End of Suburbia producer Barry Silverthorn’s recollection of Mike’s time at his house:
When Mike landed in Toronto he looked very thin - and relieved. All he wanted was some food that wasn't indigenous to South America, so we went to the nearest restaurant after leaving the airport.
We went shopping for clothes at a thrift store. Mike was impressed by how little they cost, and I got the impression that he had never shopped at a thrift store before. I had also bought him CDs by David Baerwald [a friend of Mike’s whom we’d later meet at his state-of-the-art music studio in Los Angeles] and Don Henley and they were waiting for him on his dresser.
I put him to work chopping wood. He said it helped him work out his anger over some of the people that he felt betrayed him.
We took a drive to the hobby farm where I grew up. They had horses there and we stood at the fence by the road and spent some time with them.
He had never read "The Long Emergency", so he spent a couple of days in front of the wood-burning fireplace reading. He said the fireplace was better than TV and more informative.
We had many conversations over that week. One day, in the garden, I was asking "What is my place in all this?" How much responsibility do we have in "saving the world", not as public figures, but as people living day-to-day life? Is it important? I mentioned the Slowest Camper story, which MIke has attributed to me, but I read somewhere else - was it Ran Prieur?
My wife made a stack of ribs, which he dug into. We took him out to hear musician Jamie Oakes play at a bar. I bought him a CD to take home. He wanted to sing, which I had never been aware of. He stood in the kitchen one night and sang Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road". We downloaded a karaoke track of Elton John's "Burn Down the Mission" for him to sing to. Appropriate. I still have it on my iTunes. At times he seemed so relaxed.
Mike wanted to watch season three of "Deadwood", one of his favorites, but it wasn't available in Canada yet. We watched Roland Joffé's "The Mission". When Robert De Niro threw off his bag at the top of The Falls we both cried. Although I didn't share the same burdens as Mike, I understand a bit of what he was carrying.
I remember him breaking down and sobbing at the bottom of the stairs one night. All my wife and I could do was hug him.
We tried to get paperwork to his lawyer in NY. It took a week by Fed-Ex. We tracked it all over the place. I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. No organization could be that incompetent, and I am certain it was flagged.
I have memories of him sitting against the wall in my basement, looking so beaten. After that Mike decided he should take the papers to NY in person. I thought it was a bit soon, but we loaded up the Smart car at 10:30pm and drove all night.
I still have the Venezuelan Bolivars that he left on the dresser.
Mike later said Barry had given him a staircase to demolish. He saw a holistic healer who knew his work. During the session, he visualized - if my memory is correct – a leopard with a bird perched on its back, both animals in harmony with nature. The image would later serve in the opening of his next book which was intended to be an autobiography.
But well-appointed though Barry's set-up was, (as I would later hear when, at my typically cramped New York apartment, Mike expressed homesickness for Toronto) his stay there could only be brief.
To Mike 11-22-2006
tomorrow i'll tell my mother et al re xmas. i'd been waiting til your whereabouts were public but even though that hasn't happened, thanksgiving is the best time to tell her since otherwise, she'll invite someone else.
11-23-2006 from Mike to Michael Kane, concerning another offer to buy the website. The prospective buyer had been asking about the rumors regarding Mike Ruppert, prompting Michael Kane to wonder what the prospective buyer had been told:
Mike --
Not telling him much except that X is not our friend and what she did. He understands that I did not do any of that shit she alleged and has always known me to be honest like everyine else. He's done a lot of stuff with X but let's not get paranoid. [The prospective buyer] made a lot of money in his own right and is no idiot. He's made what sounds like a fair, even generous offer to buy FTW's assets and has agreed in principle to not alter or modify any of our positions on Peak Oil or 9-11; to guarantee lifetime acess and use of my own material which I would license to him, etc.
He would guarantee to keep the site online in perpetuity.
There are two possibilities here and we cannot arbitrarily dismiss or endorse either one. One is that he's working with X on some hidden agenda. The other is that he really does want to preserve the site, maybe bring on some new writers and do some good. He seemed really taken aback by what I told him about what X did.
The fact that he called you indicates that what I had told him... surprised him and he wanted to know more. Would he have done that if he was part of some evil plan? I don't think so. That was a good sign. He's investigating like we taught people to do. Let him.
I would not be upset if you shared with him...
If he and X were in bad cahoots he wouldn't have needed or wanted to ask you. I didn't mention anything about events not related to X...
Y really upset me. As sick as I am he was coming on with, "Mike, we'll have you back writing and on the stage in six months to a year."
Man, that fried me. I am done with all that. Mike, if you could see me you'd know. It took a long time to get it through to him that that is all toxic and would kill me.
I have just entered a heavy healing regimen with a holisitic physician who loves Gary Null. My adrenal system is just fried and collapsed. Liver damage from some kind of toxicity. Still finding out more. I start acupuncture next week.
I think what we have to do is to express the concerns we want addressed to Ray and allow him to structure the deal so that we don't get burned. [The prospective buyer's] offer is much better than X's was. 20 k up front to pay some bills and take care of me, He picks up all the inventory, gets 2,000 Rubicons out of past-due storage in LA and sets up royalties and licensing for me for future income.
…I had a relationship with him before X did and [the prospective buyer] said he has always known that I am an honorable guy. I am not going to throw what may be a life-saving offer out just because [he] and X also do business. A lot of people know and do business with both of us.
Y wants to stay away from the offer because Y just wants more money and hopes for a resurrection that isn't going to happen. Y will be advised and consulted but he is not my partner and he is not a decision maker here.
RE LOOSE CHANGE (Very important) -- In a previous conversation with A, before I left Venezuela, she said that she had just met with the Loose Channge folks and that they had REMOVED all no plane references from the newest edition. She said she liked the people and they impressed her as sincere.
So what do we do with that? Do we now throw A out too? Do we now accuse A od something?
We cannot be totally unbending here. Totally unbending is what nearly killed me and may still. I have to stop controlling everything and so do you. There's a way to draw a line, separate, and make it perfectly clear that we ain't responsible for what happens next. Our record is intact.
It will be up to Ray to structure enough protections so that:
1. The legacy is clear and secure; and
2. Neither I or anyone we love gets screwed with bad PR. That will be accomplished with a clear statement announcing the sale of the assets, change of editorial control and clear cut mission statement.
If the offer is good, we let Ray take care of us. I don;t have the energy to fight for months over this.
9-11 is waaaaaaay dead. Just hearing it now makes me physically ill. We cannot jump to a conclusion that [the prospective buyer] is the enemy. I am still pretty sick and need some money.
I don't think X ever had a hidden agenda with Loose Change like trying to spread disinfo. She's always been sloppy on those details. Her motive is to maximize profits by being as inclusive as possible. She never gave a crap or understood why the disinfo was so dangerous. She cares about market share, getting the largest number of people into the tent. We were the purist monks.
Again, it's up to Ray to protect us against a "straw man" sale. Neither X or [the prospective buyer] stand to gain much by trashing FTW or me or you. If we are out of the fight then we have to be out of the fight and trust that those we taught have an IQ of more than 50.
Gotta go. This took a lot out of me.
Mike
**********
Mike to Ken Levine re the prospective buyer’s queries:
It's not what Kane told him. It's what X told him. Kane is right where he's always been, with me, with us. You're not reading correctly. I talked to Mike yesterday. Please slow down just a little bit.
…please just get the exact number of dollars it will cost to liberate the books. 900 was the last number you gave me. Please do not delay. I want to keep you included but will unhappily work around you if I have to.
We need to hear from Ray. Please include Ray in all messages.
take care and thanks,
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