On a different note Rubys has the honor of posting the 2k post with his post

Whats the beef with you and BNE. Its been mentioned previously. Therefore qualifies for the above.

i haven't read the last few pages, but i saw BNE's explanation. I think I'll buy a t-shirt now. I can't see him selling $35,000 worth of tees in years. I don't feel he deserves to be out of pocket.

Why are people shooting the messenger here?
Bucky and Animal were unquestionably correct in what they did. They saw a dodgy thing happening and called it out.
Anyone who wants to ask why it wasn't called out before needs to ask BNE, Banksy or Pest Control!
Until the point where BNE took money for a fake Banksy collab there was nothing for a third party to get involved with.

I think Bucky is making a lot of sense, few would have listened to him if he had come forward before the release. Plenty still questioned him when he did (myself included). Like he says he's a journalist, why would you ever believe anything a journalist tells you (previous posts included)

If I saw something in the FS section of this site that I knew was fake because I confirmed with the artist, and I waited till there was a purchase to tell everyone that the item was fake... Would you think I did the right thing because I waited till there was a fake item sold before I helped?

Sure, I'm not a horrible person because I did EVENTUALLY help, but I knew that someone was going to get taken by a fake product well before they purchased it, and I chilled out and waited for the "Crime" to take place.



But again, at least something was said, because if Bucky didn't say anything ever, we'd all be expecting our Banksy Tee's and speculating about what the "art" would be.

Apart from when he tells someone to go hang themselves.
Sorry, but that sort of language is what's out of order.

I do appreciate the general point though my friend.

Go Grundig. Can't go wrong.

I gave BNE his first exhibit in 2009, it was written up by the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09bne.html?). Unfortunately, none of the art sold except for some of the metal prints. This left him very unhappy. Shortly after, he left NYC after getting into beef with ADEK and other writers, and told me he went to Indonesia to start a charity. He showed me the site the minute it launched in 2010 I believe—not sure about exact date here. I even gave him some advice on how to tighten up his bio. However, apart from some photos of kids holding his stickers, I just didn't believe him. He asked me to do a post about BNE.org on ANIMAL and I said no. That really made him angry. I told him that despite our history I needed proof. I told him to how me a 501c3 filing or a financial record. He had neither. We fell out of contact and then when I noticed that he changed the mission of the organization from a charity that donates 100% to a non profit that donates about 20% of proceeds. Since I was already skeptical, I started to ask him questions about the tees made by Invader, Shepard and Faile. I asked him why some people claim he oversold the Inavder tees. I asked him why he's only giving 20% of revenue to Charity Water, a legit that charity that he learned about on ANIMAL when I gave them free ad space years ago. I asked why he didn't just connect the artists directly to CW so they could get 100%.

These questions also rubbed him the wrong way. Thats why when I started seeing those flyers go up, I was already skeptical. How couldn't I be? We then spoke on the phone for 3 hours and he lied to me about how Banksy liked what he was doing so much that Banksy told him he could keep 75% of revenue and would only have to donate 25% to CW. This raised a huge red flag. Why would Banksy, who has worked on numerous charitable initiatives, do a deal where the charity doesn't get 100%? That's the antithesis of charity. So I wrote PC, got their response, and then had to wait to see if he would actually go through with it. I assumed at the last minute he'd unfurl his own design and say "ha ha" thanks for lending me your celebrity Banksy. That of course didn't happen and instead he actually went through with it and landed himself in the debacle he's currently in.

Knowing there would be a lot of scrutiny, I brought in investigative journalist Matt Harvey, who has won several awards, to share the byline. I informed of my past with BNE and told him to take the lead on the story which he did, precisely because I knew this would come up and cause a huge conspiracy. Keep in mind, I know BNE. I know his real name, where he's from and what he looks like. I have photos of him. If I really wanted to grind him into dust I could've, but despite our not being friends, I do have respect for his street bombing career. I also don't use ANIMAL to settle scores. We've done thousands of stories and have a great track record. Now I know someone will whip this up into a new conspiracy, because that's how most of these participants on this forum work, but at least the back story is now on the record.  

thanks coach. Glad someone agreed about what he said to me.

This gives us a new perspective and answers many of the questions and allegations people had. I have given BNE the benefit of the doubt much the same reason why you still respect him as an artist due to personal knowledge of his work on the streets and watching him since his early days in SF. Ive watched the charity over the years and seen him try to do well yet I never looked deeply into it. I still cant grasp what would make BNE all of sudden try to defraud people and until we get some more info Ill hold condemnation till then. I will say its not looking good at all for him and it goes without saying his charity career is most likely over because of this. If you have an investigative reporter why not dig deeper into the smoking gun of this and what everyone is trying to figure out, how many shirts were actually sold and if he did oversell then by how much. This would close the case for most, as I dont think anyone will get the true backstory of if he actually talked to Banksy or hwy they fell out, atleast finding out if he defrauded the sales numbers thats actually more condemning than the collaborative fiasco.

Yes. Absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I knew he would donate something to Charity Water via their online fund raising platform which he has used to give his "charity" legitimacy, but I also think that just as ANIMAL's questions the night before forced him from donating 25% to CW to "100% of profits," I also think we forced his hand by publishing the story in such a timely manner. I think he panicked and that's why he may have rushed the $35,000 donation to CW homepage instead of through his Artists 4 Water account and that's why some people didn't believe him about the donation at first. However, we did confirm that BNE made a $35,000 donation from the Charity Water people. What we have not been able to confirm is how many shirts he sold. It's hard for me to believe that he only sold 500. But as of right now I can't confirm that so I'm only adding to the conjecture at this point. But that's my gut. Hopefully Matt and I can get the info from PayPal and finally put this to rest. 

A quote from BNE's site.

"We will be using a different factory to speed things up."

Speed things up or is this designed to cover tracks with the "over sold" tee's?

"Outside sources"

Love it Wear!