We had a laugh about it, sure, but last week’s mega-disturbing Byko column about him going to Thailand to see his creepy college buddy left one question hanging in the air for us and some fellow colleagues in the local media with whom we spoke about it: Could this be the end of Byko? As in, could this fucking mega-stink-bomb of weird either snowball into a big old mess for him, OR was the Daily News‘ choice to publish it at all a sly move in which they gave Byko just enough rope to hang himself?

This week, there’s another wrinkle: Viewed in the light of the recent Bill Conlin bombshell at DN, Byko’s little ode to sex tourism feels even more deeply, creepily wrong. (We didn’t think it could feel more so, but that’s life for you.) Add that point to this spot-on letter from Asian-American activist Helen Gym in today’s DN, which makes point after point about just how fucked Byko’s piece was, and you begin to get a picture of just how out of time and out of place Byko is. You know we love to rib the guy, and we know he’s a Philly media institution, but real talk: It’s probably time for Byko to go. It takes a lifetime to get this clueless. Let him go off somewhere and enjoy the fruits of his labors. And let’s hope like hell that somewhere is not Thailand.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 at 11:27 am.