Recap week of December 7

Where do I even start? It's like a freaking shitstorm of activity in Wimberley lately. I don't know what they're putting in the water down there, but it must be doing something. Or maybe Hoshun is doing it all. After all, he does do magic, according to Pat and Joe. Maybe Hoshun is so pissed at his likeness being sold for $40 that he's causing everyone to do some wild and crazy things.


First, our friend Pat O'Bryan completely lost his mind. He started a new twitter account and phony blog, apparently so as to not tarnish his respected name with his actions. Now, I'm all for anonymity if keeping your personality out of the argument will keep the discussion on facts (instead of personal attacks that have made the Wimberley Mafia infamous). But then Pat O'Breakdown actually puts his respected name on the account. According to this twit, his anger is at me, my writing, this very blog.

I don't know if I should be honored or sad. I mean, I've tried to be nice to the guy while still pointing out that his marketing of a stupid wish doll is, well, STUPID. This blog isn't titled "Pat O'Bryan's Pyre." But he keeps throwing himself under the bus in order to defend his buddy, Fireboy, aka, Mr. Fire, aka, Joe Vitale.

On his blog, he spent an entire day attacking Cosmic Connie and her exceptionally smart and funny dude, Ron. He blamed THEM for me.  His blog post comments are just a steaming cup of psychotic delusion.

Listen, Pat, and I know you're listening, the reason I started this blog is the obviousness of the ethical problems of products and services and their marketing coming out of Wimberley. It has nothing to do with Connie, it has nothing to do with my work, it has everything to do with the outrage I feel every time you sell someone a MAGIC picture for $40. You want to somehow have a penis-size competition match and look at my life as a distraction.


He called me a McDonald's fry cook, which doesn't really help his argument much... because if I am a McDonald's fry cook, then even the most rudimentary non-professional understands that a Secret Russian Wish Maker Scammy Dolly Picture is a scammy dolly picture.

After a while, an observation hit me that Pat O'Bryan may actually have some serious mental issues and that criticism might actually put him over the edge and cause him to implode. He was losing it right there in front of us, immolating himself, going after one of the sweetest ladies on twitter. I mean, on her sign-off, she wished everyone a happy Saturday, even to Pat O.

So. I direct-messaged (DM) Pat O'Breakdown at CriticWatch: "I don't think ur well. I'm going to leave u alone as long as you don't wish-doll again, STOP DEFENDING JV, be ethical & I'll leave u alone"

He answered "no deal" and continued on. I had Christmas stuff to do, so I had to leave him wallowing in his cesspool. He continued on his rampage attacking anyone he came across, until he met up with the Salty Droid. I almost jumped in on that conversation, but I thought better of it and just let Pat play with the loaded gun. I think he finally realized that it was loaded. And it was a really big gun that had lots of experience taking care of business.

But Pat losing his mind isn't the only activity down in Wimber-lie. Joe has been extremely quiet these days, though he did say that Pat's post was "wise" and "hard-hitting" in one of his twits. I'd agree with the hard hitting; perhaps something had fallen in Pat's office and hit him too hard on the head, thus starting the need for his reckless rampage.

In other news, a suicide squirrel tried to take out Joe's power, but it didn't work for very long. I would warn Joe to stay away from squirrels, though. Apparently Joe saw them taking notes while he was telling a friend his secrets of the universe. There might actually be a squirrel conspiracy going on to prevent such secrets such as "this is where they keep the nuts: inside Joe Vitale's head," and there could be more kamikaze squirrels headed to his "estate."

Which really isn't an estate, by the way, though he sure likes to tell people it is in his marketing. Gotta keep up appearances.

But apparently all that activity isn't enough.

It appears beyond any reasonable doubt that Mark Ryan has stopped drinking the Joe Vitale kool-aid. He's written SIX posts all of which point to some recent events he's attempting to make sense of. Here are the links to those posts:

• Seasons change
• Types of teachers 1, 2, 3
• Creating the Rolls Royce Mastermind
• Ho'oponopono then and now

If there was ever any doubt in anyone's mind that Mark Ryan was Joe Vitale's "self-sabotaging" friend, I think those doubts can be laid to rest.

The content in those posts is very eye opening. Just the discussion of the types of teachers makes me wonder if Joe Vitale is what Ryan calls teacher type #1. There's that fun little disclaimer on the bottom of that post saying that some people had thought it was all about them, so Mark is putting the whole series up instead of doing it day by day. That happened about the same time that Pat O'Bryan outed Mark Ryan on his twitter account as The Seduction King. Did those posts cause Pat O'Bryan to lose his mind?

On Vitale's self-sabotaging friend post in which he tells his self-sabotaging friend that he's losing out on financial opportunity by cutting of ties with him, isn't that some kind of threat? Isn't that like dangling a carrot in front of the guy and telling him to come back into the fold and be a good little boy and master Joe will give you opportunities? Otherwise, go back to the land of poverty... well, it must be poverty if Joe isn't in it.

Sorry Joe, but money is energy and is going to go where DIVINE SPIRIT wants it to go, not because you're exploiting people with promises of "total life transformation" for thousands of dollars and bullying your former friends with threats. 

Apparently, whatever precipitated Ryan's decision to leave the fold had a greater weight than that little carrot. Judging on his blog posts, apparently he grew a conscience. Or balls. Or something. I, for one, hope that he goes forward and makes a name for himself post-Vitale brown-nosing as a lesson to the rest of the sycophants. As Cosmic Connie put most eloquently not too long ago, Joe can't have his empire of dirt without sycophants to support it.

Anyway, something has definitely changed. I guess it doesn't matter what. Ryan seems to be interested in telling his story, and I'm sure listening.

There's one thing for certain: Ryan's tone in these posts is of a man who has recently reclaimed his self worth. He's making some assertions that he came up with the idea for the Rolls Royce Mastermind, which is counter to the story Joe tells.

At this point, I believe Mark Ryan. What does he have to lose or gain by telling these stories? Nothing, really. Joe has everything to gain by you believing him. Maybe Ryan is so mad at Joe Vitale he's trying to discredit him with lies. But take a look at those videos of Joe and Mark in the car. He then talks about how he coached Vitale to become a better public speaker, and there is video evidence that's what he did. In a car, no less. On video. Evidence enough for me.

The information on the next post about ho'oponopono is even more eye opening. Maybe Ryan cut ties with Vitale because he didn't get paid for Zero Limits? And is it true that Pat O'Bryan said that Joe was going give Ryan a $90K car but then went back on it? Maybe that's why Ryan cut ties with Fireboy? And I'm also interested that there's versions of ho'oponopono... you mean it's not all Joe'oponopono?

Do tell more, Mark Ryan. We're all listening.

Through all of this, the other members of the "Wimberley mafia" have been incredibly quiet. Even Vitale isn't doing much more than moving into his new office.

I try to imagine what life is like for Joe Vitale right now. His former VP of Marketing is having conversations with Cosmic Connie, a known snarker of all things Fireboy, and she's got a blog post in the works about their conversations. His former friend Mark Ryan has cut ties with him and is now coming out and telling his side of the story. He has an active group of online critics who watch his every move. His friend and Operation YES supporter James Ray is possibly facing murder charges for a deathlodge. His current friend and pet sycophant is running around the internet playing threatening people and writing completely asinine blog posts taunting the critics and defending James Ray. I'm not sure what I would do if I was trying to sell people the image of the perfect life but I was standing in the middle of a shit storm.

Just a note: you know what just occurred to me ... all you people who write to me and tell your stories of how Joe Vitale did you wrong, or you're disappointed by someone or something down with that group. If ALL of you would just grow a pair and tell your story, there would be NO NEED for my to write a thing. I'm your conscience. But I can't tell your stories for you.

Edit 12/14/09: Pat took down his @criticwatch twitter account, sanitized the discussion on his blog, and locked his own @patobryan twitter account. I'm sure he'll be back, his business relies upon new customers and marketing online, but until then, I'm keeping my copies of the downloaded discussions, screenshots, and other material in the event this post is ever challenged for accuracy.