MagicWhack 3 - Others 0

So far Dwayne Andrews started to challenge my thoughts, I replied and he ran away. Steven Youell did the same and now Steve Pellegrino has done the same.

The only difference is that Pellegrino has made out that he's not going to read what I say or back up any of the shit he said and all because I am 'anonymous'.

Basically he argued back at some points I made and when I answered all those points and proved him wrong he came up with this magic 'realization' that he didn't like anonymous bloggers and that was reason enough to no longer debate anything.

I'd be happy to say that 'we agree to disagree', but he said I was 'misinformed' and then totally failed to back it up.

He's just thrown the 'anonymous' issue into play to avoid admitting he's wrong. I've justified why I choose to be somewhat anonymous in previous postings and many of MagicRants readers commented to Steves post and pointed out there are many reasons to be anonymous.

I have no problem with him deciding not to link to anonymous blogs or even read them if the reasons he gave were the truth. But they're quite obviously not. He even said he enjoyed reading most of them but now thanks to this new blinding revelation he's had a change of heart. It's all total bullshit.

The fact is - he originally linked to me and admits he liked what I was saying, if nothing else he respected my view points. But the moment I say anything negative about L&L he comes up with this crap about 'blogs that are anonymous have no substance'. He can pretend all he likes the decision on anonymous blogs has nothing to do with the Vernon/L&L debate - but anyone can that either he's a liar or it's one huge of a coincidence.

I haven’t continued replying to MagicWhack about the Vernon issue because I really don’t care how he feels about it. Why should I? Because he thinks he has valid points? He may have valid points if there was some substance behind his posts. So what do I mean by substance?

This is where we go back to what I said at the beginning - I like to know who I’m talking to! Tell me about yourself, what’s your background, your experiences, what’s your freakin’ story! Not because you have to “prove” yourself to me, but because I’m interested and want to know about you.

If he doesn't care how I feel about it, why did he write a blog about it in the first place and accuse me of being 'misinformed'? And his arguement for what has substance is the biggest load of cakka I've ever read. Just because he doesn't know who I am, doesn't invalidate anything I've said. In fact his arguements have less substance because he's not managed to back anything up - I have. He even says I don't have to 'prove' anything to him, and that he's only interested and wants to know about me.

So let me get this right... If he doesn't know about someone, what they say has no substance? Ohhh Please.

How often to police go on anonymous tip-offs? How often do we hear the Government quote anonymous sources? Surely they should ignore them, there cannot be substance if they are anonymous - at least according to Stevey boy.

Then this next bit of detective work is a gem. It also shows what a misinformed moron he is. He makes the following statements about me and claims to have read my blog in the past and admits to liking what I wrote...

So if I take the logic of everyone who says “why does it matter who these people are, I should look at what they’re writing.”, well then looking at MagicWhack I can tell you this about him based on what he writes:

1. He’s a 15 year old kid who’s been doing magic for a couple of years

Genius Steve. I'm sure that all 15 year old magicians have a good grasp of the history of L&L publishing and how Louis fucked Jennings over, understand the importance of the works of Vernon and care about crediting (most 15 year olds have learnt their tricks from elusionist, penguin magic or Ammar videos). I'm sure anyone who is 15 and has being doing magic two years would have read Darwin Ortiz's 'Strong Magic' - in fact I bet most 15 year old magicians don't know who Ortiz is.

How many 15 year old newbies to magic know or even care about the origins of the Ambitious card trick? Or how many of them could compare a new version of OOTW with the original and say why the original beat it hands down? How many newcomers to magic can discuss the classic force and tell you why the Penguin magic version is junk?

How many 15 year olds even know what Mene-tekel is? Let alone can compare it to the commercially marketed trick by Medina?

How many 15 year old newbies would know that two tricks Sankey has put out are rip offs of tricks marketed in the 70's/80's by Roy Baker and Harry Reeve, let alone be able to produce copies of the original Ad's for those products?

And yet if you check back through my blog you will see I've done ALL of those things, and more.

2. He is ticked off at magic dealers because they sell the stuff he wants for too much money and his allowance isn’t enough to pay for any of it.

Look back at the overpriced effects I've ripped into. I have never knocked anything of real quality that happens to have a high price tag attached?

Who really thinks there is value in a big metal box that can produce less of a load than a couple of thumb tips? Or who thinks it's worth buying a trick where you flap about some newspaper and nothing magical happens?

And several of the items I've discussed, if you read what I've written it's apparent that I own or have owned the item - so I must have had the money to pay for it.

3. His education hasn’t been the greatest because he only knows how to express himself with derogatory words.

So people like Bill Maher, George Carlin (and 90% of Comedy Zone performers) have had little or no education? Just because someone chooses to use the words 'fuck', 'cunt', etc doesn't mean they're not educated. These words are all part of the language we speak. It's OK not to like them, but they don't invalidate the truth.

I too used to think magic was expensive. Then I became a web developer and discovered that software and computers that need updating every couple of years is a lot more expensive than anything I need to buy as a magician. He’ll figure it out one day - the good stuff costs money.

When have I ever said the good stuff doesn't cost money or that magic is expensive? I haven't.

Maybe he is not a 15 year old kid, but using the criteria set out by the
anonymous blog supporters, to me that’s who he is.

Then might I suggest that it's you, Mr Pellegrino who is the one who is uninformed one.

When all is said and done, Mr MagicRants has chosen to avoid the issues like a politician (because I suspect he's been silenced by the great Falanga) by throwing totally nonsense excuses out there.

It seems to me his approach has been "Ohh something interesting was happening and people have started reading my blog... fuck that, I took care of it. Now, back to talking about which cups have the best lip and weigh the correct amount and are made by some drunken loser with kids that hate him."

I'm done with this now. It just sucks that he said I was 'misinformed' and then did nothing to back up his claim and then when I retorted he said 'I am not reading anonymous stuff anymore'. I just expected a little more from the guy.

If you do go to MagicRants, be sure to read the comments made to his post - there's some excellent points made.

New topics tomorrow!

MW.

P.S. One good thing to come out of this... Steven Pellegrino has made me think about other issues to do with L&L publishing, I'll cover them in the near future.