archival, the last of it all. very thankful to have it be done.
in all likelihood, this will be one of those things that mean nothing to anyone but me. i’m perfectly fine with that. but, as i’m clearing but the last of the shit stains left behind by heath and michael, there is this one thing i would see corrected… if not with you, then by you.
this is not some screed. simply final thoughts and a farewell from a stranger. there will be no continuance, no follow-up, and no repeat until or unless you indicate interest by way of reply. just getting that on the table ‘up front’.
you wrote some time ago on the leri forum:
“aletheia’s removal was for other reasons, which have to do with more private matters that i don’t feel at liberty to discuss.”
as you later confessed on the scrytch list, those reasons were something that amounted essentially to character assassination by two you call friend against one you don’t know and, all things tallied, you candidly admitted that it was perfectly ok by you to black ball and oust a stranger. not like any of you had any reason or motivation to care how it felt.
there’s part of me that has a hard time understanding that willingness to simply not care. as odd as this may sound, the things i read by you on the scrytch list didn’t seem to indicate that was something you indulged in — the thoughtless, eager, lynch mob mentality.
i pondered for a time the notion that there is some virtue of friendship that would make such a thing acceptable. i cannot say i understand it, but as this was the reason you cited, it shall stand as such. it is not required that i understand. it is as it is.
here, on the other side of things — it is both well documented and well known that the insistence upon my removal was for no more reason than that control is core and key to michael and heath in all things. when it comes to matters involving control, why there’s just no such thing as ‘too much’, or ‘wrong’ when it comes to maintaining it. what it takes, they are willing to do.
i found this very ironic since the both of them insist i was the one seeking such control and acting in inappropriate ways to gain it. all the moreso for the reality that their electronic stalking of me (logged) is the very inappropriate behavior they seem to forever be accusing me of… as my grandmother used to say, ‘the guilty dog always barks first, honey.’
and so they did. long and loud and to anyone who’d listen.
it was annoying at first how every little detail encountered was so readily and rapidly incorporated into their hysterical scenarios of evil intent and malicious focus. oh look, see! she did this… that means x, y, z! the pure wonder for how ‘knowledge’ of intent could so easily be granted by them or by the group of others who are strangers to me remains one of the sore points.
frankly, it isn’t as if heath or michael knew me much better than any of you.
none of us have ever met, and michael had never interacted with me beyond perhaps two or three lines of chat and about four emails. and i didn’t realize until very late that heath’s entire series of interactions were being actively translated into oddness whose rosetta stone exists only in his head.
but, to the point, i suppose it would be wholly inconvenient to mention that heath and i had spoken at length over time about scrytch and more than once the notion of getting it up and running under his control (rather than stone’s or scotto’s) had arisen.
he often would rush at the idea and when he did, i always offered to help… in the end, he always backed off of it, no matter how much he ranted about it being ‘wrested away’ from him because i think he knew that any such move would only result in fracturing friendships he had only begun to slowly repair as a result of our early 2006 conversations.
and no, i suppose he wouldn’t be the one to admit that it was my influence that had him agreeing to reach out to and later, go meet with scott and jen. or to reach out again to the folks in austin and do more than think about denver or austin libraries as alternatives.
no, that just wouldn’t fit with the image he’s painting of me, would it?
as for scrytch, the discussion of those two domains (.org and .com) had risen more than once and i finally realized the only way he was ever going to have them was if someone got them for him. so i did.
as for heath himself — frankly, i think he was genuinely terrified that i might say any of this to anyone else… but from where i sat, it always seemed like these folks were getting the same short shrift i so often experienced from him — he is always willing to assume the worst of others, and never more than reluctant to allot to them the benefit of the doubt that he always insisted upon having as his houdini ace, his ‘out’ for any misbehavior.
i don’t think any of that is ‘bad’… of him or of any of you. from all i gathered over time, you folks have known one another for a while and had more than one round of this kind of drama play out. perhaps it is some vital ingredient of the grouping. i cannot say. spice to the meal? but heath was terrified of being rejected, particularly by scott, jenn, and david bauler. i think of you all, he looks up to those three in ways bordering on the mystical. so i think in a lot of ways, he needed to insure i was gone because he had told me so much that he couldn’t imagine that i could possibly be hurt or angry about his actions and not immediately try to ruin things for him.
which, if you think about it, is damn telling. but even now, when i have every justifable reason to be as downright malicious as i could be, i choose not to be… what does it accomplish? nothing… and aren’t we all just humans being human and having human thoughts? why does it have to be scorched earth? i admit, i don’t understand that part.
eh. i’m rambling. sorry.
anyway… it took me a good bit of time to get pick myself off the ground as a result of the vituperative attacks that began the moment heath actually understood that he wasn’t going to browbeat me into handing him everything he wanted (e.g., the domains, the gaming guild, disappearing from all shared space, etc.). when michael tried to threaten me and that didn’t work, the next best thing was to insure i couldn’t possibly ‘contaminate’ scrytch, i guess. as if my mere presence was such a thing. as if the idea that i was enjoying myself simply could not be tolerated.
i don’t suppose it would or could matter to you, david, but the simple fact is that between the lot of you, a very real wrong has been committed.
no — not the banning. hah. no, believe me when i say the very idea that i could possibly be allowed peaceful enjoyment there was stupid, at best. i have known for some time that neither of those two have ever been able to manage more than scorched earth. this, admitted by heath himself early on in relation to scott and jenn and i had no reason to doubt it. much less so now, eh?
anyway… the wrong i’m speaking of is the embrace of condemnation of an unknown without so much as trying to ascertain truth.
i do realize that perhaps what’s true in it likely doesn’t matter to you. particularly in light of the fact that it is already months old and let’s face it — nothing is changing. the ground is charred, i’m done with it all, and there’s no doubt they’re any less done than i am, though for decidedly more dramatic reasons.
but there is a part of me that has a need to have it said that these horrific lies are just that — lies.
i admit, it is a distinct possibility that you simply will not care. but i refuse to believe that. call me stupid, idealistic, whatever… but it just doesn’t jive with your history at scrytch, the things i read of you. and you’re not the only one that seems to be the case of… but since you were the one who lifted the veil, the only one i’m aware of, this is coming to you.
perhaps you will wonder why it matters to me… here, now, still. to that, all i can say is simply that it matters because i don’t like thinking utter strangers are ugly, evil people who are willing to do things like this with nothing more than words to go on.
let me reiterate that – i do not like to believe that people who don’t know me, who i do not know, are willing to believe things of me that not only cannot be demonstrated as truth, but are so beyond the pale in extremism and ill intent that they would be difficult to believe of ANY human.
outside of this, i had only one more reason for writing to you… and that is to thank you. to calmly, sincerely, and personally say to you ‘i appreciate your saying what you said publicly. thank you for doing so.’
you see — until you did that, michael and heath had done a very good job of keeping it all hidden, so i could never quite have the proof to call them on it. and more than once heath had directly lied to me saying i ‘had issues’ for even attempting to say that either of them could possibly be capable of such things in relation to me.
can i possibly convey how frustrating it was to know this was a lie, but be unable to prove it? i felt it, i sensed it, i could ‘almost know’, but until the events on scrytch, all of this whispering in the background was forever cloistered and what direct interactions i had with either of them were fake smiles and words of agreement and acceptance.
so perhaps you can imagine how it felt to see your words and finally know that what i suspected was all too real and that the daggers really were in my ribs. and perhaps you will remember heath’s pleas for people not to say anything publicly. he knows me well enough to know that the revelation was to put to eternal end any trust in him.
though why he seemed to value that trust enough to try and protect it when all he could ever manage was to denigrate it, abuse it, and misuse it in every way, i cannot say i know or will ever understand.
some things i no longer want to try and understand.
anyway… for what it is worth, thank you for that. initially, i thought i was going to have to haul them into court to put an end to it, but you managed more and better just by taking their lies public than i could have in Houston Federal Court. so again… thank you. you saved me time, effort, money, and additional pain. in very real ways, you were a better friend to me as a stranger than either of them ever managed. i appreciate that, and you, more than you can possibly know.
i’ll end this long-winded ramble by saying i do not expect a reply, though if you wish to send one, i’ll read it. the chapter of time in which any of this mattered has been closed and outside of this one, odd bit of need to speak and say all of this, and to thank you, there is really nothing left to say beyond that which i would say to anyone… i wish you well and may you find in every moment of life more than you hope, less than you fear, and all that you need.
be well and farewell,
/signed/
On 4/9/07, dmf wrote:
> it comes down to this:
>
> i’ve known heath and michael for many years, both in person and online.
> the rather slanderous things you say about their characters are not
> supported by my personal experience of either of them, which, as i say,
> is extensive. therefore, serious doubt is cast, in my mind, on
> everything else you say; your credibility is less than zero, with me.
> your efforts here to persuade me to think ill of them seem to me an
> obvious and vituperative attempt to sow division among friends; it will
> not be effective, and any further messages along these lines i will
> ignore completely.
>
> here is free advice, from a stranger: you might well be happier if you
> cared less what people you don’t know (like me) think about you. why
> should you give a rat’s ass? i say, forget us all — you’ll be better
> off. it’s worth trying.
there is no ‘effort to persuade’ here, nor interest in credibility be it good, bad, or indifferent. i do find it curious that this theme of intent seems so deeply rooted, but perhaps that is the core issue after all. all insight is helpful, so thank you for that as well.
as for why it matters, all i can do say is this — when you believe in things like interdependence and connectedness, you’re somewhat obligated to work on mitigating the things that segregate, separate, and impede their expression.
you’re surely correct that i’d likely be better off to write it all off, and everyone involved… but since that is more related to maintaining apartness and ego than supporting the things i believe in and find value in and of, i tend to choose understanding and effort toward commonality.
that said, i fully realize others have their own preferences and interests and mine neither have nor should have any more or less weight in the balance. in the end, my obligation is to be true to the things i hold important, sacred. and when it is made obvious that is not an interest shared, to accept it as it is.
which i do.
again, thank you.