Antonio

So my Dad is a huge Beatles fan. He is also semi-literate when it comes to the internet. He can send an e-mail here and there, click a link often enough. He also managed to combine these two loves and teach himself how to use an AOL-run Beatles message board.

He immediately began telling his tales about his "Beatles board". About how there were the traditionalists who preferred the British releases of each album and the nostalgists who loved the American version just as much because that's what they grew up with (he's a nostalgist). Things like that. Mainly, he enjoyed relating how he was challenging the authority of the message board's stalwarts, pointing out how arbitrary their little rules were and basically causing havoc. That's my Dad. To be fair, as argumentative and trouble-making as my Dad is, the board is based on argument.

Anyway, one of these stalwarts went by the handle Antonio. Antonio was a brash, annoying, vulgar know-it-all. He would make sweeping, holier-than-thou, often incorrect pronouncements. Basically, he was the worst of the bunch. My Dad attacked him, baited him, pestered him. Tried to knock him down a peg. Us Haggerty's are all about miniscule mostly inconsequential fits of justice.

But for some reason, this virtual community treated Antonio with kid gloves. His stupidity went unchecked. His disgusting remarks about women were ignored. He was the most argumentative jerk on the board and no one would argue with him. My Dad couldn't believe it!

This was when he noticed a weird pattern to Antonio's posts. When they weren't betraying a lack of specific Beatles knowledge, they often (disgustingly) referred to ladies as leading ladies. He would say how he listened to particular albums while shooting. He dropped names like Catherine and Melanie. No last names, of course, the coy devil.

So finally my father had to implicitly ask the other members of the board who this Antonio really was in super-secret private message e-mail mode. Though they wouldn't specifically articulate who he was they did say yes when he finally asked: Antonio is Antonio Banderas.

So Antonio Banderas posts on the same AOL Beatles message board as my father, where he refers to his wife and other ladies in ways so misogynistic my father won't even tell me the specifics.