RADIO cellar-dweller Mike Carlton hit a disgusting new low yesterday, continuing his career-long assault on colleague Stan Zemanek by saying he "loathed" and "hated" Zemanek - as his family prepared to bury him.
Responding to a caller's question about why he wouldn't be at Zemanek's funeral, Carlton said: "I'd only go to check that he was actually dead."
It would be "an act of sheer hypocrisy ... I loathed him", Carlton said.
On-air partner Peter FitzSimons - who joined the show last year in a desperate bid to rescue Carlton's paltry ratings - did his best to cut his mate off, but Carlton continued, saying: "I don't like Stan and he didn't like me and I'm not going to be hypocritical and turn up."
Even Carlton's colleagues attacked him, with 2UE afternoon host Steve Price, who attended the funeral, opening his show by condemning Carlton.
"Just shut up and say nothing. It was really bad taste and bad behaviour," Price said.
Carlton's hatred for Zemanek can be traced back almost 30 years when Carlton was dropped from 2UE's morning show to make way for John Laws - with Zemanek as producer.
The Zemanek family tried to avoid the furore brewing on the airwaves.
"Today is a celebration of Stan's life and we'd really rather today have been a day of celebration and love for a remarkable man, to just focus on the positive," friend Prue Macsween said.
A source said Carlton "wouldn't have been handling the fact that Stan's had four or five days in the spotlight - even though he's dead".
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22093102-2,00.html
