little purse that I went in and bought for my table saying, "No, it doesn't have to be anything special, really, just something Elie made," and having it handed to with the comment, "Here, this is classic Elie."

Six bucks or something.

Fuck!

Emboldened by my wonderful Into Leather presentation experience, I would reach down and pick up the pin made by Bruce Roberts shown below.

BRUCE ROBERTS
handmade
PIN

Pretty much the same thing would happen as with Elie's purse, but by then I was jaded and took it as typical, expected ... except for the recurring shout, "No way! A handmade PIN! You can't find these anymore. How much? $120 ... $160?"

"No, $16, down at the end of the alley."

Then I would read aloud Bruce's credentials from my iPod.

No words from people at that point, just slack jawed gaping.

That pin made right here, and by the guy with these credentials, and you can walk right down the alley and meet him ... Wow!

Then there was the issue of the soap:

ROSNER
handmade
SOAP

The soap I really didn't spend a lot of time presenting, because quite frankly Kiki is a little too aggravating for words, otherwise the soap was there and people saw it and enjoyed it, but I got no pleasure from it, until ...

Yaron (Kiki's husband and apparently the source of the soaps) stopped by with some promotional cards for me, and I asked him about the process.

His entire countenance shifted to intense interest, and obvious love for his product, so I looked at the soaps again, realized the little sprig of a leaf was actually something grown in Yaron's own garden and carefully pressed by hand into each bar of soap.

I took a more careful look at the soap, saw that the composition of each leaf was exact and perfectly matched to the color of each bar, and I had to admit, "Shit, that is top quality."

Still don't like Kiki much.

Now the grand finale that this story has been riding a crescendo to:

ORIGINAL HENGEN
(sadly SOLD)

Since I already had my iPod in my hand reading Bruce's credentials (almost as a Shakespearean performance), I found it easy to flip over to the image above and usually get out almost all of, "Made right behind this building," before people would break into an out-of-control yammering facsimile of a LOUD APPLAUSE.

People just couldn't believe that it was made by hand right here in Sugar Loaf, and by somebody who was working not 10 yards away from where we were standing.

I do not really like to talk about this part, but I am quite certain that on seeing Jessica's work a number of people actually shit their pants, and from what I have seen they are still trying to clean up the mess from around the Welcome Center.

You are very lucky to have gotten away from that place with so little psychic damage.

And don't forget, your time on the porch wasn't totally like being a homeless vagrant because at one point even the owner of the Barnsider Restaurant, Matt Kannon (in the midst of running his business into the ground for the divorce settlement), said to you, "Bob, seeing you on that porch over there gives me hope."

It is unlikely street people get to hear something like that very often.

Not to mention Barry Plaxen, owner editor of the Delaware and Hudson Canvas Magazine, screached a U-turn in his car when he saw what you were doing and came over to find out more.

Is Sugar Loaf getting lots of free press now, or what!?

I find it ironic that the "workers taking over the means of production" in Sugar Loaf has resulted in a prime example of "capitalism" instead of the socialist utopia envisioned by Karl Marx.

It is a utopia alright, but capitalist, which makes us hated all the more by powers of corporate commerce that only pretend to be capitalist while trending toward slave labor camps.

You are aware that Wal-Mart has moved into Sugar Loaf and is selling third world blood crystals?

At least they have made a nod toward the artisan work of yesteryear by weaving a fine nap of fresh loomed wool to pull over the eyes of the locals.

Some people never learn.

However, the true artists in Sugar Loaf float above it all, never dipping so much as an oar tip into the shit.

I am proud to live here!

BTW: In order to save myself a whole other article, allow me to mention here that I am myself especially hated because I own the Internet and program it to do my bidding on a whim ... you want Facebook? I can program a better one in a fortnight. Twitter is your thing? What the hell do you think this page you are reading is? You want social media? Social media c'est moi !!!

There, that was a time saver.

Anywhere else in the world I would be just another IT tech guy doing what I am told to do, but Sugar Loaf gave me the opportunity to steal the thunder and run my own show.

Can't blame the world's otherwise overlords for hating me.

My deal with the devil was this, "Bob, you will receive unlimited ultimate power ... but only over your own life. The only thing you will need to give in return is your immortal soul to be collected somewhat sooner than you would like; sign here."

"No problem."

Maybe the strongest reason I am hated, however, might be the fact that I never seek elected office, positions of power, or get involved with fickle groups whose only purpose seems to vaunt random members to the head of the class making them an easier target to blame for the group's own shortcomings.

In summary, that means it is impossible to act as a shill in a group meeting (online or otherwise) stirring up trouble resulting in my ouster.

Do what you will, at the end of the day, Bob will still be Bob — owner of the Internet and his own life.

Pull down and read about the chess game again.

Now I am going to go out and try to reclaim my natural state which is:

BOB PRE-GUILD REDUX
Oct. 4, 2012

Two hours later: Whoops, stop the presses; Aaron just came by to thank us for sales he has made as a direct result of the Guild website, and that reminded me of stories about his work on the Welcome Center porch just like those of the other artists' work described over at the left, so I should probably keep the ball rolling thus:

LUFT GARDENS
(good, good, good)

And the best part for Aaron and everybody else in Sugar Loaf: Guild services are FREE, FREE, FREE ... and exceedingly effective.

Now back to the Bob Fugett reclamation project (see photo 2nd above).

Another hour or so later: Whoops again, Mary got this photo of the horses over at the church, so what was I to do but post it here and hope I can finally be done:

SANTA'S HORSES
Methodist Church
Sugar Loaf, NY

Now for sure back to the Bob Fugett reclamation project (see photo 3rd above).

Don't tell anybody; it will just be the newest super secret hidden Guild sales technique.

We'll just call it "The Doggie Connection" ... shhh!

If you have interest, I can teach you so a human will never beat you.

Fill a room with them, and I will play them all at once ... show you how, too.

Except I still do not know anything about an ugly header ... only that I've got one.

How embarrassing.

Out for the day.

Talk soon.

Best to you and Mary,
LS

In the meantime, below is a quick review of what you have been watching happen.

People have been complaining to me that the Sugar Loaf Guild website is too slick and commercial.

I understand that people have become accustomed to ignoring the new generation of slick presentations (which are truly empty of content such as Facebook and Twitter) while most people use Google and Wikipedia as the baseline examples of rough and rugged interfaces providing deep useful content.

Those sites provide the model that the Sugar Loaf Guild website is based on.

Here is the logic behind.

Figure 1 below shows a slick commercial chess set while Figure 2 shows a quick handmade set made this morning specifically for this demonstration.

Which would you bet on: 1) a mentally challenged three year old using the top set (Fig 1), or a chess grandmaster using the bottom set (Fig2).

Fig. 1
Slick Commerical
Chess Set

Fig. 2
Home Quickie
Chess Set

What you have witnessed recently (especially by way of Wikipedia) is an arrogant and ignorant three year old getting his ass handed to him by a master of the game who sandbagged the presentation layer in order to distract from the underlying revealed attack.

Sadly, the widesread understanding of the fluff versus content issue has made people question why I have taken the extra time making the Sugar Loaf Guild website so modern and slick looking in comparison to Google and Wikipedia.

I apologize for prettying things up too much here, but I thought it important to make some compromise in function for easier navigation by people looking for the essence of Sugar Loaf.

Unfortunately, explaining the specifics of that would require an extended article on semiotics which I do not have time for today.

I have to work on the articles about why Sugar Loaf is hated so much (by a few) and why I am hated so much (by a few more), so my apologies for not going into greater detail on the essence behind the look, feel, and functioning of the Guild website.

Of course I am Black in Fig 2 above.

Your guess is as good as anybody's why Jay hates Sugar Loaf so much and why he has gone so far out of his way over the years trying to hurt the hamlet he came from in any way that he can.

Fortunately, the online world has no effect on the actual businesses here, neither for the good, nor for the bad.

At least the online world has given everybody a solid understanding of Jay's character ... with Mary and I somewhat chagrinned for having taken so long to recognize it ourselves though so many people told us, even warned us.

In any case, the Sugar Loaf Guild website provides a clear explanation about the hamlet's status and is immune to Jay's nonsense.

As Jessica said, "Online the Guild is everywhere," so who really cares.

I am placing the project of further editing the Wikipedia article in your able hands, Lenny, because I know you will be able to springboard into action, aware of how easily I made positive changes to the article despite Jay's best efforts to hamstring the effort.

Poor sad fellow.

In the real world, Mary and I keep hearing story after story of people receiving the same sort of insulting email you received from Jay.

I know you prefer to consider his actions a sad chemical imbalance, but I see it as criminal behavior through and through.

In any case, you have seen the potential of the Wikipedia article (aside from Jay's constant vandalism), and the extreme ease with which it can be improved, so I leave it for you to move the ball forward.

The project could be the perfect center piece for organizing your group around your next campaign for Town of Chester Supervisor.

Having come so close to winning last time, while having started only 3½ days till petitions deadline, just think how well you are going to do with a couple years to get the word out.

It has been gratifying dropping by your house and seeing the steady flow of concerned and interested people who seem so eager to get things started by coming to talk to you.

If I do not immediately stop talking about Jay here, I am going to start losing readers because people are bored shitless by him.

Ok, one more thing.

Ugly Headers is a term I picked up visiting Cornell in 1993; the term was used by Mac people at the time.

Email contains "ugly headers" and (I guess) "cute headers".

Cute headers are the lines: from whom, to whom, the subject, who got CC'd (that is to say a summary).

"Ugly headers" are also called full headers and have it all; they are not all that hard to hide, but most people don't know about them and don't hide them, and if anybody really, really wants to find them anyway (like say the Police with a warrant) they can find them no matter what you do.

People like to think there is some way to hide, but there isn't.

Below are the "ugly headers" from your most recent email to me.

Your laptop IP# is ██, your optimum online connection IP# is ██

Can you find those two IP#'s below (near the top) of your previous email's ugly headers?

[Headers removed here as a security measure.]

I added your email about the history of Kain Road to that page, and the people who climb it on their bikes will be really interested to see how it started as a hill for competition and remains that today.

As soon as you get your bearings with Wikipedia Revision Histories, I will show you a very special IP# embedded in the defacing and vandalism of my own work on the Sugar Loaf, New York article.

Now I will take a moment to clean up some stuff here.

The link Mary sent to Sophia for the upcoming Lenny article in the Canvas has gone more or less viral for us, and it caused me to notice some odd browsing.

Brad Kibler (Clay's son) broke from his standard of reading only the Forum and took a look at these two pages:

So for Brad, I am placing a link to the permanent record of what happened to Ezra's house:

Something placed on Wikimedia Commons like that is permanent, so it will survive my own death much better than Ezra's house survived his.

I am not sure why, but an IP# for a reader I had flagged as having some connection to that image has been missing for a week or so.

Maybe this will bring them back.

Also, Mary noticed that Connie shut down her Sugar Loaf University Facebook page tight, tight, tight.

I am sure she did that for good cause but even then probably did not realize several people who were harassing her on it were actually the same person, arriving as several "sock puppets".

Learn that term well, Connie: sock puppet.

There is also the term "meat puppet" which Lenny tells me Walter used to act as IRL (In Real Life) from the public floor at Town Board Meetings.

Otherwise, Connie, I noticed you clicked over to the 360° surrounds page, which I know you were already aware of, but good to see you're still carefully reading.

And please, please, please, all of you stop asking me about the odd circumstance of the only "Notable people" shown on the Wikipedia Sugar Loaf, New York article being the two most obvious losers the hamlet has ever known.

Learn to read the Revision Histories, and you will see how that happened, and as for my own interest, I am not going to change it because I do not mind that the obvious is made even more obvious by the proximity of the two names ... especially given that one was a very temporary wannabe business now closed for over a month.

Like I have said before, the Wikipedia process is just wonderful for getting the truth out ... eventually.

This is so cool.

What you describe below has the potential of improving the quality of life for everyone in every municipality.

The politicians would hate it.

Best,

LS

"It would be as if anybody in the world could walk into the Town of Chester Town Hall, any time night or day, any day of the year, and have open access to review every single document at their leisure ... and the name of every person who had ever touched any part of any document would be timestamped with when they changed it."

If you run into trouble figuring out Wikipedia, I'll stop by and step you through it.

It's a 5 minute lesson tops, discounting the Lenny factor.

It is a little bit like riding your bicycle up Kain Road.

Politicians are done before the first driveway.

The only difference is that Kain is hard for everybody, while Wikipedia is only hard for politicians.

Super easy for everybody else.

In fact the Canvas is gearing up to do an article on him, and he even got here three times yesterday by following a recycled link Mary originally sent to Sophia.

As an aside, it is amazing what one can learn from the timing of posts alone.

Wikipedia tabs
Read, Edit, View History

Clicking on View History opens a list of every Edit that has ever been made to a page since it was created:

Wikipedia
Revision History list

That list provides links which open historic pages showing exactly what the page looked like at any moment in time since the moment it was created.

It would be as if anybody in the world could walk into the Town of Chester Town Hall, any time night or day, any day of the year, and have open access to review every single document at their leisure ... and the name of every person who had ever touched any part of any document would be timestamped with when they changed it.

The records are permanent and cannot be shredded.

By inflaming Jay on the Guild Forum, I tricked him into following me onto Wikipedia where he vandalized the improvements I was making to the Sugar Loaf article, so there is now a permanent record of his character and what he did.

Even one instance where he revealed one of his IP#'s, which I am sure you could find in the ugly headers of the horrific email he sent you.

[More on the grand chess match which is the Internet later]

Things he said about Mary and me on Facebook, he was able to say then remove or hide from view, but on Wikipedia there is a permanent record of what he did.

Anybody with a question about the veracity of any article on Wikipedia can review the full history, and decide the logic for themselves.

Mary has contacted the police, so a permanent record of our concerns over the continuing harassment is also documented, just in case.

I did see Susan's work online, and it is not too personal to market.

However, in addition to the fact Mary has virtually never sold a piece away from Sugar Loaf (actually less than 2 dozen out of over 20,000 pieces otherwise sold in Sugar Loaf), her website has always been basically worthless.

Online is no place for art sales; people like to see it in person, and every computer monitor is different, not to mention Mary's work is out of gamut for every display.

Her website is slightly useful but has never gotten her a "new" customer (since being put online in 1993 the first year of the World Wide Web), though her established collectors love and view her website avidly ... only those with Internet access of course.

Actually this year her website has been instrumental in over $13,000 in sales, but even then 99% of those people came to the studio.

Otherwise, the Internet is a good place for low end commodity products provided by slave labor of third world countries.

The people in Sugar Loaf who do their own work, and open their doors regularly do well, while those who do not do their own work and open their doors regularly do poorly and refuse to believe the answer could be so simple ... nor do they want it to be so simple.

It is simple but hard, relying in large part on reasonable property taxes and extremely efficient lifestyles.

The people who are doing well are never (or very rarely) found at Chamber meetings where they would have to put up with people like Nick, Walter, Kiki (and now Veronica) for no purpose.

They also rarely advertise; in fact Clay goes out of his way to stay off the grid.

Currently the Barnsider is having a rough time of it, but that seems to be because Matt is purposely destroying his business to make it less valuable in the divorce settlement.

There are also a bunch of people like your pottery friend who are hampered by substance abuse.

Mary has been having record months in a record year, but those who do not want to hear that, do not hear it.

In any case, prove you read all of this by clicking below:

BTW: Man, do I hate writing with one finger on my iPod like I just did for the above!

I will have to recoup some of my loses by copying it into the Forum while taking the hit on no other readers knowing the names mentioned.

After that - Why they hate Sugar Loaf so much (the few that do)

And after that - Why they hate me so much (hint: jealousy)

It is based on his character and reputation.

All the Facebook Likes in the world would never buy you that.

People will be:

Calling all sock puppets, meat puppets, and IP#'s; line up for your Search Warrants and Subpoenas!

Len Silver accepts $300
"Most Careful Reader"
Guild Grant Award

Take a close look at the painting behind Len Silver shown above (click to enlarge).

As a matter of policy, I (Bob Fugett) wish to have not one single solitary thing to do with anything outside of Sugar Loaf proper, or not even anything within Sugar Loaf proper if it is not hand made art.

However, once in a great while there is something really close to Sugar Loaf that makes me break with policy and talk about what needs to be talked about.

Welcome to once in a while.

The painting shown above is over Len's mantle on Brimstone Mountain Road which is just off Sugar Loaf Mountain Road and only about a mile from Sugar Loaf Main Street

That in itself would not be enough to make me break with tradition, but there are other overwhelming factors here.

First off, that is NOT a painting.

It is one of Len's own photographs.

Says Lenny, "When I was a kid I loved Andrew Wyeth paintings because they looked like photographs, so as an adult I like to make photographs that look like paintings."

As for me (Bob), I have been looking at this stuff a long time, and I can tell you without question Len Silver is the best photographer within 10 miles of my house, and that includes Sugar Loaf, so there.

Len has even ghost written images for other local photography fames.

Many readers are now thinking, "Yeah, as a tiny jpeg it may look like a painting, but the full size real thing would never be mistaken for a painting."

Except I was standing right beside it when we were handing Lenny his $300 award check, and my exact thought was, "Shit, Lenny was supposed to show us one of his photographs, not this damn painting."

Then he told us the story about how he likes making photographs that look like paintings, and yes that is a photograph.

But that is just the beginning of this story of why I am saying something about somebody close, but no cigar, to Sugar Loaf.

The next thing is about cultural significance, an attribute very important to me because artists are always striving for cultural significance in their work.

Unfortunately most artists think merely creating something that speaks to a significant issue gives them the right to claim culturally significant activism.

Something like, "Do you see this picture about the massive internal pain, strife, and struggle of cancer survival that I made? It will change the world!"

Our friend Lenny, however, takes that basic concept three major bounds and a leap into actuality.

Lenny constantly steps away from his camera, dark room, and Photoshop mouse, in order to hunker down in the trenches and actually (I mean really) do something.

You will always find him at local political, civil action, and protest meetings engaged in intellectually robust discussion about problems that exist around him while fighting for ideas that make things better.

I have known him for almost 40 years, and he has always been that way.

Not to mention he is a builder with significant carpentry skills (etc), and he developed one of the sweetest little residential tracts in the county, where some very lucky home buyers now reside in comfort and solitude ... if not total quiet (gun club you know).

He even ran for Town of Chester Supervisor two times and just narrowly lost while casting a strong light on significant issues which would never have been seen without his floodlight of attention.

In fact just a few weeks ago (during the official debate before the Town Supervisor election) somebody he had thought worthy of trust cold cocked him with, "Two (2) seconds to wrap it up," but Len had the presence of mind to extemporaneously blurt out THIS HEADLINE.

And get this: Lenny ran the whole campaign from a dead start just 3½ days before ballot petition names were due, fought powers that are adept at blocking such things, came within a hair's breadth of winning, made sure his last statement in the election debate accomplished something, and did the whole thing while on chemo therapy due to a good dose of the Cancer.

That my friends is true art, activism, and cultural significance.

Sugar Loaf, your ass is kicked, so just lay down and die!

Lance Armstrong probably needs to continue inspecting his own life as well.

Signed,
Bob Fugett

He won his Sugar Loaf Guild Most Careful Reading award for his tracked browsing on the Sugar Loaf Guild website, with a healthy portion of understanding thrown in.

Below is the check that he is holding in the photo:

Len Silver $300
"Most Careful Reader"
Guild Grant Award check

Everybody probably needs to look at that image of Lenny and his photograph, up over on the left, real close again.

Go back over there, click on it, and wonder at the miracle.

Post Script: Len knows full well my reputation for being an avowed Jew hating anti-Semite, so immediately on taking control of his check he quipped, "I'm donating this to KJ!"

Jews ... hmph ... can't be trusted.

In fact, Lenny wouldn't even accept the check until I assured him he could donate it to the charity of his choice.

Signed,
Bob Fugett (OMG: somebody in Sugar Loaf actually signed their name to something)

Additionally, from what I saw over at your house yesterday, I can assure you that your online process is perfect, and not one more thing is needed.

Avoiding Facebook, Twitter, and all those last century services is at this point state-of-the-art.

I promise to post an overview a little bit later.

But as a warmup, let me just say Mary reports that a local business owner was standing in her studio something like 8 years ago telling her how wonderful those services are, how he was going to be putting the whole thing together for Sugar Loaf, and then he did do a lot of work putting it together for a few years.

That person is now gone from town, and Mary saw yesterday they rarely add to their own pages from their new location in Warwick while another big time service over there only posts copy/paste articles from other sources.

However, there is a new business in town now promising to do it all over again (for a fee) ... as if it was something new!

Anyway, what you have been doing is perfect, so don't give it another thought, and don't buy any snake oil from transient gypsies.

However, due to the fact your stated intention is to continue your 40 year tradition of cutting 5 cords yourself every year (so you don't want it right now but might need an easy cord in the future), we will be cutting you a three hundred dollar check ($300 prize) and delivering it today with an awards ceremony and photos.

Do not (repeat: DO NOT) prepare refreshments for the occasion.

I am too fat from spending so much time with the Sugar Loaf Guild website and promotions over the last couple years.

I do have to say that the article was one of the most carefully written I have seen, and I had to get all the way down to the fifth (5th) heading to find something that needed attention.

BRURDERHOF
ON WIKIPEDIA

Thanks for showing me that insulting e-mail you received; it was standard issue.

The quality of your work has put you at the top of the Guild Grant process, and review is under way for an appropriate Guild Most Careful Reader award!

You are also now at the top of the list for the next Spotlight on the Sugar Loaf Guild article in the Delaware & Hudson Canvas Magazine.

More on that later.

I have now confirmed your home IP# and opened it up for posting in the Forum, a permissions status which has become very coveted.

I won't bore you with all the details of your own browsing and reading of the Guild website (you know what you did), but I will just leave you with this.

You were last on this website around 8:30 last night at which time you read the Forum for 10m19s before clicking the top of page header link to the Home Page and 1m23s later you hit the caption (text under) for the image link to the walking map (which is under the selection menu on the left of all pages) and 1m7s later clicked on the Numeric Listing for My Sister's Closet which brought you to their image and further links on the Historic Photos page.

Now don't freak out; it is not a matter of me knowing your every move, it is a matter of my knowing everybody's every move (I own the Internet) ... so fuck 'em.

In any case, I will post a little description of just how sophisticated my process is a little later by comparing it to a chess match.

In summary: Lenny, you are the BEST, but then everybody who actually knows you, already knew that. -b

Came home to a wonderful phone message from you last night.

Thank you so much for being there for me.

Viewed your site 4 a.m ... wow!

Be well,
LS

Your 4 a.m. viewing was probably just after my daily logs were generated, so I'll get to see your browsing pattern tomorrow (assuming you clicked one of the e-mail links, or the IP# that I grabbed from your previous mail holds up).

In any case, do you have a pile of wood that you are working on, and could you use a hand splitting and carrying?

Otherwise, I am sure you noticed I have been dumping your e-mail into the Guild Forum. -b

"quarterly" <> "quartely"

Guess I should change the "New Year" <> "new year" issue at the same time.

Don't forget to read the article from the Record again, so you can bet on which people in the current Town of Chester administration will be spending time in the hoosegow.

Scroll down to the long tall image and click on it.

I have noticed that this page is starting to serve too slowly, but with only three weeks till the end of the year, I should wait before splitting to a new page.

So I will cut back on new posts with images, and in the New Year pre-plan for quarterly Forum page splits.

I have not had the slightest interest in Town of Chester politics in over a decade (considered it hopeless after I resigned from the Planning Board in disgust), did not know a thing about the current players during the last election, but yesterday Lenny really piqued my interest.

On the flip side, the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce has gone so daffy it isn't even worth commenting on anymore.

Therefore, I am leaving the article from the Record toggled on below and otherwise keeping my yap shut.

Everybody read that article again (scroll down to the long tall image and click on it).

People might actually be going to jail!

Haven't had any time as winter is approaching, and I have no firewood to speak of, plus today I go to NYC for a scan.

I'll read it this weekend.
Want to know more about your site.
Be well,
Lenny

My morning logs review gave no indication that you saw the link I sent you, but everybody else who needed to see that reprint of the article from the Record did.

Therefore, I am toggling it off as having completed its mission.

Jay attacked the posting immediately (so I would assume he is really not your friend), but he is blocked from publication, and I never even bother reading his nonsense.

Your experience with him matches what everybody else has told me, and I haven't been able to find anybody in the Real World who will even give him the time of day.

He is a classic troll who uses standard bullying techniques.

I reviewed the LinkedIn situation with Mary, and she only knows about it because two of her Real World friends were stupid enough to "join" and find out that signing up for it exposes people's entire e-mail contact list which LinkedIn uses without telling them.

When Mary asked her two friends about what she had received, they did not know anything had been sent in their name.

Same thing for Facebook, Twitter, and all that other nonsense, all of which things are are far, far, far behind the times in any case.

That is why I questioned you about the veracity of Alex Jaimeson's Facebook presence: Jay pretends his Sugar Loaf Guild Facebook page is connected to us, and he also tried to post as Alex at one point in the Guild forum (like he did previously as Alan Stenberg), but I caught him and shut him down.

Mary also knows of 4 other aliases Jay uses online (very easy to spot once you know his writing), and we suspect several more.

In any case, everybody I talk to in the real world says that every word out of Jay's mouth is a total fiction.

Your own experience goes a long way toward confiming that fact.

When you and I spoke on the phone, you seemed worried about my using your name in the Forum, so I went back to make sure I hadn't said anything you would be uncomfortable with and found that I only used your initials "LS", so only Jay would have understood the specific related post had to come from my actual conversations with you ... one of his standard bullying techniques is to pretend I am alone and cut off from the world.

What an idiot.

In any case, it's a big scary Internet world out there (except for Jay once you know him for who he is), so be careful.

The only way I will have of knowing if you saw this e-mail, is if you click the link below:

Otherwise, my only advice for you is to never have conversations with people online that you do not know in the Real World in order to confirm what is being said with them face to face in person. -b

Somebody I trust who knows a lot about the situation regarding the article linked below referred me to it, so all things considered, I absolutely have to post it here:

TIMES HERALD-RECORD
CHESTER LIBRARY ATTACKED
URGENT
READ IT

As for stealing the article off the Times Herald-Record website, I am invoking fair use, because there is no other source available, and the publication is time sensitive, and the public has a right to know.

As for the harassment that may come my way from the local powers that be, I have no defense against that, so I expect the worse, but just the same, a woman's gotta do what woman's gotta do, and so do I.

Signed,
Bob Fugett
(as if it matters)

Now that the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce has finally imploded into itself and made its last leap into oblivion, my first instinct was to take a great sigh of relief and enjoy a much deserved vacation from posting updates on the state of the hamlet.

Unfortunately, I am conflicted because every morning my review of the website usage logs shows the number of my regular readers is steadily increasing.

I am told it is because there are people who have grown to trust and rely on the clear, simple, and truthful analysis found here.

Of course, that and the number of people who absolutely hate it.

Ok, it is my own fault that I have placed myself in a position I cannot step away from easily, but that is just the way it is.

Acknowledging that fact I have flagged the previous post (7203) as another "Floater" to remain at the top of this page (just below the now classic Ada article); the two at the top will provide a quick summary overview of Sugar Loaf for newcomers and allow me the freedom to move forward with ongoing posts further down the page.

Regular readers will quickly adjust to ignoring the top two (2) posts while pulling down to the new stuff.

Now, to all the people who have heard about the recent dismantling of the Chamber of Commerce, and who have been horrified, and who have accosted me in the street (the real street), and who are hoping for some relief, I can only say, "Don't worry about it ... nothing new here."

Just another round of the standard process where new people come into town, totally misunderstand what they are looking at, totally misplace their loyalties, and decide to rely on the least likely people to help them.

The most recent flurry of those types will be gone soon enough ... 37 years of watching the exact same thing happen over and over and over again gives me a great deal of confidence.

Back in the day Mary and I used to sell Jelly Belly jelly beans.

They were brand new, nobody had ever heard of them, so they were unique enough to be worth our effort to periodically drive down to a dock south of Newark, NJ and pick up a van load.

At the time they were only sold in bulk with no packaging.

They became such a successful seller for us that we eventually hired a kid during weekends to do nothing but pass them out as a loss leader.

Today a lot of people are very proud of having been one of our famous "Beaners".

Then came the time when Mary wanted to focus a little more on her own artwork and move paintings into the space that was being taken up by the bean trade, which was cutting into her progress along critical path. [Look up: Project Management techniques]

It was a tense time as we moved the beans out of the studio, but we soon realized the people who had been coming for the jelly beans had never noticed they were standing in the actual working studio of a world class, becoming world renowned, artist.

On the other hand, the people who were coming for the paintings never noticed we had jelly beans.

After a few dozen people looking for beans responded to their absence with, "Look, they opened up a frame shop," we knew the beans should have been gone long before.

But that is not the story here.

Before we got rid of them, a shop in Scott's Meadow (from where we had recently moved to Main Street) noticed that people were still coming down into the meadow looking for beans.

Their response: "Instead of referring people up to Bob and Mary, we can just start carrying them ourselves."

Their process: They came into the studio and researched which flavors we were selling.

They didn't want to spend a lot on stock, you know.

Their mistake: Our own process was to just remove the large containers when we ran out of any given flavor, and the day they showed up to do their research, we were down to the last few flavors which were the absolute worst sellers.

They stocked up on them, lost their shirt, and are now long gone from town.

You wouldn't even know the name of the shop if I mentioned it.

So that is what always happens with the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce.

People come into town having heard that a Chamber of Commerce is really something, and they rush to become part of it, but they fail to realize that the Chamber is really the bottom of the barrel for Sugar Loaf businesses.

Hardly anybody with an actual business has time to waste at one of those pointless meetings, and though some people will pass along dues to them just to be supportive, really ...

Well, it's like Clay Boone always says, "The problem is that those shops who don't make anything have a lot of time on their hands to waste, so they start yacking and get themselves into trouble ... gone before they need to be."

I describe it a little more graphically: "Those people who come to town and build a business model based on running a stream of cheap crap through their books, like shit through a goose, panic when the goose comes up constipated for a few days."

Which I guess brings us to the true story here.

Yesterday was another great Tuesday for the Endico studio.

The hamlet was empty all morning, not one person came in, so Mary and I took the golden (and rare) opportunity to work on Mary's spreadsheet skills and fine tune our business process.

Then when a couple of people did come in during the afternoon, Mary was rested and glad to make an extra $475.00 in painting sales, deeming it found money.

Yeah, ok, so for some of you that isn't much money, but by way of steady, little sales like that, we build long lasting goodwill and great customer relations, based on the fact WE ARE OPEN.

It is a quiet understated little process that has kept us in business for 37 years while keeping the big box stores scratching their heads about how we keep kicking their sorry collective asses!

The summary secret: just make something great (that can't be found anywhere else), and reliably open your doors full-time, and all your wildest dreams will come true.

As for the Chamber, don't give them a second thought (the town never has), and the Magic Bean shop will be gone before you know it ... despite their Jim Jones cultish approach that people have mentioned scared them to death when they went in to purchase something simple.

Somebody said Mr. Buzzkill drank their kool-aid and found it not so refreshing.

Almost forgot: look up BULLSHIDO, best definition is on Urban Dictionary.

To that end, we have begun her Spreadsheet lessons, and she is progressing with surprising speed.

So much for the old saw about artists being flaky and unable to understand basic logic.

In any case, after I showed her how easy it will be for her to never have to do another bit of math in her head again (for the remainder of her life) but merely enter a few quick numbers and take a step back to look at the big picture, I came to the point of explaining the use of parentheses in formulas.

It is something I have been adept at since about 8th grade (and really, I HATE math, so little tricks like that are essential), but for a newbie to spreadsheets, it requires a little explanation.

Then I remembered somebody recently told me about a nifty little acronym to remember order of operations, so I went online to look it up and was horrified to find that the way it was described to me was so far off base, it is no wonder I never used it myself (given I fully understand the logic behind and always construct my formulas with an over abundance of parentheses and test, test, test just to be sure), so for Mary this is probably a good time to let her read this:

On the outside chance it ever does come up at a Chamber Meeting, my suggestion is for all of them to take another swig off whatever bottle is their favorite, understand their innate limitations (along with the fact that pat answers are usually everything but), and just forget the whole thing ... their "businesses" included.

I am sure I can get Mary to understand it in about 10 minutes tomorrow morning.

Like you just said, with seven (7) businesses recently failed as an example, there is now absolutely no doubt that those who can understand do, and those who will never understand have been flagged useless (if not gone yet).

As for you and Mary yourselves, fly away little birdies; fly away guilt free!

After a quick explanation, I am going to say needer, needer, needer, but I will admit right away that my runaway satisfaction will be somewhat tempered by the facts, or rather the fact.

The fact is my self congratulatory glee is not going to be understood by everybody, least of all those who are most in need of understanding.

"Tough titty," said the kitty, so here we go.

This is what happened today while everybody else in the world was wasting their time going through the motions of Black Friday.

Clay Boone showed up with his granddaughter Kristyn Flynn to work on her first business card.

This sort of happening is a major reason I have become one of the most hated people on earth.

Partly it is because people who only wish such things could happen to them, have a jealousy that is jagged edged tangible, and it is painful for them.

Mostly, though, it is because of my audacity in bragging that such events are merely routine in my life.

My lack of humility on the matter brings the ire of others less fortunate to a fevered boil.

I don't care.

It is not my fault very few people get to be an artist living among artists and enjoying doing the things that artists enjoy doing together.

Of course it is tragic that so many people live their entire life never having been part of a high powered artistic team putting together an exemplary creative product, but that tragedy is not my fault, so I refuse to shunt my happiness at being routinely part of such activity.

I can only try to describe what it is like to be with a second generation lifetime careered woodcarver (a world class artist) and his fourth generation artist granddaughter (born and raised amidst a long standing renowned artist community where she currently holds title as the absolute youngest, most beautiful, forward thinking, and talented among them) while we stitched together a tight little semiotic treasure which will articulate at a glance all that was just mentioned above for whomever is fortunate enough to hold it in their hand in the proximate future and beyond.

Most people putting together business cards these days have to figure out how to best overstate their credentials and broaden their statements to include not only everything they have never done in their life but also anything anybody else ever has done while calling it their own.

Usually they just give up and put together a half dozen different cards to throw at whatever situation will stick.

Our problem with Kristyn's card was just the opposite.

We had to distill a lifetime of successful study in a specific narrowly defined area in order to allow all the people who will see the final card to instantly know they are standing beside a highly accomplished artist, even a great one.

Not so easily done, especially after Kristyn demurred and would not allow us to include portions of her proven skill set, calling it all too immodest.

Try and find that attitude out in the world.

Happily, the task was made much simpler by the extreme simpatico and the focus on point of our threesome.

When I came up with a quick computer sketch (based on Clay's pre-drawn logo and basic layout), we were placed significantly down the road toward completion, and when Kristyn realized that her smallest whim was instantly realized, and changed if needed ... well, ZOOM, we were off to the races.

And WOW, when three like minded aesthetics weigh in on such things as, "Move that line off the edge it's pushing," and, "A touch of purple here," then, "Switch to italic and rotate," well, there you have it.

My, my, my, and when Kristyn stepped up to the computer and grabbed the reins herself for the final lap?

It was abundantly clear that Kristyn knew exactly what she wanted, what was precisely needed, and just what result she was working toward and would certainly have no matter.

To all of you who have never had the same opportunity, all I can say is, "Needer, needer, needer."

Besides, I was only doing it for the story, and I sure as shit got my story out of it.

Otherwise (after a slow start) Mary was downstairs selling a few expensive paintings, and Jessica was over in the alley having one of her best days ever, while Clay, Kristyn, and I were all upstairs playing around on the computer.

The rest of the sleepy eyed world only played at commerce.

Needer, needer, needer.

Kryistyn's 1st
Card Front

Kryistyn's 1st
Card Back

This story is dedicated to Dohyuh without whose years of careful attention to detail in teaching, none of this could have happened.

What have you been able to do?

Of course most people ended up being very appreciative of the Sugar Loaf Guild advertising, the website, social networking campaigns, etc.

Certainly all of the actual artists are in that camp.

However, there was this strange few (generally those attending meetings of whatever thing the Chamber has become) who had been most vocal about drowning in the recession, but when we reached out to help them ashore, they only pulled their hands back saying, "No, thank you. We are waiting for our ship to come in!"

One would have thought they would have at least wanted to keep their crack pipes above water.

In the year and a half since we kick started the Guild again, seven (7) businesses already failed and left town who did not have to, while at least one (1) other has realized the Chamber is never going to do anything positive and dropped out of that fiasco.

Some would say it is sad, but I would say, "Let's watch and learn."

Today the artists of Sugar Loaf give thanks for their long standing extreme skills and industrious life styles that have made them famous and the envy of everybody everywhere, not the least of whom are those in the steady flow of new shoppes who come into town, wish they could be part of it, but never catch on to what it is, or what it takes, before they are gone.

On the other hand Endico is again open today while still working on commissioned artwork.

Endico work in progress
9:37 am 11/27/2014

As the poet said, "This ain't no disco ... no foolin' around."

It also ain't no mall.

I just answered a question about what was going on today in Sugar Loaf by mentioning how the real workers (like you) were working while the wannabe's and hucksters took the day off (again).

Shredding the slopes no doubt, or getting ready for their big Black Friday score.

Great, great, great work by the way.

Eat Sugar Loaf's shorts! ... every other "community" on the planet.

In any case, instead of "loafing" the real businesses are busy working today.

Here is a photo of Mary Endico painting around 11:15 am, after our morning walk (over mountain trails in the dog park), and before we will start organizing our next projects later this afternoon after Mary gets caught up on her commission work.

Mary Endico
paints during
first snowstorm

It is a very exciting time for us, and our level of action has been ratcheted upwards.

The Sugar Loaf Guild has reached stability, as the website and promo material continue to draw customers into town, and I myself can sleep at night knowing that I did not shirk my duty when it came to pointing out several scams that various people tried to foist on the local artists.

In fact, for the first one of the "social media" scams, I actually went around town on foot to put people on notice, so I had no guilt when the whole thing predictably fell apart, and those who ignored the warning began complaining about the loss of $3,000.00 from the town advertising budget.

For the newest round of Internet scam, Mary made sure a video explaining the problem was placed into the correct hands, so when it is eventually revealed as another sucker bet, I will not have to feel I wasted my specific expertise on the matter by not having said a word.

There were several other scams we pointed out as well, but everybody who could understand what was being said, did understand, so no need to go over all of it again despite the Buggery Boss's recent arrest for DWI while the Sugar Loaf "business" he "helped" failed and is now gone, never to be heard from again.

Plus the real estate investment scammers finally removed their bogus For Sale sign after we matched them stroke for stroke with our own sign and did the research to call them on it.

In any case, Mary and I are very excited to move on to our next projects, and today's snowstorm is keeping the Lyme tics, trust funders, and retiree-preneurs out of our hair, so we can get something done.

The time taken up shoveling out the town seems a small price to pay for the golden light shining on the wannabe shops revealed by their absence on this very snowy Wednesday, all are missing in action today.

Don't worry folks, we'll keep the hamlet going for you, so you can come back in the fair weather and host another of your time wasting festivals ... which wouldn't be so wasteful if you would just make something and open your doors full-time during the rest of the year.

Exciting productive times.

I started studying woodcarving with Clay Boone, and what surprised me was how matter of fact his lessons are.

Previous teachers of mine always seemed to be diverting my attention away from the work by referencing esoteric methods using pat phrases from pop culture, but Clay always gets right to the point.

Sometimes I will be asking him a lot of questions based on the "theories" I have been handed elsewhere, and he always tells me not to worry about that stuff, just watch him.

He'll say something like:

"Yeah, I am really mostly self taught, and though I did go to college and studied art and design (which helped a little), most of what I know, I have learned by working directly with the wood.

"The human understanding of form and aesthetic is innate, and anybody can see how to do this; just watch."

That was refreshing to hear because previously I studied with a woodcarving group where everybody had very expensive, very extensive tool sets, and they spent a lot of time deciding just what tool should be used in just what situation.

One time I questioned Clay about the tool he was using to get a very precise small inside curve on a section of a carving, "That seems like a rather odd choice of tool; over at the Woodcarvers Guild they told me to ... "

"I prefer to use the tool that is in my hand," Clay interrupted.

Holy ding dongs, I am cray cray if that wasn't a Zen Master level lesson.

By and large they understand that concepts such as feng shui are merely bare bones attempts to explain the inner workings of the human aesthetic to people who are not working (or working very little) in the arts.

What those sorts of "theories" are describing is really something that is available internally to every person ... if they clear their mind for it, engage their work, and in Clay’s case, "move wood".

Once again: I hope you are also not just another one of my many hallucinations, so if anybody asks make sure you let them know you are in fact an actual living breathing human being ... with talents and skills of course.

BTW: I hope you are not just another one of my many hallucinations.

This is the first publication of a planned annual series. It was conceived by Museum Curator Donald O. Mavros as a tool and a guide to the fine craftspeople of the area. To Donald, there is no distinction in artistic endeavors. His Greek word KALITECHNI embraces fine arts and fine crafts. It is the creative endeavor seeking expression that is significant and not the oil, acrylic, wood, clay, fiber or disposable material molded by the artists's hands. All creative works are expressions of human desire to stretch the mind.^[1]

Matilda A. Gocek
Editor
Museum Village Press

July 1980

1.) Museum Village. 1980. "The Dictionary of Artists and Craftsmen in and about Orange County, New York." Monroe, New York: Museum Village

Scan of text above

1980 Cover

We made it our job to go around and learn who they were, what they did, and what they understood to be the foundations of their success.

Our task was to learn from them as much as we could.

It paid off.

I was not aware of the quotation at the time but did know Mr. Mavros as another one of our recognized local artists.

However, his statement matches my own long standing position on the matter, and Donald's attitude being expressed in that introduction was the attitude of most of the people we knew here ... certainly all the artists who have survived in Sugar Loaf providing great handmade items to people around the world for the last 40 plus years.

It kind of makes you proud to be part of Sugar Loaf, doesn't it?

Following the intro was a 20 page list of local art businesses, many of which are still thriving.

Donald's comments are age old, often repeated, timeless sentiments, which are as true today as they were back then, and they lead to surprising success for those who recognize the truth in them and act accordingly.

Like I said, kind of makes you proud to be part of Sugar Loaf.

He said he heard that Rachel Bertoni suggested they implement the policy of an end of meeting review where a statement is given about what various people are going to do next, not just yack about stuff and put it off until the next meeting.

Bertoni called it something like a call to action, action, ACTION!

That sort of sounds like a move toward organization, wouldn't you say?

If the Chamber would just post its minutes with attendance on its website, free for all to see, the rest of the community would get to see what great work the Chamber is doing without having to rely on rumor and innuendo.

I know there are vast financial resources just waiting to be passed into their hands, if they tend to the basic business of establishing a reliable organizational process.

Of course, their policy of having only one meeting every four months is kind of stupid, but Rachel Bertoni's suggestion of a review and summary at the end of each meeting is a great step in the right direction.

They don't want to.

Like all serious artists I am continually searching for ways to make a culturally significant contribution.

I know that you are doing the same with your ceramic sculptures: your results make it obvious.

Happily, the Sugar Loaf Guild website has reached a level of stability, and I am flattered to hear that my stories have had a positive effect on refocusing Sugar Loaf toward the fundamental mission that made it great.

In truth that focus was never lost, just for a time hidden from the view of newbies and outsiders.

Now that I have stepped back and reviewed the situation, I realize my efforts (though positive) are unlikely to survive my own end ... my websites will go out with me.

On the other hand, what I carefully add to Wikipedia will easily survive my own demise, without asking further intervention from those around me, and the only tradeoff is that those efforts will be more or less anonymous.

It is a small price to pay for helping conserve one of the finest natural resources humanity has known, and by "natural resource" I mean that Wikipedia is an organic development of the human spirit and the drive to help others by providing a useful core of knowledge that is sourced and freely open to everyone ... not just the lucky few who can afford college.

Tonight I spent three hours researching the Wikipedia Manual of Style to nail down the specific reference needed to support a change I was about to make to an article.

Of course I knew immediately without thinking what change was needed, but I could only assure its survival (and make it easier for the next person) by pointing directly to the related Wikipedia "rule".

You, Jessica, would consider my edit trivial, but that is because you are a native English speaker, while people from every possible language background will read it, and they all deserve to be able to rely on the fact that what they are reading is as grammatically correct for English as possible.

I myself rely heavily on the Wikipedia articles written in French to present correct French at a level far above that of typical IM web jargon which is found on fb and forums, so that I can get accustomed to correct useage.

Someday I will be sitting alone in a room of the Chester Libarary taking a French test to finish my degree, and I will need every advantage I can get.

It is only right that I continually help bring the English articles I read up to the same international standard.

Precise language helps avoid misunderstanding, so the rules are worth preserving.

One of the earliest guidelines for editing Wikipedia articles is simply to add "What I know to be true".

People are invited to improve the articles no matter what their current level of written English, and somebody like me will wander by and bring the underlying syntax up to the standard of authentic American or British English.

Not stiff but authentically correct.

Easy for us, but what if you were Thai, or Dutch, or Portuquese?

A ruler was snapped across his knuckles, and he was told to keep his hands off other people's User Pages.

I love Wikipedia.

Jay not so much.

Anybody who has been wanting to try some Wikipedia editing (it's easier than fb), but you have been worried about Jay screwing with you, looks like you are protected and good to go.

He's really having trouble making it his own private laboratory for pulling wings off flys and burning up ants with a magnifying glass.

I just saw Jay edited your User Page, but you allowed it to stand, even made a backup of it.

Have you no pride?

He caught a typo, sort of a stylistic conceit actually, but right is right, and in that instance Jay Westerveld Wright was in fact right; the edit was helpful.

Fuck him.

If I wanted my credentials on Wikipedia, I would put them there, and I would use references from the actual reliable resources that I have saved in my personal library in order to support the edit.

Like they say, "You can't fix stupid."

I mean, he can't be all that bad.

Why hasn't Jay told the rest of the world how easy it is to save endangered plant species?

Who knew all you have to do is grab a few (ripping them from an environment they are surviving in) and plant them somewhere else (just to make that area another specially protected zone).

Who protected the place he got them from?

Probably more people would be doing the same thing, if not for the fact most people have an actual concern for the environment, you know, beyond building a bogus faux name over it.

Really, has there ever been actual documentation of the existence of local Bog turtles, Cricket frogs, Clam shrimp ... aside from some yammering online, or on a barstool?

Even his very own vanity Wikipedia article says, "... if confirmed ..."!

That's why I love Wikipedia so much: if you read carefully the truth has almost always been maintained there ... give or take.

On the same page he calls himself a "Field Biologist" which he himself added much earlier then recently failed to remedy, and apparently he was only trying to remedy it because the law is closing in on him.

If Jay knew where those frogs were, he could have just told the people in charge of documenting it, "They are over there, and here is my photo of them."

Then the actual experts, with actual credentials, could have walked over onto the property and confirmed it to be true.

If his wife wasn't setting him up with all these cushy quasi tour guide jobs, the man wouldn't even have a job.

What bullshit.

Wake up.

I mean look how stupid he is: all he has to do is stop defacing my User Page, and I will go away, and you will have to figure all of this stuff out on your own.

Names like Ezra Decker, Jarvis Boone, Hugh Marius, and the names of craftspeople and characters that made Sugar Loaf a place to see ... and to be seen in.

P. S. I never met one single person who came to Sugar Loaf to meet a Clam shrimp.

I am sure you remember that you are not allowed to post here unless you were open today, so assuming that absolutely had to have happened we may continue.

I have to agree with you about local notables, and here is what I put onto the Wikipedia article before Jay Westerveld's (née Wright, still Wright, can't really avoid Wright) ham handed mungling of the whole business got it bounced:

"Sugar Loaf is home to numerous notable artists and artisans whose most enduring trait is a reluctance to be known for anything more than keeping their head down, doing their work, and providing quality goods and services to their customers.

"There is a second generation woodcarver, a watercolor artist with an international following, a candle maker who has been a focal point in the hamlet since 1968, all have studios that have been open to the public for nearly 40 years.

"There is a relatively new ceramic sculptress who is fresh from 17 years of high end jewelry work in New York City.

"They are known to hang up the phone on both telemarketers and newspaper reporters alike.

"A recent survey showed that 22 of 26 shops make their own product, so one could say there are many more notables than mentioned above.

"Mostly they are quiet, retiring, creative people, but there are exceptions to that rule."

That was placed directly above Jay's blurb, so to cover up the sore thumbedness of it, he added a useless reference to me thus: "One of those creative artisans is Midi musician Robert Fugett" with a link to one of my websites.

The text I had placed about other notables in town was allowed for almost 12 hours, while after his defacement it, along with his munge, was removed within 5 minutes.

I have to admit that I sort of planned the whole thing, to let the world see just where Jay is coming from.

It was all immortalized in the Wikipedia permanent record, with date and times, can't be hidden.

The logic used for removal was:

... which probably makes perfect sense to somebody who has never been to Sugar Loaf, but the "puffery" was merely stating the facts; except those facts are so far out of the ordinary (while so many many places pretend to be what Sugar Loaf is), well ...

I had placed a note with my edit that I would be sourcing it later, and I do have references for each statement, though I might need to get an affidavit from the Canvas reporter who called Peter while he was in the middle of a dipping and was told to get the fuck off the phone so he could work.

In any case, all of the true workers here in Sugar Loaf will know that each and every word I put into that article was just the everyday truth here, and in fact was very much understated, not puffery at all.

The next thing Jay did was try to put me back on the page as a notable, so I merely hit the "undo" button and commented, "unsourced."

The next time he did it, Batman fixed it for me and he has currently had the last word on Sugar Loaf.

Jay Westeveld Wright has now gone so low as to edit my very own User Page which is in the poorest taste according to Wikipedia.

Poor little Jay Wright (aka Westerveld), whatever made him hate Sugar Loaf so bad that he has to spend most of his time looking for wrenches to throw in the works must have been massive.

If I had not heard so much about the number of people he has hurt (not online, in real life), I would feel guilty about seeing him butt his head up against such an excellent and unforgiving process.

As for you, dear Connie, you must keep your studio open and productive ... or Jay wins.

I guess I am going to have to stop talking about him in the Forum, because it is obvious that his one and only goal is to see his name mentioned, although not so much his real name, Jay Wright.

The rest of us do have lives to tend to, so it is only slightly too bad I will never be able to add the names you mentioned, because of all the time that has been lost recovering from Jay's defacements.

Wait a minute, I almost forgot; there is the Sugar Loaf Guild website, and it floats above Jay Westerveld Wright's bullshit on dulcimer wings.

So too could the Chamber if it ever established a strong reliable process just like a real organization.

Now there is a solid record of his actions which cannot be expunged.

There remains a permanent record of the event on Wikipedia in case anybody is interested.

You know, it is not as if my rather tame text had not been noticed by administrators for almost 12 hrs; it was observed and allowed to stand.

Then Jay (who is obviously being watched closely) chimed in by adding some nonsense and poof!

His defacing along with my original edit were both taken out at the same time.

The true story of Sugar Loaf once again got caught in the crossfire, but I guess it was worth it, if Jay can finally begin to understand that Wikipedia is the one place he cannot run, and cannot hide, and cannot get away with his bullshit.

Sweet!

The only outstanding question is: Why does Jay Westerveld really, really, really hate Sugar Loaf so much?

He used to live here, for goodness sakes!

He can spin it any way he likes, the truth will still remain the truth.

Right now he is working on finishing up a short run flipbook that will be used as a reference by the buyers at the meeting.

He only has to have a few printed, but they have to be better than a large run fine art book, you know, just the standard New York City stuff.

Here’s a term for you: “Gotham black”.

That’s what they have been calling the style of those long black winter coats all the fashionista young people were wearing who came into town yesterday.

Good morning, Denise!

RECORD OF BOB FUGETT
Wikipedia Wicca Article
Edit

I found a typo on the Wikipedia Wicca article and fixed it, thus improving things for everybody.

I know you keep printouts of the article to help explain who you are and what you do.

For the rest of you, the thing you should always keep in mind (because a lot of people miss it), is that Wikipedia (the esteemed online encyclopedia which has achieved as much status as Google) has nothing to do with Wicca (which is a duotheistic religion).

Lots of people believe the Wiki in Wikipedia is a reference to Wicca, but the two are quite different.

The Wiki in Wikipedia is a Samoan term meaning quick, or fast, and it is most notably used to refer to the bus system on the Hawaiian Islands as in the "Wiki wiki", the quick, quick.

Wicca, on the other hand, is a long standing religion in which Denise actually does hold deep seated belief, whereas there are many others who pretend to be a follower in order to sell their magic trinkets of little intrinsic value.

In any case, it is Denise who has the good stuff, but that is just my opinion (because it is true).

He even went so far as to make sure he is found under the heading of Notable People from Sugar Loaf, he and he alone in that section.

Of course, I added mention of the other notables in Sugar Loaf, but Jay will probably have defaced that by the time you read this.

In any case, in the process of conducting his most recent vandalism, he apparently got so drunk he forgot to sign himself in and revealed one of his IP#'s in the first of several edits.

I had already been tracking the IP# with my morning logs for some time, and it was used to post 4 instances of defacement in this Forum you are reading.

That IP# is:

I am praying for the opportunity to take that number to a judge and explain the situation with Jay's continual misrepresentation of numerous individuals, and even impersonation of some, or as Doug said, "What is it with Jay? It's a biannual event for him to try and destroy somebody?"

I guess the operant term in that statement is try.

We just need to wait until your space is a little more obviously a working studio; you know, where you are doing more of your own work, and not necessarily wood — we are all wooded out and hungry for the resumption of the wondrous more diverse world of Connie Rose.

Winner of the prestigious Sugar Loaf Guild Epiphany Grant, Jessica Hengen begins a four month hiatus in order to focus all her energies toward her personal culturally significant ceramic sculpting projects.

RESCUE DOG
$4,000.00

In the oral segment of the grant's application process (given at the dog park with luminaries from the Guild) Jessica said, "I went to one of those big shows everybody is always pushing me to get my work into, but when I looked around I realized it was all beautiful but just too slick and trite. What I want to do is produce special pieces unlike anything I saw there, with a slightly rougher look aesthetically, but a much more robust presentation of the human (and canine) spirit. I am going to pay myself to take three months off and focus on clearing away some of the lesser more commercially pretty pieces in my studio and replace them with works of art that have true value, with an intrinsically greater degree of social uplift shining from within!"

No doubt she won the Epiphany Grant on the spot, especially when she continued, "Besides Sugar Loaf attracts a much stronger stream of true art enthusiasts than what I saw at the big show, so I know I will be selling more of my work in Sugar Loaf at the same time I will be producing it."

The Epiphany Grant means that Jessica will receive the full support and help of the Sugar Loaf Guild toward her efforts.

How can she lose?

Of course the whole thing is somewhat self serving on my part, because I am honored to be known as a person living among real artists who are doing real work, and who are making a real living.

Sugar Loaf ... nothing like it anywhere.

What's up with that?

He even made a failed attempt to roll back his own self conferred credentials on his self published vanity Wikipedia article.

Lots of desperation showing through the cracks.

And can you believe how I fried my head so thoroughly in just four years at college, enough not to graduate due to my last semester?

Ok, plus maybe for a half year afterwards.

Since we came to Sugar Loaf, it's been less than three tokes off a doobie, and absolutely nothing in the last 30+ years (including alcohol); therefore the amount of residual fry shows how good I am at stuff when I set it to my mind.

On the other hand, the voices have always been there, better than going to the movies.

Sorry for the delay in publishing your comment, it got clipped by an IP# block, and I did not see it until finishing the answers to the two posts below.

I have removed the block from that address.

BTW: Standard American English requires the period placed inside of quotes thus:

"person."

That tip given to me by Dora Mallairo when she edited my first album brochure in 1987.

[11/15/14: on second thought the period outside of the quotes in this instance would be correct, and if Jay had the slightest interest in engaging in an actual dialogue, as opposed to diatribe, he could have called me on it ... also had somebody else with an actual clue not been penning it for him.]

The British Standard is the opposite, with the period outside as you have written it.

For your Wikipedia edits, I believe it is suggested that one uses the style already established in any given article.

If I liked you at all, I would have made the change for you here, added a paragraph, and removed the double "of," but I don't much like you yet.

Extra thanks for your (best I can tell) bonafide feedback.

If I may be so bold, try not to get drunk before editing, because I know you are a much better writer than to allow me the opportunity to mention:

a accredited → an accredited

Bologist → Biologist

Of course I am not allowed (nor will you be able) to make those changes to an edit summary, so the errors will exist on public view forever.

You really want to tighten up the edit summaries in line with the quality of the edits, because you are establishing a reputation (unavoidable) for that user name, and other editors will have a smoother road following your line of logic, and also keeping their hands off your more controversial edits, if the summaries themselves are grammatically correct.

BTW: That is a great user name you have chosen, a little sexist but on balance pretty slick; in fact when I first saw it I thought you might be one of my old college chums (due to it being one of my college nicknames), very high level collegiate trash talking, but like I said rather sexist (maybe some ivy league frats still use it but nobody else); also I guess I should admit that my own use of the term Batman below was in many ways not so very gender neutral itself.

In any case, thanks for finally using your full professional name posting here.

I already told pops that you are a genius, so that person must really know how to program!

What you already know about HTML is more than enough to do anything you want with articles.

The difficulty for me, and where the Batman shines, is in supporting changes through Wikipedia's own community consensus logic and rules.

I immediately see the problems in Jay's writing (they are glaring), and changing them would be minor, but the summary notes required to support such changes is a new language for me.

If all I had to do was revert the text and call the changes he has made (in order of occurrence): bullshit, total bullshit, bullshit, more shit, piled higher and deeper etc, I could do it right now today, but you have to refer to the specific Wikipedia page that precludes each specific type of bullshit.

It is all just stuff one learns in college (or gets tossed out for not learning), but in Wikipedia it requires a special shorthand in order to be quick, fluid, and long lasting enough for me to continue going out on my bike every day (like I did again for a few hours this afternoon thanks to my faith and reliance on Batman).

Like I said, everything has to be supported with a reference to the supporting document, and Jay doesn't even know what that means.

He never even bothers to include an edit summary notation.

Here is how the reversal of one of his mistakes (one like he has made over and over and over) was notated:

rv - message boards do not meet Wikipedia's guideline for being a reliable source - per WP:RS

Click on the letters WP:RS.

I am sure Jay has never even seen that page, read the requirements, or understood it even if he did read it (which would be the most pitiful possibility, or sad to say "probability").

In fact at this point Jay's ultimate shutdown is in such an advanced state of completion, he has actually gotten to the point of singing, "Daisy, Daiseee, give me your answer ... don't Dave, don't do it." ^[1]

I am pretty sure Jay doesn't even realize he is fighting a robot, so if he really wants to win he should go play some computer chess until he can beat the computer, because beating Wikipedia is much harder.

When you are in town someday, Brad, I'll show you how to edit.

Your writing skills are far better than required, and your HTML is just about perfect.

I can show you how to edit in 5 minutes tops, and you will be a great editor, because you understand sourcing.

Then I will step you through all the bullshit edits Jay has been defacing Sugar Loaf with during his desperately failed attempt to vandalize his way out of the pure light of day.

Once the edits are made, he cannot delete them, and even if he pretended to be somebody else, it would be like he came into the Boone studio wearing a cheap beard using a deep voice saying, "I am not Jay Westerveld, nor do I even like the guy!"

One of his Martial Arts instructors once told me, "The problem with Jay? He is un-teachable because he is so fearful. He is basically an idiot."

Alma was right (God rest her soul).

Now I am almost ashamed of all the times I stuck up for Jay in casual conversations.

And the saddest part is that all he would have to do is stop vandalizing everything within arm’s reach, and his life would be so much better.

Like one of his high school teachers told him, "Jay, if you would just focus all this scattered negative energy into a focused positive direction, you'd be a millionaire."

Funny how an outside observer's remembrance of such a statement can follow a person for their entire life to show up unexpectedly: if a correction is never made.

Stop it, Jay, you have nothing to gain.

BATMAN AGAINS
Take that, Trustifarian!

Hooray!!! I have renewed hope and confidence in humankind.

Firstly, the Sugar Loaf, New York, Wikipedia article is progressing very nicely, and people in town should be proud of the way they are being represented.

Also the ongoing endangered species crisis is almost resolved.

From what I have seen online yesterday and today, I can tell you without a doubt: if Jay Westerveld (née Wright plus innumerable online aliases) conducts himself with regard to saving endangered species the same way he is currently conducting himself on Wikipedia, there will soon be not one single endangered species left to save.

All other species will have vanished besides ... Jay is that stupidly bad.

I have been witnessing a battle to the death between Jay and a true Wikipedia master.

Jay tries to deface Sugar Loaf, posting numerous self serving edits while I control myself and only address the egregious spelling errors.

Then just when things are getting so bad I think I'm going to have to jump in and make substantive changes: BAM, WHOP, ZANG.

Batman appears, swirling like a dervish, to clean the whole mess up, leaving Mr. Wright (Bessler, Silver, Williamson, Enright, Malvaux, Lynne) scratching his sore ass.

A little while later Jay tries some other nonsense, and the result is the same.

I dont think the person blocking Jay's vandalism even knows who he is, totally impersonal, probably cycling through a dozen other articles at the same time (more than 60,000 edits to their credit), running a tried and true process of "support that statement" — at a University level.

I am watching and learning from the best while I do my homework in hopes of taking over the task someday; but holy crap, Batman, I have a long, long way to go.

Of course the woman or guy doing it does not call themselves Batman, and they would be chagrined to hear such flattery, but take it from me, heroes are out there who are looking after Sugar Loaf's best interest.

Jay gets his stuff up for a moment, but it doesn't last long, and the person parrying with him is merely assembling a dossier which will become the justification to block Jay's username and lock down the article.

Jay himself has nowhere near the skill, reputation, or authority to do likewise against this most able adversary.

I even got to take a break this afternoon and go out for a bike ride while the battle raged.

The last thing Batman did was block Jay's use of Yelp as a cited source.

Yelp, for god's sake; are you shitting me?

Ironically even my statements here will only serve to inflame him into greater mistakes while the legal team takes notes and crouches to pounce.

Next thing he will probably do is set up a fake Sugar Loaf Guild Facebook account, use some of his known aliases as "members," close it off to the public, and start trying to cite that on Wikipedia.

Dumbass.

BTW: If we were on Wikipedia right now, I would not be able to use the image I stole at the top of this rant (because of copyright issues); therefore the least I could do is link it to the source which I did.

CONNIE ROSE UPDATE 2

Connie says, "Anything you can do, I can do better; I can do anything better than you!"

Obviously she's right and even showed up for work today.

Turning my attention toward Wikipedia to fix some things that need fixing has been very fruitful.

What I wrote here during the last Connie Rose update was: Did you know that Wikipedia has a long standing process that has been battle hardened against such high level threats as full time North Korean government sponsored hackers?

Trolls with multiple personality disorder generally get caught and blocked right away, so it is one less thing for me to worry about.

Thus Jay Westerveld (née Wright) the local (very local) troll could not help himself and tried to vandalize my efforts today, but like I said, "The Wikipedia process is strong, very strong."

Even a person as vindictive as Jay, who seems to hate Sugar Loaf with every fiber of his being, is totally incapable of having any lasting impact.

He got his ass kicked (again), and I myself did not even have to lift a finger.

I delayed putting anything on Wikipedia for three years while I watched to make sure they had him under control ... no way to hide stuff on that site, no toggle-on, toggle-off, block people's access, complain about old-timey technology.

The world's against you Jay, except of course for your only three remaining bar buddies who will still sit there and listen to your nonsense, or rather slump there and pretend to be listening ... have another round.

I review today and think, "It is good to have friends: careful, skilled, thoughtful, protective, sober friends."

Even if you do not know who they are.

However, better still is the use of organized and sourced information, so you probably want to start here first:

BTW: Your questions seem somewhat aggressive and pointed toward fulfilling an agenda, so please call the studio to confirm who you are and that your motives are pure.

Otherwise, this post will be toggled off the Forum as early as tonight.

I replied, "No, Connie's not here, and don't ask me when she'll be here, because I have no idea."

Great customer relations, wouldn't you say?

The only thing left is for her to throw up a bunch of banners and blame Bob and Mary.

To be replaced by a tower of matchsticks!?

Jay Westerveld (née Wright, plus owner/operator of numerous other aliases online), who is the "head" of the supposed Sugar Loaf Historical Society, immediately sent us an e-mail, when he was told the Ezra homestead was coming down, in which he stated, "What idiot is doing that? We'll stop them," but in standard Jay style he abruptly and arbitrarily reversed his position, went into hiding, and made Mary and me out to be the "bad guys" simply because we mentioned he should hire a lawyer if he really wanted to put some effort into his opposition, and afterwards we earned our own cease and desist quasi-legal letter by pointing out, in the strongest way possible, that the demolition of that house would be a disastrous mistake (which it was).

On the other hand, the Chester Historical Society merely toggled off Mary's notification (tendered as Peg Conner on fb) which suggested a boycott (that is now ongoing and will never end, pointless as it is), because they deemed it inappropriate for their mission statement.

The Chester people did the right thing by toggling Mary's comment off, because such stuff really is inappropriate for a site like their own (plus notification at that point was thus accomplished), and also because they had no idea who Peg Conner was ... but that did not mean they were happy about the demolition (who could be?), they just saw it as a Sugar Loaf local issue which back in the day would have meant massive organized and vocal community resistance within the hamlet.

These days the resistance is the same, just disorganized and quiet.

We recently witnessed people showing up for a meeting across the street from the Endico studio which we found out later is a resurgence of the Architectural Review Committee (too late, assholes).

All of which begs the thought, community sentiment probably should have been most appropriately handled by the Chamber of Commerce, but they already squandered their moral high ground many years ago by dropping the ball on the issues of the faux historic signage and the porn-shop-purple house ... dropping the ball so severely, in fact, recovery might never be possible.

At least the Chester group sent a letter to the Planning Board while bemoaning the fact Sugar Loaf proper did jack shit.

In any case, a strong reliable process may or may not have results to any of our likings; it is just infinitely preferrable to 20 years of the same few people showing up at the Barnsider biannually to get drunk and make up the rules as they go along, while accomplishing nothing more than allowing somebody to make their rent on the back of the town's progressively crappier crap fairs.

And as for the insanely excellent database Clif Patrick is maintaining as Town Historian for the Town of Chester (which encompasses Sugar Loaf); at the very least it is worth as much as a half dozen Ezra buildings in terms of preserving a heritage.

That's a fact.

As an aside, have you taken it upon yourself to wage a private crusade to make me more hated than ever by having me answer such questions as the one you have posed here (not that I would ever shy away from pointing out how worthless the Chamber is), or are you just preparing your bait worms for a fishing expedition?

Hold on, I've got it: you are trying to keep me fat and at my computer because I asked if you were pregnant!

What do you mean about process?

That sort of thing.

You know, like the Chester Historical Society which is currently running one of the most robust and excellent processes around here.

I just spoke with Clif Patrick about an issue with the Wikipedia article on Sugar Loaf and he flipped around on his computer and found 3 instances going back as far as 1955 wherein "Pine Hill Road" is actually named after the Pines family (as in Phil Pines of the Harness Racing Museum) thus the correct name remains "Pines Hill Road," and he is going to do further research to find the earliest example.

Just as I thought, so I already corrected the Wiki article.

I mean that guy, Clif, is holding together a database that would take your breath away, and he generates books of reports that can be reviewed at the Train Station, and their website is super simple, straight forward, perfectly organized, easy to navigate, and it puts their officers right out front easy to find.

I count 12 functioning officers (some even have a couple titles and responsibilities), and they even list the founding members.

Why can't the Sugar Loaf Chamber have something like that?

In any case, extra, extra, extra thanks for your question, and in the future you do not have to include your email address ... I know who you are!

Especially if you post from the same location (an IP# already known to me), or actually you could always post a standard faux e-address (known to me) sort of like a password, and I will also always have Mary confirm via text if the post is in fact yours — or rather Qweet's, I should say.

Double anyway, you have absolutely no idea how absolutely wonderful your question was, giving me an opportunity to expand on what I said.

I have turned my attention toward Wikipedia to fix some things that need fixing.

Did you know that Wikipedia has a long standing process that has been battle hardened against such high level threats as full time North Korean government sponsored hackers?

Trolls with multiple personality disorder generally get caught and blocked right away, so it is one less thing for me to worry about.

As an aside, the Sugar Loaf Guild is still waiting for the Chamber of Commerce to establish its own process, so we can make a donation.

The year before last we donated $1,000.00 to Wikipedia, but we only support strong reliable open processes, so the Chamber donation is on hold.

It would have gone unreported otherwise; plus Sugar Loaf artists are currently under attack from a bunch of people who wish nothing more than to see them fail ... almost in an ethnic cleansing sense.

It's sort of like what happened to the indigenous people (Lenni-Lenape) at the hands of the earliest Dutch settlers, and more recently what happened to Roger Romer (yes, as in Romers' Alley).

All of the people who are stopping by in real life are encouraging me to continue, and they keep telling me that my voice on the matter is important, so I feel somewhat obligated to keep that voice strong and heard.

Otherwise there are those who wish the history of the artists in Sugar Loaf to be distorted, watered down (or rather trinketed down) and squelched by all means possible.

Can't let that happen ... even considering how pitiful the attempt at squelching has been.

In any case, thank you for lending your name to the effort.

He gave Mary a terrific little flag pin that had the American flag next to the Chinese flag.

What a great hands across the water gesture of goodwill.

Sweet!

All the attendees were blown away seeing a full time accomplished artist working in an authentic historic house that is older than America, not that there's a lack of old structures in China.

They were also blown away by the work of Jessica Hengen (the other Guild studio they stopped at), and they talked at length about the excellence found in Sugar Loaf ... and this from a culture that prizes deep history and artistic excellence.

One high point was when Clay Boone showed up to visit Brat (the studio's certified therapy dog), and Mary got to point at the Guild brochures in everybody's hands and say, "This is the man who carved that horse!"

"Cool! We saw that horse."

Lots of smiles and chatter carried back to China.

We have elevated the conversation, pointed out the problems, identified the obstructionist trolls, revealed some scammers, watched as much of the dead weight has been sloughed off, and now it is time for me to take a break.

The most important post (about Ada Jo Hunter's fancy footwork) will continue to automatically float to the top above, so if you post something be sure to look below it.

Pure nastiness will be blocked at the time of submittal or very soon thereafter.

I will not even see it myself.

Trolling is, after all, nothing new and is easy to deal with, especially due to the fact such nonsense was anticipated at the inception of the Sugar Loaf Guild website and safeguards against it were incorporated into the fundamental design.

In fact much of the earlier weirdness in the Guild Forum, that readers enjoyed so much, was meant to provide a fine and acrid sauce for trolls to slather on their foot before sticking it squarely into their mouth.

Predictable as they were, they did not disappoint.

Every time Clay hears the word 'ballsack' he starts giggling uncontrollably while spewing tears.

It is just way too much fun to watch.

Not to mention when Connie gets going on her 'ballsack' story (the thing that started it all after Mary pointed out Connie just seemed to enjoy saying the word), the world itself trembles with laughter.

I just needed some excuse to arbitrarily repeat the word myself a few dozen times.

Sorry you got caught in the crossfire but looks like you're stuck with it, Brad ... spiffy new nickname though : )

Some people may not know what a ballsack is, so here is the video (again):

Plus I am thinking that below is the image Clay forced Brad to get onto his own website after we told him people were going nuts on seeing it:

ONLY ONE
OF THIS YEAR'S
WYOMING PROJECTS

I guess for you, Bob, this is the big proof, or an egg on the face moment.

All of your theories and supposed insider knowledge about how business works in Sugar Loaf are being put to the test.

Connie (a renowned Sugar Loaf artist, one of the best the town has ever had) is given a free studio space, open to the public, with the sky as the limit on what she is allowed to do in it; and if this doesn't go well for her then you, Sir, are going to look pretty stupid.

At this point Connie is overstating the situation while under responding to it.

Too much reverence for the artists helping her who were already here when she was just a kid running the streets, and not enough action on her own behalf.

As the great Yoda said, "There is no try. Either you do, or you do not!"

As the great Bob Fugett says, "Money is almost never the problem, but it is almost always the excuse."

So we will see, and time will tell.

In the meantime Mary Endico is trying to catch up after a record month in painting sales, and she is trying to do so during what is turning out to be another record month (and all of it from street traffic in Sugar Loaf which Connie is currently missing every second that she is not here):

SOLD
ENDICO PAINTINGS
READY TO SHIP
10/17/2014

The paintings that just sold to Germany yesterday (a tour group) are already out the door so not in the photo.

Use of standard easy to use, off the shelf stale empty run-of-the-mill templates is exactly what has been avoided here.

The Sugar Loaf Guild chooses instead to provide artists a much more valuable commodity; we help attract a steady stream of intrigued buyers who provide them a solid living as full time professional creatives.

Any town can put together a template website (and all do), but the Sugar Loaf Guild delivers a clientele.

Find that for artists anywhere else.

To viewers on the Web we provide a direct glimpse at some of the finest artists to be found anywhere and in a manner and depth that is unequaled across the Internet.

In any case, thank you for your complimentary feedback!

How nice of you to take time out from your busy and lucrative Internet browsing schedule to help us out.

What would we ever do without you?

If I might be so bold as to return the favor and help you out as well, that is a rather lackluster fake name you are using; at least you could have chosen the cute one.

As an aside: as for the guild, we don't care so much, but you do realize that Connie prefers (and deserves) her name capitalized in all instances?

As a different aside: Take a look at this, Connie; here is a person with such happiness for your success and obvious love for your work (plus such great respect for you) that they took this very moment when you are moving into your first independent open studio in order to post nastiness in this Forum.

Whoops, I almost missed it, Jay; the word 'away' in your comment should be two words 'a way'.

BTW: Jay, what exactly is your own artistic product again?

Sorry the Sugar Loaf Guild has not been able to help you with it, but there are only so many hours in the day, so we have to be selective and only work with excellence.

BTBTW: To everyone else, these sorts of posts will merely be toggled off in the future.

It took a while to get it done, but we have used this Forum to identify the bad actors, called them out, and let them hang themselves with their own troll rope, so we neither have the need nor time for this kind of jealousy anymore.

"Talk is cheap; show me the code." - Linus Torvalds

"Oh, great. Another trust fund hipster talking out of his ass." - Lewis Black

"You know, these are the limits of your life, man. Ruler of your little fucking gate here. There's your four dollars, you pathetic piece of shit." - Carl Showalter

"Vote for Lenny!" - Bob Fugett

As of 10/14/2014 Connie has observed some of the Guild's more robust social networking promotional techniques as visits to her own domain name and the Sugar Loaf Guild website have gone off the charts, because Bob Fugett ... well, let's just say Bob really knows how to make these things happen.

CONGRATULATIONS, Connie, on being jerked out of that dead-end potter's job to move uptown into a real artist community and start your very own business.

How cool is that?

We are going to show you high power insider branding and promotional techniques that the periphery shops could never even begin to imagine!

You didn't think everybody has been doing this here successfully for over 50 years by accident, did you?

Sales of Mary Endico's hand painted watercolors are currently enjoying the best year in 8 years, plus September was the 2nd best month in 37 years ... that is to say since we opened our doors in 1977.

Come by and I'll show you our point of sales database.

Apparently the delay was the service provider finishing their end of the registration process, because I noticed the site was up and got an e-mail from them at the same moment.

That sort of delay is a good delay because it stops people who are used to fabricating names and enlisting sock puppets, meat puppets, and all that nonsense from throwing up a quick website to support whatever overstatement of their credentials is advantageous to them at any given moment.

For startup I have placed a redirector on your site which just bumps traffic over to your Sugar Loaf Guild profile page.

However, we want to move as quickly as possible to set up your own pages, under your own control, and I will help you get that started.

The only stipulation will be that you do the work yourself (while learning how), but I will sit with you and step you through the process.

Be aware you will have a bit of an uphill battle dealing with me, because that ballsack Brad Kibler was so lax about getting Clay's stuff over onto his own website, and he continues to be tardy with maintenance and updates.

Further be aware that ballsack Brad is exhibiting this behavior despite his obvious superiority to me in terms of coding acumen, writing ability, and general life skills all around.

That is why I find it so easy to call that ballsack Brad Kibler a real ballsack of the first order ... inordinate skill and talent, and he's tossing it out in favor of watching sport statistics.

Mostly I just love saying "ballsack."

Some people may not know what a ballsack is, so here is a video:

Ezra was never divorced.

I don't know if you know that Ezra had two sons and one daughter, my mother.

I still can't seem to locate the tape of his 100th birthday.

Thanks for the additional information about Ezra.

During one of our conversations with Ezra, I believe I remember him telling Mary that his son had died, and on questioning further we learned his son had been 79 years old.

It was a very shocking concept for us young folks.

With regard to the video of his 100th birthday, I have to apologize for my earlier suggestion.

I have a note dated June 22, 2013 in which I sent you the direct e-mail addresses for Dr. Richard Hull and Jay Westerveld (née: Jay Wright) with regard to having the Sugar Loaf Historical Society help you out.

At the time I did not know, but have since found out, that the Sugar Loaf Historical Society and the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce are both totally worthless organizations.

Neither of them have even a rudimentary reliable process.

Most of the successful businesses in town just ignore both of them, along with ignoring the equally ineffective environmental groups.

It was the combined ineptitude of all three which allowed the desecration of that sweet old building.

However, there are actually groups out there that are designed to help, and in my travels I have come to understand that the Chester Historical Society is truly a group of interested, engaged, and helpful people.

Here is their website: Chester Historical Society

I hope I have done better for you this time.

I am posting the link here early in order to get the process of making Connie Rose "The Queen of Google" going right away; really shouldn't take all that long.

I push stuff to the top of search engines on a whim, almost without thinking.

Keep checking back here and clicking on the link, and at some point things will magically appear.

Tell Mary as soon as you see it working, because it might work from your location before we see it here.

I have seen name resolution take anywhere from a few minutes to a week depending on how good the Internet is feeling.

Once your new studio is set at Clay's, I will step you through the Wikipedia process, show you how their process makes it impossible for people to hide behind such things as: toggle on, toggle off, allow, block, and using sock puppets or meat puppets for attack, retreat.

It really does reveal the truth about people.

Just wait till you see whose ass has been totally whipped by Wikipedia; you are going to love it.

You will be able to incorporate the same process into your handling of your own domain name website, and Sugar Loaf University fb page.

The group picture was taken 20 some years ago (that's me in the lower righthand corner, my brother in the back with dark cap).

I have no pictures of Ezra's first wife Rose; she passed away in the flu epidemic.

His second wife was May, the one with them standing; his third wife was Elizabeth.

These images aren't the best reproductions, but I hope you will enjoy them.

I also sent one of him holding a fish; he loved to go fishing.

Did you you know his beloved dog, Bo, is buried in back of his house on that little hill.

Ezra Decker
family photo

Ezra Decker
with wife May

Ezra Decker with fish
photo by Jarvis Boone

Ezra Decker
with wife Elizabeth

Extra thanks for the photos.

Do we know what kind of fish Ezra is holding, and if it was caught in the pond behind the house (or maybe the photo is before the pond existed)?

I am guessing the family photo was taken at the back of the house, the photo with Elizabeth is at the rear southwest corner, the photo with May is somewhere else, and the fish photo is front toward the north?

Also I believe I recall hearing Ezra tell Mary that he was never divorced, just outlived his wives; is that correct?

Great pictures, thanks.

In reference to the inflammatory banner at left, I must make a statement in line with full disclosure.

As was previously stated I am an avowed anti-Semite.

Let's get that fact out there immediately, so I can avoid having to apologize for my comments below.

What has spurred me to speak is an Internet post Mary caught earlier today which was briefly on the Sugar Loaf University fb page but which was subsequently removed by Connie Rose who is the sole proprietor and owner of that account.

Connie also is the owner/operator of the newest fully independent artist's studio in Sugar Loaf.

Connie is her own person, and she has every right to allow or block whatever comments she finds appropriate or not on the Sugar Loaf University fb page.

A woman in charge.

She owns her life and that page while you, dear reader, are probably owner of neither your life nor such a renowned fb page.

Apparently Connie wants to make sure the content stays about art and making great things, not about politics, so I have to agree with her — it is an admirable (though futile) position.

In any case, the statement that was removed was posted by Paul Ellis of Air Pirates Radio and was about how Lenny Silver's adversary in the coming election (Alex Jamieson) was found to have a DUI back in 2007.

My gut reaction to such shenanigans is that it is a despicable personal attack which may or may not have any bearing at all on anything relevant to the election.

On the other hand, there is a soft spot in my heart for Paul Ellis, ever since I heard he dumped the theater after they tried to censor one of his productions — because he had the audacity to try and say something real.

Well actually it might be that Paul quit, which would be a feather in his cap, or maybe he was fired, which would be a full headdress of feathers.

Nevertheless there remains the issue of Lenny Silver running for Town of Chester Supervisor.

I don't know a thing about his opponent really (couldn't care one way or another); all I know is that some sock puppet (or meat puppet even) tried to pretend to be him in this forum earlier, got caught, got bounced, and ran away to snarkily snipe from afar.

That makes me think Lenny's opponent, Alex Jamieson, has at least been doing something right, if people with malice aforethought are pretending to be him.

Except I don't know Alex Jamieson at all, wouldn't recognize him if I saw him on the street, and don't much care.

But as for Lenny Silver, he is a problem for me, and he is someone I know a lot about, so here we go.

If the fact I am an avowed Jew hating anti-Semite irks you, you should probably stop reading this right now.

Ok, so all those people should be gone now, flown off to look at puppy dogs on YouTube.

As for our current conversation: while I truly hate Jews (it is not illegal to do so), I find that Lenny Silver poses a rather odd problem for me.

I have known Lenny for many years (sort of from afar, don't see him a lot), but I can tell you without question and as an attested fact (from everybody in the local community) Lenny Silver has the absolute highest character that a human being can have.

Not at all like run-of-the-mill Jews who so many people have assured me are sub-human.

Lenny says exactly what he means, and means exactly what he says, and he never backs away from an issue once he has said it is important to him.

Lenny actually does have guts and integrity.

Burns me up!

He also apparently has a rather high regard of me and my own character, so that just pisses me off more.

Personally I have not bothered wasting time to go down and vote in over a decade, but I might actually pull myself out of retirement and go vote for Lenny ... if for no other reason than to nullify Clay Boone's vote, who likely will be voting against Lenny (something about gun rights and Lenny's involvement trying to stop the gun club from filling his water supply full of lead).

The nerve.

Now that I think about it, nullifying every single one of Clay's votes was the only reason I ever voted anyway.

Hey look at that, this is a win / win situation for me.

I hate Jews, but Lenny's strong ethics is something I would like to see in public office just once in my lifetime, but on the other hand an endorsement from me is likely to assure his failure and that satisfies my anti-Semitic stance.

I get to do the right thing and the wrong thing by doing the only thing.

VOTE FOR LENNY!

Could things get any better?

I wish I could be a part of you guys' artist enclave.

Connie, the argument you had with Mary yesterday was 99% the result of a mismatch of abstraction levels.

There could have been no resolution to the argument due to the fact that the a priori parameters of the logic involved forced a situation where the two lines of thought would never intersect, much like an asymptote, albeit an asymptote in which both geometries were circles.

Since I see such things all the time, and these phenomena with regard to dialectics is so important to understand, I am allowing you to bypass some coursework in order to study the topic here.

The title of this Sugar Loaf University course is Semantics 301, and by virtue of the course number you may have already noticed it is an upper level course.

As a general rule eligibility for participation in an upper level course requires successful completion of a number of prerequisite courses which themselves are subject to qualification through their own set of prerequisite courses.

I hope that what I am about to do (granting you admission into the course) does not send a message that there are shortcuts in life (thus business) which could ever be seen to justify skipping any course requirements and jumping headlong into the business world.

In any case, I am taking consideration of your significant life experience and exhibited skills in expository writing (which has always manifestly revealed an understanding of logic precepts); thus I am granting you entrance into this ad hoc course which will of necessity be in some ways a quick survey course.

So here is what happened between you and Mary.

Mary is practical in the extreme, so her line of reasoning reflected that fact while she is almost incapable of being moved into a higher level of abstraction, either in thought or especially in discourse, which for her poses the more significant stumbling block.

Your position and argument was very specifically about a rather obvious yet fine philosophical point.

The following standard example of such dilemmas is taken from an elective course in my senior year at college.

In human discussions there is very rarely conflict arising from very low levels of abstraction.

In high levels of abstraction there is an almost certainty of conflict ... give or take.

You might not know the meaning of the term "level of abstraction," and the concept is best described with contrasting scenarios.

Let us say a couple of auto mechanics are working on a car with the hood up and are deeply involved in the repair.

There is almost never any argument (ever) over which wrench will fit which bolt.

That illustrates a very low level of abstraction.

Their discussion is not the bolt (the bolt is the bolt), and their discussion is not the wrench (the wrench is the wrench).

Therefore the conversation is inherently an abstraction but one that is very little removed from the objects discussed.

The discussion is just a discussion, an abstraction of both the physical realities of the bolt, and the wrench, along with the process of putting them together.

Hardly a conflict arises: one of the participants may know how to put the bolt on, the other may not know how but will readily take instruction if not.

It is a very relaxed and cool situation.

If however one of the workers introduces a subject such as politics or religion, there will almost immediately be a conflict.

Very heated and very tense.

Politics and religion are both subjects that are at a very high level of abstraction.

A massive amount of stepped lower levels of abstraction (bolts and nuts) has to be assembled and assimilated and agreed upon to arrive at any understanding of what is being discussed in the higher levels of abstraction.

Moreover by virtue of the requisite parameters of all topics that are found in higher levels of abstraction, discussion of them is almost always pre-loaded to disclude agreement as a final outcome.

Agreement is rarely found.

There is an entire science devoted to weeding out references to higher levels of abstraction in people's speech which is generally referred to as political correctness.

As an aside, I should mention that political correctness actually used to mean something before branders and marketeers got hold of the term.

In the case of the argument between you and Mary, there is a third more intractable element that was introduced.

The final conundrum element was that of the mismatch of abstraction level.

You were discussing at a higher level of abstraction, to wit, the obviously disproportionate public response to the one issue over the other while our very practical Mary was talking only about the specific measures that were being taken by a single individual to illicit that public response.

There could have never been any convergence of thought on the two matters, because each was being discussed in its own realm and separate domain.

My own feeling is that the dog has already been dead for a month, and the kid's death should be investigated as a homicide.

But that's just me.

Now that your survey of the Semantics 301 course has been concluded you have the intellectual tools to understand that the true cause of your argument with Mary was not a disagreement over the issues being discussed but an offset of the dialectic parameters and separation of domain borders.

Therefore I am sure you now realize that 99% of the conflict was merely due to a mismatch of abstraction levels.

The other 1% was because Mary is a total asshole.

At left, the faculty has provided the perfect example of how Sugar Loaf University became the world's only university in which one can receive a full education without a single credential.

While I am waiting for some processes to conclude with regard to some very exciting new stuff (September was the 2nd all-time best month for sales of Mary's paintings — ever — by the way), I will take this free moment to write something important.

I should start with the fact that my name is Bob Fugett, and I am an avowed anti-Semite.

With that out of the way, I can now speak freely.

Nobody can chide me for anything I say below, because I have put it in context, and it will all make perfect sense.

I am an anti-Semite, done, case closed, so what are you going to do about it?

Nothing, I dare say, because this is not Germany et al, so it is not illegal for me to be thinking this way.

Ok, maybe you caught me a little, because I am not 100% sure what the term means.

Lots of Palestinians are said to be anti-Semites, but they are themselves Semitic which makes it a little confusing.

I guess it is better than talking about the "N" word, because that is even worse (though it does show I have a limit or two), and the big reason I shy away from that word is because of the incident with Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld), after he used it in an awkward stand-up routine.

Still I didn't get shy of the word immediately after Richards used it but only thought, "What the hell is wrong with people? He was just trying to be edgy, and it was a joke, though not a very good one!"

Then I saw an interview with a black guy who had been in the audience, and he said he was truly scared after the word was broached.

He looked around and saw he was the only African there and broke out in a sweat thinking the crowd could turn on him.

He was still visibly shaken even in the interview some time later.

Even then I didn't quite connect with the problem but only thought, "What is this guy's problem? Nobody was going to do anything. I mean, if I was in a room full of blacks and the word honky came out, I'd just look around the room, see I was surrounded by black people, and...oh, I GET IT."

Scary stuff.

Anyway back to the Semites.

My best understanding is that it is the Jews who are the Semites that are supposed to be hated, so I hate them.

I am pretty good at doing all the things I am supposed to do, so like I said I hate them all.

Well, ok, maybe not all of them, because they all seem to be very different (one from the other), but some of them I hate for sure.

I wish I could say some of them are my best friends to take the edge off, but I don't have any friends.

I guess the ones I hate are the same ones that the Israelis hate, or as that guy who accosted me on the porch of Romers' Alley (the guy with obvious military training who told me he was just back from the mid-east, the guy with the variation on a German Shepard that was more trained and under better control than any dog I have ever seen other than my own dog, the guy I told that I was his insurrection here — after he brought up the fact he was canvassing the area for the proposed casinos [but he needn't have a worry from me, as I said, because I didn't give a rat's ass, it wasn't going to impact our business one way or another, like how the theater has always been just an odd distraction for me, because I am like the real deal bread winners in Sugar Loaf, you know Clay, Jessica, Connie, Cheryl, Ada, Aaron, Denise, Anne Marie, Mary, the people who are working so far above those tawdry group think associations they won't be touched by any of it]).

In any case here is what Mr. Military Guy told me about Israel where he had just spent 7 months having his dog trained by Mossad, best I could tell.

He told me this in response to my delusion that it appeared Sugar Loaf was being purposely run to ground in order for Kiryas Joel to Bloomingburg us, "You might be right," he said, "some of those people are aggravating. In fact I just got back from Israel and they all hate the American Jews, because they all come over there with a romantic dream of returning to the homeland, but when the terrorists come, they just leave."

So that's the kind of Jews I hate, those who make a big stink about how tied to an ideal they are, until things get tough and they are gone, gone, gone.

Those kinds of Jews do not even have to be Jewish for me to hate them.

Therefore I do hate them, but I warned you that is my position.

I am sure the other Bob will have something to say about it.

However, all of what you are saying does remind me: EVERYBODY who has been complaining to me about that building coming down just has to start leaving me alone.

I am really tired of hearing about it.

It is not my fault!

It is not my fault that the woman with the aggressively disgusted body language in that now famous photo (a photo already passed onto the Internet where it can never be reclaimed), is the very woman I sent the letter to 20 years ago requesting a clarification regarding the sign law from the Chamber of Commerce.

She had complained greatly (along with many others) about the County busting our sign law with the faux historic theater billboard, but then refused to sign the petition after I did the footwork putting it together, and then when I sent a letter to the Chamber (where she was president), well, I am still waiting for a reply.

I guess her body language in that photo is reply enough.

It is not my fault.

It is also not my fault that not so long after that, somebody rolled into town and painted their house porn-shop purple laying waste to whatever was left of the Architectural Review process and weakening the local resolve beyond repair by taking over the Chamber for their own amusement.

Those laws were already weak enough the way they were.

It is not my fault.

It is not my fault that when the New Creamery Pond development dug a 40 foot cliff next to Roger Romer's house, the local community hit the road and left Roger to die in fright.

In any case, every time I have ever gone out of my way to do something the community has been whining about needing fixing, they have all bailed out as soon as the terrorists growled at them.

This building coming down is no different.

Where is all the public outrage that I hear again and again in private?

Doesn't matter I guess: those destroyers have put a thorn in the roots of whatever business goes in there afterward, and it is going to poison the brand making it toxic forever.

That is not my fault either.

I assume I will get blamed for it though, like always.

Can anybody figure out why the tenant hasn't already sued them for restraint of trade after they covered their store front, hid it from view, right during their most important season?

I guess it is just quicker and easier to put somebody out of business than it is to evict them.

Again, not my fault!

In any case, please EVERYBODY quit complaining to me about it.

During the Roger Romer incident I decided to get a hat that read "FBI INFORMANT" on the bill, just so people would leave me alone.

Maybe it's time to pull the hat out again.

I sure do understand how that black guy felt.

Good thing I am suicidal.

Mary just went down to put a red Sold sticker on it.

Mostly I just feel sad for all the people who will never understand and will never have the opportunity to live in an actual community.

At least I had the opportunity.

Do you know when they are doing the demolition on my grandfather's house?

My daughter and I were going to take a ride up this Saturday for one last look if it's still there.

Judy

People actually cried, especially after Jessica Hengen posted, "If houses had hearts that one would be crying."

Plus Mary posted how she and I (in our early 20's) used to sit on the porch and listen to your grandfather tell stories from the prior century ... now two centuries.

Clay Boone just got back from Wyoming and all he could do was stare into space.

We have been told that the foundation of that house was from the 1600's, and possibly the oldest in Sugar Loaf.

So much effort your grandfather put into preserving it.

We remember seeing him on the ladder tending to the northern chimney at 96 years old.

Part of this is our own fault, because if we ever considered that somebody could be so stupid as to buy it just to tear it down, we would have bought it ourselves in order to protect it.

We previously spent three years of our life enduring an expensive legal battle just to save a few trees on our property line, and trees can grow again.

We were leaving the Decker homestead for somebody who would want to fit into the community.

No matter how cute the thing they replace that charming little building with, it will never be authentic and old.

That building and property would have been the perfect starter home (with its established rentals) for somebody coming to Sugar Loaf hoping to enjoy a career producing artistic items.

If you have any photos that you would like to send, I will be glad to put them on the Sugar Loaf Guild website in order to help assure that nobody ever forgets what was lost ... and why.

You don't know
what you got

Who could have imagined that not only would our parents never get it, our children and grandchildren would not get it either.

It is really sad that in one of the oldest and most historical towns this is going to happen.

Our family is greatly saddened this is happening.

Judith

Thanks for the comment; I am placing it into the Sugar Loaf Guild forum for others to see.

Everybody is extremely saddened by the demolition of the Decker homestead which is a town treasure (probably national treasure), except of course for the idiot who is doing it.

The feedback we have gotten about how horrified everybody is cannot be overstated.

The person demolishing that house has no idea what a gold mine they had but are destroying.

Bob

Ada won't want to hear this, but I think it will be ok to say it, because like the rest of the people in town, I don't think Ada reads the Sugar Loaf Guild website.

In any case, I am pushing (and real hard) for Ada to become President of the Chamber of Commerce.

She is the perfect candidate ... least of all because she did it very successfully before but also because she now has even better qualifications.

The other day Ada brought over a couple of her paintings we bought at her art show, and we took the opportunity to show her our upstairs.

Mary said she looked at the place like a kid in a candy store, drinking in the whole scene wildly, or as they say on American Pickers, "She was looking around like a one eyed dog in a meat market."

Likely part of that is because of the enigma Mary and I have become from our many years of reclusive non-involvement, but most of it was because Ada is an artist and has an artist's eye, which among other things means a very strong aesthetic response.

She would be more or less just like that wherever she is, because she is packing stuff into her head which will come out as a deluge of art ... to be sold at a premium of course.

But her aesthetic response was not the whole story, Ada is as smart as they come with a keen interest in everything around her, not only did she want to see what was here, she obviously wanted to understand what she saw.

Once again just the standard attributes of an artist, but in her case she has also gathered a couple more elements to her person which will make her the absolute perfect Chamber of Commerce President.

For one thing she has the most beautiful case of Parkinson’s disease that one could ever hope for, and that will be her greatest asset.

Historically Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce Presidents (actually anybody heading any of the local groups) find themselves in a situation where they have to do most of the work themselves, if anything is to get done.

That is not the way things are supposed to be: a person in a leadership position should be freed up to look at the big picture, run a stellar controlled and focused (quick) meeting and act as the traffic cop for all the projects and plans.

They should not be required to do all the work themselves; actually they shouldn't be required to do any of the work themselves.

Did you catch that?

Due to the fact Ada has Parkinson’s, she is on some pretty heavy drugs to keep the tremors down, so she has the perfect excuse to make people do what they should have been doing all along on their own.

She could run the meetings, mention that somebody's idea is great and although she would love to help them with it, she really doesn't have the energy.

Not to mention Ada is not supposed to have a lot of stress in her life, so she could even go so far as to say, "Look ... you people know I am not allowed to deal with all this conflict, so you are just going to have to (all of you) shut the fuck up! Now get out of here and go get something done."

Doesn't this town finally deserve (once again) a leader of that caliber?

Guess that means it's over.

Just go over and take a look, and if you don't see what you are looking for ask, "Hey, where are you guys hiding all of Ada's stuff?!"

Mary and I already bought the piece shown below by sneaking into the show before it actually opened (why wait, the time is now), carpe de art work:

One of Lipstick Ladies

Let me tell you, I get real excited when I see Sugar Loaf acting like the old Sugar Loaf that I remember oh so well, and although some of the new comers might find it easy to overlook Ada's Lipstick Ladies as just a little something clever, there is a story behind them, and that story goes deep and wide all the way back into the very roots of Sugar Loaf and what it remains today.

Here is a glimpse of that story from the show's displayed description:

Lipstick Ladies Why For

Of course that is just a surface gloss.

For the real story (like always) you have to come visit Sugar Loaf in person, stay long, and look around.

By the way, Bob, those quick little iPhone photos don't come close to showing how nice those pieces are.

Guess you have to be there.

The stick was slowly tumbling up and away into the clear blue morning almost into the perfect sun.

Just like the bone in that old sci fi movie predicting that by 2001 it would be the future, and we would all be traveling to Mars for work and holidays.

Plenty of time to watch the free fall and reflect on life if not for the rocketing German Shorthair Pointer that never fails to reach a goal no matter how far you toss it.

And this was the perfect place for such activity, a little known gem of a dog park where everybody is off-leash and running in playful packs, sometimes through broad rolling shoulder-high hay fields, or sometimes through miles of scattered forest with insanely cute wooded trails (maintained by moutain bikers), where the total abandon of free form leaping is not only allowed but encouraged.

What lucky dogs (and the people they encourage to come to the park with them), so please forgive me for keeping the secret of where it is ... like all things of excellence around here, it is always in jeapordy.

We had just run into Annette who was thanking us for the great book we sent her about moving toward wellness and health.

Annette is the partner of our lawyer, and a couple of days before (walking on a sheltered trail), I had noticed she was walking a little crooked, so when she brought up how she had recently been in pain from all the travel back and forth out of the city, plus the hours spent at a desk, and was considering a visit to the chiropractor, I took the opportunity to tell her about the book and promised to send it.

She was telling us how excited she (and our lawyer) had been to receive the book, how they were already starting the exercises, how nice it was of me to pencil such useful quick study notes into the margins.

We noticed that one of her three show dogs (with national credits, one a champion on two continents) was missing, and she almost cried telling us how the champion Basset Hound was under the weather, had been to numerous vets, but how reluctant she was to put her pet on dangerous unpredictable pain medication, so she was considering holistic medicine.

She sniffled, "I went online and did some research, and there is maybe one person in New Paltz who does it, but I don't know."

"Oh, you mean our good friend Michele Yasson, absolutely the best, been doing if for many years (before it was fashionable); in fact Michele's girlfriend (an elite tri-athlete, Hawaii and all that) is the person who turned us on to the book we sent you."

"Wow, thanks, I'll get in touch with Michele."

What a small, small world the pet community is, and how impressively powerful a few words in the right place can be.

It is great to get good advice from known and trusted sources, so everybody at the dog park is always really glad to see Mary and me.

A very smart group of people with the most interesting lives.

Amazing how a word of advice gets spread among them so fast, clear, and certain.

I guess it should not be surprising that Annette had already heard from numerous sources the wretched state of affairs in Sugar Loaf where an historic treasure is being destroyed for no reason, as surely as if by a terrorist car bomb.

I know what you are thinking, but terrorists from the 60's blew up buildings and always used the excuse, "But nobody got hurt, so its not terrorism!"

Except everybody knew the truth just the same.

In any case that was our next topic of conversation and another story altogether.

Ok, 2001 came and went and things weren't so much different (in contrast to the fact 1984 came and went and was worse than expected); however there are things that people can learn which build on the buzz of the day while going far beyond it.

Your own experience in the dog park and local pet community is a reflection of what you learned while working on the Sugar Loaf Guild website, by getting out in the artist community and observing things first hand after being focused on it by what was being said online.

For instance, all the talk about the power of social media turned out to be hogwash, while the tried and true lessons of the past were highlighted and proven resilient.

Of course it is understandable that some of the new businesses have bought into all that Internet and branding nonsense because they are bombarded with it daily.

They think that making a lot of noise is going to give them a quick fix on a lasting business, but that is not how it works.

Your own two or three quiet reliable words offered among real living individuals out in the real world had more power and lasting impact than a thousand posts in a million forums.

A local community, its cultural history, and the direct interaction with helpful communication between the individuals within it has always carried the day.

People who flagrantly disregard such truth and aggressively show a contemptuous disrespect for the facilities and humans that are part of that truth do so only at the peril of their own ability to thrive.

Social media, hmmph, I have written elsewhere, "Distance learning is one thing, but social media is neither."

That reminds me, there is usually more truth found in reversing common catch phrases than in taking them at face value.

Recently one of the town's newest retiree-praneurs (steeped in corporate culture and without a mote of intent to build an actual business here) repeated a trite platitude to me: "None of us are as smart as all of us."

It is a manipulative statement that works well in a setting where people will lose their livelihood if they don't show up for worthless meetings, and if they don't follow the party line without question.

But here in the real world things are different, so it was up to me to set the record straight.

I quipped, "Actually each of us is significantly smarter than all of us. A group is only as smart as its stupidest member, so a skilled individual will always be able to beat the group's best efforts simply by taking personal initiative and responsibility."

I've seen it happen time and again in Sugar Loaf.

It defines our strength.

As for what happened in the dog park, such a solid and ongoing result was only made possible by the simple fact that although the squeaky wheel gets the grease, it is the steady quiet wheel that receives the power.

Newcomers to Sugar Loaf often miss seeing how our long standing cultural history provides the basis and essence of such power.

Not to mention how these very unique and quaint old buildings provide the chalices which hold the essence of that rich and historic fundamental culture.

Maybe our most recent round of breakers (not makers) will be reminded of that heritage during one of their belches as they feast on the carcass of their newly purchased goose which was laying such golden eggs.

If you qualify as a community member in good standing, you will be contacted with particulars.

In fact once I confirm you have seen this, I will toggle it off the Forum in order to avoid attracting too much attention to the grand affair.

Yesterday Bob Fugett spoke with Matt Kannon (owner of the Barnsider Restaurant) and asked if he could rent the place for a Guild Party and have the Guild pay to give out free food.

The plan is to rent the Barnsider facility for the party but Bob and Mary will also pay to have the affair catered by Cancun Restaurant with help commissioned from K.M. Designs at whatever fee she charges for events.

Anne Marie and crew get the evening off because they deserve it; not that all the others do not deserve it as well, we're just saying ...

Jessica Hengen will be the figure head honorary guest (just because nobody could think of anything useful to have a party about).

We are looking into buying one of those little princess plastic tiaras for Jessica to wear throughout the goings on.

Anybody know a trinket shop?

The main attraction will be the rental of a device similar to the one shown below:

DUNK THE BOB

Bob (the most hated man in Sugar Loaf) has agreed to sit above the water and let people throw balls (or bombs) at him in order to see him get his just desserts by being dunked into a vat of cocktail ices.

Balls (or bombs) will be provided at the price of $100.00 per throw, and all proceeds will be gifted to Hometowne Pet and Supply, on Ronald Reagan Blvd, in Warwick, New York.

Yaron Rosner has been chosen to collect the money at the dunk tank concession, because he certainly hates Bob enough to relish gathering the money and is honest enough to turn every last cent of it over to the pet supply shop afterwards.

Unfortunately, Bob and Mary will not be hosting an open bar (just free food and a place to eat it), because they say there is already more than enough trouble with drug and alcohol abuse in Sugar Loaf without the need for them getting involved.

The police report that a drug operation has just expanded into the alleyway between Bodhi Tree and Rosner Soap.

People there are concerned, but the Guild is more of an uptown sort of group and some ways away from it.

Hometown Pet and Supply is an actual true animal centric business who has always shown the greatest respect for the surrounding community and has thus become the Guild Favorite for referrals of all things pet related!

Good thing everybody hates me so much; that should mean windfall earnings for the pet supply store (not that they are likely to need it but will probably just donate to the Warwick Humane Society).

I am not likely to get frozen wet in the process, because Sugar Loaf is full of losers who couldn't throw straight if an historic treasure were being decimated.

Think I am wrong?

It will only cost you a $100.00 to prove yourself right.

Here is something interesting.

Have you ever realized that whenever I have corrected your interactions with customers it has never been about your handling of the English language but only about your handling of the customer?

I was made aware of this by my reading of the Acronis backup software documentation pdf.

It was obviously written (or at least given final edit) by somebody whose first language is not English.

I had to see several very subtle grammatical errors which made it difficult to be sure exactly what was being said in order to realize this.

There was also not one single book about the Acronis software on Amazon.

It brought up the two questions, "How could anybody who does not thoroughly know English in addition to the underlying technical concepts ever learn from such writing," and, "Does the Native English speaking audience even matter to the authors?"

Well of course it would only matter if adequate numbers of Anglophones are interested enough to pay for the software; otherwise the English version exists only for thoroughness on the part of the authors and the English Language itself may be going the way of all historic regional dialects.

That's what made me realize I have never once criticized your use of the English language in your shop (you are obviously an educated native speaker) but only said something about your handling of your customers (when you were rude).

In that sense not only is your presence keeping the arts alive, you are also keeping the English Language alive, through a reciprocal elevation of those who speak it into the realm of the arts by virtue of their enthusiastic willingness to pay for your work.

Wow.

Bob

Just take a look around this Sugar Loaf Guild website.

I made it all myself (hand coded next century technology ... just one of my sites), and I am but a minor player in this little hamlet of world class artisans.

What you are looking at on this website is pivotal excellence which was completed quickly and efficiently, while at the same time my wife and I produced a range of brochures and advertising that assures nobody will ever again do a Sugar Loaf related Internet search without the lion's share of returns being my own content, in other words the hidden truth.

A satisfying offshoot of this innovative work has been hatred heaped on us by the dwindling old guard of lackluster poseurs who previously used all their free time generated by not doing anything useful to ride roughshod over the town's promotions.

Happily those days are gone — the result of an ongoing asymmetric campaign they never saw coming.

It is a brave new world we have arrived in, full of personal freedom and vast possibility for those of us with skill and ability, in other words Sugar Loaf.

We learned a lot about Sugar Loaf.

Once a long time ago, when Professor Connie Rose was just a dumbass kid, she suggested to Ron Peckham that their process could be made more profitable by farming out some of the work for others to complete.

Ron fired Connie on the spot.

That pretty much sums up the way the best of the best ply their trades in Sugar Loaf.

Connie's wake up call helped her go on to become one of Sugar Loaf's premier artists.

And as for Ron, I am not even going to tell you where to find him, because he is as close to a true holy man as this town has (same for Fa).

He doesn't want to be bothered by you and would likely slap you senseless if you interfered with his work by asking your nonsense questions; he has lots of paying customers to satisfy.

In fact Ron is part of the hidden Sugar Loaf that I specifically designed the Sugar Loaf Guild website to spotlight, and he is one of those that Mr. Buzzkill never even got to meet ... and there are lots more.

Ron is emblematic of the following list of top notch Sugar Loaf producers we uncovered who are focused on their work — so focused in fact that they would rather not be bothered, or advertised, or published, or vaunted, or made a star.

These people are the real deal, and you can identify their opposites (the fauxs) by their continued drive for stardom instead of achievement, for lauding fluff over substance, for their intense pretense over actuality.

One of the goals in putting together the Sugar Loaf Guild website was to identify any people like Ron in town who we might not know yet.

Here is the brief rundown of those we found who are our people:

18th Century Furniture,
Anne Marie's Deli,
Jessica Hengen,
Luft Gardens,
K.M. Design

I had private conversations with each, and each of them exhibited the same attributes that all great artists have revealed to me.

One of the best examples of a real deal orientation to artistic work came to me by way of a former Sugar Loaf character, Benny Robin (professional name of composer Bernard Rabinowitz), who at the time of our first encounter was President of the Sugar Loaf Foundation where he was running meetings as good as any I have seen.

On being introduced to me as a music composer, Benny broke the mold by stopping me midway in my standard thought that I always had after somebody was introduced to me as a musician, artist, or creative.

I was just starting to think, "Oh boy, not another pretender," when Benny interrupted by NOT launching into the standard discussion about how enlightened his work was, or (with his high minded ideas) how far he was above all the schmucks around him, or how he was working on an ethereal plane being fed mana by his muse.

Instead he started complaining, "My main problem at the moment is this aggravating computer spreadsheet program that keeps crashing while I am trying to make a useful list of all the musical pieces I have to track!"

I thought, "There you go; I'll bet this guy is a true composer, because 99.99% of all the work involved in artistic activity is organizational not inspirational."

I knew from my own experience that I typically have three dozen great ideas in the first hour of any given day, each of which would consume a lifetime of effort if I ever got the chance to bring them to fruition.

Coming up with ideas is not the problem, getting stuff done is the problem.

Turns out Benny had massive credits in performance and composition for movie, radio, and television.

For just one example, he had penned the music for the iconic Wide World of Sports opening which featured the memorable thrill of victory, agony of defeat ski jump crash.

Therefore I had a confirmed basis for understanding when the very first moment I started to talk to Luft Gardens, Aaron immediately complained about the logistics of growing, then carving, then painting, then showing up to sell the gords while getting enough of the work done to be profitable.

Jessica Hengen can always be found tied to her wheel, or working on some jewelry, or a sculpture (her forte), or photographing some of her work each and every time you walk into her studio.

The panic in her eyes that you might disturb her work before she has to go off to collect her kids from school is palpable.

As for K.M. Designs: go in there any time, 7 days a week, and there she is in her little back room working her ass off.

The same for people at Anne Marie's Deli and 18th Century Furniture.

All of these people have significant interests in Sugar Loaf and are not just using Sugar Loaf as a launch pad for their idealized wannabee lives.

The list above is only the few unassailable producers that I had a good chance to talk to, while there is also Denise at Practical Magick who might take a moment to show you some of the documented research she has done about her religion (Wiccan, yes she believes it) while she is also trying to expand her very own product line at the same time.

Plus there are a few others which I still have not had much time to talk to yet.

There is Cheryl at Simpson's Originals who confirmed that somebody lied to me about her interest in a faux Sugar Loaf movie.

Not to mention, there is Ada who was working on a really unique series of art pieces, but we got interrupted by Kevin Kern shutting down the Sugar Loaf Welcome Center.

We know Israel at Cancun Restaurant from a past life but still haven't made it over to harass him yet.

Which reminds me, there was someone from Bliss who visited the Welcome Center, became very excited about what I was doing, and left me their card which is now in the Welcome Center Traveling Show.

Incredible, the depth of excellence in Sugar Loaf; difficult to get your head around it ... why it's always hidden.

Otherwise, yo Connie, do you recall the very first of the Sugar Loaf fauxs (pronounced: foes) who started the side trend of minor distractions that continues today?

It was our lovely faux glass-blower who turned out to be merely a real blow-hard.

The real deal artists have endured such typical nonsense for so long they probably no longer see it as a perennial problem.

In any case no worries, the most recent spate of people wanting to take advantage of the hamlet is currently stepping up to the plate trying to work the situation, but I am tracking them in ways they can scarcely imagine.

Keep in mind that our fauxs are easier to spot if you remember the absolute last thing a real deal artist ever wants is to rely on hit and miss grants, or to be on something like Oprah or a reality show, or to be marketed by something like Walmart, or to be involved in running vapid events that have no more cultural significance than a couple kiddie rides and some snacks, or to be pushing for a series of promotions inviting visitors to come to a town full of closed shops.

The real deal artists are in their studios working and open to the public.

We love bikers, and the ones who are involved in building (and the heavy tinkerers at least), have always really appreciated Mary's work, because they fully understand the arts (certainly tattoos) not to mention the handling of materials.

Bikers are certainly our fans but not our customers (they are passionate about motorcycles, case closed), so we are going to be agnostic about the Sturgis Festival but will not likely understand those half of the people you mentioned who don't like it.

In any case, due to your proximity to Sturgis (and your responsiveness to my emails), you are likely to be my only shot at ever getting anybody else to understand one of my main aggravations with my neighbors in Sugar Loaf.

So please bear with me and allow the following somewhat imperfect comparison.

For argument's sake let's say Sturgis started when a few local bike builders noticed people showing up every summer and decided to formalize it into a festival.

Then it grew to be the world renowned center of all bike building craft that it is today.

Then some other people took over the festival, but had no idea what it actually was, and began getting rid of builders in favor of Disney World type tourist mementos and trinkets which eventually did not even take a nod toward motorcycling.

The only thing left of biking was a concession of Florida beach style rental mopeds which they began calling the "motorcycle festival."

Not a builder in sight, but the original cache and mystique lasted for years while the original crew spent the first 10 minutes of every sale explaining to disappointed visitors what happened to the original festivals; get it?

That is exactly what has happened in Sugar Loaf.

In the late 1970's through the 80's Mary and I were deeply involved in the Sugar Loaf art festivals (for this discussion I am including artisan crafts under the heading of art), and Sugar Loaf became one of the country's prime destinations for the arts.

Except we got too busy to pay much attention to the shows, so some hangers-on took over and started decimating them to the point they can now be barely considered flea-markets.

We knew things were bad but not really how bad until I started working on the Sugar Loaf Guild website.

I soon realized the only reason the fairs still existed was because the newest generation organizers had started making money off the shows themselves (directly off the vendors), and the money they made on the festvals was their only income for the year (their businesses sucked).

The earlier shows were always run by volunteers, and the idea was to promote the artists who came here (some from as far away as California) for their best show of the year.

During their height we never made money off the original shows, just enjoyed the goodwill generated for the other 51 weeks of the year.

The new organizers went so far as to bring in their own food vendors, so the two local restaurants plus the deli not only had to give up their parking areas (and watch their regular customers being stopped from driving into town), they also had to compete with vendors who were only repeating services already here, but those outside venders were passing money on to the event organizers.

Last year, Mary and I even had to go down to the firehouse and donate $300.00 in the name of the Guild in order for them to understand everybody in Sugar Loaf was not like the people who complained because the firehouse was charging for parking ... on the property which the volunteer firefighters maintain, and assume the risk, for the whole year.

Last month the main organizer of these newest crap fairs, skipped out in the middle of the night owing 7 months rent, and even stole the landlord's refrigerator, and get this, some people in town actually thought it would be appropriate for them to continue running the shows from afar.

But on to happier things.

Your browsing of Mary's website was priceless.

I would have lost my bet about which image you hit first, because I figured it would be the cows, but after I thought about it, the "Only In Florida" paintings made perfect sense.

Here's one you missed, because it was on the "MORE" page linked at the bottom of the page you saw:

ONLY IN FLORIDA

I had to remind Mary she should always keep paintings that are likely to be of interest to the widest audience on the first pages, because the paintings you saw were definitely for a very specific taste.

In any case, my hidden original plan was to see if I could identify a specific taste in your own browsing and offer you a free gift for the time you have already spent with me ... giving me great information by the way.

So if the Florida painting linked above is something you might like to grab for your place in Florida, it is yours free of charge, and we will ship it down for you free of charge as well.

Once or twice a year, I get to give something away.

Of course, we will not take it personally if you prefer not having it (or the Snow Tree you looked at instead, or the Lighthouse), because ... well, we just don't take such things personally: this is our business.

You yourself would not take it personally if we chose one house over another in Spearfish, SD (or surrounds), or decided not to buy at all, right?

I really appreciate the information you have taken the time to give us in our quest to find an alternative location away from our local idiots who seem hell bent on destroying what took a half century to build.

BTW: Your own photographs are pretty special.

It is one thing to be living in a beautiful location, and quite another to understand composition and color balance after taking a photograph out your back window; so you could certainly make money with them, maybe even a living if it hadn't become so easy for people to snap a shot with their phone and think they have something.

FRED'S BACKYARD

I have half a mind to return Clay Boone's gas station joke photo to him with yours of the turkeys in your backyard and tell him, "Clay, this photo was taken by our new real estate agent that your photo led us to; he is so sick of all the turkeys overrunning his property that he's selling his 120 acres on the side of a mountain for $40,000 and moving to Florida! He said they changed the law to allow turkey hunting year round, but it is too little, too late. Call him and maybe you can talk him down on the price."

Bob

Now that I think about it, the question itself will be changed.

Given the alacrity with which our core group handles promotions (online, print, video,and especially word of mouth) plus construction, restoration, and business in general, the question will become, "I heard all the artists moved to Spearfish and turned that town into what Sugar Loaf used to be."

No question about it.

The Spearfish University t-shirts are already on order.

Turns out Romers' Alley is not really for sale.

Coupled with the theater, they are just running it as some sort of investment scam to get grants and such (help the poor little artists); nobody actually owns it outright.

Explains why Kevin Kern (who claims to be running an artist incubator) never thought it important (in 20 years) to come ask the top producing artist in Sugar Loaf how an actual artist business is run successfully.

At the very least one of the supposed tenants is a principal investor who is helping make sure no actual business ever gets into the place.

That is my best take on it, given the insane problems with the property plus how much NOT like a business any of it is being run.

One of the new people actually believes it is ok for Romers' Alley to be handled like a condo association.

They are too stupid to understand that for such a thing to exist, requirements would subject it to draconian statutes and legal safeguards to make sure everything is kosher.

When I pointed all of this out, Kevin Kern dropped by (finally) and as the saying goes the lady did protest too much.

That means we have an extra $300,000 cash burning a hole in our pocket to invest somewhere (else).

Great building you got there, Boone; Mary and I are on our way.

You are not going to believe recent happenings in Sugar Loaf, especially what happened with the Welcome Center.

I cannot express my amount of excitement when I look at that building in your photo and think about restoring it.

What a little gold mine!

We'll try to get there before some idiot doesn't realize what they've got and bulldozes it in order to put up a copy building.

You know, like that ignorant Mr. Scarane is doing to the Decker homestead ... which will most likely be a hole in the ground by the time you get back, and incapable of housing a sustainable Sugar Loaf business ever again.

Of course that little story will be much funnier viewed from afar, in particular the part where Scarane has to take over our ongoing non-stop job answering, "Whatever happened to Sugar Loaf?"

BTW: Connie finally came to her senses and quit her day job; does anybody out there need a top-notch artist and production potter?

The great migration has begun.

What is the price I saw online ... 2 acres, residential-commercial, qualifies for 10 lots, $1.5 million?

I told her, "Hell, it'll fit right in. Only person in Sugar Loaf gives a shit about the environment is Jay Westerveld, and he's so loopy The Hatter comes to him for crazy lessons."

She still would not let me put it on the sign.

It got so bad in his last job that at one point he was presenting one of our friend's prints as original art while giving a tour of a massive health care facility; he also didn't realize the work he was showing was that of a local artist — clueless.

Sugar Loaf and its independent creatives have quickly taught him that he never was a leader of men but merely a babysitter of idiots.

He didn't even know enough to return one of Mary's paintings (received under false pretenses) when she tried to buy it back.

Listen up Sugar Loaf, either make it or break it; you are never going to fake it ... not in this town anyway!

Step 2
Blame your signage.

Step 3
Blame the rest of us.

Step 4
Gone.

Seen it a hundred times.

Wish they wouldn't always take over advertising and the shows during their brief tenure here believing they know "... just what Sugar Loaf needs."

That is four days riding in a row, so I was taking it easy.

Unfortunately when I am taking it easy, somebody might sometimes be able to pass me, and that is absolutely positively disallowed.

Nobody gets ahead of me when I am on my bicycle.

At the very least I will jump on their wheel and dog them no matter how fast they think they are, nor how easy they think it should be to brush me off their tail.

A strong rider went around me, but when they finally gave up and started talking to me, I found out he was an engineer just back from work in NYC.

I asked what kind of engineer and he said, "All kinds of big project stuff like bridges, high-rise, highways, major developments; you know, there aren't any small firms anymore, the mom and pops where skills are being passed down from one generation to the next, they are all gone; now everything is big firms and big projects."

"Like farms," I said.

"Exactly," he agreed, and I started thinking about how that sort of thought process impacts what has been happening in Sugar Loaf.

People believe mom and pop small businesses are things of the past and are no longer possible.

People used to think that was just true for artist enclaves; now they think it is true for everything.

That explains why Mr. Scarane is putting together a dog food store designed to compete with Petco (not building a local long lasting business), and why the Romers' Alley crowd think they have to compete with Woodbury Commons (without being open on a daily basis), and why that faux religious saint believes the road to success is competing with Wal-Mart, and why the faux jeweler is trying to compete with whatever figment in her imagination is famous.

Maybe it is the reason so many new businesses in Sugar Loaf have absolutely zero concern for what is already in Sugar Loaf but are only using the hamlet (mangling it in the process) as a jumping off spot hoping to reach their high-rise franchising businesses in the sky.

That probably also explains why the organizers of the next generation of crap fairs have already started looking for outside grants to fund them instead of trying to build a cultural masterpiece like the old shows were.

Those shows were not only handled by local volunteer work, they supported themselves, and never a thought went into figuring out how to make money off the show itself (such as get grants, get sponsors, charge an exorbitant entry, pocket the change).

Our older shows took the long view that understood establishing an ongoing cultural treasure (such as juried working artist gatherings) would aggregate such goodwill for the town that business for the rest of the year would be improved.

Now the few faux business people who are running these newer farcical shows (LOUDLY) are only doing so because that is their one and only source of income for the year within Sugar Loaf.

The theater is of course following them down that path with hopes to put together something that will pay enough money on that single day to cover the other 364 days of the year which otherwise will be allowed to rot on the vine.

The laughing stock that Sugar Loaf has become (in truth more and more hated) at the hands of itinerate 4 steppers is getting a little out of hand.

Tomorrow why don't you tell us about some of the great shops here, given the fact those other losers are now actually stealing the Guild brochures in hopes nobody ever finds out about the truly successful businesses in Sugar Loaf — that is to say, those businesses which are not generating grant revenues for the 4 steppers but only a good living for themselves.

How about that nonsense with Kevin Kern?

Need I remind you that TRUTH is an absolute defense against libel?

And these things I have been saying are not even opinions, they are just statements of fact.

Of course, people can always sue, but it is unlikely that anybody who actually looks at the facts will come up with any other conclusion than is exactly my own.

Poor Kevin Kern.

Apparently he has forgotten the old saw about somebody being known by the company they keep.

Of course, Kevin Kern is a distracted absentee landlord who has absolutely no idea who he is keeping company with.

Doesn't read either ... far as I can tell.

I have never said anything, because I always saw Brad as a straightforward, honest, what you see is what you get, true business person.

In fact at one point in their shop (while Brad and the Divine Comedienne were absent as is typical), I said something off-hand jokingly about his character.

I wish I could remember exactly what I said, because it was so minor, but the only thing I remember is how strongly his work force reacted.

They shut me down immediately, telling me how good he had been to them.

I made note, "If his employees will stick up for him when he's not around, that implies Brad must have the highest character."

After that I passed everything that Brad would say through the same filter, giving him every benefit of the doubt.

That is until I caught him lying.

By that I do not mean how Brad lied to Kevin Kern about this Forum in order to get his rent down, because that is understandable and similar to Brad's routine puffery about his business (which is also to be expected and just regular business practice), but what was far out of the ordinary was his lie about ...

I guess I should back up and fill in a little context, because although Brad always seemed to be exactly just what he said he was, the Divine Comedienne was a different story altogether.

I can probably summarize the situation with a simple example: when I took time out to explain to Brad how all the robust businesses in Sugar Loaf are based on people making their own product, and how easy it would be for him to do the same with his own business, Brad tried making something, found it exhilaratingly successful at their next show, and reported the success back to me.

A few days later I happened across the Divine Comedienne and told her what I had shown Brad (and how successful it was); she turned at me and very coldly said, "I heard that you got to Brad."

It was like a glass of ice water thrown in my face, " ... got to Brad!?"

I only showed him something that new people in Sugar Loaf don't always see ... until they have been here for awhile; then they see it and incorporate it into their business, or they are soon gone.

Currently 22 out of 28 shops in Sugar Loaf make their own product.

Anyway, I tucked that little scenario away for future review.

Still, I never put the whole thing together until Brad lied to me, but I probably should have known.

The fact that they only open their business a few days a week so they can call it "another show" for their insurance company (insurance fraud but who’s counting), the fact our Divine Comedienne is now a Reverend in the Church of the Divine Haven (tax haven), the off-the-mark attempt to appear being a mystic, the fact I early on had to place on the back of one of their many business cards "gypsy - grifter - traveler" to make sure I never forgot my first impression of the card, and the fact that (among all the other people I showed it to) I showed my note on the card to Brad who only came up with a slight smirk when I stated emphatically, "You I trust; this other one I'm not so sure about."

I should have known, but I didn't until the lie.

I mean there was always Brad's continual expression of his understanding that Sugar Loaf is not the place for their business, that as an objective fact from the numbers it is obvious they will never be able to justify being here based on in-town sales to street traffic, given the nature of their resale product and thus their inability to charge more than an 80% mark-up.

All of that was correct and made perfect sense, so I really didn't get the full picture until I caught him in that lie.

I was sitting outside Brad's shop in Romers' Alley listening to a discussion about the progress of the new round of planned crap fairs, when Mr. Buzzkill slapped Brad full in the face, in as insulting a manner as is possible.

Actually it wasn't a slap directed so much at Brad as it was at the Divine Comedienne who less than 24 hours prior had sat on the right side of Mr. Buzzkill and assumed responsibility for the coming shows.

Except right then and there Mr. Buzzkill ignored the previous night's meeting and told Brad they had decided to use Ada's input for the show because of Ada’s great reputation for running real deal art fairs (which she truly does).

Brad quietly railed, his hackles went up, but you would have to be watching to see it, and that is when he put his head into his computer pad and spouted the lie, "That's it; if you have so little respect for my partner who volunteered for the job, then I am done with the whole affair."

Brad never raised his nose out of his wireless device for the rest of that meeting; even when Mr. Buzzkill whined, "Come on, Brad."

Brad only said, "You don't get it; when I make a decision it is final."

And that was that.

Made perfect sense to me, Brad had often expressed his desire to be gone from this hamlet, due to his understanding it is a dead-end for them.

So I didn't even think twice about it, took it as gospel truth, and later even went so far as to say goodbye to Brad telling him what a privilege it had been knowing him (based on my earlier experience with his employees who went to bat for him).

But what Brad had said was a lie; they are still here and involved in these shows, which I have been told they have already begun fashioning to meet their own business needs (with a couple of other equally insulated clueless people) while ignoring the needs of the Sugar Loaf community at large.

Ok, maybe I have been a little harsh on Brad, because it is quite likely Brad himself actually believed his own lie when he told it.

The poor lad has a great head on his shoulders for business, but unfortunately that is not the head he is thinking with.

He does actually seem to believe that he is still in control of his life.

His employees would agree that he is, but his boss has definitely said otherwise ... though rarely in public.

Instead of focusing on the identification of faux mystics, it is better if I tell you about the real deal.

ROOP VERMA
SITARIST FOR
SWAMI JANAKANANDA

I will focus on those people from the Ashram who recorded the meditation tape in my studio.

Previously I said they were here circa 1982, but I just took a look at the tape and the first Copyright © date is 1983, so it would have been just after Mary Endico and I came back from a month long sojourn in Thailand living amongst the Buddhists (real Buddhists, not pretend Buddhists).

At one point we ended up near the Burmese border (now Myanmar), but that is another story.

In any case, I learned a lot about (true) Buddhists, what they stand for, and why they put those special yellow ribbons around all those special trees which mean so much to them.

Therefore an opportunity to record some of those people was pretty special.

Here is what I can tell you about them, and I'll start a little late in the timeline.

You remember Krishna Torak, my guitar student who gave me the tape described below?

Well, during one of her lessons we were being plagued by a mosquito, and I finally had my fill of it breaking our focus, so I reached out almost unconsciously and clapped it into its next incarnation.

I had been explaining how, due to the physics involved, it is impossible for a western guitar to ever be truly in tune; so when one becomes accomplished enough to start hearing the problem, it is not just your imagination; it is a truly intractable problem with specific workarounds.

A very important discussion (like Yoga Nidra, the subject of the tape discussed below).

Krishna's reponse to the dispatched mosquito was visceral and severe, though she held it to herself and said nothing.

Except I am an extreme empath, so I knew immediately what a horrid line I had crossed.

Think about it; the absolute last thing any of those people would ever be doing is selling hotdogs at a faux wellness festival.

Wouldn't happen, couldn't happen, would never even be a consideration.

Even if Krishna had a significant other who did think that something like that would be appropriate, she wouldn't go for it for a minute.

Come to think of it, Krishna would never have had such a significant other, wouldn't happen, couldn't happen, never even a consideration.

Now let's go back to the tape discussed previously; it was a meditation tape for self guided acheivement of Yoga Nidra.

The deal is that Yoga Nidra is an objectifiably provable phenomenon despite its apparent hippie dippy weirdness, and achieving Yoga Nidra can be recorded with EEGs (alpha state) while the western term for one of the processes used to attain it is bio feedback.

Those of us who have mastered it have understanding of it through a range of activities such as composing and playing music, producing art, dance, athletics, writing stories based on vivid dreaming, etc ... actually making anything really.

Those mystics I recorded were extremely focused on getting straight to the point with accomplishment (as arcane and difficult a topic as Yoga Nidra is), and no way in hell would they ever divert people's paths away from achievement by claiming a trinket used as a talisman is required to find enlightenment.

It would be like using a dowsing rod to point to water which will obviously be under any low lying plot where vegetation is more prevelant in one spot than another, not to mention water is a substance that is hard not to find under most habitable land on the planet.

In any case, using blood crystals (mined and refined by impoverished third world children) to sell people on an idea that could just as easily be illustrated using their own finger, just to make a buck, is something that would have been impossible for our true mystics.

You have no power here ...

The musicians themselves were so focused on their craft; they made me lay out one of our white bed sheets over the carpet before sitting down to play.

The carpet would have presented them with too many distractions.

Also Roop Verma (band leader and director of music studies at the Ashram) told me, "There are people at the Ashram who want to build our own recording studio, but I said no, because it will only distract from the practice and playing of music."

Those real deal mystics would never be involved with faux festivals aimed at attracting people who have no interest in achieving enlightenment, and they especially would never use quasi carnival attraction tourist trap amusement concessions to seal the deal.

Wouldn't, couldn't, never gonna happen.

By the way Sugar Loafians, get ready for your wellness shows and drum circles.

Sounds reasonable to me, because I always used drums to teach music to pre-schoolers, on a level like the crowd who will be showing up for these next generation crap fairs.

Where do you get off chiding the Divine Comedienne?

If it is not the very first of its kind, it is certainly one of the earliest.

SWAMI JANAKANADA
MEDITATION TAPE
ONE OF THE FIRST
OF ITS KIND

During the recording there were several instances where I provided Swami Janakanda with enlightenment.

JANAKANANDA
PHOTO INSERT

You must not be surprised at that, because I had already fully mastered the sound of one hand clapping, so finding the truths hidden within astral frequencies that had become earthbound was easy for me.

In one instance, the Swami complained that what he was experiencing from the consecrated large studio speakers was severely altered in the anointed headphones which he was using as an alternative ambrosial manifestation and conduit into the sublime.

I revealed to him the sanctified changes in transcendental sound that are expected between various rapturous devices.

Still the learned Swami persisted.

"Take away some of the low sounding sacraments in my voice," he requested.

I did, but when he exalted the headphones again he chanted, "No, no, the more elevated unpleasant auras now radiate ever so much more!"

So I made a blissful adjustment, and the Swami smiled like the sun, "That is perfect; what did you do?"

"I just reversed what you asked me to do the first time," as I pointed out the exact mixing console settings for each change.

He listened a few more times and exclaimed, "Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not; I find myself sorely tasked and cannot trace the hidden incarnations of this ebullient divination; I don't get it!"

I floated so carefully a single step back from the scene to acquire a more expansive view and assumed an esoteric Asana which is very useful for such moments, but which you will not find in any of the canonical literature.

I am very accomplished at intuiting just the right pose for any given situation.

My own enlightenment preceded the Swami's, "Resurrect your hands from off the headphones."

He did and sputtered, "By all that is beatific, you have awakened your chakras in fullness vernal recording nidra; it is once more ascendent perfection; what have you done?"

"Nothing."

Then I unfolded in him the mysterious conjurings of the two great saints: The Divine Fletcher and His Holiness the Lauded Munson.

Fletcher and Munson were bestowed unspeakable knowledge from the angelic heavens which they afterwards so lovingly gifted to the world of man.

When the beneficent swirlings that we experience in the ethereal planes are brought into closer proximity to the ear, they do not expand uniformly across all celestial vibrations.

The deeper resonances increase at their own pace, more greatly than the others.

This hallowed ghostly phenomenon is so very predictable the universal spheres can be rendered precisely to be embodied in artful drawings of various curvilinear godlinesses.

These wondrous images have suffered throughout the ages but their rudiments can still be found inscribed in charts and are now referred to mundanely as Fletcher-Munson curves.

Sometimes reaching the enraptured state by way of the headphones, Janakananda would pensively press his hands against the phones; and at that point, as the worldly vain and profane among us often ejaculate, "The bass was boosted."

I also recorded a full sitar and tabla band during that recording session which Mary reports lasted three weeks 24/7.

Mary slept through most of it (just above the recording performance room), but neither Janakananda nor I slept at all ... too important, what we were doing.

The tape shown above was gifted to me much later by one of my music students who had come to me from the Ashram based on my significant reputation as an enlightened teacher.

Krishna Torak bowed and gingerly handed me the tape with both hands intoning quietly, "I believe you are profoundly aware of these meditations and the truths that lie within them."

I smiled like the sun.

Therefore to faux mystics I always say, "I knew mystics. They were my friends. And you are no mystic!"

JANAKANANDA
TEXT INSERT

By the way:

You have no power here ...

That's right, I guess she did; she was commenting on the Sugar Loaf Guild brochure, website, and the fallout over them.

It has been a long hard slog trying to identify the problem, but I can finally summarize what is wrong with Sugar Loaf.

Yesterday on a 40 mile bike ride I was going past the monastery when I thought, "These guys might know what's wrong, after all that is what they do."

So I stopped in and talked to the spiritual leader, told them the symptoms, and confirmed my suspicions.

In terms of business, there is not a single solitary thing at all wrong with Sugar Loaf.

All the perennially successful shops are continuing to be successful while keeping pretty quiet about it (they just want to do their work and take care of their far too many customers), so you might not know how cushy their lives have become.

On the other hand are those whom Clay Boone has defined as, "People who do not make anything, so they have a lot of time to sit around yakking and come up with false reasons why their businesses are so bad; then they come up with solutions to fix problems that don't exist. I just don't know why they always feel the need to bother us with it."

Therefore the standard problem remains of new people who come into town without a clue (nor a solid Sugar Loaf centric business model) and commence whining about their lot in life (blaming others) while claiming they see problems that they are going to "fix" with whatever buzzword solutions are in vogue at the moment.

The woman at the monastery smiled, slapped me on the back, and said, "Very good, absolutely true," especially after I explained that currently one of our problems is a faux mystic who I've caught lying a couple times.

My divine counselor left it to me as to how to remedy the situation (standard), and I started thinking about it.

The revelation of the faux mystic brought me to an overall review of what I have found over the last couple years while running the Sugar Loaf Guild website, the Sugar Loaf Welcome Center, and walking around town in general.

In summary, the big problem (not for business of course but just in general) is the newest rash of faux businesses.

For some time there has been a faux jeweler (though I wasn't aware of it), and now there is the faux mystic, plus the faux self-help therapist, all of whom are so good at being faux it took me a long time to see them for what they are ... except the faux mystic I caught onto pretty quickly, because I have a lot of experience with mystics and have learned to spot the bullshit ones.

Maybe a little off topic, we also continue to suffer the insults of an absentee landlord who is a faux artist incubator, and we are soon to have a faux building at the hands of another faux business who is about to bulldoze one of the town’s iconic authentic structures.

On the flip side the regular folks are doing quite well.

It is just the few irregular faux-ks (those ignoring the simple advice of make it yourself or suffer the consequences) who have banded together with their half-baked ideas to stage their final stand.

Those folks are soon to be faux-gotten.

When all your foes are fauxs, what could be the problem?

Now that the Chamber of Commerce has made its final splintering into the irrelevancy of oblivion, we have a prime example of the death of social media.

I know the Chamber is finally dead because a recent meeting about the Fall Festival was so poorly attended the minutes were not even published on the Chamber website, nor can I find even a mention of which organizational auspices the festival will be held under.

Totally scattered, totally unregulated, totally typical.

In addition the move continues toward keeping all proceedings under wraps as what little minutes do exist were passed around to only those few people who will give up their e-mail addresses (to be sold at auction) for the privilege of reading the local news.

Even that reprehensible despicable absentee landlord Kevin Kern complained to me during our only face to face meeting, "I did put every shop in town on the Chamber website [just like the Guild site], but the Chamber didn't want it and made me take them off."

I know at least a half dozen people who are in the Chamber who could update that website daily without even breathing hard, but they have chosen instead to toss $4,000 out the window on the pretense of engaging social media ... LOLOL :)

Social media is so yesterday even Google has implemented a new policy blocking SEO techniques (Search Engine Optimization) and are getting back to the old timey concept of "Content is King."

The final straw on social media's back is best described by the case posed by Bodhi Tree.

Bodhi Tree is by far making the best use of social media in town, but even they find it very important to loudly proclaim they have "moved to Main Street."

I had several private meetings with Brad Middleton (of Bodhi Tree), and he gave me a run down of their plans which are to build their fb following through handshakes and schmoozings at wellness events, and when they reach the magic number of 30,000 followers, they are going to introduce commercial content into their fb page.

Brad knows he will be losing a percentage of their followers because lots of fb users hate that sort of stuff (in fact fb discourages it), but Bodhi Tree is willing to take the hit to serve the greater good which is money in their pocket.

Sort of like becoming a Reverend in the Church of the Divine Haven, but that is another story, and I more or less commend such things.

Brad even seemed to be aware that the type of people they will be losing would pretty much define every one of Bodhi Tree's neighbors in Sugar Loaf, but they really don't care about the hamlet.

In fact Brad has already told me several times that he knows their shop in Sugar Loaf will never be a paying proposition, but even though he was given an alternative outside of town (which I myself would have taken in a New York minute), they are continuing expansion of their brick and mortar business inside of Sugar Loaf, such as it is.

Not Brad's fault really, his boss is making him do it.

In the meantime, Bodhi Tree continues to laud social media while applying blocks to their fb pages.

Sort of like that guy who was caught here impersonating somebody else and got tossed to the gendarmes.

In any event location, location, location still trumps social media (even if one is riding the coattails of reputations built long ago without a whiff of understanding why).

Unfortunately for trouble makers, along with location, location, location comes the inability to block viewers.

Oh my!

The person whom we caught pretending to be someone else has been turned over to the proper authorities.

But since this Forum represents the absolute best in social media apps, that person is still allowed to view the Guild website.

They are just blocked from posting.

As with all the best business websites, the Guild site is fully open to the public; it is only in cases where somebody wishes to participate regularly that I demand a higher level of scrutiny.

The targeted person to whom we turned over the offender was exceedingly grateful, and in the future they will be one of the best friends Sugar Loaf has ever had.

The impersonator who was pretending to be them while harassing me had previously cost the target $35,000 in delayed construction costs and afterwards has been impersonating them in Forums that are not as cleverly guarded as the Guild's.

It was all regarding a facility purchased for $8.5 million then another $30 million put into restoration.

Basically a whole 'nother universe from the one I live in.

Who knew we would have a good friend in common with the target and so easily track down the truth.

Couldn't have happened without the Forum being totally honest and open to the public ... some would say a little too open and honest.

But as soon as somebody starts blocking viewers and content, it is almost certain a scam is behind the closed doors.

Happens on fb every day.

If you want, I'll send Mary over with a list of people who have blocked Peg Conner on fb; it reads like a Who's Who of bad actors.

Please somebody ... anybody ... don't piss off Jessica too!

Itinerate trinket mongers will come and go, but without essential artists like Clay, Connie, Jessica, Luft Gardens et al this town is done.

Mr. Buzzkill was shown directly (ad nauseum) what it takes to be one of those people, to develop and own a skill, but he never did "get it."

Platitudes cannot replace practice.

Apparently one gets it, or one does not.

Forum is periodically divided by year and partial year to maintain fast loading.

Forum periodically divided by year and partial year to maintain fast loading.