In 2004 I set up a website for the entire Rio Grande Valley of Texas. It cost me hundreds of hours in time and hundreds of dollars of my own money to get the site up and running. The site was set up as a public service for the square dance community. When I left that region in 2009, I outright gave the website to the couple who will call tomorrow at FunDancers.
In early 2012, I enhanced the website so that it can make money by selling ads. This took hundreds of additional hours of time. After I set up the ad program, I showed them exactly how to go out and sell ads. I personally loaded all the ads into the system and showed them how to mail out invoices and get paid.
We agreed to split the income. Actually, a 50-50 split right down the middle would have been a totally fair deal. However they negotiated me down to only a 20% share (because I had a real job and they didn't).
So, let's recap. I came up with the idea. I set up the website. I put in hundreds of hours of time, absolutely free, and hundreds of dollars of my own money just to get the site running. I set up the advertising program. I showed them exactly how to make it all work.
They are to get 80% while I only get 20%. This surely sounds like an extremely generous deal (for them).
Whenever you talk about how square dancing is "friendship", what do you think the word "friendship" means? Perhaps it means "friends" will do all the work and then just outright give someone a money-making website in exchange for only 20% of the action. Yep, square dancing is all about "friendship", especially when you have "friends" you can use.
Anyway, we made a deal. They get 80 percent, I get 20.
Except ... they paid me exactly one time ... the very first month the program was running. They never paid a dime after that. Interestingly, that same month (April 2012) was when Ed Wedig and the Wheatleys brutally, senselessly and criminally robbed, swindled, cheated and smeared me and my innocent spouse out of the square dance business which took us a lifetime to build.
Fast forward to today. Today, ads still run on the Rio Grande Valley website which I built. Ad money still rolls in every month. I still came up with the idea, did all the work, financed the project out of my own pocket, set up everything and showed them how to use it. Everything today is going exactly to plan ... except ... I've been cheated out of my share of the deal for over two years now.
Do the math. Tomorrow's caller has outright cheated me out of nearly $3000. That's in addition to approximately $35,000 which I was directly and/or indirectly swindled out of by Ed Wedig and the Wheatleys when they outright strong-arm robbed me and my wife.
So, let's recap. What kind of person would cheat a "friend" out of thousands of dollars? Well, that's the kind of person who calls square dances today and/or is a leader in such a "friendly" activity.
To be fair, it's not an isolated problem. Almost all "prominent" square dance callers today are lying, cheating, back-stabbing, money-grabbing, swindling, robbing, immoral, duty-shirking bill-dodgers. Let's be honest. Square dancing is way down. Square dance callers nowadays, if they want to survive, must lie and cheat and swindle ... just to get by. It's almost impossible to start a new square dance club. A much better way is to wait until someone else starts a club and then steal it from them.
So whenever you talk about how square dancing is "friendship", just remember that if you are willing to do all the work and put up all the time and money only to get cheated out of all that you built, then you can be a true loyal "friend" to a square dance leader. But if you are not willing to silently tolerate being a crime victim, then suddenly you're labeled as "crazy" or "unfriendly", etc.
If it's "crazy" to speak out against robbery and cheating, then so be it. Your personal opinion of someone's mental health does not change the unalterable fact that it's just flat wrong to rob, swindle and cheat other people. Additionally, this same person who rooked me out of my share of advertising revenue (by pocketing the entire amount instead of paying the agreed-upon split) has come in to Schertz many times and helped himself to robbery loot. When my club and my money and my business was outright bald-face stolen from me, this same "friend" has profited handsomely. He comes in and scoops up fistfuls of robbery loot, as much and as often as he can, quickly, before it all runs out.
That's what it takes, nowadays, to be a successful square dance caller. You must be willing to rob and cheat others if you want to survive. You must totally steep yourself in absolute no-good rottenness.
On Sunday you can dance to a deadbeat who robs his friends, doesn't honor his agreements and cheats his colleagues. You can dance at a club which was strong-arm bald-face stolen and swindled by deadbeat robbers, name-smearers and cheaters. You can reward dastardly immoral people who prosper from horrible illegal activities.
If you dance at Fundancers, you send a message that it's perfectly okay to rob, swindle, cheat and steal. Is that the message you really want to send?
Or ... you can choose do to the right thing instead. You can avoid robbers. You can find a good wholesome activity to do. It really isn't hard to find some other activity which does not require you to reward robbing cheating swindling scumbags. It's your choice. You can endorse and validate criminal robbing cheating bandits. Or you can do the right thing by avoiding wrongdoing. Which choice will you make, and what message does it send?
In early 2012, I enhanced the website so that it can make money by selling ads. This took hundreds of additional hours of time. After I set up the ad program, I showed them exactly how to go out and sell ads. I personally loaded all the ads into the system and showed them how to mail out invoices and get paid.
We agreed to split the income. Actually, a 50-50 split right down the middle would have been a totally fair deal. However they negotiated me down to only a 20% share (because I had a real job and they didn't).
So, let's recap. I came up with the idea. I set up the website. I put in hundreds of hours of time, absolutely free, and hundreds of dollars of my own money just to get the site running. I set up the advertising program. I showed them exactly how to make it all work.
They are to get 80% while I only get 20%. This surely sounds like an extremely generous deal (for them).
Whenever you talk about how square dancing is "friendship", what do you think the word "friendship" means? Perhaps it means "friends" will do all the work and then just outright give someone a money-making website in exchange for only 20% of the action. Yep, square dancing is all about "friendship", especially when you have "friends" you can use.
Anyway, we made a deal. They get 80 percent, I get 20.
Except ... they paid me exactly one time ... the very first month the program was running. They never paid a dime after that. Interestingly, that same month (April 2012) was when Ed Wedig and the Wheatleys brutally, senselessly and criminally robbed, swindled, cheated and smeared me and my innocent spouse out of the square dance business which took us a lifetime to build.
Fast forward to today. Today, ads still run on the Rio Grande Valley website which I built. Ad money still rolls in every month. I still came up with the idea, did all the work, financed the project out of my own pocket, set up everything and showed them how to use it. Everything today is going exactly to plan ... except ... I've been cheated out of my share of the deal for over two years now.
Do the math. Tomorrow's caller has outright cheated me out of nearly $3000. That's in addition to approximately $35,000 which I was directly and/or indirectly swindled out of by Ed Wedig and the Wheatleys when they outright strong-arm robbed me and my wife.
So, let's recap. What kind of person would cheat a "friend" out of thousands of dollars? Well, that's the kind of person who calls square dances today and/or is a leader in such a "friendly" activity.
To be fair, it's not an isolated problem. Almost all "prominent" square dance callers today are lying, cheating, back-stabbing, money-grabbing, swindling, robbing, immoral, duty-shirking bill-dodgers. Let's be honest. Square dancing is way down. Square dance callers nowadays, if they want to survive, must lie and cheat and swindle ... just to get by. It's almost impossible to start a new square dance club. A much better way is to wait until someone else starts a club and then steal it from them.
So whenever you talk about how square dancing is "friendship", just remember that if you are willing to do all the work and put up all the time and money only to get cheated out of all that you built, then you can be a true loyal "friend" to a square dance leader. But if you are not willing to silently tolerate being a crime victim, then suddenly you're labeled as "crazy" or "unfriendly", etc.
If it's "crazy" to speak out against robbery and cheating, then so be it. Your personal opinion of someone's mental health does not change the unalterable fact that it's just flat wrong to rob, swindle and cheat other people. Additionally, this same person who rooked me out of my share of advertising revenue (by pocketing the entire amount instead of paying the agreed-upon split) has come in to Schertz many times and helped himself to robbery loot. When my club and my money and my business was outright bald-face stolen from me, this same "friend" has profited handsomely. He comes in and scoops up fistfuls of robbery loot, as much and as often as he can, quickly, before it all runs out.
That's what it takes, nowadays, to be a successful square dance caller. You must be willing to rob and cheat others if you want to survive. You must totally steep yourself in absolute no-good rottenness.
On Sunday you can dance to a deadbeat who robs his friends, doesn't honor his agreements and cheats his colleagues. You can dance at a club which was strong-arm bald-face stolen and swindled by deadbeat robbers, name-smearers and cheaters. You can reward dastardly immoral people who prosper from horrible illegal activities.
If you dance at Fundancers, you send a message that it's perfectly okay to rob, swindle, cheat and steal. Is that the message you really want to send?
Or ... you can choose do to the right thing instead. You can avoid robbers. You can find a good wholesome activity to do. It really isn't hard to find some other activity which does not require you to reward robbing cheating swindling scumbags. It's your choice. You can endorse and validate criminal robbing cheating bandits. Or you can do the right thing by avoiding wrongdoing. Which choice will you make, and what message does it send?
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