With all due respect guys,
Make fun. Have fun. Tease and kid. You go big in public, you fail big in public. Fair enough.
But this is nothing to celebrate. Production-boat building, and the associated pricing that comes with it, isn't "over" per se. But what will take its place in the future? Oh my. Something you can't imagine.
What blows me away about all of the ... I don't know what to call it ... vitriol now directed at Reggie Fountain is really simple: What did he do to you?
What? You're angry at his hair? Or that he had a pretty young wife? Or that, like your favorite pro athlete, he talked a lot of smack?
OK, I am the first to tell you, I didn't dig the whole Cat Killer marketing at poker runs. Totally inappropriate for the event, in my view. But the rest ... the hair, the style, the ego, the hype? Who cares? Get over it.
Did the boastful advertising bug you? Dear lord, that's why they call it advertising.
Spoke to Peter Hledin the other day for an unrelated story. He was downright ... sad ... about the Fountain situation. He praised Reggie up and down ... and if you follow this industry you know they had a difficult relationship.
Spoke so Phil Lipshutz of Cigarette dealer Lip-Ship Performance today on an unrelated story. Out of nowhere, nothing but praise and respect for Reggie. Not a negative word.
So I would ask you armchair haters: What do you know that Peter Hledin, Phil Lipschutz and a host of others (I could continue dropping names but it would be bad form) do not?
Hate his style ... he put it out there in the public light, so have at.
Hate his products ... they're not for everyone.
Hate his hype ... it was relentless.
But take glee in his failure? With zero, and I do mean zero, "due respect," that is just ignorant of the bigger picture.
I often agree with T2X. I often disagree with him. But on at least one point, he is correct: The demise of Fountain, Baja, Donzi and all the production boat guys is, if you care one bit about having choices in your performance boat options, a disaster. And not, as T2X would agree, anything that will be resolved anytime soon.
So why does it matter? Hell, the custom boat guys like Cigarette and Skater, though down, will survive.
Yes they will. And how many of you are "in the market" for that kind of purchase.
It's fun to Reggie bash. Public figure, big personality, the basing comes with the territory. But gleefully celebrating the bankruptcy of Fountain?
That's just stupid. Really stupid. Because in the end, that failure serves no one.