The HONtroversy Omega – the ultimate flame war

City Paper ran a less-than-timely and detailed interview with Denise Whiting this week, the oft-reviled and always controversial figurehead of Cafe Hon who – in case you were living at the bottom of the bay in the past few months – enflamed the city’s ire when she revealed she had placed a copyright on the term “HON.” Weeks and a million backpedals by Whiting later, we have City Paper’s article which attempts to humanize her and provide, at least, some perspective on the situation. Ironically, the timing and the text of the article makes it appear as if she’s trying to overcompensate, rather than laying low and quiet about the situation (but that’s just how I see it).

…and boy howdy, did the comments start flying. 202 comments over the past few days, the majority of which are incredibly anti-Whiting and Cafe Hon. The real fun, however, began when a commenter who may or may not be Debbie Pepper Howard – the manager of HONtown, Cafe Hon’s de facto souvenir shop, came out of the ether and began throwing up some commentary that is truly made of solid Internet Gold. Observe:

Christina…welcome. wondering where you were. And YES! I would love to know the WORST part! Oh wait- thats what you think the WORST part is??? let down. 🙁 all you do is BLAH BLAH BLAH…..maybe you and akers should hook up- you’re quite the team. AND my dear, HONtown is NOT all I do- or is it breaking news here- maybe you missed the above comments- I don’t have to hide who i am- I never have, and I never will. I certainly won’t be intimidated by YOU. Speaking of digging graves- you have NO IDEA the MOLE in your presence- maybe YOU should stop talking so much, and as I once advised a novice in VEGAS- quit showing your hand. Why am i so willingly giving you advice? because I know you will spite me and do just the opposite. You’re a silly little girl, but i will give you some credit…at least your protest sign was colorful; albeit juvenile, at least you put in more effort than our lil Stevie. carry on dear- its not my bedtime yet.

There are literally dozens of comments by this person like this, complete with hilariously 8th grade insults to other commenters. I’ll give “Debbie” credit, if it’s really her she’s got quite a knack of making a situation that inadvertently became much worse even worse, and if it’s just a troll posing as Debbie Pepper Howard it’s the greatest troll to ever live. Kudos, either way. If you’ve got oh, 45 minutes or so, I’d highly recommend reading through the whole trainwreck.

(original photo by City Paper, Photoshop by this guy)