RADIO WARS: Collateral Damage

Photo credit: Non-blob, Jimmy Kempski

Here’s a brief recap of what happened yesterday: After months of childish barbs and antics, Josh Innes and Mike Missanelli confronted each other at Eagles practice. The two were separated. Innes spent most of his show talking about it. He called Jimmy Kempski, the one Eagles reporter who tweeted out an image of the showdown, a “big fat blob.” And during the 5 p.m. hour, Innes fielded a call from what was apparently Mike Missanelli’s gynecological brother, John, who threatened to fight Innes. This is the first time a Missanelli has truly gone on the offensive against Innes, and in the process, handed the upstart host a victory.

But Mike, too, found the launch button, aimed his verbal weapon, and fired. This just a day after taking shots at Howard Eskin.

It’s all a big childish cluster F that could only happen in Philly. So here now, the collateral damage of what has become a full-blown war:

Missanelli goes to the press

I emailed Missanelli for comment about the incident. This was the entire exchange:

He also apparently spoke to Philly.com cartoonist Rob Tornoe:

“Yeah, he stepped back and wet himself just like he did months ago when Gargano confronted him,” Missanelli said later. “Anybody can be a tough guy behind a microphone.”

Following these comments, Mike went behind his microphone to launch his on-air attack, tough guy-style.

Missanelli launches

Mutually Assured Destruction be damned, Mike found the button [thanks to Jim on the transcribe and commentary]:

audio 97.5 The Fanatic

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“Since there’s a lot of Twitter activity and all these blogsters, the blogsters like Kyle Scott and whatever. They get wood when something happens, so I’ll comment on all these [Mike speaks Italian like the Godfather is still relevant] are saying about today.”

…

“Theres a bunch of activity going on social media as you might expect with these gossip mongers that love stuff like this. I’ll comment on it in case you didn’t hear it: This guy that works at this other station, who has done nothing but apparently talk about me because and has this unhealthy obsession apparently with the success of this particular radio show happened to be at Eagles camp today. And I was at Eagles camp, and I was sitting there having a conversation with Pete Ciarrocchi of Chickie’s and Pete’s. And he points out that this radio guy is down there, so I see the guy turn around and I guess he wants to come down to talk to Pete but he sees me there. Now, I never met this guy I don’t even know what he looks like it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the kid. So he decides against it and turns back around. So I guess he got a little bit of courage about five minutes later and he walks down towards us and apparently he was under some misguided conception that I was going to be friendly to him. So he’s standing there and he’s talking to Pete and I got my arms folded and I’m looking at him steely-eyed. I don’t play that friendly game when a guy is a coward to rip you personally behind the safety of a microphone.”

“So I got my arms folded, waiting for him to say something smart to me, ‘cuz that’s the way I roll. And so the conversation goes on and I go ‘You know, I’m sitting here listening to you talk, and I’m wondering like, uh, why a guy who has such courage to rip people in a radio booth doesn’t have the courage to say it to his face. And he kinda stammers around and blah blah blah, and somehow he gets on the subject and he starts ripping Anthony Gargano, who is one of my boys, and he says some vile, vicious stuff about Anthony Gargano, challenging he fact that I had made public that several months ago when Anthony was at the other station he confronted this guy for ripping him on the radio and the kid got scared white as a sheet and almost peed himself.”

“So I file all this stuff around and the conversation goes on and people can see that it’s kinda getting heated, so they come in and … Derek Boyko comes in and he’s trying to calm the situation and … so what are you gonna do? Are you gonna say something to my face or are you one of these guys that doesn’t have the courage to do that? And he goes ‘Well I think you suck.’ And I take two steps towards him, and get my face in his face, and he backed up like a scared little rabbit. And frankly, I was looking for his wet spot.”

“You know that character in the Sopranos … [I stopped listening because MY GOD GET NEW POINTS OF REFERENCE] … his name was Big Pussy. That’s what this kid is. So if you’re listening to that garbage, keep in mind that this kid is a little, wormy, uncourageous little siss.”

You can almost hear the tick in Mike’s voice by the end of that. He’s angry. For what it’s worth, however, yet another source reached out to me yesterday and said Innes absolutely took two steps back. So that part doesn’t seem to be in dispute anymore.

This was a solid attack on Mike’s part, but it’s hard not to notice that he essentially played right into Innes’ portrayal of him considering that he led into the rant with a lecture about Omar being the best character on The Wire and tied things up with a Sopranos reference. This, on General Knowledge Wednesday.

The Blob Provocation

After calling Kempski a “big fat blob” in retaliation for Kempski’s Tweets about the incident…

… radio host Innes fired some warning shots, which likely were converted to hand-drawn form midstream – like entering Toon Town in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? – before being received by Kempski [thanks to Jim on the transcribe]:

audio WIP

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Spike Eskin: The funniest Josh feud is the Jimmy Kempski one …

Josh Innes: The guy’s a loser. He sits there and blogs to a bunch of stiffs that like to hear fluff, that’s what he does. He stick figures. That’s all it was. The guy that does stick figures on his blog and says nothing with any sort of context, he takes a bunch of screenshots of games and then word paints and draws stick figures. He sucks. He’s an example of new media, which is a lot of … not all new media is bad … but it’s guys like this that make a living blogging and then end up with their fat asses on TV. My fat ass won’t be on TV because I’m too fat and grotesque to be on TV. Someone needs to pass along the note to someone like Jimmy Kempski or CSN. Someone needs to go to CSN and say ‘Jimmy Kempski is just an ugly, ugly dude. Fat, ugly dude. Why is he on TV?’

SE: I have your back, but I like Jimmy Kempski.

JI: You would because you’re a blogger, a blogger and a podcaster. Now I would like to talk to somebody that was actually in [camp] because there are ‘sources’ that have been talking to all these outlets about what they saw … I’d like to know what people have seen.

Kempski, however, apparently wasn’t the intended target for the aforementioned “blob” portion of the attack (which we didn’t catch in time to fully quote):

The Treaty at Big Blob

Missanelli bombs Howard Eskin’s Pearl Harbor, just for the hell of it

I was literally working on this post yesterday when the Innes-Missanelli confrontation occurred, so I’m just going to roll it into this one.

Missanelli took aim at Eskin on Tuesday. Why? I don’t know. But it’s fun:

“Bradford cannot play one series. If Bradford plays one series I’m gonna go down to the sideline and yell at Chip myself. I’ll have to get past his bodyguard, that waterboy who wears a fur coat. Douche. You ever see that guy? He always makes sure he gets into the shot. You ever see that? When they’re interviewing a player and he’s got that stupid grin on his face, like ‘I’m just so happy to be part of the team because I’ve never played a sport in my life.’ He’s such a douche … It’s nauseating. I’m telling you I wanna spray a can of Raid on this dude.”

“You know what they pay him? About $25 a game, cause all he wants to do is be on the sideline and do this make pretend football thing, because he never played a sport ever.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re on the verge of total annihilation. MAESTRO FROM FRONT LINES:

https://vimeo.com/136746992