The Gibson Cafe! The Heritage Owners Club!

Hey, it's an odd coincidence: I was sitting in the Nashville airport's "Gibson Cafe" when I was perma-banned from the Heritage (Guitar) Owners' Club.

Long-time readers of this blog will remember that Heritage Guitar was the company formed by four long-time Gibson employees when that company abandoned its unionized Kalamazoo facility in favor of the right-to-work New South. (Here's a quick catch-up, if you care.) I own more than a few Heritage guitars but I've become increasingly disenchanted with the owners community over the past two years. There are simply too many people trying to rip other people off, whether by failing to ship guitars, shipping damaged guitars, attempting to lowball injured Vietnam veterans (true story), or simply acting in an unpleasant and fractious manner.

So tonight I lost my patience with one of the forum's worst scam artists and called him out on it. I might post the exchange here at some point, it makes for amusing reading. I was summarily banned for doing so, but the scammer in question was also banned. Which means it was a net gain for the community.

And it was a net gain for me. Much like Facebook, web forums are a real time sink for me. I have a limited amount of productive time left in this old carcass and I need to make the most of it. Tomorrow I'll be spending some of that time living another childhood dream. Naturally, you'll have to hear all about it. Thank you for letting me steal some of your time, by the way. It is not unappreciated.