The short lived residence of Pedrico Lao

His letters to the editor stoked the fires of small town outrage; his efforts made for content for this very blog and his posts to the local bulletin board htmf were guaranteed to get a fair bit of reaction.

But in the end, the "his" in his "his", didn’t exist.

In a posting placed on the htmf bulletin board today, the fifteen minutes of fame for Pedrico Lao came to an end. The pseudonym was nothing but a creative prank by some self described bored young Rupertites, who created an alter ego to apparently raise the blood pressure of the older folks and hoodwink local publishers of the letter to the editor sections of our various local newspapers.

In the end they were uncovered by an intrepid member of htmf, who took the time to track their postings and discovered some unusual similarities between Lao and a newcomer called McSash, who would rush to ole Pedrico’s defence from time to time on the bulletin boards with gems like this below.

As a long time guest to HTMF..its finally time for me to speak up. Its nice to see the likes of Mr Lao speaking the truth about our town. I have lived here 35yrs and been through ups downs strikes layoffs closures and everything else this place has experienced in the past 35yrs. Mr Lao speaks the truth....remember that the truth can hurt and we can see that in the anti-Lao movement, relax people ...take the criticism as constructive, think of how we can brace ourselves for positive change. Dont get indignant about his comments. We are on the cusp of a possible major development, not just for rupert but for all of Canada. We need to get in line for the spin offs. The business elite need to recognize that there needs to be some kind of pay off to the communities. And I'm not talking first Nation hand outs.And by the way MR Chong...pretty soon the south end of Graham wont be the elite residences due to perpetual daylight from the lighting, the crashing and banging of containers, trains coming and going and that constant beep beep beep of cranes and like.If Iwas Mr Lao I would take mr Brlecic up on his offer of paying his way back to Richmond. Just like the city did with Skeena on its tax plan. You know make lots of promises then reneg on them, then leave mr brlecic holding an airfare or moving ticket to richmond with no results. That would should be a welcome mat!! And be like so many other fly by nighters that have been welcomed into this community ie China Paper...Dan Veniez. Hell Lao could have a big meeting at the PAC (just like veniez) smooth everyone over and announce his intentions to run for city office.Thanks for the space.
« Last Edit: Yesterday at 08:49:08 PM by mcsash »

The sudden arrival of such a defender of the faith became the tipping point in the exercise in phantom postings. Perhaps if Lao had remained a lone wolf protagonist, the three could have carried on their ruse for who knows how long.

Regardless, they had a pretty good run of things, seventeen days to be precise, their letters to the editor in the Northern View surely started a stampede of civic boosterism, not seen since Dan Veniez opined about life in Rupert without his vision… (visions?)

In the end, they posed some interesting questions for the local population, which seemed to take their critical analysis of the way of Podunk to heart and took to the bunkers with gusto..