Hello my dear Stephen, how are you doing today? What's life like in your world? Are you happy? That's all I really care about. See, despite some of the private personal things that I had been told by Allen Craft about you, (some I believe, some I don't), it doesn't MATTER to me what you do, where you go, or what makes you happy, as long as you ARE happy. I don't care about any actor's, painter's, dancer's, politician's, or even SINGER'S sex life, it's none of my business what ANYBODY ELSE does behind closed doors!! I don't care about the demons or problems you may have had in life either, cause buddy we've ALL got 'em, and I don't give a rat's ass about any of those things he told me, just as long as you keep singing, and stay happy. That's it. Nothing else matters.
So now I will continue my story about Allen Craft.
It was so stupid really. I often joined the chat rooms and message boards on the official Journey web site, just to make friends and enjoy some fan-based fun, talking about concerts, etc., but apparently there was an unfortunate "us vs. them" mentality. You had just left the band, and many fans were pissed off that you "turned your back on the fans, and walked away without so much as an explanation," so they decided "screw him," and started supporting, sucking up to, and shouting about how great Steve AUGERI was, as the new lead singer.
Now, since I'm friends with Melva, and she's the older sister of Kevin Chalfant, I knew that HE was supposed to take over as the new lead singer, or at least, he was CONSIDERED for it...and I really thought he would do a very good job at it. BUT, we know now that it didn't happen for whatever reason, and Augeri was in. The poor guy. He had no clue what he was in for. I felt kinda bad for him.
So these fans decided to depart from supporting YOU, and instead, badmouthed you every chance they got, from name-calling, to rumor-spreading, to anything mean and cruel they could think of. AND, they began to harass those of us who remained on the web site message boards who did NOT support Augeri and still liked YOU. It was the stupidest playground bully antics you've ever witnessed in your life. But, there it was, you were either labeled an Augeri fan, or a "Perryhead," and on a daily basis, you were told to leave the web site forever, since you were gone, they no longer had a NEED for any of us anymore, etc. etc., so no matter WHAT positive things I wrote about you on there, it was constantly and viciously attacked---mostly by one person, and that one person was Allen Craft.
He worked as an engineer for the band, for many years. He was good friends with Michael Sorrentino, who was supposed to be the web site "moderator," but really didn't moderate anything. He just deleted stuff or gave out "warnings" about language and name calling, but that did absolutely no good. I was, in fact, BANNED several times from writing on the message boards, simply because I would not back down from the harassment. I would point on stupid mistakes in their grammar, (I was an English major in college after all), or I would point out fallacies in their messages, etc., proving them wrong a lot. I became known as a RABBLE ROUSER, both on the Journey web site, as well as at the Museum.
I just don't take shit from anybody, that's all. Not really a "rabble rouser," per se, but someone who won't back down if she knows she's right. I'll admit, I'm not ALWAYS right about things, but when it came to defending YOU, I would fight to the death. And when it came to defending my baby of a web site, ohhhhh you'd better BET your ass, I'd fight to the death for that too.
Two weeks before I was scheduled to launch this web site, in honor of Miep Gies, for the whole Museum to see and eat their hearts out, Allen Craft did what he threatened to do...he sent his "borg hackers" after me---which I had no idea what he meant, or that it was even a threat---but apparently he made malicious code eat everything in my computer hard drive, deleting everything, and it didn't even turn ON anymore---it just went POOF, when I logged in to the Journey web site. Dead. He crashed my computer on purpose, just to get me to stop writing positive things about YOU.
He killed my web site for kids. And in doing so, he killed a part of ME too. This was WAR.
Not only that, but he also spent those 6 months telling me all sorts of personal information about you and the boys in the band, that NOBODY has a right to know. (And that I will never repeat to others). He spread lies and rumors about you all over the internet, actually. I found about 25 other people who were in similar situations with him, and told them to complain loudly about it to as many people as possible. So, because I'm so anal retentive about everything, I kept EVERY email he had ever sent me...every message he posted on the Journey web site message board, everything--and printed them OUT. I had over 120 pages worth of this harassment from him, and I mailed a copy of them to Melva, and Lora, and a friend named Nancy, as well as a couple other people I felt should know about it, and keep them in case Mr. Craft decided to come after me. I didn't know if he was a psycho-axe-murderer or what.
I told Lora to show those to you, because YOU could have him fired, or sue him for slander, or whatever you wanted to do to him, since I'm just a nobody fan out here in Fan Land, without power. But, I utilized the power I DID have, by filing a police report against him, and having my hard drive traced by my Museum Technical Services department. They knew everything about computers. Typically this service would cost about $3,000 bucks to do, but they did it for me for free. It took several weeks, but they were unable to retrieve any of my web site stuff. It was officially dead and gone, and I had no way of doing anything but START OVER FROM THE BEGINNING. This crushed me, and I cried for weeks. I didn't have money to buy a new computer. The $5,000 bucks that I got from Miep and Cor was spent on lawyers and web site stuff, books on how to make web sites, listing fees on search engines, etc., so I had none left to start over with.
The Technical Services guys also discovered, upon my request, that they could trace the malicious code that ate my computer, back to the Journey web site. I asked them to write out an official report and sign their names to it, so that I could go to court and sue his stupid ass, or sue Journey's stupid ass for even hiring such a lunatic. Oh yes, I was ANGRY at every one of you guys, including YOU, because dammit, how could you HIRE somebody like that to work for you?? And if you didn't DO anything about it, that made me even MORE angry.
I mean, NOBODY messes with my professional CAREER like that, ya know? I didn't mess with HIM like that, and how dare he deliberately KILL my web site?! I was furious. Seething with rage. So, I began a campaign against him. I went to EVERY OTHER Journey fan-based web site on the internet that I could find, and began writing about him, and what he did, asking if anyone else had gone through something similar. The response was unbelievable. He had been doing this to about 25 or more people OTHER than myself, ever since you left the band, and I gathered emails, phone numbers and addresses of all the people he had harassed. I figured, if I take his ass to court, I'm going to slap him with the biggest pile of paper PROOF right across his head, and make him pay through the nose for all the emotional and property damage he caused me, and all those other people.
So, I sent all this information to your friend Lora, and trusted other people, with a detailed summary, and with all the names of other people who were also harassed by him. I told her, "I want him FIRED." It took about a year and a half from that point, but eventually, karma won out (as it always does), and he WAS finally fired. I don't know if I had anything to do with it, nor do I care, as long as it was done.
They have since changed things on the Journey web site. But I never received any kind of apology, no free merchandise, no tickets, backstage passes, t-shirts---nothing. So, like YOU may have felt at one time, I decided "Fuck Journey," and walked away from it. I put all my CD's away. I didn't listen to the music anymore. I wanted nothing to do with it ever again. Allen Craft had hurt me with the one thing I loved most in the world, the magic of Journey's music, and it was HELL to be deliberately hurt by something I loved so much. I think maybe you can relate to that.
What I really wanted, besides getting him fired, was my web site back. But, it was gone.
My friend at the State Department decided to help me rebuild it, and if it weren't for him helping me, it would have taken ANOTHER 10 or more years for me to re-do everything. I was no expert at web design, God knows, but HE was. So, together we sat down and focused our energies on re-doing it, and making it even BETTER than before. And he did this without pay, simply because he is Jewish and believed in the idea.
After several months, the web site was launched, and got much praise from Miep, Cor, and various coworkers at the Museum who saw it. Oh, and not only did I patent it, I also copyrighted it. I'm not a fool, I know how employers often steal an employee's ideas to make as their own. I wasn't going to let that happen. But, I did learn that the Museum (since my rabble rousing apparently got around the rumor mill), was working on a web site for high school students, but it had been abandoned years before. Now they were working to get it launched. So, on the one hand, my rabble rousing actually helped THEM to see that the idea for younger kids was actually a GOOD ONE, thankyouverymuch, and now there is a high school aged web site....but also, on the other hand, they took my idea and did the same kind of thing, only for older kids again. If they ever attempt to do one for younger kids, though, I'll sue them.
So.....that is the basic longwinded story about why I loathe Allen Craft so much. If I hadn't had a baby web site that was important to my JOB, it wouldn't have caused me so much angst and heartache. I still would have boycotted everything Journey related, but it wouldn't have killed me so badly like it did. Of course, HE has no clue about any of that web site stuff that I was working on, nor did he care. I believe he couldn't have sent malicious code to me, without Michael Sorrentino's help...but, that guy now works for Kevin Chalfant...or at least, he did a couple years back...as far as I know. So, I decided just to leave him alone, even though I still don't trust that guy either. He did tell me, however, during all this going on when I was still able to write on the message boards, that Allen apparently had some drug problems and was not rational much of the time. That explains a lot, but it does not EXCUSE his behavior at all. If he EVER darkens my doorstep again, he will go to jail. I will press charges. He will RUE THE DAY that he ever started harassing me.
I do know, of course, that karma will kick his butt way better than I ever could. I'll just stand back and watch it happen, he'll bring it on himself eventually. And it will hurt him even more than I ever could.
So, a couple years went by...Augeri was toast, his voice was roached, he couldn't hit the high notes anymore, he didn't even remember all the lyrics, and he was just burned out too fast. Poor guy should have stayed at the Gap. Probably would've been a manager, or owned the store by now. Who knows what he's doing nowadays, but he's no longer in the spotlight as a singer. I didn't listen to their albums, I didn't buy them, I didn't give a shit because as far as I was concerned, Journey was a dead dinosaur band to me, and wouldn't be around much longer anyway, without YOU.
I waited to see the demise of the dinosaur band, slowly watching it crumble in such a sad way, it was like watching a family member's health worsen as they lay there dying slowly. One or two other singers came and went, it was like some tragic kareoke band gone haywire, and it only made me sadder. I started listening to your solo CD's though, after awhile, because I really missed your voice a lot.
Oh, by the way, my web site for kids is www.Tolerance4Kids.com. Check it out.
It hasn't been updated in a long while, unfortunately. But, I still pay to have it remain online every year. I have since lost those web site "how-to" books, and my State Department buddy is currently living in the Philippines, (same town that Arnel Pineda came from, how weird is that)?? So, he can't help me with it anymore either. I don't even remember how to go in and make updates or changes to it. I guess it's just kind of frozen in time, but a lot of people had good comments about it, and hopefully it has helped some kids along the way, who knows?? I'm still very proud of it, even if (at today's technical standards of web site design), it's rather amateurish. It was, and still is, a labor of love for Miep Gies.
She was 100 years old this past February, when she passed away. She was cremated, but her letters to me are still my most prized possessions. I will never publish them, I will never try to make any money from them for any reason, I just want to remain her friend forever, as my personal sorta grandmother. I won't even donate them to the Anne Frank Foundation....not since they decided to make the Diary of Anne Frank into a musical. That just royally pissed me off. How totally inappropriate. When will they make a musical out of 9/11 I wonder?? It's bad enough they're creating a museum about it already.
Well, what I like to tell the groups of people I used to talk to about the Holocaust every day, is this: in the 1940's, our grandparents had Pearl Harbor...which is very similar to our 9/11. But then, like now, that ONE DAY sparked a war that has caused HUNDREDS OF MORE 9/ll Pearl Harbor like days for millions of people....and especially for the Jews, they had to endure twelve YEARS of 9/11's over and over and worse and worse, from the day you started kindergarten, until the day you graduated high school. Twelve YEARS of 9/11's every DAY.
Kinda changes your perspective on things, doesn't it? I hope this entire story about my issue with Mr. Craft has changed yours for the better too. You haven't "lost" anything, you know. You're really and truly, much better off without it.
Love, Rebecca
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