Romano speaks
As I look around this teeny-tiny microcosm of pop culture we occupy, I marvel at the battle lines that have been drawn in the 10 days since Dave and were fired from MD. It's inconceivable to me that Blechman thought he was just going to shit-can us and go on like nothing happened. Yet, knowing him as I do these last 18 years, I know he never expected the shit storm he's got on his hands now, and the lows to which he would have to stoop to try to "get us".
I know Blechman like the back of my hand, and I'm pretty confident in saying his entire operation over there has come to a grinding halt because Dave and I had the audacity to go into business for ourselves after he fired us. I know he's holed up in his office, surrounded by "yes men", and he's "strategizing" on how to get us, and every one of them is agreeing with his ludicrous plans. So far, every strategy he's put into play -- the "Carb Wars" smear campaign against Dave's diet. .. forcing me to publicly disclose my affiliation with Species. . . firing us. . . his pathetic statement as to why he fired us. . . his even more pathetic attempt to have Shawn Ray stir up controversy by fraudulently starting a Kevin Levrone Q &A thread in the RxM forums. . . and his staff's blatant denials of the facts contained in my response (to Blechman's statement), has blown up in his face and backfired with Dave and me emerging all the better for it.
The blatant denials of fact are what are really impressive. They have accused me of lying in my response to Blechman's statement, yet in the letter Dave and I received from their liability attorney, yesterday, none of that was mentioned. Instead, we were accused - wrongly - of "stealing" proprietary information from their website, namely their member database. Apparently, they are in such a state of denial over there that the only explanation they can muster for our incredibly rapid population growth is that we stole their member list! Last I checked, we're living in America. In so far as we do, the tenets of Napoleonic law don't apply. If you're going to accuse someone of a crime, you better have proof. Yet, with no proof whatsoever, their lawyer is telling us to destroy a list that we don't even have!
To further evince the weakness of their hand, their lawyer also demanded that we cease and desist in using certain photos (they sent a list) appearing on this web site, Dave Palumbo's website and the Species website. In every instance, the photos were either photos we had permission to use, photos to which MD had no rights, or photos they contend are from a certain photographer (when in fact they are from another). Bottom line is they are all lawfully being used.
Thus far, if anything we said, publicly, was not true, their attorney would have made some sort of stink. So far, he has not. The only demands that were made were completely off-base. I wonder how much the lawyer charged Blechman to write that letter. Whatever it was, it was a total waste. It's just another blown-up attempt!
The true nature of our threat to him is evinced in these tactics. If MD was as big and bad as they say they are, Blechman should just be thumbing his nose at us and moving on. Why is he mired in his tribunal of warlords - Shawn Ray, Robbie Durand, and his personal secretary - strategizing the sequence of our demise? A supposed giant the size of MD should simply walk right over us. I guess that's proving hard to do with the majority of their active forum members missing. Their "performance" has no audience applauding for them.
Dave and I, on the other hand, are making and implementing plans to bring this site to higher and higher heights. We have more radio shows in the works, more content on the way, and are welcoming more and more members every minute that passes. We could really care less what Blechman and the MD crew are plotting over there. In fact, it's seems like a sure thing that, whatever they do, it'll bode well for us and push them further from public favor. As far as Dave and I are concerned, our direction is onward and upward. While they spend their time, energy, and resources trying to be the rain, we'll go right on being the parade.
