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| WE WORSHIP SATAN
DOT COM |
Who is al scaglione?
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| Ok, at this point you should have been using your
favorite Internet search engine and searched for a number of terms
- parkwest at sea legal battle
- parkwest inside edition
- parkwest at sea investigation
I hope you went to more than just the first page of
results. Why ? because that is the plan of ParkWest Gallery.
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| SUPER GENIUS ala' Wile E.
Coyote
You've probably from nearly every posting by Parkwest
that al is a Ph. D. I wonder if that stands for Piled Higher and Deeper.
Because they sure lay it on thick. He is allegedly a rocket scientist but that
doesn't mean he has any common sense. Obviously al seems to be lacking on the
common sense part when it comes to dealing with people, especially his own
people. Geez al, these are the people that make you money, at least treat them
like they are human. From what i understand, he goes off into screaming
tirades, quoting scripture to support his position and coming just short of
calling the individual stupid. I wonder why anyone would work for such a
tyrant.
Ok, let's do a timeline here.
Graduated from Newark College of Engineering at NJIT in
1962
He allegedly earned his masters in
1963 and a
doctorate in 1970 from
Michigan State University (this is a 29 MB Adobe PDF if anyone
is a MSU Alumni, I'd love to know what is included in the spring 2008
newsletter) .
A reader recently sent me the entire blurb from the
spring edition. Yep, more fluff regarding his education, past career, the 1.2
million customers in 60 countries. Now i might take exception the word
customers, victims maybe, but we can all notice that he was at least truthful,
he didn't use the phrase " Happy Customers". The article goes on to
report that parkwest produces some 450 million dollars in sales. So based on
parkwest's penchant for facts and distorting the truth .. anywhere between 300
and 600 million, now that's a lot of money for one man to handle. Wonder if he
burned it, would it keep him warm at night? We know he can't use it at the
pearly gates to gain entrance.
And the best line from the article "We get an
opportunity to teach, teach and teach." Ok, I'll take it out of context,
teach what, the consumer that they want to blow their money on a poster? teach
the auctioneers how to pry more out of the victims? teach the customer support
staff how to say no better, or teach your employees to fear you more?
The story then goes along with him teaching at Wayne
state starting in 1967.
After he left NASA. Anyone got a contact from NASA that
could confirm that?
He started parkwest in 1969. So it looks like he couldn't
hack teaching. or maybe they booted him. In my opinion, his attitude towards
his employees (currently) was possibly present at that time too.
Then he started selling art work in earnest.
Ok, what credentials does he possess? What makes him an
expert.
All i've seen so far is engineering, mathematics. Where
how does this equate to an expert in the field of any artistic endeavor?
Does al have a Masters of Fine Art? or even a BFA? Hmm,
i'm a bit skeptical at this point. Hey, I took a few courses in photography,
dark room techniques for black and white film and print development, does that
make me a photographic expert? I think not. How about an art appreciation
class? Again, i think not.
So how can al be a self proclaimed expert being able to
sign (actually it isn't even signed, the paper the COA is printed on looks like
it is pre-printed and then the description of the piece in question is added
later. All the signatures look identical, no variation. So those are not even
an authentic al scaglione signature.
so now we have al, the legend in his own mind, running a
company that makes in excess of 400 million dollars a year off selling , in my
opinion, over priced posters to an unsuspecting captive audience.
Granted, i like some of the work that they sell, others
are ugly as sin .. i am thinking anything by tim yanke , it to me it looks like
some paint flung at some news print, stuck in a frame and then sold by his
father in law al. Did i forget to mention that tim yanke, is nicolette yanke's
(the galleries HR director) husband and nicolette is al's step-daughter? Now
isn't that a nice tidy circle. anyway, i digress.
al has found that he can make a mint off of selling
prints that look like originals but in my opinion aren't. my definition of
original is something completely painted by the artist in his/her own hand.
That i'd be willing to buy, but a print? isn't that a copy of an original?
again these prints are produced in a large quantity and purchased by the
gallery at such a price that their markup seems immoral. But somewhere along
the way, the money must have taken over better judgement and now here we are.
watching a fight wondering where it all went wrong at the gallery.
Well, once al has passed on (he's 70 now) , in my opinion
the gallery will be up for sale. His son marc will probably want to cash out
and take the money and run. Would you blame him, this business could be sold
and none of the principles or their heirs would probably never need to work
again. Good for them. looks like all the 1 million+ customers have set them up
for life. don't we wish we had such a parachute?
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THE FAMILY MAN
It is my understanding that al is a very warm person to
his close inner circle and family.
He has a son Marc Scaglione who works at the gallery in
south field, a daughter Lisa, a step son John Karay that runs the operation in
Florida, and a step daughter nicolette yanke who is the HR director in
Southfield.
He also has a few
grand children Michael, Roman, Matthew and Angelo (hey it's
public information as read into the Congressional record by Hon. James A
Barcia). That he adores and dotes over. I wonder if they've any idea how cruel
a master he can be to his employees.
From what i heard, he rants and raves at his employees.
constantly quotes scriptures at them to bolster his opinion. and has made a
number of employees cry. this is indeed a cruel man. why anyone would continue
working for him is beyond all reason. In my personal opinion from what i've
heard, he is constantly changing his mind and then tearing after employees that
followed the original instructions before they were informed that the
directions just changed. Kind of like a rabid dog.
It almost seems like al is two different people, the self
important master of parkwest and the loving granddad. I wonder if it is a
chemical imbalance.
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THE MANSION
Well, it looks like the business pays well. if you look
at any number of the websites that report campaign contributions you can see
the many 10's of thousands of dollars he has contributed to the political
campaigns over the years. From there you can get a street address and then drop
that into your favorite search engine . click on the street view or aerial map
and holy crap, it looks like they made it out of the scraps from building the
gallery.
It dwarfs the neighbors. Hopefully the jones' are trying
to keep up with albert..
Here is the gallery
anyway, it is pretty big. and it's only minutes from his
house. I sure that he isn't suffering from gas prices and the long
commute.
For those news outlets that want to interview albert.
From my sources it looks like he arrives at the gallery typically just before
noon. You might be able to catch him entering via the employee entrance around
back. You will know it is him because no one parks in his parking space
(closest space east of the door). You can set up cameras in a position almost
due south of the gallery in the under building parking in the medical center
behind the gallery
If you set up west of the fountain you should be able to
get an unobstructed camera view. a wired interviewer would probably work best,
not sure if you will be able to get clear sound at that range.
Hopefully someone can actually get him on tape. You'll
love his demonaire , but good luck asking him questions, he'd rather tell you
the story about how he started the business, and how he is a worked for NASA,
... etc.
Also from my contact, if you drive by and the parking
lot is full, most of those cars are employees, not cutomers. they have very few
customers that buy anything by walking in the door. Maybe some 99% comes form
hotel, ship and VIP auctions.
and if you think that selling over priced prints isn't
lucrative, check out the following nearly 10 million dollar cottage compound
that you can buy from al
The listings can be viewed on:
http://taar.com/mlssearch/
The three MLS # 's as of late last year. hurry their
going fast.
1683310 for $3.9M;
1683296 for $4.9M;
1683209 for $2.9M
now were is that petty cash jar. This is where al has
held his annual "It's my party and let me show you how cool i am birthday
bash"
al also holds a large number of 'charity' events, I'll
bet that al doesn't loose anything at those either. I understand that the
'charity' can clear 10 to 100k from the auction, boy that sure does sound like
what they might pay ass a commission to the cruiselines. but seriously, at
least the commission can go to a worth cause and probably helps al sleep at
night that he has done some good. additionally he does work a lot with local
charities and worthy organizations, but i am sure that there are those out
there that wish this was all he did, then it might be worth buying a poster at
auction. Nah, probably still way over priced and marked up beyond all reason.
and before parkwest proclaims 'well you set the price by bidding it up' , well
no duh. the problem is you've already got your insidious markup all ready
priced into the starting bid. Ooo, do you want to know more about their pricing
structure ??
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SO WHAT HAVE WE DISCOVERED
well not much, other than he doesn't seem to have any
credentials as an expert in fine art. yet he signs the COA .. wonder if that
means Certificate of Al.
Oh yeah, Thanks Marco. So the phone is in John Karay's
name?
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