Frogspring 1st Edition
An anonymous poster asks.. I don’t know if you’ve mentioned this in your blog, but why are you the frogman? Were you one of those navy underwater specialists at some point in your distant past?
I’m afraid not. The only special forces training I have received is from Steven Segal movies. In order to explain where my name came from I’m going to have to take you back in time. The year was 1994 and I was a chubby, yet lovable, 8th grade student at Kirby Jr. High. I had recently discovered that I could make people laugh and was excited to explore the world of comedy. I would rent all the stand up specials I could get my hands on and I would stay up past my bedtime to catch Letterman’s monologue and the top ten list. I experimented with all sorts of comedic styles trying to find what I was best at. One of my favorites was insult humor. The problem is, I didn’t want to insult anyone. My solution to this was to create a newsletter type thing on my totally rad 66 mhz Packard Bell with Windows 3.11. This thing had a cd-rom, a floppy disk, and a turbo button. I hit the turbo button, fired up Microsoft Works, and started scrolling through the free clipart. I was looking for an alter ego that I could write with. That way if I did insult anyone, I could blame it on the alter ego. While scanning the clipart I came upon a frog. I liked frogs so I thought it could be my character for this venture. I called him Bob. Bob the Frog. He was a crusty, cynical, curmudgeon who hated everything and everyone. I put his picture at the top of my newsletter and called it Bob’s Commentary. I wrote a page or so, riddled with my best insults and rants…which were mostly Bob making fun of me. Bob hated me. I printed out 10 copies on my Canon bubblejet black and white printer and took them to school the next day. I passed them around to all my friends and got a few chuckles. When I look back, that newsletter stands out to me as when, in my mind, I became a comedian. To remind myself of that, whenever I need a nickname or some kind of web persona, I have called myself…thefrogman.
