What is left for anyone who learns of the truth from whence you decidedly "went", off to adorn some highly engineered alternative reality with plenty of isolation thrown in for the first several years to be sure it stuck me thinks.... What's left but  to cry out like Harvey Keitel In Bad Lieutenant and then --what, mark the soul-crushing observation that it has been with an even sadder, pointless but silence-arresting laugh in your general direction...

 

Grasping for anything to do in lieu of rot in place, one could I suppose, go take a long, long shower, and then take a long journey to get as far away from you and your kind as one can possibly get... but the problem is: You are and have always been a member of the human race, and we have to come to terms with that, at least I do —and if I don't, no one can for I am the "Last in Line", and the guy who knows the full depth to which you voluntarily went, and remained. That has to be fixed somehow, because mankind literally will not make it if we can't find a redemption within all of the nasty holes where you made camp and so joyfully plumbed.

and I remember this when I look at your behavior these past 8+ years and there it is, or so I thought: "Tyler just isn't capable of being such a cold-hearted, cruel and calculating asshole... especially when he has no reason whatsoever apparent or even hinted towards....". Personally, I felt hung-up on that impossible truth for at least three years before realizing it no longer mattered whether or were originally true or not. It may as well have been your idea to re-write history, adopt a default attitude of cavalier dishonesty, character assassination of your brother to whomever would listen, and clearly a very deliberate and sustained effort to demonstrate just what an ungrateful prick you could be... even after the transparency of motive became perfected, and the shackles you had voluntarily placed around your ankles helped to keep you anchored firmly in place. To this day, I have to believe, for your humanity that is, that the pointless, mean and absolutely thorough betrayal you effected upon Gretchen and I must have begun just exactly as it so clearly appeared: A certain someone wanting you "fully possessed" turning your knobs, flipping your switches and egging you on to the destruction of almost your entire life's past to that point: and still to this day, not a care shown as, with eyes wide open, I saw Dara watch in utter confusion as you hated on her Dad, and abandon so suddenly and totally your role as the every day uncle in her life... to be sure, without as much as a birthday card since.  

 

Tyler, as a man on this planet as you are, I posit to you that it is a fundamental thing, not merely my unwelcome suggestion, but a kind of "human right" that others have every reason to expect of you. If taking actual responsibility for the needless damage and broken hearts you leave in your wake, then at least own who you have been insofar as it defining the person it necessarily means you chose to be and are now, today. In that sense, take what you can get is my only suggestion.

 

At some point in the past near decade since your hate of Speakeasy, of me, the total abandonment of each and every principle that defines and makes "Brotherhood" the uniquely honorable and universally admired state of relationship across all borders, cultures and lifestyles around the world, you presumably forgot to care enough even to think how wise it would be to make even the tiniest effort to withdraw one or two of the long list of such hateful things you have done in the name of (???).

I held on to hope for longer than obviously made any sense it turns out, waiting for you to do what only you could do: Stand-up and redeem your sorry self while it was so clearly in the offing. Anything else has just been lying to yourself, too. Never mind me, look at the other many innocent people you cursed and left deliberately forgotten, to hell with their care or love for you. I guess after all, you really believe one solitary person can replace the entire 35 years you spent being nobody before they took over your soul.

 

I will never know —and long ago felt no choice but to stop caring why it is you couldn't find the heart to take anything back, not even in the very smallest possible way. I dare say, your behavior stands unprecedent across every anecdote, psychology book, wise elder and friend I have the good fortune to know and appreciate having helped me say goodbye to what I finally accepted was never really there to begin with.

 

Oh and Ookla happened while you hated on...

 

Since you, the boy I invited to join me on this epic adventure have decided that "nothing remarkable" happened and it was such a regrettable and sorry time of your life, I guess I should skip bothering to say otherwise, how rude of me. Still, and I mean this: You have robbed yourself and all of us of the joy and laughter we all earned and should be sharing once in awhile in our later years over a beer, dinner... or a family trip to Tahiti. That fact, and the robbery of the fun times telling stories to one another and our families is among the most wicked, pointless and criminal things you've done here. I hope only that you find some believable version of this epic tale that somehow doesn't involved the rest of whom you betrayed so totally and so permanently. Please, just don't keep every single positive memories hidden or on some shelf to rot just to spite me further, you are only hurting yourself --when are you going to get that memo?

 

Eventually in 2006, three years after we became profitable, I was able to negotiate the spin-out of a subsequent business, built appropriately only by me to that point as a special project to the CEO. This occurred just a short time after Speakeasy sold to Best Buy.

 

Hardly unique or as interesting as Speakeasy, this new business "Ookla" led in part by a flagship solution called Speedtest.net, grew to become as valuable in half the time, 1/100th the staff and infinitely more profitable  remarkable fashion doing nothing in particular worth mentioning, until 9 years later when it was sold to the Ziff Davis Corporation (PC Magazine), at a price that was contractually non-disclosable, which we all know to mean "upwards of $150 million dollars", cash on the barrel head.. (heads, sorry, needed more barrels).

Blame, whine, accuse, reap your reward, pretend you deserve it all and say nothing.

 

1) Given Tonia's appetite I"m sure you needed more money "right now" at the time; (I know about the loans, remember...); How simple and convenient it was for you to pretend you earned it all, and then to pull that off, I had to be gone, effectively dead to you.

 

2)  You knew you would have no trouble with your conscience to simply lie again, deny my warnings ever happened,

 

3) "Lie generously & blame Mike" ..and without an ounce of shame or regret you've demonstrated by your perfect silence.

──════━━━§━━━════──

Coincidence or NOT, it is a fact that a short while after (I introduced you to and) you met Tonia, you began this campaign to hate and attack me.

 

You seemed to us to lose your mind,  but you violently refused to even respect the many years all three of us were so close. You believed once you had Tonia that you didn't need anything or anyone else and foolishly dumped almost everyone else in your life.

 

You can't see the connection, or refuse to, but we know that you had never once hinted in the tiniest way that you were so angry at us or me as we wound down Speakeasy. You only found the guts to lie to Dad about that how many years later? Where did that massive lie and the cold, heartless attitude come from do you think?  

 

Tyler's hate and isolation came  simultaneous with a woman he soon defended even as she lied and destroyed your brotherhood. That's all I know, and it is plainly factual.  For almost 10yrs you stubbornly pretend you have any right to be at all shitty to me?? Even as you become wealthy after accusing me of short-changing you!? You couldn't be this "obviously" bitter and basically such a bottom of the barrel kind of person alone Tyler, everyone knows that much.