King Kong vs. Godzilla; Frankenstein vs The Wolfman; Jennifer Anniston & Angelina Jolie…
The annals of ridiculous rivalries are littered with the corpse-like memories of vicious cat fights between celebrity combatants. In Kansas City few have loomed larger than the one that went down these past four years between Kansas City mayor Mark Funkhouser and First Lady Gloria Squitiro and biting blogger Tony Botello.
It’s hard to imagine an indignity Botello has yet to inflict on the controversial first couple.
Raising the question of how thrilled Botello is with Funk’s election day throttling and if he’ll have to take up golf or ant farming to fill the deep void…
"You know, I haven’t had a chance to think about that yet" Botello says. "They say you’re either filled with regret or filled with remorse after an opponent is vanquished. And I feel remorse because he was never my enemy. But now I won’t have the circus to watch. But it was never personal to me and I feel sorry because it was just a bad accident for Kansas City."
Truth be known, without Gloria Funk would have probably done a pretty good job, Botello concedes.
"It would have been what everybody was hoping for," Botello says. "And that’s why there’s remorse. Because Gloria was his Achilles heel because she brought down somebody that could have been a legend. She was his Achilles heel, which is kind of funny because of the barefoot thing."
Bad news for Tony.
The crusade is over, he will have to come up with new reasons why he can’t mow his mom’s lawn or shovel the snow.
I was hoping for a quote from Schwarzenegger (Easy Tony, thats SchwarzeNEGGER. Whew…close one.), “I have crushed my enemy, seen Gloria driven before me, and now hear the lamentations of her husband.
Struggling…
I’m finding it difficult to come up with a term that accurately describes this site’s ringleader interviewing his own contributors, especially when said contributor has so little to say. Pointless? Circular? Lazy? We’re one step away from Hearne interviewing himself, at which point I fear the universe will collapse in on itself in a void of imploding irrelevance.
We’re saving that for the Mayan Calendar Party, Dec.21,2012
Oh, Jared. Do they let you post from your table there at Subway?
Wake up, readers and get the distinction: KCConfidential is not a newspaper, nor are we reporters. We are bloggers with opinions. And we are allowed to banter back and forth with another. And it’s fun! And we talk about the dead elephants in this town.
Tony has done yeoman’s work dethroning the Funk. Gloria is most likely mentally ill and needed help, ( I did the first interview with her 4 years ago for KC Magazine; she thinks she is Mary Todd Lincoln reincarnated) and her co-dependent husband didn’t provide it. Instead, he brought her to work with him, up an elevator by herself due to her agoraphobia. Let her run around barefoot, due to her agoraphobia. Let her bad Mafioso manners (her folks housed Mafia from Sicily in NYC) badger the staff into lawsuits that the Star says cost taxpapers over $675,000. Funk sacrificed his career trying to placate and prop up his wife. Besides, he did not have the skill set for being Mayor.
So I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear what Tony says. The rest of us do.
But just in case the universe does end, 12/21/2012, Jared, how about we let you buy a ticket to the KCC Finale party? Bring your own sandwich.
Seriously, Tracy?
Tony has a gigantic credibility problem among…well…normal people. And that’s putting it mildly. Made up “stories,” phony interviews: his commenters have thoroughly discredited him to the point that he has to go on there and say LOOK AT ME I’M CREDIBLE!
When you have to brag about your credibility, you’ve got a credibility problem.
He’ll have less time once the libel lawsuit against him is filed. Wait for it. Watch for it. It’s all drawn up.
@Tracy
Well played, ma’am. You got me there. Sadly, I neither work for Subway nor own a jewelry story whose very name seems to evoke irrational excitement when spoken.
I guess what I’m getting at is a question of format. If Tony has something important to say (and that’s quite the qualifier) on the matter, why not just say it under his own byline? Simple, really. And yes, newspaper or not, the content was presented in the format of an article — with headlines, bylines, direct quotes and everything. If this site has transcended the way newspapers serve up content, then why mimic their delivery methods in the first place? Something just seems off. That’s all.
And I’m going to have to pass on the invite to said party, thank you. Dave, our assistant manager, makes me wipe the tables twice as hard that night. You’d be surprised how messy luncheon meats can be. Besides, my mother will really give me the business if I’m out late, and I can’t afford to have her kick me out of the basement before I’m done stitching up my RenFest costume.
But perhaps I’ve said too much…