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View Full Version : Auction Winner Is 'Ghost Of Honor' At His Own Burial



iwannabeanimagineer
10-29-2004, 10:20 AM
http://www.mickeynews.com/News/DisplayPressRelease.asp_Q_id_E_10294Gravestone


Cary Sharp, 37, of Baton Rouge, La., attended his own midnight "burial" at Disneyland on Thursday, October 28 to become an honorary resident of the park's famous "Haunted Mansion."

Has anyone seen the tombstone yet? If so, what does it say? The press release doesn't include the inscription.

Also, they say it "is located in front of a quintet of ghostly musicians". Does that mean the singing busts or some other quintet?

theEpiphany
10-29-2004, 10:30 AM
The Mansion was well decorated last night...They should keep it looking that spiffy year round. The green ambient lighting really made it stand out.


Epitaph is

Jay; Doctor -- Lawyer -- Legal clerk, forever buried in his work."

cstephens
10-29-2004, 10:31 AM
We were really surprised to see it so lit up, and I actually didn't like it. Too bright outside, and I didn't care for the pink light in the upstairs section either.

theEpiphany
10-29-2004, 10:34 AM
Pink light??? Hmmm Didnt see everything I guess. I was "assisting" Gracey with the Mysteries myths and legends tour last night. They were still working around the mansion after we entered. The tour group was quite surprised to see the mansion. It was a bit busy but still made it stand out. Personally I favored the purple lighting on the second floor that they have every so often. You're right..I'm not too sure about pink.

-tE

cstephens
10-29-2004, 10:41 AM
Pink light??? Hmmm Didnt see everything I guess. I was "assisting" Gracey with the Mysteries myths and legends tour last night. They were still working around the mansion after we entered. The tour group was quite surprised to see the mansion. It was a bit busy but still made it stand out. Personally I favored the purple lighting on the second floor that they have every so often. You're right..I'm not too sure about pink.

-tE

Really? I was on that tour last night. Are you "K"?

Yeah, the outside of the second floor was lit with a dark pink light whereas the rest of the outside was lit with the green. I actually really liked the lighting the night of the event, when they had strobe light effects on the second floor. Totally forgot about that until last night, since my husband still hasn't finished the video we took, and we both forgot it hadn't been done until last night. We were wondering whether they'd be doing that every night, but we figured it might have been just for the event.

olegc
10-29-2004, 11:30 AM
Also, they say it "is located in front of a quintet of ghostly musicians". Does that mean the singing busts or some other quintet?

The quintet of musicians are the first set of ghosts to the left of the doom buggy right BEFORE your buggy is turned to the right to see the singing busts.

So - the sequence is down the hill, Jack, turn slightly left, see the quintet with Owls in the tree, turn slightly right, see singing pumpkins (instead of busts for HMH).

one note - in that photo on mickeynews.com, it mentions Cyrus the caretaker. That costume and name seem to be the same as the character from Polterguist 2.

soccerlady16
10-29-2004, 11:55 AM
Does anyone have pictures of the "burial" ceramony?

Opus1guy
10-29-2004, 02:06 PM
Sharp said. "Now, to see this clever reference to me in this famous attraction, it really is a special honor."

I'm not so sure how much of an "honor" it is...seeing as he paid for the privilege.

bandboy1985
10-29-2004, 02:12 PM
I'm not so sure how much of an "honor" it is...seeing as he paid for the privilege.

handsomely, too.

iwannabeanimagineer
10-29-2004, 02:48 PM
I'm not so sure how much of an "honor" it is...seeing as he paid for the privilege.
He donated a small fortune to the Boys & Girls Club and Disney is honoring him for it. If the IRS will buy it, so will I.

Disneyphile
10-29-2004, 03:26 PM
The Mansion did look awesome last night. I like the extra lighting. :D And the tour was fantastic too! :)

Mark Goldhaber
10-29-2004, 07:03 PM
Does anyone have pictures of the "burial" ceramony?
Disney sent us some very nice photos that will be in Monday's DLR Update. :)

Opus1guy
10-30-2004, 07:49 PM
He donated a small fortune to the Boys & Girls Club and Disney is honoring him for it. If the IRS will buy it, so will I.

Yes and no there. Disney may have been honoring him a bit. But not with the headstone as he stated. He simply bought that.

That would be like purchasing a Window On Main Street (proceeds to charity or not) and then claiming Disney honored you in some way. IMHO.

And IRS? I honestly don't know how this was set up. I can't tell 100% by the limited info at the eBay site. But as someone who has personally participated in numerous charitable actions and events, I've seen it done several ways in the past in the case of "third party" or "middleman" fundraisers, such as this one (Disney raising money for a charity, rather than the charity itself raising money) and how that effects the IRS aspect:

A) Winner buys the product and the offering coveys charitable contribution rights to the buyer, allowing that buyer to apply for the tax write-off (either for the entire amount or a pre-set percentage).

B) Winner buys the product, just knowing that proceeds will eventually go to charity. No personal tax write-off (in whole or part) conveys to the buyer unless it has been expressly stated. In such a scenario, it would be Disney that actually donates the money to the charity and takes the tax write-off themselves.

When it's the charity themselves that is offering up product or services at auction (i.e. a company or individual gives product to charity>charity sells directly) that's when you can almost be assured of it being "A" and you being able to claim it to the IRS. But in third party cases...if you have any direct charitable deductions coming, that's usually stated in the offering.

The fact that Disney's terms and conditions did not convey any charitable rights, somewhat indicates to me that Disney intended to be the official donor to the charity (which is their right). But that's not 100% certain and may not be the case at all, as the absence of such conveyance in and of itself, does not mean Disney can't do it if they want to pass them over to the buyer. So, my opinions and guesses:

Honor: If Jay simply purchased the headstone with his name on it to be placed in the Haunted Mansion...that's not an "honor" per se. He simply got what he paid for. Even the ceremony and some other ancillary trappings were included in the purchase price. Whether or not those are "honors" in the true sense of the word, I guess are debatable by some. Besides, been-on-both-sides-of-the-fence cynical me thinks several of those things were really more about getting some free press out of it, than anything else. Yet I'm not saying that would be an entirely bad thing, either. Far from it. But Disney "honoring him" with the headstone? Naw. Disney would have been "honoring" me instead if I had won with just a few bucks more. And nobody would have ever heard of Jay.

IRS: I have no idea if Jay gets to be the donor of record on this and if he gets to take any tax write-off. He may not care one way or the other. He may not even have cared that the money goes to charity to begin with (which would not be at all surprising and is quite common actually in these types of sales). He may have simply been wanting the product and willing to pay for it. That the dough goes to charity might be considered nice, but not a real factor in the purchase by some.

Of course, from the seller's point of view...you hope the fact that you announce the proceeds will be going to charity...might just cause some people to pay a higher price than they might normally pay for such an item. But you never know if that strategy really paid off or not, unless you can read minds or a philanthropic buyer tells you they paid more than they normally would because of the charitable aspect.

I'm thrilled for Jay. But really in this case, it's The Walt Disney Company that is probably the main generous party here. They created the idea. They produced the product. They spent time and money promoting it, designing it, manufacturing it. Staff time. Hotels. Airfares. Press Event. Meals. All probably cost Disney more than the $30k Jay paid for the darn thing.

Might even have been cheaper for Disney just to donate $30k direct to Boys Club and skip the whole headstone deal. But then they wouldn't have gotten all that "free" publicity. Get it? ;)

But buyer and seller's true motives aside (and having been on both the charitable seller and charitable buyer sides in the past)...the only thing that really matters here is that the charitable organization gets a nice chunk 'o change. And if a buyer and/or seller also manage to profit from such a transaction...what harm is there in that? :)

So my beef with Jay's quote is that if I had been Jay's speechwriter, I wouldn't have written that the headstone was Disney honoring him...I would had written what an honor it was for him to know that his winning proceeds would make their way to a worthy cause. :)

3894
10-31-2004, 10:04 AM
Epitaph is

Jay; Doctor -- Lawyer -- Legal clerk, forever buried in his work."

Anyone else find that a lame effort? And not just a little lame but giant-home-laundry-size lame.

Earkid
10-31-2004, 10:47 AM
....and who is Jay? I thought the guys name was Cary.

Dlandmom
10-31-2004, 12:02 PM
I looked and looked for it today and couldn't find it. I'm going to have to go back to look for it again.

Opus1guy
10-31-2004, 09:43 PM
It's really easy to spot. Right after the AA of Jack Skellington and you enter the graveyard scene, it's almost the first gravestone on your left...the closest to your Tomb Buggy. East to see, easy to read.

SoCalSteven
10-31-2004, 09:54 PM
For those who couldn't spot the headstone:

Spoiler warning!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/im2smrt4u/Disneyland/IMG_3861.jpg
Spoiler warning!

No, I didn't take a flash picture in HM, I swear! ;)