Jack, I thought you were hiking this year?
You appear to be exercising your prejudices.
And such a foul pie hole. Villify this.
I guess you are right after all.
Let’s give everyone a pass for all behavior, but only if, and especially if, they are making money.
Is this the Reagan Era all over again?
“Money talks and bullsh*t runs the marathon.”
~~Wesley Snipes’ character in “New Jack City.”
See ya and I wouldn’t want to be ya!
Honest Abe
Old man, look at my life, I’m a lot like you were…
I’ll give you that it is likely both of their greeds that got them, either of them, into their respective situations, whether good, bad or whatever.
The ways of the marketplace are such an ingrained aspect of American psychological consciousness that anyone who flirts with criticizing it is villified. There’s a bigger point here than Jack’s squeaking self-defenses or lawyerly Fox News-style unbiased analysis. Spanking both sides doesn’t constitute analysis. Or maybe this was a Troll after all? An entry to raise consciousness? Or perhaps an elaborate ploy floated by the secret society of Ivy League power trippers, in between enjoying good wine and heavy hors d’oeuvres.
All it really proved was who the patsys are; and who those are who would defend profit at all costs.
The fact is that Ray and Coo are just the yin and yang. Ray does things and doesn’t care too much for profit and dabbles in the business side. Coo is the epitome of the business geek who dabbles in actually doing things outside. Interesting. (There. I’m sure Jack will want to swear at me now. Again.)
Honest Abe
This is getting tired, Abe…sorry the thread didn’t work out the way you planned.
And, no, I don’t need to swear to describe you. You’re not worth colorful speech. I can use perfectly everyday language to describe you as a tiresome, troublemaking, whiny, close-minded, self-righteous clown.
Oh,and thanx for the timely quotes from “New Jack City,” a true cinematic masterpiece. They really add a sense of urgency and timeliness to your comments, Abe. Gosh, you MUST be on the cutting edge of cool, old Abe really must have killer street cred to quote this childish piece of trash. And you must think a lot of the film, you’ve cited it twice. Any more brilliant and pithy cultural references for us? Wanna quote anymore Judd Nelson pictures for us? I’m sure you can come up with more, maybe the Breakfast Club?
Geez, this is silly. If Jardine needs apologists like you to fight the good fight for him, Abe, he needs to fall back and regroup cuz the war is over.
Jack Tarlin
You’re quite the bully today, Tarlin.
Self-loathing is a terrible thing.
Go ahead and turn that around on me, Jack, oh master of the barroom insult and defender of the whatever.
We should start in on Warren Doyle now, yes?
Honest Abe
Wow, you’re funny.
Self-loathing? Nah, I just hate idiots. In particular, cowardly anonymous Internet idiots.
Kinda like you, Abe.
Maybe relentless ass-smooching of the Go-Lite people will score you a free forty-nine dollar backpack one of these years. Doubtful. But keep it up. Such ardent butt-kissage has to be good for something one of these years.
Barroom insult? Jesus, you toad, you’re not even in Triple-A yet, never mind the Big Leagues.
Maybe if you put your real name on your posts, Ray might send you a coupon or something. But I doubt it; he’s reputedly, real tight with a buck. And pray tell, what on earth does Warren Doyle have to do with this, you anonymous ass-clown? At least Warren, on the rare occasion he sullies the Internet, puts his real name on his posts, which is more that you’re willing to do, Abraham.
Bye now. Gotta hike tomorrow.
Jack Tarlin
Who reported to you that Ray is tight with a buck?
I know Ray, and you obviously do not.
tha wookie
Tarlin’s incoherant responses speak for themselves and reveal his character.
When we judge others, we define ourselves.
Honest Abe
After dropping such gems of socialist poo as you have above, including the declaration that anyone with a college education must be an amoral capitalist, to come out and criticize anyone, anywhere for being incoherent or judgemental is pretty funny. It was meant as a joke, correct?
Abe, you’re pretty clearly just trolling for an argument, and not really interested in expanding your understanding of this (or most likely any other) situation. You made up your mind from the beginning, and even when presented with pretty convincing evidence that contradicts your initial assertion, you change the subject instead of admitting you were wrong.
If you wish to get back to the heart of this matter, which I doubt you do, answer the question: “Do you still think Ray was “cheated” by GoLite? Even in light of the evidence listed above, such as the documentation from Golite, the quotes from Ray from the Outside interview, the questions regarding the timeline, Ray’s history of other business ventures that have ended similarly, etc, etc?” Ray isn’t a golden-haired prophet out to evangelize the backpacking world as you seem to bent on casting him as; he’s just a guy trying to make a buck off his ideas, and just like everyone esle, he’d rather make two bucks instead of one. He’s a business man with a track record of having the companies, organizations, and projects he’s associated with going straight into the crapper. Either way, there’s no evidence at all the GoLite, or Coup, or anyone else involved “cheated” him. In fact it sounds more like he shot himself in the foot, again.
I’ll be willing to bet that your response to this won’t be a clear discussion of the specifics involved, but will instead be another tangential tirade into matters of philosophy and social theory that you clearly have only a limited grasp of. If you really want to discuss the fine points of Kautskyism vs Trotskyism I’d be happy to, but those are topics for another thread, in here that talk is just smokescreen.
Trolls are like bears, the more the get fed, the more bothersome they become.
The Wandering Old Man
Once again, another in this thread has erroneously painted Ray as a common character out for a buck with disregard most else (like a fundamental capitalist or something).
How innaccurate could a description get?!
You have absolutely no clue about whom you are badmouthing, WOM,…
…and then you call someone else a troll
:lol
tha wookie
You SPOUSE is cheating while you’re out there playing Boy Scout for months at a time. It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a GoLite or a JackPack, when the cat’s away the mouse will play.
Bedrock Bob
How is saying that he wants to get paid for his ideas in any way inaccurate or disparaging? Clearly the money is a major factor in his grievance against GoLite, otherwise he wouldn’t have commented on how little he was getting paid half a dozen times in his posting. I never said that his desire for money was “with disregard (to) most else” You’re putting words in my mouth.
I question how much you know the man you’re defending. Three weeks spent with him doesn’t exactly make you an expert. Not that I claim to be, don’t get me wrong. But certain parts of his history are very, very public, and not all of them are flattering. I assure you, when he crosses a stream his feet get wet. You and Abe need to get past your juvenile hero worship and understand that life is more complicated. This is now two simultaineous forum threads where you’re fighting the uphill battle of defending him, against multiple rational people who have very good reasons for not taking everything Ray said as gospel. Don’t you think there’s a pattern to that?
I wasn’t trying to troll anyone, and I doubt that any objective reader would have that same reaction that you did. I was trying to keep this thread on topic for future forum travelers who come across it. If only you and Abe posted in here someone would come away with the idea that Ray really was screwed over by GoLite, and that they shouldn’t buy GoLite products because of it. When in reality this is just yet another round of the typical Ray interactions with the outside world. There are plenty of other reasons not to buy GoLite products, but Ray Jaradine being angry about his paycheck shouldn’t be one of them.
the wandering old man
see… this is why I posted the stuff above. I am not an “objective reader”. I am subjective, because I have met both of these men, and have heard things not posted on any website. But whether what Ray or Coup did was right is not my place to say. I certainly do not have any place making that judgement. I respect both of these men, and I understand that information about such disputes, especially over the internet, is often not enough to make a judgement. I think the best anybody can say is that they won’t do business again.
I reread your post with your recent comments in mind and I understand that you were not stooping to jack’s level of insult. I’m sorry that I reflected that misunderstanding in my last post.
You can feel free to question how well I know Ray. I first read his BB book before my 2001 AT thru. Then I took to his website and joined the discussion pages that predated this site or trailjournals/forums. A lot of good information was shared about cutting-edge brilliant backpacking gear and philosophies shared not just by him, but the posters on the board. At that point, everything was free -the designs, the ideas (excellent book material), and his career-honed advice on whatever you wanted to ask. That was, until people started ripping him off -mirroring his site, stealing designs for commercial use (expressed as forbidden), and from people insulting him and his friends on his site. I am not saying he or anyone is without ego, but his success in an ego-ballooned arena has not pleased some people and you know how those things often go.
After talking with him over the internet about the creation of his Connection Camps, which are intense wilderness skills camps, I participated in the courses for three weeks. Yes, it was just three weeks, I don’t claim to be his best friend or anything remotely like that. But those were three weeks of 14 days with him, three different sets of students (including myself, as a student assistant), and no distractions. I think I got to know him very well -certainly better than anyone who’s negative comments I’ve read here- largely in part because we were studying what matters to him (and myself) most -a strong sense of connection with the natural world. Ray was easy- going, very respectful of the students’ personal beliefs, a great facilitator of meaningful group disussions and activities, and he actually surprised me for having an exceptional sense of humor. He was frank with us with any questions we had about anything, including gossip.
I was surprised at first actually how open he was to everyone, because I thought “who knows maybe a student is someone with a grudge”, but after a little while I realized something significant about him: the level of openess that he requires for his creative process to blossom is a full-time job. He is highly diligent and focused all the time. He seemed to be always open and very sensitive to his environment. I think this openess, which involves lowering learned defense mechanisms, is something that people have used to exploit his concepts and designs.
Again, I’m not making a judgement. But I am saying that might nice to show the man a little common respect, and listen to some voices who have read beyond the print.
tha wookie
Great post, Wookie. Yours is one of the most reasonable voices on this thread so far.
Objectivity is generally a fallacy when dealing with people and their motivations and actions. I’m certainly not objective. Most people who claim objectivity are lying to themselves.
The purpose of my initial post was to let people know what Ray wrote about GoLite. I’ve never met Ray, but I respect him. I’m pretty sure he would never call me an ass clown in an online forum, either. It is clear that Ray is a unique person, with bigger fish to fry, conceptually and relationally, in his life, especially in terms of what tha wookie wrote about lowering learned defense mechanisms to enable his creativity. In fact, even the concepts contained in that sentence are likely totally unthinkable to a vast majority of the population, and especially to the more bellicose of the respondents to my posts here.
Many, many people who were born into and are products of this massive consumer culture don’t even know they have been conditioned and trained like animals to adhere to a set of conditions and rules of behavior which only serve to advance the marketplace. Thank the god of your choice there are people like Ray around.
To me, Coo is pretty much the epitome of the typical capitalist, regardless of the “out of the box”-ness of he and his wife abandoning the east, moving to colorado and starting a gear company with the idea seeds that ray scattered around. To me, Coo is just a symbol for the class of elite capitalists who handle most of this country’s wealth. So he’s Princeton and Harvard educated, but pick any status schools you like. Give someone 600K and some great ideas to market and a couple of Ivy League degrees and you’ll have Coo. Coo and his wife are vegans, which I give them huge credit for, by the way, not that it matters.
Life is a holistic process, wherein all things are connected, our belief systems, our environment, our actions in the marketplace, how much we consume and discard, and how we THINK about these things. Most of us never come to the point of development where we begin to THINK about how we THINK and ask ourselves how we can enhance our experiences and our responses to it. My guess it that Ray, genius that he likely is, hasn’t prioritized being a killer shark of a buisnessman.
As the Wandering Old Man wrote so tactfully and kindly above of Ray, “He’s a business man with a track record of having the companies, organizations, and projects he’s associated with going straight into the crapper.” Show me someone who has never failed and I’ll show you someone who has never really done anything. (Posting venom on internet forums doesn’t count, by the way.)
Tha wookie hits it right on the nose when he writes about an ego-ballooned arena. But more disturbing than the egos --and the ids – are the rigid minds, even among a group as small and fringe as long-distance hikers are. (I expect that will be misunderstood, too, but don’t bother flaming me, please.)
A little common respect woud be very cool. There is an increasingly common social climate in this wherein certain people think they can try to control what other people say if they they sense the discussion drifting toward a topic that makes them feel uncomfortable or might not be popularly accepted.
That kind of psychological control might work with the worshipful kids you meet on the trail, Jack, but it ain’t flying in my airspace. You’re not the Roberts’ Rules of Order the Appalachian Trail, dude, so just chill. Remember Tarlin, it was you who popped up here calling my opinions bullsh*t. I certainly wrote something that pushed several of Tarlin’s buttons hard, but he has a reputation to maintain. Wandering Old Man wrote that he felt compelled to post and call it as he sees it, then popped up again and called my worldview depressing. Thanks so much. I’ll consider the source of the assessment.
Jack and Old Man, the world is changing around you and good guys like Ray are being taken advantage of by people to whom money appears to everything. And very few people seem to care, because they think it’s business, not personal. But my point is, and has been from the beginning, that just because something is LEGAL, doesn’t mean it’s RIGHT. All business is personal, in the end.
There are still creative idealists out here.
Honest Abe
This thread is too long and tedious to read the whole thing, but I think it’s ironic when people use the tools created by that which they claim to despise.
Do you think good will produced that computer? Or the gas used to deliver it to you? Or the house/apartment/condo you’re living in?
If you’re going to take a stand on a belief, by all means, that’s your right. But it’s rather hypocritical to make use of it, then claim how evil it is and how moral you are for despising it. Talk about biting the hand that feeds.
Just Jeff
Hard not to be a hypocrite, isn’t it?
If you don’t read the entire thread, how can you possibly know what it’s all about?
I don’t buy Golite gear, but I live in a house and I use a computer, just like you. I don’t claim capitalism or living in a house or driving a car is evil, but I do claim unregulated capitalism can leave lots of people in a tough situation and do more damage than good. Contract law protects parties from themselves as well as each other. Ray and Coo have apparently found an equlibrium after their falling-out process and that’s that. The thing is, capitalism can either help people or hurt people, depending on how it’s practiced by the business owners. ETHICS are a part of every business transaction. Nobody HAS to do the right thing; when business screw people over, it becomes PERSONAL.
So this THING speaks for itsef, regardless of how every tom, dick, and harry interprets it according to his satisfaction and worldview and then attempts to inflict that view on others.
I didn’t call anybody an ass clown.
I didn’t call anybody a socialist or tell them they were full of “socialist poo.”
I didn’t say Warren Doyle sullies the internet.
I didn’t write this: “I can use perfectly everyday language to describe you as a tiresome, troublemaking, whiny, close-minded, self-righteous clown.”
That was Jack Tarlin.
(Baltimore Jack: articulate ambassador of the Appalachian Trail or ass clown? You decide. And wow, he really knows his Brat Pack movie degrees of separation for one who denegrates them so energetically. Perhaps an undiscovered universal genius?)
When you judge others, you define yourself.
This has grown tiresome.
Later, ladies!
Honest Abe