Upsetting Day: John Fenley's Cursed Crime Warehouse 🌭
Added 2023-07-06 12:00:04 +0000 UTC
I am here to tell you a story. A story about a man. A man with a dream. A dream he purchased for 6,000 dollars from the bankrupt company of the guy who first had that dream. In 2019, John Fenley bought the rights and catalog of Murphie, a defunct media company with a business plan that couldn’t possibly fail other than that time it had already failed. Remember CDs? Those things you used to listen to before you could stream literally any song in the entire world for 8 dollars a month? Well, what if you wanted to stream your private CD collection at any time? What’s that you say? There are already approximately a dozen easy ways to do this? Well, what if you sent your physical CDs to a warehouse, the warehouse uploaded the CDs to a cloud server, kept your CDs, and you had to pay a monthly fee both per CD stored and times you listened to that same CD on their streaming service? Someone call the Secret Service because John is printing money over here.
Pictured: John Fenley shortly before embarking on a series of the worst decisions ever made by a person living or dead.
Now, John Fenley is a dreamer, but he is not naive. He knows that you have to hedge your investments. While the entire “mailing your CD collection to a dude who will charge you to listen to them online” business model is a sure bet, you always gotta have a side hustle. Which is why John has a backup plan: building a prototype fusion reactor by himself.
He does not have a degree in physics.
That seems like a recipe for comic book disaster, because it literally is one. We’re one errant possum away from an amateur nuclear reactor melting down atop a pile of Deep Blue Something CDs, which is the only way future generations would remember Deep Blue Something.
When Fenley started searching for a place to house his many pending disasters, he had one qualification in mind: Location, location, location. Specifically, the cheapest one possible. There were no other criteria. He actually typed in “warehouse” on a real estate website and clicked sort by price. What he wound up with was a 17 acre property for 375,000 dollars in a small town called Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Wow, all that space, and for so little! How could he say no?
Say, why was that warehouse so cheap again?
Oh.
OH.
Undeterred by silly things like a statistically impossible level of crime, Fenley bought the property at ⅔ the cost and shipped his 800,000 CDs and 35,000 pound magnet to what would become his new home. Oh yeah, he was also going to live there. This will become hilariously important later.
Fenley hopped on the internet and proudly shared the location of his new warehouse, that he would be the only one there, and he’d be storing valuable media and electronics on site. The extremely thinkable happened.
It turns out this quaint little community with the crime stats of a Grand Theft Auto rampage was not actually the safest place to store physical media, electronics, any kind of metal, or John Fenleys. Nearly every day for months Fenley posted twitter videos of the many times he got robbed by a rotating cast of tweakers.
They left the wheels and stole the fucking engine. That’s the kind of next-level property theft game Pine Bluff, Arkansas was bringing. But John wasn’t deterred. No path to fortune is without its little hurdles. He knew just what to do: First, he’d buy state of the art security for his storage containers and inst-
They stole that.
He doubled down. The problem here was there’s no security system watching his other security system, so he’d just-
They stole that.
Okay, but that’s a fluke. If he bought a replacement there’s no way anybody w-
They stole it again.
You know what the ultimate security system is? John Motherfucking Fenley. He started sleeping in a tent in the warehouse so he could catch the criminals in the act.
They stole the tent.
He’d had enough. Fenley began open-carrying a weapon at all times and holding any would-be thieves at gunpoint.
So now that word got around John Fenley was an armed maniac on high alert for robbers, there was only one thing the tweakers could do.
Did you think this sentence was going to say “steal his guns?”
That would’ve been funny.
But silly. That’s one step too far, into cartoonish hijinx. Instead the tweakers just snuck in wearing ghillie suits.
And so begins the game of cat and mouse. Nearly invisible tweakers operating with military precision against John Fenley, the Batman of used CD storage.
Here’s Batman ripping his crotch on a fire hydrant.
He posted that! Nobody made him!
Fenley, having lost his tent to the Tweaker Wars, started sleeping in the back of his truck with a flashlight and a firearm. This was it. He was basically one with the night. A thief would have to be literally invisible to get past him, like some kind of tweaker Predator.
There’s… there’s not even an explanation posted for this one. The meth heads spontaneously developed cloaking technology. This is a cold war in time lapse. It’s like watching evolution happen. There is no defense an amateur nuclear streaming failure can develop that his natural predator, the Arkansas copper thief, will not counter.
As shameful as it is to admit defeat, a businessman has to know when to cut a bad investment loose. That’s why John Fenley went ahead and bought an additional 75 properties in the town of Pine Bluff, becoming the largest single landowner in the county. Let’s see them rob him now, when he owns everything! There’s maybe a flaw in that logic, but I can’t spot it.
At the same time, Fenley was also in a bureaucratic standoff with Pine Bluff. You know who doesn’t love it when you announce you’re going to build an untested fusion reactor within city limits? The city. John shifted strategies, planning to use the area as a science museum for kids instead of Black Mesa.
They stole all his fun science stuff.
At this point, Fenley estimates he lost approximately 50,000 dollars in equipment alone. He was now hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, living in the Wonkaland of Larceny. But, according to him, it was all going to plan.
Time for a brand new business venture: The town of Pine Bluff was planning to spend 3.5 million dollars to build a community Go-Kart track. Fenley, sensing an opportunity, tried to undercut the deal by buying 30 Go-Karts and applying for a license to turn his property into the first community track instead!
The license was denied. Son of a bitch, it’s like the city somehow knows about city affairs!
Fenley, in yet another classic Fenleyism, announced to the internet that he was keeping 30 fueled and ready Go-Karts in his boundless cornucopia of plunderable scrap.
There’s actually no way to guess what happened next.
John Fenley remained unbroken. He realized he can’t even blame the thieves for his situation, they’re only products of the society that made them. John understands that, in fact, he’s got a brilliant idea to fix poverty entirely!
…
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: John Hector McFarland, a proud member of an alien race that comes to Earth once every generation to hunt copper wire.
You can read this article and every other one on the much better in every way 1900HOTDOG.COM.
Comments
Is there any police activity in Pine Bluff, or do the criminals just steal all the police cars before they leave the lot?
David Conner
2023-07-20 14:43:44 +0000 UTCOK. I appreciate the explanation. I just got inspired and wrote about 3,000 words without really understanding how these things work.
Ethan Rangel
2023-07-18 17:40:40 +0000 UTCAbsolutely not. It’s a hangout spot for fans. The closes we have is a channel where you can suggest topics, but they’re not soliciting writers.
Adrienne
2023-07-18 16:42:25 +0000 UTCThe discord's a place to hang out and chat with people, but there is a channel for topic suggestions and a channel for creative/cool stuff you've made. Writing an article for the site is something that they ask people to do, not something people volunteer. It's still a lot of fun and worth checking out! Apologies for the bad info I first gave about contacting them directly.
FancyShark
2023-07-18 16:28:05 +0000 UTCEvery non-staff writer who has an article up here has only done so by invitation under very unusual circumstances. There's no process here to submit pitches, it's just not that kind of operation. And in general it's considered bad form to submit cold to any outlet. Most sites and publications that are open to pitches have very clear submission guidelines and expect them to be followed to a T. And those that don't have guidelines generally don't welcome pitches. It's one of those things you're just expected to know when you're trying to get published.
Clementine Danger
2023-07-18 16:26:57 +0000 UTCThanks for replying. I tried that and got a rejection letter. I’ve never been on the Discord. Are a lot of the posts strange/stupid/ funny things people have found that basically double as article pitches?
Ethan Rangel
2023-07-17 21:04:21 +0000 UTCEach of Javo's articles have been him sharing his discoveries of internet weirdos on the discord and mining the source material so thoroughly that Brockway tells him to write up a summary and then Brockway and Seanbaby tweak it with jokes afterward. So, Javo's situation is a bit unique. If you contact them through Patreon or Discord and have some samples of writing you've done, that sounds like the best approach. UPDATE: The recommendation to contact them is incorrect. Please see rest of thread.
FancyShark
2023-07-17 20:38:53 +0000 UTCHonest question here-how did you get your work to Seanbaby and Brockway? Did they contact you? I’ve written something that I think is pretty good but I don’t know how to get it front of them. Hilarious article by the way.
Ethan Rangel
2023-07-17 16:55:57 +0000 UTCThe event horizon!
Dr. Spaceman
2023-07-16 23:08:49 +0000 UTCJust...yes. All the kinds of yes. This man is my hero. We should immediately shoot him into space to tame alien planets before our arrival. Who needs oxygen? He'll just run the air conditioner in the car he's sleeping in.
Tad Williams
2023-07-15 22:04:40 +0000 UTCThis is one of the most fascinating things I've read on this website. There's an actual Gotham City out there, only instead of Batman it has Homer Simpson.
Pablo Rodriguez
2023-07-09 07:12:08 +0000 UTC<3 you pinko scum
Alpha Scientist Javo
2023-07-08 13:52:40 +0000 UTCTruly. Javo and I like to give each other guff because he's the monster who killed three of our most famous unsolved toddler murders, but I always cover his 6 when he goes forth to call technolibertarians stupid dweebs. Anyway, I laughed at his work. And this article, too.
Brendan McGinley
2023-07-08 04:54:47 +0000 UTCI could have kept reading this forever.
LyraV
2023-07-07 21:32:50 +0000 UTCHoly shit - he's even more delusional than I thought - the evidence: https://youtu.be/B5KleqoyB0s
CHAUGGLE
2023-07-07 15:26:22 +0000 UTCSo I take it that he never even got to the point where he could start his nuclear reactor project then? The army of thieves clearly was just out to defend their town from a mad scientist trying to melt it down, and they succeeded! It's a heartwarming story where the heroes win!
Robert K.
2023-07-07 13:29:57 +0000 UTCIsn't Nemesis evil Batman? Guess we'll find out once a woman in Pine Bluff is found to have been exploded by a womb bomb.
Matt Edwards
2023-07-07 07:12:36 +0000 UTCThis seems unfair. I've been on assorted medications for years, and all I've got to show for it is not being in as much pain. Meanwhile these guys are developing superpowers. I need to talk to my doctor.
Matt Edwards
2023-07-07 07:05:18 +0000 UTCIs the town actually shrinking, or are more of the population engaging their stealth fields when census takers knock on the door? There could be an army of invisible tweaker children by now if it's an inheritable genetic mutation.
Matt Edwards
2023-07-07 07:02:37 +0000 UTCOH, I get it. Pine Bluff is actually Earth-3.
Daphne Lawless
2023-07-07 06:41:26 +0000 UTCYeah, as a Sacramento native who recently had to buy a house in literally the worst market anywhere in the entire United States (because the people we'd been renting from decided to sell the tiny duplex we'd been living in out from under us for $800,000) people are leaving California simply because the coastal states are becoming too expensive to purchase property in... not because the area is in any way undesirable, unlivable, or there are no jobs. Given a choice, I don't know anybody who actually *wanted* to move all the way out to Knobhole, Texas, but if you weren't lucky enough to inherit a house or a lot of money from your parents/grandparents, and don't feel like cramming yourself into a tiny shipping container for the same price as a sprawling 4-bedroom ranch house anywhere else, moving out of state or to some tiny hick town that requires you to commute three hours to work each way is pretty much your only option around here.
Troy Wood
2023-07-07 03:39:32 +0000 UTCThis guy's arc is apparently becoming or already is some kind of supervillain. Like Dr Doofenshmirtz but his Perry the Platypus is an entire town of phase shifting crackheads.
Swift Justice
2023-07-07 02:42:37 +0000 UTCAn interesting point is that while "CaLiFoRnIa ExOdUs" has been a narrative for the past two years, the area of the US that is losing population the fastest is still the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys---which also have some of the worst crime statistics and drug overdose rates in the US. And there is certainly and obviously a lot of politics involved in why a lot of the focus on social problems is focusing on coastal cities and not on smaller towns in rural, conservative states, even when the problems there are demonstrably worse.
Matthew Harris
2023-07-07 02:02:52 +0000 UTCOh man paper mill smell. A nearby town growing up was a papermill town and yeah that shit is wild
Alpha Scientist Javo
2023-07-07 01:45:47 +0000 UTCThe thing is, if he'd simply invested his money in buying up every dirt-cheap parcel of land for sale in tweaker central, I can't say that that wouldn't be a successful long-term investment strategy. No matter how incompetent/corrupt the local government is, as long as there isn't some horrible disaster/illegal dumping going on that permanently poisons the land and water itself (as of last reporting the water there was considered "pretty good, for Arkansas") eventually the poverty level will bottom out and somebody will build an upscale gated community on the wreckage, as is the way of the world. Dude would just have to sit on his investments for another 10 years or so until gentrification eventually made them more valuable. In the meantime, he could have made a small fortune buying up shitty houses and then deliberately renting them out as-is to tweakers with the knowledge that the inevitable meth lab fire will save him a ton of money on demolition fees.
Troy Wood
2023-07-07 01:33:22 +0000 UTCWow, I had to learn more about Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and apparently it's the "fastest shrinking city in America" having lost 16% of it's population in just two years. (And this was two years in 2020 and 2021 at the height of the friggin' COVID epidemic when it was damn near impossible to evict anyone) and is #3 on the list of the most impoverished cities in America. (Eat that, Brownsville and McAllen, Texas!) The percentage of the population living in poverty as of 2022 is 39.5% and the unemployment rate is double the average of anywhere else in Arkansas, and it appears the only place to work in that town is the local Saracen Casino, Union Pacific, or Tyson Foods. It used to be a big paper mill town noted for it's "distinctive smell", but pretty much everything else has closed down, hence the apparent rampaging hordes of shadowcloaked tweakers.
Troy Wood
2023-07-07 01:14:16 +0000 UTCI actually guessed totally right! Although I also found that he had a patent on 3D printing and... pallet disassembly. So it looks like maybe his problem is that he is technically skilled enough that he actually could draw up plans for a tower that shoots out dollar bills every minute, but might not quite understand the social ramifications of what he is doing.
Matthew Harris
2023-07-06 22:56:29 +0000 UTCpetertron
2023-07-06 22:55:18 +0000 UTCIt's a slippery slope. Which they would also steal.
Pee-Wee's Uncle
2023-07-06 22:03:47 +0000 UTCfrom my research: https://imgur.com/Eygk557
Alpha Scientist Javo
2023-07-06 21:55:08 +0000 UTCNo no no, see, you need to elaborate here
Elgofo
2023-07-06 21:10:57 +0000 UTCI wish you could stream literally any song ever recorded. Then I wouldn't have 2000 obscure CDs in my attic. Oh shit, now the tweakers know where the treasure is.
Bonnybedlam
2023-07-06 21:10:27 +0000 UTCNow we know where Carmen Sandigo was born and raised. You start by stealing security systems and next you are stealing towers and pyramids.
Vooster
2023-07-06 20:22:26 +0000 UTCThe town denies all his permits because that would be following the rules? And the town has no rules because it is crime town? So by trying to be a lawful citizen he is breaking their "never don't do crime" law? I also need to lie down.
Vooster
2023-07-06 20:21:21 +0000 UTCYes I don't want to make asumptions but this carries the weighty stinkof god-driven melaluca-enspired mormontrepreneurial spirit on this one. Eccept for that liberal hooded sweatshirt doesnt quite fit the profile I admit I am a bit enfuddled
sissyneck
2023-07-06 20:11:43 +0000 UTCFrom what I can tell, he apparently patent trolled a Mormon censorship software company for like 1mil a few years back
Alpha Scientist Javo
2023-07-06 20:04:30 +0000 UTC<3
Alpha Scientist Javo
2023-07-06 20:03:37 +0000 UTCI love that this guy had the impossible dreams of a dipshit immediately AND he still managed to make it go worse.
Flippant Sausage
2023-07-06 19:12:44 +0000 UTCThis was my question, too: where is all this money coming from. And I've resisted googling it, until after I've posted my guess. Along with inheriting money, my guess is that at some point early on in the life cycle of the internet and tech bubbles, he wrote some little piece of code---like, for example, the volume control app on a computer, and some company bought his patent and now he gets a check every month and he also feels he is a competent tech guy because of something like that. Now I am off to check and see if I was at all close to the mark.
Matthew Harris
2023-07-06 17:21:25 +0000 UTCI'm not a criminal mastermind like these guys, so I don't know how they'd do it. If it was me, I'd trade the guy magic beans for it.
Pee-Wee's Uncle
2023-07-06 15:20:44 +0000 UTCWill they push it over? Will they rob the refill truck? Will they steal the legs, bit by bit, until it's short enough to reach? He sees no downside!
FancyShark
2023-07-06 15:15:54 +0000 UTCCongrats again, Javo! Money tower might be the best terrible idea you've ever found. Yet.
FancyShark
2023-07-06 14:31:23 +0000 UTCEventually your body just starts phasing in and out of reality.
Amber M.
2023-07-06 14:16:49 +0000 UTCThis is a Three Stooges version of a capital tax.
Dennard Dayle
2023-07-06 13:57:51 +0000 UTC“thievery tools”
Call Cobbs
2023-07-06 13:45:32 +0000 UTCIt's almost impossible to have that much crime unless the city is run by criminals? Like, Pine Bluff is the first criminal community in the nation? With laws and order designed for and by criminals? Which, in that case, means John is the only criminal there because all the other criminals are legit. And once the town drives him to vigilantism, he will be that town's mirror universe batman. Which means the town will produce a mirror universe Joker- a kind and gentle clown that somehow prevents the machinations of evil batman? My head hurts
Kmbre Wise
2023-07-06 13:40:44 +0000 UTCSo, is the reactor still on the horizon?
Bill Culbertson
2023-07-06 13:40:39 +0000 UTCFrom Provo, Utah, home of Brigham Young University. Suddenly it all makes sense. Poor Fenley is just a product of his "Happy Valley" environment, too.
Scribbler Johnny
2023-07-06 13:15:42 +0000 UTCHow much meth do I need to take to develop stealth camouflage?
Matt Edwards
2023-07-06 13:15:26 +0000 UTCThis is the class of failtrepreneurs that fascinates me. There’s the classic working/middle class schlub slowly bankrupting himself on a series of pyramid schemes. There’s your Paypal cofounder using their unlimited wealth to fund various Hydra ops disguised as failed business ventures. And then there’s this guy who can apparently walk into a bank with a doodle of a nuclear reactor and get as many loans as he needs to donate two dozen entire American Science and Surplus outlets to local methheads. Why do people like him and Nathfield never just run out of cash? I refuse to believe they had successful businesses before this. Are they all just secret Walton heirs or something?
Munchy P
2023-07-06 12:57:33 +0000 UTCI didn't think such a thing was possible, but this somehow hurts my brain more than Compu-Toon.
Skebotron
2023-07-06 12:45:27 +0000 UTCTweakers all over the world: "The One Piece is real! And it's in a warehouse in Pine Bluff, Arkansas." Great read, Javo.
Aaron Russell
2023-07-06 12:38:14 +0000 UTCThey're just gonna steal the tower.
Pee-Wee's Uncle
2023-07-06 12:26:21 +0000 UTCI am definitely bringing forward the money tower idea at my hometown's next town hall.
Dave Dalrymple
2023-07-06 12:24:31 +0000 UTCA fool and his money are soon parted.
Max Rockatansky
2023-07-06 12:13:38 +0000 UTC
