Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence

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The following email was received by my Fleen account twice last night at 9:46pm (GMT-5:00). It is reproduced exactly as received (excepting only that I have edited to make the “<” and “>” symbols visible).

from: Todd <todd @davidandgoliathtees.com>
to: gary@fleen.com
date: Apr 9, 2007 9:46 PM
subject: <no subject>

Thanks for the inquiryÅ

Here’s my inspiration! Every month I paint the works of a pedophile. This week, I chose the work of Dave Kelly, he’s a huge infantilist furry. This is someone who draws baby anthropomorphic animals either wetting themselves or jacking off. I’m not kidding. Once again, his name is Dave Kelly and this is his FTP full of his lovely art, there are even some photos of the artist himself, handsome fellow isnÂ¹t he?

http://seth.beepboopinternet.com/davekelly/

Next month, please look for my special pedophile/serial killer series when I recreate the works of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Once again thanks for your support and please help me with my cause by spreading the word and showing the world just how creative pedophiles can be.

Do it for the kids.

Todd

Original text with full headers below the cut. I am not qualified to say if the email is legit, but if you are (and can back up your conclusion), please comment. If it is legit, Todd Goldman is even a bigger jerk than we thought. If it’s fake, his fans are even bigger jerks than we thought. Also, one can’t help but thinking that making statements of fact linking identifiable people with pedophile is, oh what’s the word? Actionable. Either way, not real good for Goldie.

Edit: As some have noticed, the link in the email above features images that are arguably pornographic. There is the possibility that the sender sent this email (which was apparently mass-mailed) to minors without any warnings as to the content. This makes for an interesting situation which may involve the sender in violations of Federal law. Now I really want it to be from Goldman.

Delivered-To: [my email redacted]
Received: by 10.114.192.12 with SMTP id p12cs89535waf;
Mon, 9 Apr 2007 18:46:46 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.90.88.13 with SMTP id l13mr4832648agb.1176169605940;
Mon, 09 Apr 2007 18:46:45 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <todd @davidandgoliathtees.com>
Received: from mail.dumbrellahosting.com (mail.dumbrellahosting.com [69.9.188.58])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 7si5476080agb.2007.04.09.18.46.45;
Mon, 09 Apr 2007 18:46:45 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning todd@davidandgoliathtees.com does not designate 69.9.188.58 as permitted sender)
Received: (qmail 32068 invoked by uid 1011); 9 Apr 2007 21:46:45 -0400
Delivered-To: fleen.com-gary@fleen.com
Received: (qmail 32065 invoked by uid 1015); 9 Apr 2007 21:46:45 -0400
Received: from 216.199.185.166 by bertha (envelope-from <todd @davidandgoliathtees.com>, uid 1005) with qmail-scanner-2.01st
(clamdscan: 0.90.1/705. spamassassin: 3.1.8. perlscan: 2.01st.
Clear:RC:0(216.199.185.166):SA:0(-2.6/5.0):.
Processed in 1.951127 secs); 10 Apr 2007 01:46:45 -0000
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.6 required=5.0
X-Spam-Report: SA TESTS
-0.0 SPF_HELO_PASS SPF: HELO matches SPF record
-2.6 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 0 to 1%
[score: 0.0000]
X-Qmail-Scanner-Mail-From: todd@davidandgoliathtees.com via bertha
X-Qmail-Scanner: 2.01st (Clear:RC:0(216.199.185.166):SA:0(-2.6/5.0):. Processed in 1.951127 secs Process 32056)
Received: from smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com (216.199.185.166)
by mail.dumbrellahosting.com with AES256-SHA encrypted SMTP; 9 Apr 2007 21:46:43 -0400
Received: by smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com (Postfix, from userid 1006)
id B90EF6AC1; Mon, 9 Apr 2007 21:46:42 -0400 (EDT)
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8-gr0 (2007-02-13) on
smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com
X-Qmail-Scanner-MOVED-X-Spam-Level:
X-Qmail-Scanner-MOVED-X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham
version=3.1.8-gr0
Received: from [192.168.150.32] (252-246.187-72.tampabay.res.rr.com [72.187.246.252])
by smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EBB76ABE
for <gary @fleen.com>; Mon, 9 Apr 2007 21:46:32 -0400 (EDT)
User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.2.3.060209
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:46:30 -0400
Subject: <no subject>
From: Todd <todd @davidandgoliathtees.com>
To: <gary @fleen.com>
Message-ID: <c24064b6 .71A0%todd@davidandgoliathtees.com>
Thread-Index: Acd7Eg9RThmf9OcFEduQwQAWy41VMQ==
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain;
charset=”ISO-8859-1″
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable
X-Virus-Status: No
X-Virus-Checker-Version: clamassassin 1.2.3 with clamscan / ClamAV 0.90.1/3058/Mon Apr 9 15:45:50 2007

Wait… what? Holy shit… uh…

what?

I haven’t had my coffee yet today… so I say we form a mob of angry web cartoonists and storm this dude’s studio with bricks.

I don’t drink coffee, so I plan on staying pissed off ALL DAY.

I read about that on the Something Awful thread. It also appears, based on that thread, that the message *has* reached minors.

You’ve got to give him credit for creativity, tho’ … the only way he could possibly justify being caught with his pants down is to suggest that he’s doing social commentary about “just plain evil” people with their pants down. But I am kinda suprised he didn’t skip right over Jeffrey Dahmer and make something up about Hitler and his little boys.

I don’t think he realizes exactly how much worse he made his situation by doing this. I hope he has the opportunity to come to a full realization fairly soon.

How can it be social commentary is so few people familiar with the original material or its creator? Dave Kelly is hardly part of the American lexicon. Who would get the reference? I mean, if he were doing reproductions of John Wayne Gacy’s clown paintings, then I might buy it, but this is just flailing for a foothold in a river of dog shit.

Two things pop out at me, Gary:

1) The email address has an extra space in the middle (‘todd ‘). Since he likes to piss people off, it wasn’t hard to find other emails from him posted around the web (see http://forums.yellowworld.org/archive/index.php/t-10362.html) Note that there it’s just ‘todd@’, no extra space. A spoof account? If so, an ‘official’ spoof account created just to generate plausible deniability?

2) I’m sure that Roadrunner could tell the proper authorities who was using the originating IP address of (252-246.187-72.tampabay.res.rr.com [72.187.246.252]) Phone listings show two Todd Goldman entries in shouting distance of Clearwater; wonder if RR is the cable modem ISP in Clearwater (it’s close to tampa, but I assume that cable franchises in FL are town by town like they are here…)

Note that all my forensic training was received from Gil Grissom and Mr. H. Caine of Miami, so who knows…

Not to mention the fact that doing any kind of deep social commentary would run totally counter to the rest of Goldman’s “work”, which is basically a collection of dumb-ass puns and snarky one-liners.

How can it be social commentary is so few people familiar with the original material or its creator?

No question, but it’s the only excuse he’s got to pretend he’s done something other than outright theft.

The problem I’m having with this situation is that Dave Kelly seems to be hoping that a lot of internet snarking will take care of his problem for him… And while everyone has tonnes of that in supply, the lawsuit thing requires a bit of money.

So, should Dave decide to move forward with the legal action he should be taking, I will put down several hundred dollars for the cause. That’s not really lawyer money, but it’s a start. And if everyone is willing to do the same, I think the “Drag Todd’s Candy Ass Into Court Fund” will be a big success.

How about it, folks?

I can’t believe I actually agree with William G here.

“Ho ho, I’m Dave Kelley! I bet if I make people think that the person I stole from is a pervert, they’ll support me!”

Dumbass.

I would contribute to a legal fund for Dave. Though at present I couldn’t contribute in the hundreds of dollars range, unfortunately.

Excellent points from Bg Porter; I’ve just gone back to examine my original and the “Todd @” does not appear there; it appears to have been introduced by me in fixing the < and > symbols (WordPress introduced bogus tags into the body of the email to “close” the “tags” that surrounded email addresses and paths). The original emails are preserved and available for any who wish to observe them.

Still looking for somebody to be able to definitively say that the email is legit; the fact that I received a reply after emailing Goldman’s PR reps tends to confirm; the fact that it came from a different email address and did not quote my text works slightly against.

[…] Gary Per William G’s suggestion here (and related suggested in the SA forum thread), there appears to be a desire for setting up a legal attack fund for Dave Kelly to take out Todd Goldman’s kneecaps in a proper fashion. […]

I’m no expert, but this seems to be too retarded of a move even for Todd. I’d lean more towards ‘Account compromised by hackers with unclear motives’.

Also, does anyone know if the ridiculous pictures at that link are actually Dave’s?

Yeah, I got this e-mail the other day from a reader and was trying to warn Kelly. And it doesn’t matter what Dave Kelly does in his private spare time, Goldman still stole copyrighted work from him.

“2) Iâ€™m sure that Roadrunner could tell the proper authorities who was using the originating IP address of (252-246.187-72.tampabay.res.rr.com [72.187.246.252]) Phone listings show two Todd Goldman entries in shouting distance of Clearwater; wonder if RR is the cable modem ISP in Clearwater (itâ€™s close to tampa, but I assume that cable franchises in FL are town by town like they are hereâ€¦)” -BG Porter

I live just north of Clearwater, and I can tell you that Road Runner is definitely one of, if not the, largest ISPs in the area, serving the entirety of West Central FL.

If brought to court, RR can be forced to give up the information about who was located and using that IP.

Art Plagiarism

So I was reading Kris Straub’s post on this (via PvP), and a smashingly good idea hit. Since Todd Goldman is an art thief (the guy who makes most of those crap t-shirts at Hot Topic), why not link to his blatant plagiarist site? He’s alre…

I wonder if Goldman hasn’t put this email out in hopes of later building a case for not guity by reason of insanity.

Wow. What an absolute shit. He’s going to lose his entire company to Shmorky. He reminds me of that Girls Gone Wild asshole who looks to be headed to jail soon. An irredeemable asshole to the end.

Well, besides what is posted above, I just discovered a further case of “copycatting” on behalf of our beloved Todd Goldman.
If you check this link:
and then visit a comic by the name of (look at the comic and the character page), the similarities will become apparent…
What really disgusts me, is the price tag of this so-called work of art: nearly $5000! All while the original artist is selling her unarguably better drawings for a mere 20 Euros per book! (also available free online)

I don’t know why, but the liks came out wrong when I posed so allow me to reiterate:
Stuff Sucks, by Liz Greenfield
Todd Goldman’s poor copy

By the way, Dave has stated in no uncertain terms that whoever that guy is in those “damning” pictures, it isn’t him. Is Todd even capable of honesty?

Looking at the headers of the email, mail.dumbrellahosting.com is your hosting ISP, forwarding to what I guess is your gmail address, which means that it really did receive the mail from 216.199.185.166 which a lookup shows really is smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com which in turn shows up as really the mail host for the domain davidandgoliathtees.com. A quick test shows that smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com does not allow just anyone to send mail through it, even pretending to be from todd@davidandgoliathtees.com, implying the mail was sent by someone who could authenticate to it. Either the mail really was sent from 72.187.246.252 which does match up as a residential Tampa Bay RoadRunner ip address, or else whoever sent this has enough control over smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com to have it spoof headers. The entry for the domain at http://www.aboutus.org/DavidAndGoliathTees.com was generated from WHOIS information last June and shows the older contact email address of dgoliath@tampabay.rr.com instead of the current contact email address in the davidandgoliathtees.com domain, which matches up with fact that the purported original sender was at a residential Tampa Bay RR broadband ip address.

The bottom line is that it is plausible that the email did come from todd@davidandgoliathtees.com and it certainly came from someone who has access to use the smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com mail server.

You assholes dont have any talents to be copying and blablantly stealing the art of others. If you dont like it, dont look at it, wont want your kids to see it? SPEND TIME WITH THEM RATHER THAN WRITE SHIT ON THE NET LIKE STARBUCK POSEURS.

This looks like something worth sending on to MSNBC, CNN, etc.

I concur with Bugstomper. It’s time to get the cops involved. If this hasn’t been reported, it should be. (And it goes without saying that civil action should be pursued. I would be happy to chip in a few buck to that end, myself.)

[…] Gary Tyrrell has received what appears to be an email from alleged plagiarist Todd Goldman, purporting to tell his side of the story. (For those just joining us, Goldman appears to have stolen a Dave Kelly cartoon wholesale.) If it is from Goldman, than he appears to be far worse than a mere plagiarist. Here’s the money quote: […]

Rampant plagarism? Libel? Nail that bastard’s hide to your studio door. Artists everywhere will thank you for it, and even donate to your legal bills.

Someone should send this info on to Keith Olbermann.
This looks like a story for “Countdown”!

You know, guys, I don’t think the “esteemed” Mr. Goldman has actually read any of Dave Kelly’s comics. If he had, he’d know that a number of the characters depicted are adults, in spite of their drawn proportions, and girls from Purple Pussy are 18+, at the very youngest.

[…] The T-Shirt guy fiasco is even stupider. Here’s a compilation of thefts and alleged thefts. What bears repeating: this is an intellectual property argument over novelty tees, and not even particularly clever ones. And the guy has made an obscene amount of money selling them. And his defense, at least at the moment, is that he “unintentionally” took the design from a submission and didn’t research it enough. Note that the guy isn’t just talentless and dishonest; he’s a total douchebag. But back up a step to really appreciate his “defense:” the guy takes drawings “submitted” by other people, paints them on a canvas with his name on it, and charges thousands of dollars for them. And they sell. I can’t help feeling like we’re all victims in this scenario. […]

I think he might be a scientologist. He lives in clearwater and calls anyone who upsets him a pedophile. Typical scientologist tactics.
http://www.xenutv.com/originals/4th.htm

I don’t know anything about this whole thing other than what I’ve read on two pages, so I don’t have much of an opinion, but I would like to say that I love all of you; people like you are the reason I tell people, “never fuck with geeks.” Watching you trace IPs and shit is beautiful. I love all of you.

Todd Goldman couldn’t have written that email. I have no doubt that he’s guilty of plagiarism, but what he’s stated has made sense so far: He’s not a “web guy.” He’s never heard of Dave Kelly, who is popular only on the web, and since he and his company failed to research the source of the pic properly, he does take responsibility for plagiarism. However, again, he’s NOT familiar with the web, and you have to be damned familiar with Dave Kelly to know that he’s an “infantilist furry,” (which is actually a more polite way to put it) or whatever he happens to be into.

The truth is that the URL he gave is prolific on SomethingAwful, along with Dave Kelly’s name, and SomethingAwful is a damn good place to find goons who know how to spoof email sources. It fits better than the accusation that a successful businessman (as much of a douche as he is) went to the trouble to research all the dirt on Shmorky and unleash it at huge risk of a libel suit–especially after making a public apology!! -That- would have been senseless.

What Shmorky does behind closed windows is his own damn business, and nobody else’s. This email is an obvious hoax and should simply be ignored. The only issue that has been raised was the first one, that Dave Kelly’s been plagiarized by Todd Goldman.

My God, enough already, so I stole a few paintings and raped Mother Teresa, and snorted coke off dead babies asses, for chrissakes! It’s not like I’m Hitler or anything?!?

Should I start writing out checks to every one of you talentless, jealous hacks that didn’t have the gumption “making art by committee”? Sorry for your struggles and boxes of Ramen noodles, can’t wait to see the TV series!

I love you all this much!

Send love into the universe, baby!

[…] Please note that at no point in the above message does the person purporting to represent Goldman ever state which “articles” are to be considered actionable libel — apparently, Mr. Tyrrell is supposed to guess. One would think that after getting nailed on stealing an image from cartoonist Dave Kelly, then accusing him (without evidence) of being a pedophile before finally confessing to the deed, Goldman would want to lay low for a few months and let the whole thing blow over; instead, this latest action promises to create a second round of controversy which will likely further drag Goldman’s name through the mud. As before, let me note that it’s possible for this latest bout of idiocy to be the work of some malicious third party, attempting to do Goldman further damage by sending out fraudulent emails. If it isn’t, however, one has to conclude that Goldman and/or his attorney has fundamentally misjudged how this whole Internet thing works. (Ever heard of “Whack-a-Mole”? Here’s an example.) Assuming that this email was sent at Goldman’s behest, does he really think that suing a few people is going to make the Kelly incident go away? If he does, I don’t want any of whatever it is he’s smoking — no buzz is worth that kind of stupid. […]

BG Porter wrote:

Roadrunner Tampa Bay covers no less than five counties. I live in Tampa, so I’d love to meet the self-righteous asshat that sent the email and ask them what their fucking problem is…

[…] There was a recent, shall we say, hubub over Todd Goldman’s companyÂ David and GoliathÂ Tees. It would seem that certain paintings by Mr. Goldman bearÂ more than a superficial resemblence to works by other ar-teests (in other words, people are accusing him of being a thieving bastard). This, as you might imagine, has not gone over well with Goldman, and he crafted an intelligent, well-reasoned, calm response that politely and respectfully refuted the accusations levied against him. […]

Dude if this is real I’ll be so happy! he deserves for it to be real, plus since he FOUND this stuff doesn’t that make HIM a pedophile…

[…] …the massive coverage and linkage has reached Google. Above is an excerpt from the first page of results that are returned when you enter the quoted phrase “art thief” into the popular search engine. Equally dicey links likewise come up when you enter the phrase “Todd Goldman” into Google’s front-page form. Gosh, steal a cartoon, slander the victim as a pedophile without the slightest shred of evidence when you get caught, and then confess to the deed — after which, begin siccing lawyers on the people who notice — and you’ll find yourself turned into the center of attention for all the wrong reasons. Who knew? Not Todd Goldman, obviously. […]

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