Knock-Offs, Rip-Offs, and Just Plain UGLY!

harvey49 · Post by **harvey49** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:05 pm

ROTFL

jamie · Post by **jamie** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:48 pm

Maybe it's a convienient tote handle and not a whammy?

Just wondering... think this thing would float or sink if thrown in a lake?

melibreits · Post by **melibreits** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:53 pm

Aaaaaack!

What's with the "R" on the tailpiece! It's an abomination!

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:12 pm

The "R" is for his last name--Richman. First name Brian.

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:33 pm

I thought he at least had a bandsaw.
I notice some of the Gretsch forum folks are trying to nudge him gently towards sanity, but he genuinely likes his "art".
What can you do?

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:36 pm

Someone else must cut the f holes for him. If not, why can't he get the curves on the body consistent?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:43 pm

Kevin, you seem to be getting as wound up over this as I am...

A number of friends have written me offsite about this, and the conclusion we've all come to is that MVP wants attention but is not open to any kind of learning experience.

He has not posted in a few weeks, since he bought his '56 Cadillac convertible. Maybe that'll change his focus. He claims he is going to "restore" it. Whatever, as long as it keeps him occupied...

melibreits · Post by **melibreits** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:56 pm

I can only hope the car fares better than the guitars....

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 9:50 pm

Ahem... methinks he'll put a lot of elf ladders on his car... well, at least when his car's "done" and he shows it to the world, he'll be found by guys in white gowns... perhaps...

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:39 am

I can picture the fate of the Caddy now, as the jigsaw revs up & random bits start flying off.

Mind you, I've made some pretty spectacularly poor projects over the years, but I realized quickly when the tools, skills, & materials were not up to what I had in my imagination.
The projects never made it too far & I NEVER considered posting pics of these design & execution miscarriages for all to see.
I don't think I could do much better with the tools & lack of training at hand, but at least I realize that this kind of work is best left to those who have the talent, training, & facilities to get the job done properly.

I'm not wound up, but just feeling sorry for the guy now. It is quite sad that they still encourage him to do more & praise his feeble efforts. The comments I read on the Gretsch forum border on the surreal. It's like they're afraid to contradict him in any way. He's not the dictator of a small Caribbean island or anything is he?
Truly bizarre.
I'm also trying to temper any comments after what's going on in other threads. It's a little too easy to get carried away & post something regrettable.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 7:17 am

Kevin, you're going through the "cycle" which I mention in my own contributions to that thread.

Amusement, disbelief, feeling sorry for the guy, constructive criticism, gentle chiding, frustration, anger, and so on.

He is quite arrogant and loves to bait people. I pulled out of the thread after numerous posts showing my own cycle of emotions and finally wished him luck with his car.

The last week of posts on that thread saw quite a few comments that were anything but encouraging to MVP.

My favorite came from a friend in the UK. After MVP defended his abysmal sales record (I said he'd never sold a thing), by saying that he'd sold a Fender Strat clone that he'd customized, for "$125.00, including shipping", my friend replied, "Wow. $124.00 for shipping. Must've been a really heavy guitar!"

MVP now has his entire Gretsch collection for sale on eBay in one auction for $20K, probably about $5K more than it's worth. Apparently he is bailing on guitars and moving on to zebrawood '55 Caddies...

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:02 am

"He is quite arrogant and loves to bait people." - yes and that sort of explains my apologies from cold country albeit the reason was some other thread (BTW, it's a bit warmer today - finally!

)
Methinks if anybody supports him, it's only a joke. You see, when you say to somebody "Hey, that's no good!" and he/she refuses to believe, and you keep on saying, "hey, look, it's no good!" and he/she still doesn't listen... well, some people just end up saying, "yeeeah you're cool" - quite sarcastically. Sometimes it might be better to stop explaining and it's like saying "okay, i give up, do what you wanna do" - if the explanations don't work... like a friend of mine says, "there's no use knocking on a closed door".
Well, at least, he probably wouldn't expose his "super new design" cars on Gretsch forum...

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:00 am

..."there's no use knocking on a closed door"...

That's true, Sheena...but the more time he spends having to say 'go away' to the knocks at his door, the less time he has to spend mangling endangered species on his 'bench'...

We could always call a 'flashmob' in his 'in box'...

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:55 am

Ha, that's an idea, Dane... not that i'm a big fan of flashmobs, but sometimes... yeah, sometimes i want to be naughty...

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 12:00 pm

Well, I have no particular fondness for Caddies, so "have at 'em" I say

I guess he can afford to be a dufus. My first impression was that he was similar to the emp in his money making schemes, however he's (mvp) proved to be rather harmless.

When you think about it, trying to create another timeless classic design is much like trying to write another "Yesterday", "Stairway...", etc. That's why so many new guitar designs have flopped, or at least not caught on well.
Pretty tall order.