Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa escaped an alcoholic father, a tattooed, misspent youth and hard-bitten circumstances to rule the second-largest city in the U.S. He rarely tires of telling us so. And it may or may not be true.
Since long before he was elected, some in the L.A. blogosphere have made regular sport of tearing apart the former Tony Villar's self-mythologized autbiography - the one he now trots out at every photo-op and inspirational-speech event he can.
Yesterday, the Daily News ran a fascinating psychographic profile of the former Tony Villar Jr. that tears apart the mayor's image in some detail - Villaraigosa was not the son of a single mom for long (his mother remarried), his father was not a monster, according to Antonio Villar Sr.'s second family, and his half-brother-by-the-same-name wishes he's knock off saying otherwise.
The piece by Tony Castro pretty much eviscerates Antonio Villaraigosa's self-made myths, details the mayor's body-building and teeth-bleaching regimen, and even trots out a "narcissism expert" to explain the Mayor's rosy and too-oft-told account of his own life:
In June, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles reported that retired Sherman Oaks teacher Herman Katz had grown "weary" of the yarn Villaraigosa has often told of how Katz dramatically turned his life around while the teenage Villar was struggling at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights - almost making it seem as if Katz had become his surrogate father, paving his course to eventual political stardom.
It wasn't that Katz hadn't taken an interest in young Villar. But the way Villaraigosa had built up the relationship - introducing him during his inaugural spectacle in 2005 in glowing, almost familial terms - may have made it seem more than it was.
"It wasn't a `this-kid-could-be-mayor-one-day' type of thing," Katz told The Journal. "It just so happened that this was at a time when he needed somebody who showed a little interest, who would give him the encouragement, and that's what it really was.
"This story is important because it shows people how important an educator can be when you don't even realize it. You never know how you're going to affect a kid."
In fairness to the mayor, experts say, everyone is subject to what W. Keith Campbell, associate professor of psychology at the University of Georgia and a "narcissism expert," calls "memory distortion."
"It's a self-enhancing direction in which people destroy the past to make themselves look better," Campbell said. "I don't know if it's the politician doing it or handlers doing it because they know it creates a good story."
Look for this all to be revisited in even more scrupulous detail. the second Villaraigosa inevitably announces his candidacy for higher office.
