The News UpFront: (Commentary in lieu of the TOP STORY) as of Monday, 20 August 2007

~ There is no sad song for this cyber punk who's land-based in Sacramento. His departure must be celebrated for the relief that it would bring. Yes, Perry Diaz, the amateur Internet poster and Google devotee, is gone and in his place a new virtual person will try to fill in. But it could be a Trojan horse, says his arch-enemy.

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

SAN DIEGO - The unlamented cyber punk that was Perry Diaz finally succumbed to his self-inflicted demise, and in an act that poorly imitates the mythical bird phoenix, he rises, not from the ashes, but from the quagmire of dirt and venom that he had wallowed in.

A creature of his own monstrosity, Perry Diaz had reveled in the attention of the virtual people who both lapped up his Internet postings for want of a better pastime, and despised him as well for his baseless and unfounded virulence.

Where he had lurked and thrown his brickbats from had been a safe haven in his virtual world. And he knew he could easily open battle fronts and engage those who cross his path without being physically hurt or maimed, for he was a virtual person.

But even if he had managed to stay out of real physical trouble, Perry Diaz had a face that went with the name, and a head topped by a perfectly-cultivated nest of shiny black hair. His smile is etched forever in his picture, and I wondered which one was real . . . the face, the hair, the picture? Or, are they also virtual?

Unlike the phoenix which lived for 500 years, set itself on fire and rose renewed from its ashes, Perry Diaz had a short life span. I believe he had said three years since he begun syndicating tall tales and fantastic stories. What he had for ashes are the fetid remains of the firestorms that he had whipped up and consumed him.

The renewal promised in the phoenix myth is not to be had by Perry Diaz, at least not in the same environment he had repeatedly loathed and abused but which had tolerated him for, unlike him, there are real people who accepted mistakes and humbled themselves.

The many e-forums that sheltered Perry Diaz would probably celebrate his cyber death, not because he was good and his postings edifying, but because they would be rid of the anomaly.

Sure, the cyber community is not wanting of people willing and able to stand up to him, but at what cost? Nobody, not Jay Caedo nor Bobby Reyes, neither Amy Susil nor I, would take the unworthy risk to be dragged down the lowest gutter. Doing so would be like making a rotten scoundrel out of oneself.

I had made the mistake of responding to his diatribe, believing in his honesty and goodwill, only to be falsely and unfairly branded a "criminal", called names and denounced for the journalist job of which he had never had an inkling.

Before that, Perry Diaz had looked and sounded like a kindly information-gatherer, a cub in old age, out to make a presence in the real world of journalism. I suspect he had had this thought that writing fairies and tales had qualified him as a columnist, much less as a writer.

Well, much as he had tried hard to appear like one, it always showed what he was in the factual mistakes of his writings, leading journalist Joseph G. Lariosa to say his articles were no more than "PerryTales". Ha, ha, that was a bull's eye, hurtful but true.

The simple task of checking and cross-checking claims versus facts, fiction versus truth, is de rigueur among journalists. For Perry Diaz who was never a journalist, that was perhaps unheard of, for he thrived in what Google instantly provided, which meant relying on secondary or tertiary information that could either be corrupt, distorted or false.

But what could one expect from a real estate agent whose chief claim to a short-lived burst of fame was in exposing his ignorance and lack of class? A street brawler he was but not street smart. He hadn't the mind to think what he was attacking for and why.

His verbal joustings laced with vulgarisms, innuendoes and name-calling intended to shock, awe and slay were sick and sickening. Who in his right mind would call a colleague's mother "prostitute" unless he had carnal knowledge with her and betrayed his own wife? What did it make of his wife?

Who would put down a woman as "lonely" who happened to question him for his braggadocio? And then because the lady had the courage to speak up and fight back, he found neurotic and erotic delight in her responses, calling them "orgasms"?

Perry Diaz had been his own worst enemy. His child-like bravado did not match the skills, the talent and the knowledge of what he had wanted to become (he didn't have them to begin with) -- a writer, a journalist, an opinion-maker, an internet poster. He was more likely a mud-slinger.

In his self-written obituary announcing the end of Perry Diaz and the arrival of an "Elk Grove realtor" (which he is in the first place), Perry Diaz offered Jay Caedo of San Francisco "an unconditional truce", imploring him to "move on with our lives". The hypocrisy!

The ironic part was when he told Jay: "Nothing is achieved by putting each other down". What a realization? After he had hurled the insults, after he had ruined reputations, after he had taken down respectable people to the pits, he now had the gall to say that?

And then, he said "we are what we do in our lives, not what people picture us to be". Isn't it quite late in the day to finally accept that he couldn't be, never will be, a journalist, or a writer that he had pretended to be all these years? Didn't he not portray himself to be writer, a political leader, an advocate of self-serving causes? Or was he simply an agent provocateur?

It was time for him to go. He had no choice but to bury the savage Perry Diaz and try to redeem what's left of his virtual life and live it in a real world where he is no more than a struggling real estate agent. There, he could stay glued to his plants and flowers and wax poetic with his words: "life is good".

I leave him at that. He could re-invent, recycle or makeover himself. On the other hand, I believe what Jay Caedo said: "This is the upteenth time Diaz has called for a truce, until he starts all over again and insults someone, or one of us. It's really gotten so old".

Well, give him a chance even as the community awaits Bobby Reyes' prophecy.

The Trojan horse he has warned about could be so full of unspent Trojan condoms that Perry Diaz had perhaps fantasized using in the cyber world that collapsed on him. Good riddance.