@dxnerd, thank you for the inspiration when seriously I had absolutely none last night. Yes, I’ll say it, I was in tears after Darren’s email.
I tried so hard to fit in with them, but they just couldn’t give two “swinging foxes”. I absolutely hate “bad mouthing” anyone or any entity for that matter, its not good for ones integrity, and “bad mouthing” doesn’t exactly promote good relationships, , but FBI being the last straw, I just had to finally let loose after 33 years.
@Parex11, thank you for your heart warming comments, I hear you, I hear you all the way. I don’t do any social media anymore for that very reason. I think when I was lobbying for a license for 2PR FM between 2008 and 2014, with the coverage I was then getting in the local papers, my social accounts started filling up with quite a bit of hate messages. I’ve had folk on face book hijacking my comments with responses like, “yeah, it’s all about you isn’t it, all about you and nobody else (insert profanity). Another facebook group I was told that if you ever get near a radio station, we’ll come to clean you out, including your (insert profanity) music”, and only a few years ago on this forum, they were three users continually trolling my comments, mostly in the 2SM super digi and the narrowcasting threads. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
At the end of 2PR FM, I had a guy from Brisbane visiting Sydney expressing to be a partner within the station, and wanted to contribute a good number of very clean vinyl masters to the station’s library. The friendship started off okay, we then both decided that we like ripping vinyl so much that we would go into a joint fund to purchase one of those japanese ELP turntables that plays vinyl records via laser, rather then a stylus.
I’ve heard the demo disc, and it makes vinyls sound almost like CD. Although there is still the cracks and pops associated with any dirt in the grooves of the vinyl, that horrible high-end distortion and scraping sound from the stylus travelling through the groove is completely gone. Wow!!! listening to vinyl, well at least the few recordings I’ve heard are just so “blissful” to hear.
About three and a half years into the friendship when he seemed somewhat trustworthy, we both opened a shared account to contribute to, for then purchasing the ELP when they were sufficient funds. About a year into the saving plan he asked me several times if 2PR FM was finished for good. This was right in the heart of the Turnbull govt years, and with the libs being as hard as nails, we were not going to get a license in any form, so 2PR FM was officially retired at the end of May 2016.
The guy was homeless so I helped him out with getting in contact with the local support services, my local disability coordinator and I together had successfully got him a housing unit in Brisbane, somewhere south of the river. I gave him some of my old computer gear for him to get back on line, and also helped out with washing his clothes, doing what I could do to at least make his life a bit more bearable, and inspiring, at least to the point of having something to look forward to when getting up in the morning.
At this point, again, I make it clear that it’s not about bignoting ones self, it was about seeing a reality in front of you, where one felt that they could contribute. I’ve seen many appeals for African starving children, but what can I do here from old Sydney town? Nothing, probably donate, where most of it goes to the charity’s admin. I just saw a guy down on his luck, and knew that this was something I could contribute toward.
After the constant questioning whether 2PR was finished, the penny dropped where I knew something wasn’t right, and I was no longer gain to look into the shared account, I just stopped contributing my share, my instincts were white hot, and in the end, they were right on. After about eight months of not looking, I plucked up the courage to look, and found that the accounts were emptied out. I lost about AU$3,600, it was a rather hard kick emotionally, and of course the feeling that you are left a fool, absolutely wonderful reciprocity for helping someone out, but that’s what you get for being autistic.
When visiting my parents and friends down in the gong, we went through all the paper work and were amazed that the accounts fluctuated massively; at times very briefly more money in there that I could ever earn in my life. The accounts would be emptied, then $80,000 for a few days, emptied, $35,000, then emptied, this happened dozens of times when I wasn’t looking. By the time my family got on top of it, the trail had gone well cold, and rumours have it that he shot off to Korea.
When discussing the scenario further with my friends, they bought the hypothesis up that it could have been some sleepers from CRA, friends of one of the corporate stations taking revenge for my lobbying efforts. I mean, between 2008 to 2014 I was all over the press, and no doubt that would have rubbed some industry insiders in a very uncomfortable way. Perhaps exposing their personal insecurities, so what better way to handle a potential threat (a handicapped person), then to go out, gaslight and destroy them. I would emphasise though, I’m not buying this, very far fetched, but something inside of me tells me that maybe perhaps some element of this could be true. I don’t know and couldn’t care less anymore, life goes on.
Toward the end, he mentioned that he was doing studies and a paper on scatology, wanting me to take photos of my number twos for sending them via email. This is when the friendship ended. This was a ploy for playing upon an autistics naivety, as doing such is illegal, and would be looked upon as sending obscene material through a carrier service.
My father was about to pass away from advanced lung cancer and was going to leave us some inheritance. Not that I had any intention anymore, but upon one of the last phone calls, I mentioned this that I could get a few tens of thousands of dollars, and man, this was my last little hooray. Psychologically I used the vary weapon of his persona, selfish and mean, again using his persona in a form that was sweet and beautiful. I had him ringing me up about three dozen times over the next month asking me when I was going to get the money. Nothing like getting a greedy man salivating emotionally as if he was going to con an autie and his family out of all their money. When the penny dropped, by the end of spring 2019, I had the most abusive phone call of my life from him, and I just hung up. That was the last sweet revenge, him ending up so angry, when the forbidden fruit he was so madly after turned poisoness, but then I don’t know, everything about this guy was fake, even his name. A member of my family suspected that he could have been drug dealing or laundering money, again, I don’t know.
The one thing I regret, when I rung him in the beginning, he kept on asking that I should turn off my “caller ID masking” feature. At first I had no idea, but after a few years, it was apparent that he’s conned several other people before, and now has debt collectors after him. It explained why he was homeless.
Having my own struggles, to help somebody else out, only to be treated like an animal, this was NOT new to me, and I was somewhat acclimatize to this behaviour, but never before on such a nuclear level. They are things I could have done to recover my monies. Him knowing more about me, well more then I preferred, I didn’t want to antagonize this piece of scum any further.
They are many things one could hypothesize, rule in, rule out, and can only speculate, but in the last 25 years (since 1998) in trying to enter radio professionally, I’ve never, ever had anyone say, “Wow, that’s an interesting idea or proposal, we’d love to have you aboard”.
As an autie, you are made to feel that you have too much of a sense of entitlement, made to feel that you’re asking for the world, no matter how much of a compromise or how little one is negotiating for, and it’s always too much for anything to be done. I’ve seen some of the most powerful people in this country become so helpless when it came to our cause. I mean literally not through some weird sense of magic overcoming them, but their attitude just seems to completely disempowered them in a flash, and it becomes all about them looking at us as a “Risk” and an “unknown responsibility” and that is that. There is absolutely no shifting in the mantra, and at the end, doesn’t matter how hard one works, one always feels they’re begging and asking, after so many years, it’s not the kind of space one wants to be in anymore. You are looked upon as vulnerable, desperate, and undesirable, and such a presence doesn’t exactly set a good vibe.