Gene Steinberg's Financial Shenanigans @ Paracast forums

nivek said:

Randall is so full of shyte, what little respect for him I had has vanished as he seems to justify and reason Gene's financial scams as a just and proper endeavour...He cannot even see the reality of the situation or refuses to, I think he just ignores all the details and blindly accepts the situation as something righteous...At least this is the way I see it, ignorance is certainly bliss in his mind...

The justification continues:

Image Management

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My gut take is he is willfully ignoring and/or being dismissive of the problems with Gene because he wants to be a bigger part of the Paracast. Perhaps he thinks he can 'inherit' it from Gene, if not rehabilitate it in conjunction with Gene. I doubt he'd be the first one to harbor these ambitions.

I think when you are caught up in something like the Paracast it can feel very important and full of promise. From the outside however it can seem a folly to hitch your wagon to Gene's dim star.

Dewey said:

I can confirm from personal knowledge that the begging and "borrowing" with no intent to repay has gone on for at least 25 years although it was not internet based at the start.

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I hereby shamelessly encourage you to share any more details you care to; as a sick devotee of the saga I am always curious to get more pieces of the picture. As you probably saw we were just recently questioning and discussing what Gene was doing from '75 to the mid '90s....

I strongly suspect Randall has a substantial cash "investment" in Gene-- 'scuse me--The Paracast. People do all sorts of idiotic things when they feel the need to rationalize past mistakes.

Double Nought Spy said:

I strongly suspect Randall has a substantial cash "investment" in Gene-- 'scuse me--The Paracast. People do all sorts of idiotic things when they feel the need to rationalize past mistakes.

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I hadn't thought of that. It may well be that he bought his way into it. That would be extremely foolish since Gene keeps all the income received from the Paracast and has never shared any of it with past cohosts (which as has been previously stated is quite ironic since Gene gets the cohosts to do most of the work).

Some podcasts make money. They make substantial amounts of money. I can name three off the top of my head (Scathing Atheist, Cognitive Dissonance, Last Podcast On The Left) that are making over $10,000 a month. Yes. A month. Via Patreon. I suppose if this Randall guy thinks that with a little reorganization, there's a possibility that the Paracast COULD be profitable, he might be foolish enough to invest in it...but wow that's a really bad investment if he did, because

1. Gene will never change anything about the show.

2. There's really very little audience for the show as it is, ergo there's really no way to profit.

3. Even if somehow the show somehow became profitable, Gene will never share said profits.

But honestly, the three shows I gave as examples are kind of like unicorns. Podcasting CAN be profitable, but you have to cater to an audience that REALLY WANTS your content, and offer some sorts of extras for it, not just blathering on about Supergirl or what-have-you for half an hour of added content.

(Edited to add: I'm wrong. Cognitive Dissonance is only making about $9,000 a month. Sorry.)

I've thought about doing several different podcasts on various topics, but I haven't been able to rationalize the investment of money for equipment and hosting and the time investment. If I did all three of the podcasts I've been wanting to do for the last few years (a fandom/comedic podcast, an organized crime podcast, and a political podcast) I would have no time left to actually WORK between research, writing out the scripts for the scripted 'casts, editing, and social media to get the word out, not to mention the extras I'd have to put out for Patreon.

SilentRunning said:

Some podcasts make money. They make substantial amounts of money. I can name three off the top of my head (Scathing Atheist, Cognitive Dissonance, Last Podcast On The Left) that are making over $10,000 a month. Yes. A month. Via Patreon. I suppose if this Randall guy thinks that with a little reorganization, there's a possibility that the Paracast COULD be profitable, he might be foolish enough to invest in it...but wow that's a really bad investment if he did, because

1. Gene will never change anything about the show.

2. There's really very little audience for the show as it is, ergo there's really no way to profit.

3. Even if somehow the show somehow became profitable, Gene will never share said profits.

But honestly, the three shows I gave as examples are kind of like unicorns. Podcasting CAN be profitable, but you have to cater to an audience that REALLY WANTS your content, and offer some sorts of extras for it, not just blathering on about Supergirl or what-have-you for half an hour of added content.

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For what it's worth... my opinion is at one time the Paracast could've made a run for it on Patreon. Last Podcast on the Left (as you say), War Nerd, and the Best Show all do very well there, to name three. Chapo Trap House too, I think. Where Did The Road Go?, which is a great show and I think still smaller than the Paracast, is at $600/month. I'm sure there are many other examples. But I agree with you on the unicorns - most podcasts are not going to make anyone a living wage.

I suspect that Gene did not want the transparency and accountability associated with Patreon. Chris O'Brien could've seen, oh, we're making $800 a month, say where's that money going, Gene? Etc.

I think Gene just wants cash handed to him under the table with no strings attached, and certainly not with Patreon taking a cut.

The conflation of Gene with the Paracast that is being discussed on the Paracast 'Image Management' thread right now is interesting. Gene claimed for a long time his personal begging emails were not affiliated with the Paracast, but that fiction has gone out the window. In his emails he says a way to help him is subscribing to his shows - which would be money to the podcasts, not just to Gene but, in practice I think it means money to Gene.

It occurs to me that someday Gene's Mac is gonna die on him. What happens then? For his sake hopefully those fabled "cash reserves" he's mentioned allow him to get up and running again. Otherwise he might have to ask Chris O'Brien for that vintage iMac back.

SilentRunning said:

I've thought about doing several different podcasts on various topics, but I haven't been able to rationalize the investment of money for equipment and hosting and the time investment. If I did all three of the podcasts I've been wanting to do for the last few years (a fandom/comedic podcast, an organized crime podcast, and a political podcast) I would have no time left to actually WORK between research, writing out the scripts for the scripted 'casts, editing, and social media to get the word out, not to mention the extras I'd have to put out for Patreon.

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It's a serious time investment if you are serious about producing something good. I think that's one reason some produce "seasons" and not weekly shows. It can be fun though.

goblin said:

Pretty ironic Gene and others are smugly declaring "Doxing" in that thread, when Gene is the idiot who doxed someone on his own forum not so long ago. He posted the home phone number of the parents of the guy who sent him 88,000 dongs or whatever it was, along with other contact info for that person. In a sense Gene even doxed himself when he tweeted out his address, phone number, and bank account info back in March. Gene-ius.

Sharing Gene's bankruptcy info, which is a public record, doesn't really bother me. Should it? I think it's in the nature of crowd sourced investigation into someone who has been deceptive. Technically I think it qualifies as doxing though. Should it bother me? It's not inviting harm to Gene. Possibly I should be critical but am not in his case. Hm.

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IMO, sharing matters of public record is not doxing, although with some people I will go the extra mile and keep it to myself.

As I understand bankruptcy, it necessarily involves relinquishing some privacy in exchange for being shielded from creditors.

SilentRunning said:

I've thought about doing several different podcasts on various topics, but I haven't been able to rationalize the investment of money for equipment and hosting and the time investment. If I did all three of the podcasts I've been wanting to do for the last few years (a fandom/comedic podcast, an organized crime podcast, and a political podcast) I would have no time left to actually WORK between research, writing out the scripts for the scripted 'casts, editing, and social media to get the word out, not to mention the extras I'd have to put out for Patreon.

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Equipment can be purchased very cheaply these days. I have just given away old gear, and many music stores have very cheap mics and such they are eager to move.

OTOH, Podcasting is necessarily an investment of time if it's going to be worth doing. More time than you think. That is why, when n00b podcasters ask "what should I do to get started?" my first answer is "seriously consider not doing it."

SilentRunning said:

3. Even if somehow the show somehow became profitable, Gene will never share said profits.

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This is true and something I spoke to Chris O'Brien about. According to Chris, Gene expected him to do most of the work for the show and yet refused to share any of the income.

Chris did not even know how much money the show was bringing in. After complaining multiple times Gene tried to placate him with some of his cast off items but still refused to give him any share of the income (let alone anything consistent with the work he put in).

I was really surprised that Chris had not made some kind of formal contract to codify these things before he agreed to start. Anyway he probably will in future.

If I remember right I spoke to him in late 21017 (or maybe the New Year) and he was thinking about quitting then. He felt that all the time and effort he had put in had not only been wasted but had actually resulted in him being smeared by Gene's actions.

Basically Gene just wants a slave who will read the books, do the research and interview the guests so that he can watch crappy TV shows (so he can interject with pointless TV references) and rake in the money.

goblin said:

I suspect that Gene did not want the transparency and accountability associated with Patreon. Chris O'Brien could've seen, oh, we're making $800 a month, say where's that money going, Gene? Etc.

I think Gene just wants cash handed to him under the table with no strings attached, and certainly not with Patreon taking a cut.

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Exactly. He doesn't want transparency because then it would be apparent that something was fishy with his spending and it would make it much harder for him to pursue any of his begging scams.

He would also be forced to declare the income for tax purposes.

I am pretty certain that he does not declare any of his begging income - I can't prove it but just from the way he discusses it he seems to think it is his private business as if nobody (not even the govt.) has a right to know about it.

Also as public records show it was not declared on his most recent bankruptcy filings (so he does have form on this kind of thing).

The conflation of Gene with the Paracast that is being discussed on the Paracast 'Image Management' thread right now is interesting. Gene claimed for a long time his personal begging emails were not affiliated with the Paracast, but that fiction has gone out the window. In his emails he says a way to help him is subscribing to his shows - which would be money to the podcasts, not just to Gene but, in practice I think it means money to Gene.

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That's exactly what it is. The money goes directly to Gene. This is another hallmark of a shady business - when the person running it doesn't differentiate between their own funds and the funds of the business. This is what criminals often do to create opaqueness on how money is being used and spent.

It occurs to me that someday Gene's Mac is gonna die on him. What happens then? For his sake hopefully those fabled "cash reserves" he's mentioned allow him to get up and running again. Otherwise he might have to ask Chris O'Brien for that vintage iMac back.

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No he will just send out a new set of histrionic crisis emails begging for money. A vintage mac would be "beneath him" - nothing but the newest or finest for Lord Gene.

Coming clean here. Several years ago I dropped a little coin on Gene Steinberg. I thought it was for one-time crisis management. Then the emails kept. On. Coming. Live and learn.

It's been about 3 years since I listened to the Paracast, but mainly just because I couldn't abide the ads any more.

@APIGuy

He declared personal bankruptcy, which kept the Court from appointing a receiver/the U.S. Trustee's Office to ensure clarification on where his money goes, unfortunately. I agree with you that matters of public record are not doxxing. This is information that is easily found via PACER, which I believe anyone can access.

Regarding starting my own podcast, that's exactly why I haven't done it; it takes time and effort for a podcast to start making money, time that I can't afford to invest. I've spoken with Roejen Razorwire on several occasions about it, and he's pointed me to equipment and has offered to help teach me how to use Audacity if/when I ever actually do get to do it.



@GhostofBiedny

And that's why the show can't be profitable as it stands now. Gene has never invested the time or the effort into the Paracast to make it so. I agree with Goblin above that in the past, it could have been, had topics branched out from the same old events over and over, and had the requisite research and attention been paid to the new topics chosen. The Skinwalker Ranch deserves more attention, as do the SLV phenomena, as does the Bennington Triangle and the Bridgewater Triangle. Hard questions and requests for documentation besides what's in his book need to be asked of David Paulides. There are other strange phenomena happening now, right now, or at least in the last decade.

In my humble opinion, for any paranormal-focused show to succeed right now, it needs to focus more on the events that listeners remember, unless said paranormal-focused show also has a comedic or fictional slant going with it such as LPOTL. People aren't throwing almost $50K a month at LPOTL because of Skinwalker Ranch; they're paying money because Henry's funny, because Marcus is obsessive, and because Ben is an EXCELLENT straight man.

I like paranormal themed shows, but I can't listen to anything more about Rendlesham, Roswell, or the underground bases. These are OLD events, many of which occurred before the current audience was born, and there's still either no or very little evidence. All the life has been sucked out of them. And here's Gene, searching through the dry bones, looking for just one little drop of marrow.

No. No show like this will survive much longer. I'd bet that most of his subscribers are only still subscribing because they've forgotten to unsubscribe. I'd bet that they, like I used to, look at the topic of the week, and if it's something that's been done a million times before, just delete that episode and hope for something better next week. Problem is with the Paracast, there's never anything better next week.

SilentRunning said:

@APIGuy

I've spoken with Roejen Razorwire on several occasions about it, and he's pointed me to equipment and has offered to help teach me how to use Audacity if/when I ever actually do get to do it.

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Project Archivist has become my new Paracast. No ads, almost no begging, and a better sense of humor. I was actually on it once, too, and may be back some day.

APIGuy said:

Coming clean here. Several years ago I dropped a little coin on Gene Steinberg. I thought it was for one-time crisis management. Then the emails kept. On. Coming. Live and learn.

It's been about 3 years since I listened to the Paracast, but mainly just because I couldn't abide the ads any more.

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Many of us have been conned by his stories. I think it is because most of us would consider begging people in that way so distasteful that we would only do it if we had no other choice.

So we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

The ads destroyed the show and they really only came in after David Biedny left.

Prior to that there were still interruptions for Gene to plug his shitty books, the forum and just put pointless clips of past guests saying "You are listening to the Paracast" but it was still bearable and did not completely derail the conversation.

In the last few years it has reached the point where guests can't complete a sentence before Gene interrupts to go to a break. Cutting out the adverts by buying a subscription doesn't help as the interruptions are the problem, not the adverts themselves (even though they are for Alex Jones style Garbage).

Not only that but Gene also seems to be more desperate to waste what little time there is with even more of his reminiscences about yesteryear and talking about the garbage TV shows he watches. None of it has any relevance to the guests or the show topic and it is incredibly annoying.

People want to hear the guests talk - they don't want hear want Gene thinks about the latest Netflix series, or which actor played so and so on Show X, or which new starlet Gene is currently perving over.

By the time Chris left it had become completely unlistenable (although I had still been hanging in there in the hopes that things would change - more fool me).

SilentRunning said:

2. There's really very little audience for the show as it is, ergo there's really no way to profit.

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There's a vast potential audience for paranormal/ufo content - Art Bell had a devoted audience of millions, and his show was broadcast in the middle of the night. The problem with The Paracast is that it craps all over its own subject matter constantly, and people don't want to hear that. The "ufo cynics" audience is probably about .01% of the "ufo enthusiasts" audience, so Gene has carved out the smallest possible niche in a gigantic market.

Take the AATIP story, for example: it's been the biggest story in ufology in decades, and people want to hear more about it. But I don't think The Paracast has done a single show about it in the 8 months since the story broke, and when they do mention it, it's to attack it as some kind of con or disinformation campaign - without providing any evidence whatsoever to support that allegation. And they even had Lue Elizondo join up to post on the forums on a couple of occasions, but he was so viciously attacked by the little cult of pathologically cynical freaks over there that I doubt he'll ever make that mistake again.

SilentRunning said:

I've thought about doing several different podcasts on various topics, but I haven't been able to rationalize the investment of money for equipment and hosting and the time investment. If I did all three of the podcasts I've been wanting to do for the last few years (a fandom/comedic podcast, an organized crime podcast, and a political podcast) I would have no time left to actually WORK between research, writing out the scripts for the scripted 'casts, editing, and social media to get the word out, not to mention the extras I'd have to put out for Patreon.

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Well, it's one thing to do a podcast with the intent to make money at it, and it's another thing to do a podcast to have fun and offer something informative or at least entertaining to people who share your interests. We've been doing Physics Frontiers for nearly two years now (and PhysicsFM for about a year before that), because Jim and I love to talk about theoretical physics and the show gives us a good excuse to stay current with the field. We started making podcasts because people would gather around our table at the coffee shop when we were talking about that stuff, so we figured that it would be cool to offer those kinds of chats to a larger audience online.

We haven't invested in any of the bells and whistles like you hear on professional podcasts, like a nice opening sequence and closing sequence, so it's been really inexpensive. We each bought a $35 Sennheiser headset from Amazon and downloaded some freeware to record the audio. Jim has to edit the audio files a bit, adjust the levels, and apply a compression filter to the finished audio file, so that part takes some time, a few hours per show, I assume. And there's a small charge each month for bandwidth because we're getting thousands of downloads for each episode at this point (which I still find somewhat shocking, given how raw and highly specialized our podcasts are). We'll be happy if we break even at some point, which may happen someday since Jim started a Patreon for us.

You don't have to (and shouldn't) script anything for a podcast - reading a script really sucks the life out of the listening experience - it's best to just wing it; you can always edit out something you don't like in post-production. It's a really fun hobby, the way we do it - we spend a few hours reading a paper or two, take some notes along the way that we can glance at during the show to make important points or to raise any interesting questions that come to mind, and then talk about our favorite subject for an hour so - it's an investment of time, but a worthwhile one, imo.

We'll go back and edit in a nice opening sequence (called a "title card") when we get around to making one, but in the meantime we're at least doing it, and some people are listening and giving us some great feedback. We even heard from a brilliant Italian researcher in our comments section on Podomatic (our hosting service website) one time - that was a real treat. So that kind of encouragement is very rewarding.

APIGuy said:

IMO opinion, sharing matters of public record is not doxing, although with some people I will go the extra mile and keep it to myself.

As I understand bankruptcy, it necessarily involves relinquishing some privacy in exchange for being shielded from creditors.

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Well he doesn't live at that address anymore, so I don't see that as doxxing.

@Thomas R. Morrison

That's what I mean, though. I guess I wasn't clear; the way the show is right now? There's very little audience. I don't mean that the paranormal/alien shows don't have an audience, they do. I just think that without digging into new phenomena or events, the show as it stands right now is doomed.

Thank you for the podcasting advice! What I meant by "scripting" is more notes and bullet points, "Topic 1 -- be sure and mention this, this and this" type stuff. I agree that it should be off the cuff for the most part.

There is no audience because the Paracast show got extremely lazy. I hope to never hear about Roswell again or hear Stanton Friedman give the same replies he has given for the past twenty-five years. When ‘friends of the show’ are constantly showing up, you know the podcast has lost its way.

If someone bought the Paracast name, the show could be turned around. Steinberg will never let that happen however. That is his cash cow and he wouldn’t be able to beg like he has in years past. It doesn’t help matters that his co-host is now like Wormtongue, whispering in Steinberg’s ear, telling him what he wants to hear.

It’s too bad really. The show had an edge to it when Biedny was co-host. Unfortunately that was a long time ago.

HA! If Randall's Wormtongue, does that make all of us Gandalf Stormcrows?


....wish I had the power of a Maiiar....

APIGuy said:

Project Archivist has become my new Paracast. No ads, almost no begging, and a better sense of humor. I was actually on it once, too, and may be back some day.

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I like Where Did The Road Go? Seriah seems like a really good guy. I honestly believe he could take over Coast to Coast and do a worthy job.

Last Podcast on the Left is great but just too dark for me sometimes. The guys behind it have amazing energy and chemistry, and imho are world class talents.