Saturday, October 22, 2011

Strong Evidence of Quote Tampering in Joey's "Badfinger and Beyond"

Joey's book had another recent review on Amazon, where Morten Vindberg details his disappointment with it. A portion of Cimino's response is below:

"... As for the stir about questions and answers there were many interviews used to create this book and subject matter was discussed many times over. The passage that Bill/Jace/whatever his/her real name is refers to is taken from two interviews on the same subject."

Apparently Cimino thinks he’s being clever by inferring "Jace Lee Dakota" and I are the same person. We are not and I have no clue who Dakota is. I have no qualms about criticizing his book in my own name. Now, regarding his response - the evidence I see of manipulation is clearly not the result of “many interviews”, as I laid out the evidence in my previous blog titled "Badfinger and Beyond Credibility."

In the first case, from Cimino’s raw interview first published on his website in 2002, Joey's answer and Cimino's questions were split in two sections. 

In the book that came out in 2011, under the topic of Pete Ham's song "Take It All", Cimino's questions are condensed and take on a different meaning.


Joey’s response to Cimino is basically the same quote, with rough language edited away. Cimino has changed the frame of reference now for Joey's earlier answer. In "Badfinger And Beyond", Cimino queried for clarification with his question whether Pete and Joey had argued over Pete being asked to duet with George Harrison at the Concert for Bangla Desh. The general topic Cimino is deriving this from is in the "Without You" book, where Pete's girlfriend is quoted regarding Pete's sensitivity to jealous taunting by Joey and Kathie. Pete responded to the taunts by writing "Take It All." The lyrics seem to bear this out.

Yet, Cimino, armed with Joey's frenzied defense of his character, decides he just can't help but take advantage of Joey's raw emotional outburst. Cimino makes a fateful decision. He alters his question for the new book. Is this really such a big deal? Of course it is. This evidence shows Cimino trying to improve our impressions of Joey through alterations.

Instead of giving a reasonable response on Amazon, Cimino defends himself by making a bogus claim, that Joey supposedly happened to respond the same for two different interviews. This is baloney. If Cimino isn't going to be honest in defending his book, does this mean he wasn't honest when he was writing his book? I agree with Morton Vindberg’s comment on Amazon: "I'm afraid I can't be sure of what to believe."

Monday, October 17, 2011

Joey Author Gets Defensive

As I expected, the author of Joey’s book (what I like to call Badfinger and Beyond Credibility) is attacking the character of people who are criticizing his work. For a person who is incessantly critical of “Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger”, he is certainly one thin-skinned dude when his own product is critiqued. I found the short exchange on Amazon.com between he and Jace Lee Dakota fairly amusing. Here are a few interesting tidbits on the author’s end:

“Throughout the time spent writing this book I did plenty of fact checking, and talked to many many musicians who worked with Joey and came to the conclusion that what I wrote/printed in this book is correct.”

This isn’t what he claimed in the book. There he claims he simply took Joey’s word on everything. Why is he now changing his story? And who are these unnamed musicians? And what inside knowledge do these “musicians” have regarding Badfinger’s politics? Those are all rhetorical questions, of course, because there are no legitimate answers.

Oh, and this is hilarious:

“Remember, harsh words spoken in anger have no lasting worth except to the fools who cherish their own narcissism.”

This nonsense is expressed like it’s some gem from Confucius, where actually it’s Cimino quoting himself (he put this sentence up on his website with himself as the source). I would consider anyone who quotes himself as the epitome of a narcissist, wouldn’t you? Hey, I just created a really cool saying, too: “He who interviews himself interviews a fool”. You can check the author’s website for the interview.

“You seem to have an axe to grind and yet hide behind a false name.”

The Molland camp makes this claim quite often … maybe a little too often. What is their obsession with “false names”? Guilt perhaps? Or maybe they are simply incredulous that they are wildly outnumbered by people who can see through them? And why do they feel anyone who refuses to believe Joey’s baloney must have an axe to grind? Joey never tied my shoelaces together so I have no axe to grind with him – or with this Cimino guy either. But they are still being publicly deceitful and need to be called out on it. It just cooks my innards when dummies think they are being clever.

At any rate, the author is a hypocrite on this subject (just like Kathie Molland and Randy Justesen were before him, both of whom were caught using pseudonyms in spite of their denials). One of the handful of negative reviews on Amazon for the “Without You” book was written by Cimino, although he uses the name “a customer” there. It is the exact same review he proudly touted as his own and displayed on his website from the same era – all the way down to his mistaken death date/year for Pete Ham.

I feel a little guilty taking this Cimino guy to task, but he is such a boastful clown. He really should write an autobiography next, where he can interview and quote himself throughout and it won’t look so damn creepy. Or should I say narcissistic?