Open Letter to Wade Tarzia re Proa List by Joseph Oster

Updated August 20, 2011 in response to more public slander - Wade, you ignorant slut. Your accusation has no basis in fact. There is absoutely nothing from your private emails on the page below, other than one paragraph you posted yourself to the proa list. You endorse an unscrupulous salesman and shameless liar ("Rob is a nice guy") and slam me instead.
- "what a fool believes ... he sees, No wise man has the power to reason away" (Michael McDonald, Doobie Brothers)

I thought your post #20450 a couple of weeks ago was a fine bit of writing; imaginative, provocative, yet funny and respectful. I too wish that Russell would write that book.

From post #20636 today, it seems that Dave Culp has been eating too much red meat lately! Wow!! I didn't perceive the insult in "Julie's" post that he did, certainly nothing to deserve that level of attack. Long ago, Dave used to be a "gentleman and a scholar" but it seems something has happened to him. I wrote him off list a couple weeks ago about his post #20455 in which he said:

The fact is, he has met Russell exactly once and sailed with him only once, on JZERRO in S.F. Bay in 2000, as a result of me begging and pleading with Russell to take him out. Boy, do I regret that! His response to my email was quite juvenile, though he admitted that it was "boat", not "boats" and he had sailed with Russell just that once.

His use of rapper Ice-T's lyric, "Hate the game, don't hate the players" is truly a pathetic justification of what has become a liar's and cheater's "game" on the proa list:

"Sometimes I get illy, cock back the nine-milli
I choose not to bust, smack your punk-ass silly"

But I want to tell you that I have never been a lurker on the proa list and I am definitely NOT "AlanProa" or "Julie". I started reading the list again in March when Russell called me to say he was getting annoyed with Rob Denney. And I have enjoyed Steven Callahan's posts addressing the many mis-representations that Rob Denney has repeated over the years to sell his boats.

After all, Denney has been dragging my name through the mud for many years now, claiming I have failed to sell plans when, in fact, I never had any for sale.

Russell tells me that even Michael Schacht, who banned me from the proa list seven years ago for calling Denney a liar, has left the list himself, disillusioned with what it has become? Denney has done for proas what Cheney/Bush have done for democracy - poisoned the well. I will certainly never participate there again, and I know others who have made the same decision, which is a loss.

That's all. Feel free to pass this along, post it on the proa list or ignore it. You are quite right in saying that "the smell of urine is becoming synonymous with Proafile" - and nobody enjoys that.

Date: 14 May 2008
From: Joseph Oster
To: Wade Tarzia
Subject: a proa discussion list ... dominated by one man

The point I have tried to make is that Rob Denney has been allowed to set the tone and agenda on the proa list since the day he joined nine years ago. He has been a bully from the very start. His own [former] naval architect, Mark Stephens, has publicly refuted some of Denney's claims about structural issues and been scolded for that by Denney.

How valuable is a proa discussion list when it's dominated by one man who never acknowledges any validity at all in the design choices that Russell Brown has made?

In this latest bit about shifting ballast, Denney fails to recognize and acknowledge that half the time they were taking weight _OFF_ JZERRO's ama and that there is an advantage to that!

I see this morning that Denney has posted my note to you (cool) and with typical bravado, talks as if he has already beaten JZERRO in a TransPac race TWO+ YEARS from now, done deal, proven "fact" - which is all the more nonsense, given that he has been talking for many years now about doing the singlehanded TransPac but never shows up.

The tolerance that Denney's behavior has received on the proa list can only be explained, I believe, by the very limited offshore experience of most of its participants.

NOTE: I had no intention of making the following emails public but Wade has commented on them in post #20784; he says: "a line has been crossed now" - what line? When did it become a crime to send someone a private email?! Though I gave him permission to make my first email (above) public, I never asked him to post anything.

Date: 20 May 2008
From: Joseph Oster
To: Wade Tarzia
Subject: Moderating the Proa List

"Wade, if you went back through just six months or so of the proa list and applied your criteria, I'd be very curious to see what was left of it?"

In post #20703, Julie said: "It will be interesting to see if the moderator has any balls." and the post was deleted! Yet in post #20722, moderator Marc Ellsworth said, in reference to _ME_: "I would hope that if someone is going to spout off about something, they would have enough cojones to do it themselves."

I doubt it. You certainly must know that innocent people are often persecuted and killed in witch hunts?

Date: 20 May 2008
From: Joseph Oster
To: Wade Tarzia
Subject: Re: Moderating the Proa List

Tarzia, Wade wrote:
> Hi Joe -- I can't be involved these roundabout displays. In fact, I object to being dragged into the fracas on your website. That sort of takes things out of context, and it does no credit to your good web site, either, I think. I'd prefer to keep it all on Proafile to the extent that it needs discussing. I am not the moderator there; I'm just a 'real regular guy' and also *far* from an experienced builder, sailor, or proa expert, for that matter. Sorry if you misunderstood this context. -- Wade

You have involved yourself by asking for moderator intervention and one doesn't need to be a list member to _READ_ your views on this matter.

I have not posted anything on the proa list for nearly seven years and have no intention of doing so. The very fact that some messages are deleted (but never Denney's) and some people are banned (but not Denney) is reason enough to avoid participating.

Despite his claims about Antrim and I, Denney is the only person with a commercial interest in selling proas, or plans, and states openly that controversy is good for his business! I _NEVER_ had any plans for sale.

Date: 20 May 2008
From: Joseph Oster
To: Wade Tarzia
Subject: Re: I'm just a 'real regular guy'

P.S. So am I Wade. Neither Steve Callahan nor I are Russell Brown's minions, we don't write when and what he tells us. I choose to not participate in the proa list but that doesn't mean I'm not passionate about proas or that I need to stand by and be slandered by Denney.

It does no credit to Proafile that so many people are piling on against Callahan and me, just because we choose to defend our reputations, each in our own way.

I thought Harmen Hielkema's comments in post #20752 [posted by by Gary Dierking] were very interesting; too bad it was deleted within hours - but not before I saved a copy here:

I contacted you a week ago because you seemed to be a 'real regular guy' with a good head on your shoulders. It is beneath you to go along with the mob atmosphere that Denney has created.