More Tony, Or Is It Tony?

Lilith Saintcrow, fearless and wise, sent ol’ Tony an email through the address on his website Anthony Catanzaro.com. Her original email alerted him that someone might be impersonating him on this here site:

Are you aware that someone claiming to be you is issuing death threats on the popular romance-reviewing blog http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com? In case you’ve missed it, someone claiming to be you has threatened to close two bloggers in the trunk of a car. Additionally, someone claiming to be your wife is issuing threats and silly statements that don’t reflect well on you.

I’m sure you might be angry at the original post mocking your recent appearance on a television show, but that’s beside the point and it has brought your name to the attention of a lot of romance readers who pay for books you might be on the cover of. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that kind of publicity is priceless.

I hope this is a misunderstanding and that you don’t know someone is trying to make you look bad by acting like a lunatic. The romance community may seem big, but a bad reputation for issuing cranky death threats won’t go unnoticed. I’m interested in hearing your side of the story, as a romance author and reader, and look forward to hearing from you.

 

That Lilith, she ain’t no dummy. While I was busy talking to all the different manifestations of Kathryn Falk, Lilith was going after the dish on whether it was Tony (and Tina!) who posted on our site. If it wasn’t, that poor man has some damage control to start spinning.

For the record, the comments originated from the same IP, 65.209.5.50, from Tina’s original post to Tony’s more intimate, alluring statement regarding his Caddy and the Belt Parkway.

Here’s the answer Lilith got from Tony’s email:

Lilith,

Thank you for you email..That was definitely not me who left a blog on this site your talking about..I barley have time to breath lately…. I have been so busy I don’t even have time to respond to important emails.. I’m on my way to LA to star on a new reality show for VH1 so thank you for bringing this to my attention..I have millions of fans all over the world so I can understand how someone might have wanted to defend me.

Nice to meet you by the way!
God bless Always!
Anthony Catanzaro

The IP address in the header to the email: “Received: from unknown (HELO pre-smtp23-02.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net) ([64.202.166.53])”

It’s not the same IP address, though the server one surfs from and the server one emails from could be different, I am thinking – though someone with more advanced technical knowledge would have to give me the straight up on that.

Aside from finding yet another person who doesn’t know the terminology of blogs vs. comments (people: you visit a blog and leave a comment. You don’t “leave a blog” on a site. SHEESH.), have we found yet another person who is actually two people? Was it Tony or was it an imposter? Did the real Tony leave the comment and a different person respond to the email? Or was it both?!

On one hand, all the comments from Tina and Tony came from the same IP, so it could be the same troll. Not that I understand the mind of a troll, but it doesn’t make sense for there to be repeated visitors getting their panties in a twist about our mocking a YouTube clip, when let’s face it, we’ve been amply harsh about other topics and haven’t attracted a troll yet. And I try to hold on to the rapidly-dissolving hope that people really REALLY aren’t that dumb as to shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly and publicly, despite recent evidence to the contrary.

Plus, Candy did say she’d heard that Tina was emailing authors whose books were adorned with Tony’s mantitty regarding our harsh and evil behavior. So who knows?

Meanwhile, this weekend I will be searching out my evil twin, just to see what she’s been up to. I think she runs some site about Sweet Ponies and Fluffy Bunnies.

Comments are Closed

  1. Abalina says:

    Perhaps your evil twin runs Cute Overload?  http://cuteoverload.com

  2. Kaite says:

    I vote for rabid, stupid fan. Just because I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I’m a nice bitch that way. 🙂

  3. SB Sarah says:

    If my evil twin runs CO, then my evil twin is freaking awesomely brilliant.

  4. janice says:

    Wow. This is getting so convoluted I’m beginning to feel exhausted thinking about it. I don’t suppose Katherine Falk/fake Katherine Falk’s IP address isn’t the same as fake Tony’s? That would make things easier.

  5. Amy E says:

    Well, of course she is, Sarah.  It’s your *twin*, after all. 

    I don’t know what to think about this now.  I’ve noticed on MySpace that when I left comments on Tony’s page, his wife would reply to them, which seems like the pattern here.  I can’t imagine a troll going this far, too.

    So either it wasn’t him, or this is him getting a clue.  Hmm.

  6. Emily says:

    I don’t suppose Katherine Falk/fake Katherine Falk’s IP address isn’t the same as fake Tony’s? That would make things easier.

    One lone nutzoid poster jumping to defend/issue threats on behalf of any and all supposed underdogs. Eyelids taped open…IV nutrient drip…surrounded by computers…hiring small underpriviledged children to type as they dictate, because two hands just ain’t enough for the amount of crazy s/h/it is expected to spew out across teh internetz.

    Trolls are like mall santas, that way. Are they all one and the same? Do they just work for the Head Honcho? Are there elves involved? Is the fourth dimension is turning in on itself?

  7. bam says:

    Damn, I am a giant fan of that Lilith Saintcrow.

  8. Alex says:

    Go Lilith! 😀

  9. Emily – oh, no, elves would never have anything to do with trolls.  Now frost giants, they might be in on it.

    I’ll repeat what I said below about Falk…methinks s/he doth not protest enough.  Seriously, if I’d received an e-mail saying someone had sent a death threat in my name to anyone, I’d be bending over backward to clear it up.

  10. Candy, while your evil twin of running a site about Sweet Ponies and Fluffy Bunnies, my evil twin is writed inspirational romances starring Sweet Ponies and Fluffy Bunnies. She thanks you for the adorable review.

    SWAK,
    Lucinda

  11. Catherine J. says:

    Oy gevalt. As if things weren’t convoluted enough . . .

    I hope it wasn’t the real Tony who sent that message, simply because I hope that nobody would be stupid enough to damage their career that way.

  12. Laree says:

    Well, I guess I need to keep up with what is going on here a bit better!

    I’ll never stray so far again. I miss too much and go through bitch withdrawls.

  13. wedschilde says:

    an IP address is… well, like a street address for your computer. it assigns a unique ID (internet protocol address) to a specific computer or networked device.

    IP addresses can appear to be shared among multiple computers if they are a part of a shared environment through a server… sometimes a prozy will “hide” the IP address. in this case, it’s like dialing into a main number and then being transfered to an extension number that you wouldn’t know about.

    so [For the record, the comments originated from the same IP, 65.209.5.50, from Tina’s original post to Tony’s more intimate, alluring statement regarding his Caddy and the Belt Parkway.]

    65.209.5.50: this is an unresolveable IP. so, this leads me to believe that it’s either a “temp” IP assigned by a server to mask the user… a lot of mail programs do this.

    64.202.166.53: does resolve out to secureserver.net… so this is probably an email address that’s connected directly to a single computer and is its permanent IP address.

    now mind you, i’m not throwing a lot of time digging through things. so take with a grain of salt the size of lot’s wife.

  14. wedschilde says:

    okay…and now i’m even more of a geek. sheesh.

    65.209.5.50 resolves out to:
    MCI Communications Services, Inc. d/b/a Verizon Business UUNET65 (NET-65-192-0-0-1)
                          65.192.0.0 – 65.223.255.255
    WS/LIGHTYEAR NETWORK SOLUTIONS LLC/STAR GLOBAL UU-65-209-5-48-D10 (NET-65-209-5-48-1)
                          65.209.5.48 – 65.209.5.55

    whereas tony’s email address of 64.202.166.53 resolves out to:
    OrgName:  Go Daddy Software
    OrgID:    GDS-31
    Address:  14455 N Hayden Road
    Address:  Suite 226
    City:    Scottsdale
    StateProv:  AZ
    PostalCode: 85260
    Country:  US

    so those aren’t even the same service provider or IP designations.

  15. For the record, Mr. C has been unfailingly polite and prompt in his email responses to me. I’m given to understand that people impersonate him online quite a bit, and he’s not worried about it (death threats notwithstanding.)

    I’m edging toward the opinion that we’re looking at a bat-sh!t-crazy troll instead of Mr. C., who is being rather a good sport about the whole thing and playing nice in my email inbox.

    Maybe the troll has space in the Caddy’s trunk for me? I’d hate to go without my daily Sarah/Candy fix.

  16. TeddyPig says:

    Go Daddy provides web space which includes email functionality.

    You can have a local email account and a web space email account and a work place email account etc etc etc.

    Not to mention you can use your telephones these days soooo.

    I do not go by IP originators since I can change mine around the country with different proxies if I really really wanted to.

    You would need several verified emails that he admits to that also have the IP that the rant came from to catch him this way.

  17. wedschilde says:

    mostly i was avoiding work 😀

  18. DebbiS says:

    “Tony and Tina” is a brand of lip gloss I used to use.  The whole diatribe sounds like someone who forgot to take their meds and needs to step away from the computer slowly.

  19. With the ease in which people assume an identity on the Internet, I would also vote the guy was completely unaware any of this was going on. Most people in the public spotlight know there is no such thing as bad publicity. The fact, as you point out, he didn’t know the difference between ‘blog’ and comment points to his innocence in this.

  20. Madeline says:

    Troll! TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS!!

    I second what people have been saying about their IP sleuthing… it looks to me like Mr. C had nothing to do with those comments. Someone’s pretending to be him.

    Anyway, if someone wasn’t pretending to be him, at this point it almost doesn’t matter. Unless you think the threats he made were actually going to be followed through on, there’s not much you can do.

  21. Carrie Lofty says:

    Oh, oh, but the grammar! For the love of Pete!

  22. TeddyPig says:

    But I gotta say this guys…

    Why? I did not know this guy until you showed him on this site.

    I mean, of all people am I clueless as to WHY? Anyone would spend the effort to impersonate him?

    He is just not all that.

  23. Dave says:

    Curiously, there’s crap coming from all over the place.  Tony’s website is hosted by some guy who happens to host sites (adam2000.com), his e-mail appears to be coming from GoDaddy.  But the IP the original comments were left from belongs to…some spam company, Lightyear Network Solutions, who’s in the “Direct Marketing and Communications” business.  So, yeah, spam.  Sounds like one of their employees is bored and nasty.

    While Tony might, if he had that kind of internet clue, be masking his IP by using a proxy somewhere, it’s harder to do that than it sounds, it would almost undoubtedly be traceable back to a private individual if he did so, and it really, really doesn’t sound like he has the IT clue to do it, so it seems very unlikely.

    Sorry, I love the site and normally just lurk, but this kind of IT sleuthing let’s me avoid all the real IT work I should be doing. 😉

  24. Marty Basil says:

    Come on! Both messages used multiple !!! Both invoked God!

    Couldn’t he have used someone else’s computer for crying out loud? Maybe the jerk has a vacation home in Kentucky.

    Just wondering…

  25. Dave says:

    Oh sure, absolutely.  It’s totally _possible_, it just seems very unlikely from that limited set of facts.  If you’re willing to go to enough trouble, you can disguise yourself online from pretty much anyone but the government, and even from them if you’re _really_ working at it.  But normally, if you didn’t really know what you were doing, I’d guess you’d go to a library or an internet cafe or some place public and relatively anonymous, not pop over to a friend’s office and borrow his computer.

  26. kate r says:

    if it isn’t tony and tina, then is the tina who’s emailing authors about the evil bitches the False Tina or the real one?

    How much time every day does the troll spend playing tony and tina? Would he/she dress up like them when he/she sat down to write? oooOOoooo

  27. TeddyPig says:

    Yeah that’s the other side of the Why? I could see a troll doing that stuff as Tony on a fling.

    But… playing his wife?

    Emailing others to complain about this site?

    Sorry, that seems a bit too focused on them like they were some kinda big thing.

    In other words supporting an ego trip.

  28. dl says:

    Dang, Lilith writes a good letter, and she’s a Smart Bitch too.

    I’m also inclined to give Mr. Abs the benefit of a doubt. “Millions of fans around the world”?…uuuummm, ego much?  Am I the only one who hadn’t heard of him until this week?  Maybe the superman abs are to hold up his big head.

    Why Teddy?…Some people are just really strange.  Maybe they’ve been locked in a cubical to long at that spam company?

  29. TeddyPig says:

    I know but to look up his wifes name in order to play that.

    Maybe I’ve been stuck in a cubicle too long. It’s just seems too convenient.

    Maybe I am getting too distrusting in my old age.

  30. Robin says:

    It ultimately didn’t surprise me that the post on Karen Scott’s blog was from Kathryn Falk (equivocation notwithstanding, that was a confession, IMO).  But the good natured cockiness in Cantazaro’s video clip does not, IMO, seem to match the ugliness in that initial threatening message purported to be written by him.  My completely unreflective and unconsidered first impression of TC from that video is that the guy is a bit overenthusiastic, a bit impulsive (no filter between brain and mouth), and egocentric in the way of some folks who spend a great deal of time working on, being admired for, and professionally valued for their bodies (esp. men).  I didn’t detect any malice there (although I think he could be a hot head, just because of the sheer level of energy the guy exudes), just a sort of benign self-absorption.  The kind of guy who can probably be annoying but in the end has no ambition to harm anyone or direct so much meanness to a good-sized section of his target audience.  At the very least, he seems pretty conscious of the fact that women make up a decent portion of his overall audience share.  And IMO it’s difficult to have very much longevity with such public disrespect and disdain for the hands that feed you.  And he really seems to like what he does.

  31. Michelle, the Diva says:

    OMG, we’re starring in our own reality show!

    It’s called “I Freaked a Bitch”, which brings to mind a smoky bar in my wild and wooly college days…one of my former friends who was happily drunk and freaky dancing with someone she (in her happy, drunken oblivion) thought was a dude who was really the female SO of a very tall, buff and scary woman who chased us to our car, whereupon driver of said car (moi!) peeled out hell for leather and scooted across three lanes of traffic to escape said psycho bully chick…but I digress.

    People aren’t always what they purport to be.

    My point is that there are plenty of fruits and nuts in the family trees of the internet. Sometimes the fruits and nuts play nice and we have trail mix; sometimes they don’t and we have le train wreck.

    I will say, however, that the Bitchery certainly crack whore slapped the *proud* owner of these posts quite heartily. And THAT’S what I love about this site.

    I’m just agog waiting for the next installment, aren’t you?

    Lalalalalalaaaaaa…off to join Mr Abs’ fangirl squee-ers. Or not.

  32. EGS says:

    Because I’m a half-glass-full kinda girl, I’m going to go with the troll story.  He seems like a nice guy from reading his website and whatnot, and for some reason I always hate to think that seemingly nice people aren’t actually…nice.  So Mr. Ab-Man gets the benefit of the doubt from me at the moment.

  33. AngieZ says:

    Without seeing the full email header it is hard to make a judgement, but the IP address comes from the internet provider you are using at the MOMENT to connect to the internet.  Lets say I am at home with my broadband connection on my laptop.  I have a fixed ip address that pretty much stays the same, but if you have dial up each and every time you log in you get a new IP.  Lets say you take your laptop to another location (a hotel or starbucks hotspot) you will have a different IP.

    I’m on my way to LA to star on a new reality show for VH1 so thank you for bringing this to my attention.

    If he is not at the same location (traveling for example) as the SB posts the IP’s would not be the same, regardless of the email address or computer used.

  34. rascoagogo says:

    I’m going with troll. I read through his website some, and he definitely mentions his wife, she has articles where she talks about their life. He seems like a nice enough guy and there are plenty of crazy people out there. Besides, intentionally bouncing around IP addresses takes a good bit more know-how than the average person has.

    But seriously? All the talk of being a model/actor/bodybuilder has had Fabio’s “Slashies” acceptance speech from Zoolander echoing in my head for a couple of days. “It means that you think of me as the best actor-slash-model and not the other way around!”

  35. Lani says:

    Okay – I’m gonna share something I sent to Sarah, because I firmly believe that it is NOT Tony Catanzaro who wrote the threat. Here’s why:

    The IP where the threats came from are in Alum Bank, Pennsylvania; Tony’s in NYC, over four hours away. (The e-mail IP doesn’t really matter, because that will resolve to where ever his webhost is, whereas the comment IP resolves to the location of the computer they were written on.) There’s a lot to be done with IP masking and whatnot, but Tony doesn’t strike me as possessing that particular brand of intellect. Nor does the threatener. However, it’s still possible that Tony and his wife could have been in Alum Bank, away from home, with nothing better to do than hang at the Smart Bitches. Unlikely, but possible.

    But, the writing style is not a match. Tony’s e-mail is in short sentences, written like a guy. Guys speak in straightforward sentences – one subject, one verb, as little excess as possible. They’re thinking about sex, not communication. Your wannabe assailant writes like a woman – lots of commas, lots of qualifiers, lots of exclamation points.

    The writing style between all messages generating from the same IP (the one in PA, where the threat came from) is a closer match. Notice the lack of apostrophes in the messages. Either that key is broken on that keyboard, or your impersonator wrote both messages. Also, notice the tendency in both comments to emphasize in ALL CAPS – that’s kind of a girl thing, too. Also, Tony puts two periods at the end of each sentence, for some reason. Maybe it’s a body-builder thing. I have no idea. But I notice the threatener does not.

    Again, I’m a total amateur here, but I don’t think Tony Catanzaro sent that threat. I think it was a woman in Alum Bank, PA posing as both him and his wife. Why? Bitch is probably crazy.

  36. ‘Sometimes the fruits and nuts play nice and we have trail mix; sometimes they don’t and we have le train wreck.’

    LOL! Michelle.

    I belonged to a Writer’s site once where a couple from England trolled there using at least ten different identities, backing up each others comments with threats and vulgar crapola. It was funny for a while; but as in most of these trolling cases, these Multiples just get tedious.

  37. --E says:

    Teddy Pig—

    Lots of trolls create little backup trolls to “support” the first troll. The term for these backup personae is “sockpuppets.”

    Why would anyone do this? Because it makes an otherwise rational bunch of folks jump up and down and squawk and give lots of attention to the troll. That’s what trolls do. They hunt for attention, even negative attention, and very often people feed them.

    The way to deal with trolls is to delete all their posts and refuse to interact with them. They get bored and wander away.

    The only other way to deal with trolls is to call them trolls, and then make fun of what losers they are. This takes longer, though, and should only be attempted by people who grew up in sarcastic households where playing the dozens was a dinnertime activity.

    Under no circumstances should you interact with them on their own terms.

    I’m frankly a little surprised that the SBs have given this moron three or four whole posts, complete with extensive comment trails, worth of attention. Feast. O. Rama. What are y’all thinking?

  38. SaucySam says:

    Wow, this is starting to remind me of a Nancy Drew or something with all the detective work going on! Unfortunately we will probably never know if it was really Tony or just some crazy woman blinded by his abs. At the very least it proved entertaining.

  39. Grrrly says:

    ah, i thought the name and face looked familiar. and sure enough, when i checked his resume page, there it was: he was on mr. romance on the oxygen channel a few years ago. was it four, maybe five years? anyway, whether it was his actual personality or the notoriously creative editing of “reality” t.v., tony came off as the resident pushy, egomaniacal, flip-out-in-a-new-york-minute crybaby asshat that i have absolutely no problem believing would threaten a couple of bloggers or anyone else he thought was dissing him. whether it was him being the douchebag he was/was portrayed as, or he’s become more mature, or at least more media-conscious of his image, since the show, and thus knows better than to shoot off his mouth like that, is a real coin-toss at this point, for me anyway. asshat tony and nice guy tony are equally plausible and possible, and ip sleuthing and geek theory not withstanding, we’ll never know for sure which one is the “real” representation. and that’s going to drive me nuts. for about five minutes. can we move on to the next entertainment now? 🙂

    tee! my confirmation word is defense37. how apropos.

  40. Anonymosity says:

    “I have millions of fans all over the world so I can understand how someone might have wanted to defend me.”

    How modest.

    Anyway, that grammatical structure looks awful familiar. And this may just be nitpicking, but he does have the “God bless Always!” in his signature, so that’s in line with the whole “I’ll pray for you” thing.

    I’m not fully convinced he didn’t do it.

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