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EFFORTPOST John Fenley: The story of a man who bought 1 million CDs from a failed company and moved into a warehouse located in one of the most violent cities in America in hopes of starting a business. A story of determination, city zoning laws, and many robberies


Tldr

Man buys over a million cds, Vinyls, and cassettes from a failed company in an attempt to start the company over again. Abandons his family and buys and moves into a warehouse in another state in one of the most violent cities in America. Spends over half a million dollars to get cockblocked by the city for zoning violations and gets robbed over 30+ times. He sneeds about the city and it's inhabitants on twitter documenting his journey. He's also trying to build a fusion reactor and a science museum in the city


MY CASSETTES! :#!soycry:

Backstory

Murfie was a startup company that focused on the digitization of physical media into digital media. People would send their CDs, Vinyls, and cassettes, which the company would store in their warehouse and rip the contents onto their own platform for people to stream. Murfie even allowed people to buy and sell with other users on their platform.

During sometime during early November, the company asked all of it's current customers to make sure they renewed their current subscription before November 17th. No more than 5 days later, the company sent out an email to it's customers saying that the compnay was ceasing all operations including the website. This abrupt shutdown shocked everyone, that even that former CEO had one idea what had happened .

The situation only continued to spiral out of control. Murfies ToS had a clause that promised its customers that they would return all of their physical media in the case the company shut down (For a small shipping fee of course :marseymerchant:), but with all of their services down, customers had no way of getting back their cassettes and cds. In total, there were close to a million CDs, cassestes, and Vinyls left somewhere in limbo. Unsurprisingly, people were soying out about this:

😒 Our first β€œstartup” client was Murfie. We’re super proud of being part of their story, and our world is better off because of their music-ownership-focused journey.

They have my 100+ cd's and $1000+ dollars. nothing to be proud of if they leave people in a lurch.

At this point everyone had lost hope that they wouldn't get their stuff back. Until one determined man showed up.


John Fenley :#marseyautism:

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1684135341145594.webp

John Fenley is an investor, landchad, family man and an neurodivergent for music. When he heard the news of Murfie going out of business he stepped up immediately and offered to buy the remaining digital collection.

It wasn't his first venture into this type of busines. Fenley had a similar business that to Murfie that he started years ago, but was unable to find investors for his company. But this a second chance for him, because he knew what he could do it right this time. This was his white whale.

Shortly after, Fenley sold about 150k dollars worth of stock he received from another company and purchased an abandoned warehouse in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Before we continue let's discuss Pine Bluff for those unfamiliar with it. The only aspect you really need to know about Pine Bluff is that it makes third world shitholes look like a paradise in comparison. Let us look at some statistics to truly understand it :marseychartscatter:

Homicide rate:

Pine Bluff had 29 homicides in 2021. Pine Bluff had 23 murders in 2020 - a rate of 56.5 murders per 100,000 people. The national average was 6.5 murders per 100,000 people in 2020

Poverty Rate:

The per capita income for the city was $17,334. About 24.3% of families and 30.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 45.6% of those under age 18 and 13.7% of those age 65 or over.

Demographics:

https://i.rdrama.net/images/16841353415972629.webp

A fairly dangerous city to say the least. But, Im guessing at the time Fenley didn't understand this and would come across many problems in his journey for his whale.


The journey :#marseypirate:

Fenley has been documenting his adventure on twitter. These tweets are mostly in chronological order, but these aren't all of his tweets. You can check out Fenleys twitter account to see his full journey, but im just going to show some of the highlights.

Right off the bat, Fenley has issues with the Pine bluff city hall fining him for building violations:

Was handed this today by PineBluff zoning. Apparently semi truck trailers, shipping containers, and tents aren't allowed anywhere in the city. Even in industrial and commercial zones. Is this real? Just shut down the whole town.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1684135342192732.webp

He eventually meets with the mayor to discuss his future prospects but that ends up going nowhere:

Was handed this at the end of my meeting with the Mayor of cityofpinebluff. It's basically an eviction order barring me from living on property I own. I told them I would not leave the #Murfie containers unguarded regardless of their threats. Meeting did not go well.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/16841353433329146.webp

I should mention too, that Fenley is also trying to turn the warehouse into a science museum and that he's attempting to build a fusion reactor :marseymushroomcloud:

I was playing around with a GPU accelerated Penning Trap simulator we are building to help understand my fusion reactor and came up with a very weird idea based on what I was seeing when I start with a flat disc of particles.

Tragically for Fenley, the PineBluff goverment are a bunch of chuds that don't trust the science:

What kind of city government tries to prevent someone from opening a science museum?

Fenleys frustrations with the city government only continue to grow:

Pine Bluff just seems to want to tear everything down. All they know here is destruction. It's amazing to me that they act like this. Can you imaging any other city working so hard to bulldoze houses? They don't want anyone to fix things.

The downward spiral only continues for Fenley:

Had another break in at the warehouse yesterday. This time they were able to open all 4 containers. They stole the security system, 2 telescopes, 2 turbo molecular pumps and other high vacuum equipment cowtools, welders, RC toys, sculptures, etc. Murfie media seems mostly OK

He does offer a $3 bounty to whoever catches those robbers :marseybountyhunter:

Had over $20,000 worth of equipment stolen last Saturday. Putting a bounty on catching the crooks.

They never catch them lmao

I never could have imagined that I would have to lock up all my valuables, and carry a loaded pistol with me, to feel safe walking to the bathroom at night in my own home.

Fenley also starts sneeding at the police for being shit at their job:

I think we need to change the way the police in this town are paid. I say double the budget, but every time a crime happens, the police pay the victims to make them whole until they reach 75% of their current pay. Let's see how fast that stops crime.

Despair grows inside Fenley:

PineBluff is a cesspit. What do I do? I've put about half a million into trying to get started here, but I can't get anything done. I only have about $100k left to work with, and that's not going to buy much anywhere else. I will not put Murfie media in rented space again.

I should mention that Fenley is also married and has kids that live in another state. It appears that he's somewhat abandoned them in pursuit of his dream.

Surprise... I was robbed again in PineBluff today.

7 days later... :marseywait:

Robbed again! WTF! Pinebluff 2 guys in sniper gear and gloves came and robbed me again this morning. I've lost track of how many times I've been robbed. I'm seriously going crazy.

Several hours later.... :marseywait:

Twice in one day... called 911 immediately. I went out and had the guy on the ground at gunpoint. Police were on site in 6 minutes.

Would you believe I was robbed again?

:#marseyagreefast:

Febley is also is his own security guard too. He'll often confront those on his property with a gun of couse:

Robbed again? Seriously?

Fenley called the cops on the guy in the above video, and the police actually arrested him! But the guy was quickly released from jail and came back to Fenleys warehouse:

And they let the guy go, and surprise, he came back again today.

PineBluff happening right now. Two thieves were scoping my place out with this U-Haul filled with thievery cowtools. I had them at gunpoint but they ran away.

Three kids seeing if they can steal stuff. Just another day in PineBluff.

The constant stress continues to pile on our neurodivergent Ishmael:

3 years ago today I read an article that changed my life. Murfie had shut down and all the media they stored was headed to the dump unless a miracle happened. I stepped in to try to save the situation, but being stuck in containers for 3 years isn't much better. I'm so sorry.

I should clarify that he's basically living at the warehouse fulltime to ensure that one is trying to rob it. At least one has ever tried taking his security cameras:

PineBluff this is why I hate this town.

:#marseysad:

Can anyone tell from the sound what kind of gun I just heard firing shots outside my warehouse?

Fenley has been here for 3 years at this point and still hasn't been murdered somehow

I nominate PineBluff for "Most Purge -like" town. Criminals here have learned that nobody will stop them, and they won't pay any consequences for their behavior.I actually wonder if the city is complicit in this. Lack of investigation and prosecution is tacit approval.

:#marseysoypoint:

Good movie reference!

I was having a pretty heated argument with somebody last night over a truck that they stole from me, and I'm pretty sure they burned one of my houses down. #PineBluff

https://i.rdrama.net/images/16841353449498813.webp

Hopefully 2023 brings better luck to our hero

Not 4 hours into the new year and I'm already injured while dealing with an intruder. 2023 is off to a great start!

Its never going to get better for him

:#marseydepressed:

So far that's Fenleys entire story. An interesting one to say the least. Hopefully he doesn't get murdered so we can get more updates on his pursuit of happiness. Fenley doesn't look like he's giving up on PineBluff yet, since he's bought over 75 properties in the city so far. I truly hope he does catch his white whale one day

Thanks for reading!

:#marseywave:

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How do these absolute r-slurs get wealthy enough to piss money away on this dumb shit?

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probably a codecel, making a lot of money and living 90%+ of your life through a computer screen makes people weird


https://i.postimg.cc/dVgyQgj2/image.png https://i.postimg.cc/d3Whbf0T/image.png

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:#marseysweating:

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You don't need to be wealthy, he spent like $6k on the Murfie company and $20k on the warehouse

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Another post said the warehouse cost $290k

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You're correct about that. The original price of the warehouse was 375k which he got for about 2/3 original price. I believe he put somewhere between 100 to 150k toward thevwarehouse if not more over time

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