Browse Tag: true story

When We Were Rock Stars

We were in the KISS Army and we meant business.
We were in the KISS Army and we meant business. (Click the image to read the story.)

In keeping with the current “Throwback Thursday” theme that is all the rage with the kids these days, here is my contribution: a (true) story I wrote in 2001, thirteen years ago! (Did I really just say 13 years?)

Even though it was written after the internet was well on its way to being a ubiquitous staple of everyday modern life, this story is showing some signs of age, a little rust here and there. For instance, iPods were not invented and CDs were still all the rage. (A little Googling revealed that the first iPods hit the market in October of 2001.) Also, this gem of a story hit the internet 2 1/2 years before MySpace opened its doors and 3 years before Facebook began its intended world domination. (What’s MySpace?) This story was published during the era of “online journals.” We didn’t have “blogs.” Blogs didn’t catch on until after some of us toyed around with “weblogs” first. Same difference, “blog” just sounds cuter. There was Diaryland back then, a site were you could sign up for a free online diary. It was pretty basic and you had to “host” your images elsewhere. But there are some of us still around who went hardcore and built our own websites. We told our stories, recounted our days. We made image galleries, resizing photos and making thumbnails and html pages and we “ftp’ed” all of it to our servers (for which we either paid a monthly fee or we got free hosting, for which we had to tolerate ads on the headers and footers of all our pages). Facebook has combined all that and, unfortunately, has conditioned (reduced) us into primarily writing brief statuses and witty comments. Who writes stories online anymore? Who has the attention span to read them?

But, you know what? All that great stuff aside. Growing up, what the hell was an internet? Who thought about the “World Wide Web” in 1975, except the Army? Who cared about computers? We had bikes, and footballs, and BB guns, and the outdoors, and imaginations. And, as a rite of passage into our teenage years, we all discovered the true opiate of the masses: Rock-n-roll.

I want to go back! I will willingly turn in my iPhone, walk away from the entire internet without even glancing over my shoulder, hand write all my letters for now on, if… if you will let me go back to those years when I first discovered rock music. I don’t want to go all the way back to the days of GI Joes and playing hide and seek. Not that far back. Just back to the days when I first grew my hair long (when it was still an act of rebellion), when girls lost their cooties and became the most intriguing of God’s creatures, and Led Zepellin had just released “Stairway to Heaven,” and the sound of electric guitars and drums brought me to life. I want to go THERE.

This story from January 30, 2001 is about the beginning of those days for my cousin, Patrick, and me. I miss those days. I miss my cousin. (And some of the trouble we got into.) This story is a reminiscence of those days.

Read it here.

And…

Well…

I didn’t really mean all that crap about giving up the internet!

Hand me my iPhone, would ya?

A Jersey Man Walks into a Bathroom

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The Setting:

Entrance to a men’s room in New York Penn Station.

On the right – an apparently homeless man digging in the bathroom garbage, shoulder-deep.

On the left – Sam Snyder, not obviously homeless.

In the middle – a second possibly homeless guys.

On observation, none if the actors know each other.

Middle guy, tapping the homeless guy on the arm: “Do you know that Jesus Christ loves you and died for your sins?”

Homeless guy, now only elbow-deep in trash and obviously annoyed at being interrupted: “What?!”

Middle guy, now hesitantly: “Do you know that Jesus Christ loves you and died for your sins?”

Homeless guy, definitely annoyed: *incoherent mumbling with vigorous head wagging*

Sam Snyder, pondering: Why did middle guy pick that other man to say that to and not me?

Six Years Ago Tonight, I Couldn’t Sleep

Click the image to go to the article
Click the image to go to the article

Six years ago… on a distant blog, at a now distant location… I wrote this.

I will be right upfront and tell you there is an “unseemly” misspelling in that old article. All words are not what they “seem.” I could go back and edit that article, fix it all up, make it pretty. But… I’m too tired.

The article has redeeming qualities though: Dr. Seuss, Beatrix Potter, Monty Python, and snakes… snake plants actually. Make sure you click those links in the article. (The links are in white text. Dumb, I know. But, hey, the links match the “monster” in the video I linked to.)

If you can’t sleep, I recommend “I Can’t Sleep”. If that doesn’t help, try the chamomile tea, you naughty, fat, little rabbit.

Long Ago… By Chance, Two Perverts Met

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Eight years ago… on a distant blog (an “online journal,” as we were want to call them back in the day)… I wrote this.

My, things have changed! Today, I can view that old article on a fancy phone, with no cables attached and far from any dial-up modem. I can take a picture of that article on my phone’s screen and upload it to my new spiffy state-of-the-age blog here. I can even re-size that picture online, on the fly, from my phone, and stick it into a new article.

And this new article is telling you to go read that old stuff. There’s stuff all the way back from December of the fine year 2000.

“It was a drizzly Thursday night…”

It’s a drizzly Tuesday afternoon on this October 22 in the prime year of 2013.

Hopefully it’s drizzly wherever you are. If not, pretend it is, take a walk in the drizzle, and read this…

“By Chance Two Perverts Meet”

(Disclaimer – I am not responsible for any phones ruined by following my dumb suggestion. Don’t go out in the drizzle. Stay dry. Read in the comfort of your home. On a laptop. In a beanbag chair. In your slippers. All cozy with a cup of cocoa. Far from the perverts and their minivans. Safe from the drizzle.)

Back Spasms from Heck

The View from Here
How is it remotely possible to injure oneself while home on disability and doing nothing? I don’t know, but I did. I think the breath-absorbing back spasms I am experience for the last two days are due to falling asleep with Tad Williams in my arms and in a position that was fine while reading but which proved crippling after four hours of sleeping in said position.


So, now I am flat on my back on a heating pad. I haven’t quite figured out the safest ways to move and without warning I am finding myself in the vice grip clutch of back spasms. I thought I was fine this morning. But then I made the mistake of thinking I could actually walk in a hominid-like upright position in an attempt to forage for sustenance in the currently de-evolutional zone which is my kitchen. Doing dishes is beyond the abilities of a Neanderthal like me, not to be expected but by the grace of natural selection, which hopefully will enable me to straighten up enough to peer over the sink’s edge within the next several millennia. I did manage to eek out a cup of coffee and a Rice Krispie treat for breakfast.

Meanwhile, Doomsday is approaching. I go back to work on Wednesday. Less than a week now. It’s still six days away, but already I am fighting off depression. My two week disability for migraines turned into four weeks when the doctor changed my medication. He put me on a beta blocker because they help high blood pressure and migraines. Someone told me beta blockers also cause “reptile dysfunction.” I said, “Holy hell! I certainly don’t want the ol’ T. Rex getting all flabby!” But I don’t want migraines or strokes either. After a week on the new medicine there have been no migraines, no strokes, and Rex is still the King of the Mesozoic.

Now, if I could just get the rest of my body straight…