Hello old friends, new friends and others. As some are aware, the event I have been planning for a year, the Cosmic Summit 2023, has had a sudden and disappointing setback. Two of the lead speakers, Graham Hancock and Jimmy Corsetti, will not be joining us in Asheville.
Fortunately and graciously, within 72 hours of the schedule change last Thursday, TV host Scott Wolter, ancient history influencer Luke Caverns, and my ole’ Carolina Bay Tusk Buddy Chris Cottrell, agreed to speak at the event. God bless these fine people. I had the incredible good fortune to hear Scott Wolter speak this weekend, fyi, and he has profoundly important announcements of brand-new evidence regarding America’s true history.
But why, the internet is asking, are Graham and Jimmy suddenly not coming, a mere fifty-five days out from a long-scheduled event?
I don’t blame the internet for asking. The bottom line is that Jimmy believed Howtube and I were misattributing or pocketing his Livestream sales (which he could have received via his affiliate link). He has made only two sales from an Instagram post, and no sales from a video advertisement on December 17th.
As for Graham, he believed the other speakers were being exploited based on a draft contract, intended for others, which he was transmitted months later by a non-signatory. He was also alarmed that I was using the “profits” from this event to the build an asset for myself only at the expense of the others. (I can’t be certain, but I suspect Graham believed the contract he saw was being “dropped” just now on the speakers, when it was actually provided late last summer when the conference was a very high-risk proposition).
Some unfortunate details are:
- Graham mistakenly interpreted the contract as providing me the speaker’s “Intellectual Property,” based on its text which simply allows me to own and license back to the speakers for free the video produced in the room that day. He also believed the speakers should be rightfully be paid a fee.
From what I understand, owning the IP would mean I would technically own any new “ideas” presented at the event and could restrict a speaker from using their own ideas in the future for themselves with others. That is a simply repellent thought to me. I have worked 27 years to publicize and promote other’s ideas in this arena for free, and I don’t care to own any of them.
Also, I intend to offer all speakers a second, differently worded contract, as I promised Graham before he dropped out. But for your review, here is the current contract.
- Graham believed I was spending the ‘profits’ on building assets for myself, rather than on the speakers, or in the interest of the this conference or the greater project of publicizing our ideas for years to come. Says Graham in an email: “The AV/Stage/camera set-up will be an asset to your conference business for years to come, and I don’t believe for a moment that your real purpose in harvesting the data you mention has anything to do with funding CRG for decades. But what is clear is that $100K that you could have shared amongst your speakers has gone into investments in your business.”
I didn’t purchase an AV/Stage/Camera set up; if I had, I guess it would be a private asset. Instead, I rented one for $40,000, out of respect for the audience and the speakers, particularly Graham.
The reference to ‘data’ is internet advertising data which was the product of a very popular social media campaign I’ve been running. The three clips from speakers’ past content put out each day are intended to publicize the conference, but more importantly to showcase it to an audience of people interested in our subject, to whom we can also advertise the livestream this year — and subsequently make sure we can sell thousands of tickets for next year.
As referenced by Graham, I was also excited to use the data for future crowdfunding for the Comet Research Group’s long planned expedition to obtain ice cores in Greenland, which stands the chance to prove the Younger Dryas Impact. As he says, he didn’t believe me, which is tough, because I have never lied to him and don’t lie well, being out of practice since I learned not to lie as a child.
Zooming out, from the first sign of Graham’s concern about the draft contract, I begged to speak with him personally by phone because my emails were apparently not being read, understood, or it seems believed. Which is why I can only speculate on certain parts of his thinking and motivation. All of his communication was in a flurry of increasingly heated electronics, egged on by Corsetti, who for some reason was copied along with others.
And what of Jimmy Corsetti? His complaint all year was that he was certain he must have sold more than two live streams, especially from his December 17th video which at the end included a much appreciated shout-out to the Cosmic Summit.
But Corsetti’s ‘Call to Action’ was ineffective; he did not truly specify that using the link would help him in any way, instead just directing his viewers to go below and click, and unfortunately ‘below’ was in the “Read More” dropdown, beneath ten other links, with no obvious delineation of what to purchase, or why.
I’m told only 1% of people watch the end of a 25-minute video. Thereafter (for the remaining stragglers) it is a further lift to get them to click “Read More” and find the proper link at the very bottom. Finally, while I salute those that do, there is little incentive to purchase a Livestream months in advance since there is an unlimited supply of them.
I’d note that Jimmy also refused to speak with me on the phone. The last call I had with him was fun as can be, so there was no lead up to this drama in our personal conversations, and no chance to resolve and heal an issue by talking.
But in the speaker Telegram Channel, Jimmy suggested repeatedly that Howtube, and by extension myself, their partner in the livestream, ‘fudged’ his numbers. That’s a very grave suggestion. I have posted the material proving there was no mismanagement of Jimmy’s livestreams here. This same data has been reviewed by all the speakers and they are comfortable there was no mismanagement.
Many have done all they can do to ease Jimmy Corsetti’s anxious suspicion of a conspiracy to steal $2.50 per video (The difference to HowTube between an affiliated and unaffiliated livestream sale). Thus, it was time for Jimmy to find something else to do that weekend.
I can’t begin to convey my frustration as this miserable affair unfolded while I was flying to Sedona to speak for free at a conference. I was willing but unable to have very important conversations with two people I considered friends. I know I have said of both that I loved them. But also, as you might imagine, I’ve taken personally the suggestion that I treated people unfairly in a contract, or did not manage others’ money with integrity.
For what it is worth, I just finished a 25-year career as a business owner and was notorious for cutting “soft deals.” Until I sold my business, I was a counterparty to more than 1000 complex, individual rural land contracts, not to mention hundreds of other specialized agreements, and I never provided a contract I believed was unfair to our counterparty.
And even if my ‘deals’ were soft, my ideas were pretty good, so most often they worked out for everyone involved, including me. If anything did go “south” — we remained friends — and I lost the money. But that is just me talking.
I know for a cold hard embarrassing fact that hundreds of people are very disappointed in me because these two gentlemen will not appear on June 17&18 in Asheville. But no one anywhere is more disappointed than I am. And we fourteen will go on without them.
Program Notes:
The May 2nd deadline we sent to request refunds we sent to Ticket Holders was driven by our need to tell the hotel the next day how many people are coming, since they have to buy a lot of food.
If you have decided not come and have been refunded, please grace us by cancelling your hotel room since they can be used by others.
I have a Twitter thread below where I am responding to any questions anyone has. Thank you!
Thanks Jason. Each of the speakers is entirely free not to appear, just like Jimmy and Graham. To date they all remained interested for little money, just like they were last summer. Even Graham agreed to speak for free and never asked for any money.
— George Howard (@CosmicTusk) April 27, 2023