artist v. con-artist(s): an unhappy battle brewing

[Young dr. Freud]

Lizzytysh,

These days who isn't paying attention. But what exactly are we supposed to make of these offerings. He's in his usual cryptic mode. When you've figured it out let us know.


YdF

[lizzytysh]

Hi YDF ~

The reason for my posting is that I know from experience that some people come only here, and don't check what's happening via the main page. When a notice of something being there is posted, they'll then check it out. My posting was intended for those folks to whom that applies. For people like you, of course, it's redundant .

~ Lizzytysh

[UrPal]

I'd like to intercede in this tawdry, sordid and sad affair (not Cohen's case but the debate on this forum about it) as someone who operates in the legal world: though in the parent jurisdiction from which the common law system adopted in the US derives - and, if I may make so bold, practising in a system which, from my impressions, still takes a greater degree of guidance from the principles of ethics and justice than the money oriented, ego driven and shallow charlatan ambulance chasing variety that seems to be more prevalent stateside - or at least one which is less veneerial (and I use that term under advisement), if you get my drift.

I'd just like to say a little about some of the legal concepts behind the headlines here, since it might be useful for those who are a little confused or uncertain about what is being discussed in this topic and help locate the facts amongst the obfuscation - the wood amongst the trees.

The law of trusts is about just that. Ironically perhaps, it all kicked off when your landed gentleman in distant times was feeling the urge to go overseas on a crusade or other mission for god, king, country or self-service. Whilst the wife got locked in a chastity belt (even then trust had its limits), said landed gent would leave his estate and affairs in the hands of a trusted friend or associate to administer in the best interests of the departed so his family were provided for and he had something to return to besides rack and ruin when he had satisfied his urge to travel. The legal system came to recognise this arrangement as legitimate and necessary and so the courts would step in if those left in control of the goods - and living inevitably in a land of temptation betwixt loyalty to the absent and personal opportunity - decided that it might be in their best interests to unlock the belt, sell up and ship out with lady luck whilst the going was good.

Giving someone attorneyship is not quite the same thing, but it has some similarities. Basically, it's a legal method of giving someone else the ability to sign paperwork that creates liabilities and disposes of or deals with assets for you in a way that is as effective as if you had signed yourself even if you have no knowledge or influence over what your attorney is doing. It's a power in relation to your affairs you generally only contemplate if you're absenting yourself from your usual place of residence for a while (perhaps going overseas or getting towards age and infirmity) and when you don't think you're going to be available much to sign documents yourself. Since no formal relationship of trustee exists with your attorney, it's sensible to only appoint an attorney who is trusted by virtue of blood, but where your personal affairs are complicated by regular, difficult and time consuming business related contractual arrangements it might be appropriate to involve someone with relevant knowledge - say, a paid professional or business partner.

Now fiduciary duty and insurance are things all lawyers who watch their backs understand too well. Banks, financial advisors, lawyers, accountants etc inevitably have to handle money from time to time for clients/customers and some of us even indulge ourselves by telling others what to do with their money besides sticking it under the bed. As handlers of and advisors in the application of something as important as cash, these people have a special duty to be even more careful than your average joe to see that things don't really go to shit in providing their service to the paying customer. Your average provider of a business service has to be reasonably skilled and careful in what he or she does, but us pros (and I use that expression under advisement) have to go that extra mile because we're handling something the law regards as particularly precious.

Having regard to our backs and not wanting to lose our shirts, those of us who operate in the professional world carry something called indemnity insurance. Basically, if we drop a clanger, which we all do from time to time because nobody is perfect, and Mr Angry stops by saying he's pissed off because he's out of pocket as a result by quite a few notes of legal tender then we are blessed by an expensive premium backed insurance policy which means that, rather than having to leave the country at short notice, we can instead look to the insurance company to cough up and save us from a life of penury and disgrace.

Sadly, the tit for tat in this is that the insurance company will not want us to hold our hands up, lie down and play dead without a bit of a struggle to test the mettle of our opponent but will instead want us to pursue every opportunity for wriggling before giving up it's easy earned dough (and it's got plenty to spend on legal fees to protect it's position).

Finally, I'd like to mention the concept of claim and counter-claim. Sometimes when we get sued by someone we owe money to, there are grievances on our side of the fence too and we want to pursue them in the courts by counter-claiming against the person trying to recover a debt from us - OK, I haven't paid his large bill, but a couple of years back I tripped over his garden ornament and put my back out but didn't make a big thing about it at the time etc. Counter-claims are occasionally genuine because some of us lead complicated lives, but it sometimes happens that they are a load of garbage created by the person not too keen to pay up or admit something embarrassing in the hope of deflecting, confusing or obscuring the truth. Then, of course, there is the tactical concept of the pre-emptive strike, all too familiar to military strategists in the nuclear age.. where a person fearing embarrassing and expensive court proceedings actually launches into court ahead of the game to try to make out that they're the abused rather than the abuser.

I'll say no more than that, except that my charge-out rate in the workplace is circa 300 USD an hour (very cheap by US conversion rates) and there is at least one contributor to this topic who has taken up such a lot of my time wastefully I'd like to be able to send through a painfully large bill. Unfortunately for me I operate here in a situation of trust and goodwill to all men rather than a business context based on contract so I'll have to go sing for my supper.

[~greg]

Greg if you wanted to used psycho war tools againts YdF, it was a good one,
- Tchocolatl

Oh, god, no, not again, - I do not want to use any tools in any psycho war
or flame war or tit for tat or even a spelling bee with YdF
or anyone else here.
My preference is numchucks.


However, for the duration of our grief-work,
I only want to be a good neighbor, like Mr. Rogers taught me.

Also please try to remember that it was me, -not YdF,
-that introduced the pseudopsychoanalytical babble into
the present equation.

I am referring to your saying to YdF:

You sure seem to be an expert in playing with sh*t and nothing else.

Please try to remember that it was me that introduced the shit hypothesis.

YdF only gave you the open cookie jar hypothesis.


Also, it was me that gave us the Leviticus hypothesis.

(It occurred to me while jogging.
I have Alexander Scourby's reading the Bible
on a MuVo mp3 player. Been averaging about
half a dozen chapters per jog.)

Leviticus occurred to me again while re-reading
(and reading for the first time the rest of ) the Book of Mercy.

Which I am finding much easier to understand this time.

Which I think is because the thing in my head
which had refused to before has finally accepted
that LC is not an icon-toy for my willy nilly projections.

He is a real person. Ordinary in very many ways,
if extraordinary in others.

This may be the real benefit of our shock.

And although it's almost as if LC were finally sitting still
to be examined, as I always thought I hoped he would,
now, however, I feel towards him
much less like a critic or fan
and more like a friend.

I have no desire to examine him.
Or anyone else involved in this thing.
I just wish them all a speedy recovery.
--


Finally I want to say what I really think of psychoanalysis,
--once and for all, -- so there's no misunderstanding
in the future where I'm coming from about it.

I have gotten what I think of as very useful psychological
insights from some famous sources: - Freud, Adler, Jung,
especially Groddok, more especially William James,
most especially Maurice Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries
on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky,
- and from many others which my tiny brain can't recall
at the moment, and probably never will, even assuming
any of it ever actually got in there in the first place.

And I have only one criterion
for judging the quality of a psychological insight.
It must be obvious.
Not a calculation.

As for Freud, -there is one point on which he
and I have always concurred, ever since I first read it:

His observation that

"Jung is meshuga."

- Sigmund Freud
- The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi

[Adrian]

The financial world is full of ironies - among other things.

I have a much earlier copy of WestWord magazine in which is quoted a Vancouver, Canada-based brokerage head, Peter Brown, (himself a controversial player), speaking about his dealings with Colorado money men:

" There's an easy way of telling when the people you're talking to (in Denver) are lying. Their lips move."

[Tchocolatl]

Lz, a woman of experience here if there is one, has a good point. Dear YdF, now that you seem to be more sensitive about the dammage gossips can do to people, even if it comes from good intentions, even more when it comes from not so good intentions, I just hope that you'll think twice before posting. It is sure not King Lear's story, here: real people are involved in this. What do you think?

Greg, I like you very much, you are such an entertainer. I'm not sure what a meshuga is. Ah! my Robert & Collins said meshug(g)a, meshuggah adj (US) cinglé, maboul. Of course. Freud should know about this better than anybody, he was the one who formed the guy, after all. For me I rest the case. Find him a good lawyer.

"As handlers of and advisors in the application of something as important as cash, these people have a special duty to be even more careful than your average joe to see that things don't really go to shit in providing their service to the paying customer. Your average provider of a business service has to be reasonably skilled and careful in what he or she does, but us pros (and I use that expression under advisement) have to go that extra mile because we're handling something the law regards as particularly precious." UrPal

To say that I am pleased to (finally) read this, is an euphemism.

For the rest. It was raised many many times, again and again, here. Wait and see.

Now I'll wait/hope for the majority to go : "Oh! yes! 10 simple laws to follow. Good! how cleaver! What a saving of energy! We do not have to play all those useless petty games anymore". Maybe instead they will find time to be creative and stop to have fear of being true and/or trying new ways to live. I'm such a dreamer (I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do...) and I can't even sing for my supper, or only if they'll give me money to stop singing, and now I'm off topic again. [/b]

[tomsakic]

Oh, boo-hoo.

The "horror writers" are out in the open. The "truth shiners" are in the background burning up the servers with gossipy Private Messages to each other.

What hypocrites!

"The truth to shine" was reference to Leonard's poem.
I did'n get any Private Messages, maybe you did.
Many people are aware of what's going on here, but they find it funny because it's clear what Agile is doing, and UrPal said it correctly.
To which hypocrites are you reffering to?

[Young dr. Freud]

my charge-out rate in the workplace is circa 300 USD an hour

If this Cliff Notes discourse is any example of your work...then you are grossly overpaid. It's right up there with Kory's press clipping gambit.

Basically, it's a legal method of giving someone else the ability to sign paperwork that creates liabilities and disposes of or deals with assets for you in a way that is as effective as if you had signed yourself even if you have no knowledge or influence over what your attorney is doing.

Yeah, so? Tell us something we don't know.

Having regard to our backs and not wanting to lose our shirts, those of us who operate in the professional world carry something called indemnity insurance. Basically, if we drop a clanger, which we all do from time to time because nobody is perfect, and Mr Angry stops by saying he's pissed off because he's out of pocket as a result by quite a few notes of legal tender then we are blessed by an expensive premium backed insurance policy which means that, rather than having to leave the country at short notice, we can instead look to the insurance company to cough up and save us from a life of penury and disgrace.

Correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't this the sequence of events.

1. Leonard gives money to Agile to invest.
2. Agile invests the money and makes a modest return
3. Lynch with POA makes WITHDRAWALS from the account

Where is the clanger Agile dropped? If they had invested recklessly and wiped out Leonard/Lynch's assets...then a case could be made. If Greenberg advised Leonard to set up the POA and the "corporation" a case could be made. If Lynch had a partner on the inside...a case could be made. Lynch obviously decided she needed the money more than Leonard did. How can her embezzlement be Agile's fault. And I'm telling you...if Agile had gone along with Kory's shakedown this wouldn't be just a "civil" suit. It would be a criminal one. The insurance is not there to reimburse a client's money lost from embezzlement if the client is the one doing the embezzlement. A little convoluted...but that's what you have here...a legal embezzlement.

I'd like to be able to send through a painfully large bill.

Nobody put a gun to your head and made you post. So stow it.


YdF

[Young dr. Freud]

Many people are aware of what's going on here, but they find it funny because it's clear what Agile is doing, and UrPal said it correctly.

People don't appear to be clear at all...because there are thinking with their emotions and not their brains.

Urpal said nothing worth saying. He needs to get up to speed.

To which hypocrites are you reffering to?

I am referring to the ones who condemn the "horror writers" but are following up every link, lapping up every little nugget of speculation and wolfing down every crumb of information about the scandal. Those hypocrites.


YdF

[tomsakic]

Correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't this the sequence of events.

1. Leonard gives money to Agile to invest.
2. Agile invests the money and makes a modest return
3. Lynch with POA makes WITHDRAWALS from the account

Something's obviously missing...

Nearly ten years later, millions of dollars that Cohen had invested through Greenberg's Boulder-based firm, the Agile Group, are gone. But Greenberg would like everybody to know that, to quote a Cohen song, the deal is rotten, but it isn't his fault.

What simple way to describe it: "millions... are gone", and that's it.

YdF, I was having all those links before you, and plus some other you obviously didn't find, so I wonder who are those hypocrites. But I am keeping some things for myself, as dozens of other people, because it's obviously only Greenberg-Boulder dirt stuff. Let the legal system resloves this happenings. And SWAT team going into Lynch's house and transporting her into mental care, that's her own bussiness - maybe only the consequences of her wrong-doing.

[Young dr. Freud]

Tom,

Yes, the courts will decide. And I hope Leonard gets off the hook and isn't fined within an inch of his life. But every participant in this dharma drama (and that includes St. Leonard) comes off looking small. I can't put on the rose-colored glasses and pretend otherwise.

so I wonder who are those hypocrites.

Here's a clue. One of them gleefully provided the tidbit about Kelley Lynch jumping into the swimming pool when the SWAT team swooped in.


YdF

[MarieM]

Young, how is it thinking with your brain to rush to judgment without hearing both sides of a dispute? Seems to me this is a highly emotional response based on anger or bitterness towards Leonard or Leonard's fans.

[Young dr. Freud]

Dear Megan2c2b,

You are quite wrong about my conclusions being based on any negative emotional response to Leonard or his fans.

This is what I am basing my judgment on:

1. Leonard gives Lynch POA and control of "corporation"
2. Lynch "embezzles" Leonard's money using POA
3. Leonard under the advice of that poisonous spider Kory tries to
recoup the money by blaming Agile
4. Agile refuses to con their insurance company.

If there are additional facts or if these facts are wrong, please tell me...I would be happy to revise my judgment. Until then I think I am giving these facts the right interpretation. I sincerely do not believe the outcome of all this mess is going to be a good one.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't enjoy Leonard Cohen's music. I am quite fond of certain individuals here. But the blinkered vision is just too much for me.

YdF

[Joe Way]

"1. Leonard gives Lynch POA and control of "corporation"
2. Lynch "embezzles" Leonard's money using POA
3. Leonard under the advice of that poisonous spider Kory tries to
recoup the money by blaming Agile
4. Agile refuses to con their insurance company."

Ydf,

It is impossible at this point to know what type of legal vehicle was created to administer these assests. There are many types of trusts and legal entities that could have been used. Each would have varying sets of regulations (including laws particular to the state of Colorado-if indeed they used a Colorado entity). It is also impossible to know the fiduciary responsibilities of each party without knowledge of the entity.

Marie and many others like her are simply urging people to step back and not give the impression of wallowing in misfortune. This is not Leonard's first mis-step in terms of the complex administration of the assests derived from his work. He, early on, lost the rights to "Suzanne" by signing on with an unscrupulous manager. Those of us who have followed his career believe him when he says that he doesn't wish to work for money but wants to be paid for his work. That is an important distinction and one which endears him to many of us. Bobbie Chalou in a similar post to the newsgroup noted how we have benefitted from the artistic output derived from the pain of uncomfortable situations in his life. It brings to mind Tim Hardin's line about Hank Willliams:

"He sang from his heart-took the pain out for his fans-
Who watched all the pain in his heart
And then,
Clapped their hands."

Like we would for any friend, we wish him well and are confident that the temporary nature of this set back on the wheel of fortune will pass and he will emerge with a new burst of artistic creativity that will have a more positive and lasting impact on his already substantial legacy.

Joe

[~greg]

...Seems to me this is a highly emotional response based on anger or bitterness towards Leonard or Leonard's fans.

well,

After Greenberg and the Agile Group announced his lawsuit,
Cohen chat rooms and fan sites seized on the banker as a greedy shark out to steal an artist's hard-earned cash.
- http://www.westword.com/Issues/2005-06- ... news2.html

That make me furious --with LC fans.

It is such a dis-service to LC.

Please, everybody, find out what you can,
reason as best you can, but do not, I beg you,
act like a religious cult in doing it,

-as if LC was just another celebrity.

(That westword article, incidentally,
if it's not already known, mentions
another of Cohen's attorneys, "Joe DePlasco",
besides Kory.)

it's clear what Agile is doing,

No it isn't.
Not at all.

There's much that's suggestive,
suspicious, circumstantial.
And all of it is frustrating.

But I couldn't find any real dirt on Agile.
And I don't see that anyone else has (yet) either.

Which is hardly surprising.

It is a dirty business none the less.
Everything you read about it reads like
a dream in a dream, a scam in a scam.

Those who've seen the movie: "Wall Street"
may enjoy recalling these quotes from it:

GEKKO
The public is out there throwing
darts at a board, sport. I don't
throw darts at a board. I only bet
sure things. Read Sun Tzu's "The
Art of War." 'every battle is won
before it is ever fought.' Think
about it.
...
The richest one percent of this
country owns half the country's
wealth: 5 trillion dollars. One
third of that comes from hard work,
two thirds of it comes from
inheritance, interest on interest
accumulation to widows and idiot
sons and what I do -- stock and
real estate speculation. It's
bullshit. Ninety percent of the
American people have little or no
net worth. I create nothing; I own.
We make the rules, Buddy, the news,
war, peace, famine, upheaval; the
cost of a paper clip.
(picking one up)
We pull the rabbit out of the hat
while everybody else sits around
their whole life wondering how we
did it...
(crosses to Bud)
...you're not naive enough to think
we're living in a democracy are
you, Buddy? It's the free market.
You're one of us now...take
advantage of it. You got the killer
instinct, kid, stick with me. I got
things to teach you...
...
BUD
(mimicking Gordon now)
"All warfare is based on
deception..." Sun Tzu says, If your
enemy is superior, evade him, if
angry, irritate him, if equally
matched, fight... if not, split and
reevaluate.
...

GEKKO (CONT'D)
(softly, innocently)
You could've been one of the great
ones Bud...I look at you and see
myself...Why?

Bud looks at Gordon, torn by mixed emotions: the bonds they
share and the betrayal wrought.

BUD
(shakes his head, thoughtfully)
I don't know. My Dad once told me,
"money is something you need in
case you don't die tomortow." I
guess I realized I'm just Bud Fox.
And as much as I wanted to be
Gordon Gekko--I'll always be Bud Fox.