Greatest racing writer and handicapper of all time, AKA Jeff Mende
 

I was going to label the thread something a little more derogatory, but I thought I'd be considerate of Byk here.

For anyone not following the screening room forum here, Jeff Mende is the guy who got all of Kiri's Clown (on DT, Party Manners on Youtube) races taken down because of some fit of jealousy he threw.

When Googling this guy, the first two links I clicked provided me with this little bit of fun.

The first is a comment 'someone' wrote on a Meadowlands blog post. Here it is in all it's glory:

Posted by barack
July 29, 2008, 10:13PM
Jeff Mende was one of the greatest horseracing writers and handicappers of all-time. When someone has that much talent, the people around them usually can't handle it. Thus, his dismissal. The fact that he is no longer writing for you is a disgrace and a disservice to all horseplayers with a hunger for insight and a desire to learn the game. God bless Jeff Mende.


The second link was to a page for political contributions. The one hit on Jeff Mende showed a donation to Barack Obama, which just happens to be the name of that person above who wrote the comment lamenting the dismissal of the great Jeff Mende!!

He reminds me a lot of Claimboxx from AOL, aka Aaron (Aron?) Hesz. But worse. Much worse.

I/C,

Feel free to rip this pathetic douchebag freely. The damage done to racing fans with this vengeful and jealous effort is his new legacy... along side his glorious work at Sports Eye and the Staten Island Advance of course.

Mende's snit stems from Ryan Goldberg's NY Times blog entry lauding Jim Conti's ('partymanners', Kiri's Clown) efforts chronicling racing's history via video on You Tube.

http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/200...tal-historian/

Conti has regularly thanked and acknowledged Mende, who has contributed video to the effort, for his help, but Goldberg did not include Mende in the write-up. That seems to have triggered Mende's wrath which found him telling You Tube that he and only he has the 'rights' to these thousands of videos.

Obviously, this incident isn't going to simply fade away.

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Like the one Injun Chuck found, here is another Mende congratulatory gem that 'somebody' added to the comments section below the Blog.

25. July 15, 2009 6:52 pm

Mr. Conti might have mentioned one of his sources is Jeff Mende, former chart caller who worked for Sports Eye which was the breeding ground that graduated so many handicappers and analyst who thrived in the media in the ’60’s ’70’s, ’80’s and ’90’s including the likes of Marc Segilaub and Brad Thomas who along with Jeff were trip handicappers. As the long time racing analyst for the Staten Island advance, Jeff naturally began building a library of stakes races as his laboratory of handicapping, especially the 3 year olds. He used a satelite signal to pull races from all over the country, and was objective enough in his analysis to gauge horses from the West Coast and the Midwest, so that he was an early backer of the talented horses like Sunday Silence and Risen Star. If you get a chance to sit down with him and watch a race live, or one of the videos he’s contributated to Mr. Conti for the U-tube archieve, you would see that his powers of observation exceed those of a trainer or a blood stock agent. It’s nice to have such a library, but it is enriching to realize that one of the phenomenal eyes in the sport has helped rounded it out.

Bradley Sherman

I usually don't like to link to other forums, but there are 5 pages discussing this at Pace Advantage.

Unfortunately, this vast resource that took so much to assemble is probably gone for the most part, forever.

Here's what is in our Screening Room...

In regards to restoring the 'channel', the good news is there are and will be forces at work to try to right this sad incident.

Thanks, Steve, I need to look around more.

It was a tremendous resource. Unbelievable.

tool

Where can we find this guy on the 'net'?

What a f'n tool...

"Race video generously donated by Jeff Mende..."

Wow!

how can he own these replays? just because he had vhs tapes, doesn't mean he owns the right to the races.

What a douche.

For someone who supposedly worked in racing, google doesn't have a lot of results for him other than in relation to these videos and his political donation.

his address is out there, but no phone or email that I can find.

I've always wondered why the owners of a lot of the material on youTube (not just racing) have allowed it, but to have these videos taken down by the guy who "pirated" them is ironic.

"Racing" needs to get together, archive these, and if necessary, sell a short ad at the beginning of each video to support it. It would be a terrific undertaking. There are so many who would have their hand out for compensation.

you can bet your behind that the nfl wouldn't stay quiet if some yahoo said he 'owned' the right to replays because he taped a broadcast.

How can he prove he owns them?

What I mean by this, is....

This is all hypothetically speaking of course...

No doubt Jim has all these videos now in his collection. What were to happen, say, if someone that also 'happened to have these same videos' contact Jim and offered him many of the same races?

How would he be able to prove this is true or not?

And by the way, I'm pretty sure that not all of those races came from Mende. There were quite a few races I found on an old VHS tape I had that I sent to DrugS, which then he sent to Jim. How can Mende own them?

unemployed word smith
 

This is everything I found on the guy

"JOCKEY WHIPS: Let's just brush aside the fact that jockeys beat the (stuffing) out of horses with whips on a daily basis. There is no hypocrisy here, right?
JEFF MENDE, Howell, N.J. "

"Mazur leaves virtually no stone unturned. His books are impressive.
- Jeff Mende, Staten Island Advance"

"The Jersey Shore Giants Baseball, an established traveling team in the USABL, is currently holding indoor tryouts for 10- and 11-year-olds at Double Play Recreation in Ocean Township at 12:30 p.m. every Sunday through Feb. 26. The Giants play in the spring and fall, and play does not conflict with Little League. Call manager Jeff Mende at (732) 259-0761 or e-mail jmende@optonline.net for more information."

I came across a Mende column in the State Island Advance from April 6, 1997, titled, "Where Is The Passion." I would post it here, but I don't want to run into any copyright issues. :eek: In the article, Mende blames racing fans' lack of passion on "a lack of information of information and education." He then goes on to criticize ESPN for filling dead time during a Jim Beam telecast with, among other things, replays of the Gotham and Bourbonette.

Mende also wrote a column in January of 1996 about Sports Channel New York no longer carrying the "Racing from Gulfstream" show. Menda complained that Sports Channel "let its ego get in the way" of showing race replays to thousands of fans.

Sheesh, what happened to him? The few things mentioned here that he wrote in the 90's makes him seem like he was an okay guy back in the day.

how ironic!

That sure is ironic.. last night he struck again and destroyed my second channel. Claiming he owns the old replays from Gulfstream Park..

Does he have a friend at Youtube? What is Youtube telling you, if anything?

This is an example of how I get notified via email.. the responses from YouTube are automated.. so I don't think he knows someone, he's just continually making false claims of ownership and if it happens enough they shut down your channel..

Would be cool to have Haskin write up this story in BH and see the outpouring of pissed off horse fans put pressure on him/them.

good idea. i just don't see how this guy thinks that because he has a video library, he suddenly has sole rights to these races.

nice work Mende. i never heard of you before or your "reputation" as great handicapper. i wont forget you now.

It's up on http://www.equidaily.com/ now, so many more "non forumites" will be aware.

He doesn't; the problem is that KirisClown, or anyone with a taped replay of a race, doesn't either. The rights belong to whoever actually filmed the race (the track, I assume, or the broadcast channel). So, while this idiot is lying to say he owns the rights, he's not lying to say that the person who put up the video doesn't own the rights. YouTube is understandably nervous about lawsuits and so are likely to err on the side of caution in taking anything down. The reason you can find so much copyrighted material posted on YouTube illegally is because there are so many people doing it that it's impossible to keep up with them all.

The best course would be probably to get permission from the channel that originally broadcast the race. In the event the channel doesn't exist anymore, then maybe the racetrack.

The other option would be if posting these races could be construed to fall under the Fair Use portion of the Copyright Act. In that case, it doesn't matter who taped them, made them, whatever; they're okay to show. But I have no idea how one would go about determining that. I guess you could argue to YouTube that they fall under Fair Use and then see if this idiot would be willing to sue, but again, as he'd more likely want to sue YouTube, I imagine YouTube would still take them down to avoid the hassle.

If the digital videos are still in Kiris', or anyone else's posession, that person could always set up an independent website with the races on them, and just decide if he or she wants to deal with the legal hassle of possibly being sued over it.

Either way, it's a shame, and I hope it gets sorted out. I really enjoyed watching the videos.

It is a total outrage that great material which was owned by neither got yanked because of this ubershmuck ...

For someone who pretends to promote the sport and welcomes knowledge and info for all, he surely negates his his high flown bull with his petty, cheesy, behavior ...

What a SMALL man ...

This is an absolute travesty... I have asked Kiris Clown for videos and he's put them up, watch his videos ALL THE TIME, does this all gratis for the racing fans, and some jackass looking for some print ruins it for everyone??? What a ****ing shame. Contacting Thoroughbred Times right now to get this out even further.

Sometimes I think the less actual money involved, the crazier and more petty people can get (see: community theater). Well, who knows; seeing as how there is really no way any sort of money could be made off of video of 20+ year old horse races, maybe the actual owners of the video rights will be easy going about making them available. It would be tedious to do, but maybe tacking on a thanks to the broadcast company or racetrack at the end of each video might be enough for them to okay the posting of them. The more fuss racing fans make, the more likely a chance to get posting of them really free and in the clear.

On the other hand, some other company may get interested enough to try to buy the rights and make a buck off of them, but that's capitalism in action so there's not much to do about it in that case.

Sue him. After taking up a collection for attorneys' fees.

My friend at TTimes blogged about it today, should be up on their website soon...
http://blog-beb.thoroughbredtimes.co...r-manners.html

I agree this is a sad situation. If you do need a fix on racing in "youtube" type CF1970 in the search. Cory does a great job posting races and re-broadcasts. from interviews with Laffit Pincay after Shame lost to Secretariat to whole shows, it is definitely an excellent substituion until intelligence(I use that term loosely) prevails.

Sounds like it wasn't so hard to find this guy was it? I usually don't get into name calling but this guy must be a real jerks or he's off his med's.

Videos to be back up within the next 2 weeks... :tro: :D :$:

Very cool.

Any story behind the reinstatement, or will we hear about it later?

sweet! way to fight the good fight kiris!

you sure this is accurate, or a they "could" be up in 10-14 days?

Correct, "could" (hopefully "likely") will be up in 10-14 days, as per Kiri's.

excellent news.