hunkpapapOG 2003

If you ever needed proof that the Bronx breeds a particular kind of confidence -- the kind that treats self-deprecation as a competitive sport and sincerity as a sneak attack -- Patrick Paro was your man. He landed on eZabel in January 2003, introduced himself to ilikebirds as "Patrick from New Years" while home in pain from a tooth extraction, and within weeks had established himself as the site's most prolific dispenser of unsolicited relationship advice, Bronx survival stories, and elaborate hypothetical scenarios involving garden gnomes at the doctor's office. His username came from reading about the Hunkpapa Lakota tribe in a history article and immediately christening his band with the name. He was hunkpapa-P -- or, as he helpfully clarified: "Hunk -- as in, well, ME. Papa -- as in yo daddy. P -- as in #1." That was Patrick in miniature: genuinely curious about the world, and absolutely incapable of letting a straight line go unjoked.

He was the bassist in his band November, though not by first choice. "I'm really a guitarist, but it turned out that i was the worst of the three, so now i'm the bassist. I just write the songs." He played two custom basses -- a black one with Fender '56 reissue pickups and a gold pickguard, and a blue sparkle with Bartolini pickups and gold hardware -- and freely admitted he only picked them up at practice. He loved Dune with a convert's fervor, re-reading the first book annually and refusing to touch the sequels on principle. He thought Bon Jovi was "a flaming communist who has the hairstyle of a MANED LION" who recycled the same song over and over. He distrusted emo but was trying. He believed peanut butter melted into a toasted muffin with honey was one of the greatest breakfasts a person could eat, and he put a scoop of it in every bowl of ice cream. His trunk contained, among other things, a samurai sword, a sai, emergency underwear, astronaut ice cream, a non-functioning pacemaker, "blood-stained clothing to be disposed of," and a picture of himself dressed as a pirate.

His 3,388 comments across eight years paint the portrait of someone who could pivot from absurdism to genuine moral seriousness without the reader ever feeling whiplash. His peak year was 2004, with 1,261 comments -- a torrent that touched General Chat, Macking, Music Talk, Food, Games, and especially the Moderator Forum, where he took moderation responsibilities seriously enough to write iwz a measured, sincere appeal about the spiritual responsibilities of running a community site. "You do not have a 'christian' or 'witness' site, just one that witnesses happen to be on," he wrote, adding that whatever Ian decided, he should not be swayed by mass opinion but by what was most right for him. Two paragraphs later he'd be back to constructing four-scenario breakdowns of why you absolutely must not call your ex-girlfriend, each scenario escalating until the woman in question "gets on a plane here and shoves a cheese log down your throat until you apologize and then threatens to de-skin you with a cheese grater unless you agree to wed her." He once offered a "Patrick relationship guide to the opposite sex" with a full refund guarantee. He once confessed mid-advice: "None of my relationships have worked out and none of those women could cook. Just a coincidence."

Patrick's heaviest interactions were with fivezero, socalgal, forrestina, rocksupastar, and iwz, and he was the Social Butterfly badge made flesh: 148 different members, 72 events attended or created, a man who genuinely wanted to be in the room where things happened. He organized Halo 2 LAN parties at his brother's place, invited everyone to play paintball near his apartment ten minutes over the GWB ("please let me know if you don't mind bullets and crack vials -- JUST KIDDING!!!"), and once recounted convincing his brother yodasucka to jump off a top bunk with a pillowcase as a parachute onto a sheet. He told stories about dumping a jar of baby powder on a ceiling fan to make it snow indoors, about shoving two fighting women off him on the subway because he'd just gotten a seat after standing for half an hour and was not about to give it up, and about a grocery store cashier who yelled "Cutie, are you paying with cash?" across four registers while the entire store watched him turn red. His friend originalsnob once told him: "I dunno when your serious or not but, you always make me feel better." That was probably the most accurate thing anyone ever said about him.

Beneath the comedy was a person of real depth. He grieved his grandfather quietly and still felt it years later when Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" came on the radio -- the song that had been playing in his cousins' car the day his grandfather died. He worried about a female friend being stalked and had to consciously stop himself from doing something rash. He wrote with care about trust in relationships, about the pressure to date young, about how "the past makes you who you are" and you owe it to the person you love to let them know you fully. His heritage -- French-Irish-West Indian-Scottish-German, complete with a notorious Rikers Island guard ancestor and an ancestor who founded Saint Paul, Minnesota -- gave him the background of a man who belonged everywhere and nowhere in particular, which probably explained why the Bronx suited him so well. His official nickname growing up was Chuggy, from eating too much as a baby. In elementary school it was PeePee, because those were his initials. He endured both with the weary grace of someone who understood that the universe was always going to find new ways to be funny at his expense.

He was one of the last ones still logging in by 2010, posting when most of the original crowd had scattered to marriages and suburbs. His final years on the site had a quieter tone -- still funny, still opinionated, but with the self-awareness of someone who knew the party was winding down. "Oh eZabel, where art thou?" he wrote in early 2006, noting that the old regulars had married off or drifted away. He stuck around anyway, because that was who Patrick was: the guy who stayed.

eZabel Personality Type: ENTP -- "The Debater." Endlessly curious, argumentative in the most affectionate sense, and capable of arguing either side of a question just to see what sparks flew. He was the guy who would stay up talking through your problem until 2 a.m. and somehow make you laugh four times while doing it, who would name-create alternate usernames for the entire community just for fun, and who could pivot from a deeply sincere paragraph about trust straight into a riff about gnomes. eZabel was lucky to have him.