jpOG 2003

Few eZabel members wore their passions as openly as John Preston, a lanky, self-proclaimed dope MC from Hackettstown, NJ who turned the Music Talk forum into his personal kingdom and the Sports forum into his sparring ring. With 1,155 comments across seven years and the AIM handle "jpgretzky15," jp arrived in October 2003 already fully formed: a walking encyclopedia of punk rock, a Yankees devotee bordering on religious, and a freestyle rapper who composed entire verses while commuting in his 1984 BMW 318i that went "0-60 in 26 seconds." His forum distribution tells the story -- 584 comments in Music Talk, 235 in Sports, and a trail of album reviews, mix CD tracklists, and fantasy baseball drafts that collectively formed the most comprehensive music criticism archive on the site.

John's great gift was the album review. He didn't just recommend bands -- he built cases for them like a defense attorney. His review of Taking Back Sunday's Where You Want To Be dissected the dual guitar interplay across two paragraphs, concluding with the only con he could find: "the band doesn't personally come to your house and present you the album on a silver platter." He championed The Format so hard he refused to upload their album to the FTP because they'd paid for everything themselves, insisting people spend the seven dollars at Best Buy. He tracked Warped Tour lineups year by year to prove its decline, listing every band he'd want to see from 2001 through 2006 in a sprawling taxonomy of diminishing returns. And he was eZabel's undisputed mixtape king -- his seasonal mixes ran eleven volumes deep, from Summer 2006 through Winter 2008, each one a carefully sequenced argument for why these songs belonged together. His "unrequited love" mix alone contained 32 tracks from Jack's Mannequin to Oasis, described as "pretty searing" and recommended for anyone who wanted to "sit around moping for a while." When he declared Jack's Mannequin's Everything In Transit his favorite album of all time, it wasn't casual -- it was the culmination of months of listening, a verdict he'd earned.

But John was equally at home dropping bars as dropping reviews. His "Never Ending Rap" thread became a collaborative masterpiece, with jp organizing verses from flomojopoanode, aviator, and hamsterlove into a sprawling Rapper's Delight-style opus. His own verses had a distinctly Beastie Boys flavor -- playful, reference-packed, and entirely clean: "I pop lame MCs like a balloon / Like Bob Probert, I'm a goon / You sucka MCs can't hold a tune / I walk you off like Aaron Boone." He wrote a rap for his voicemail that was too long to actually use, penned service-themed raps set to actual beats, and freestyled in his car on thefunkyfresh's suggestion, the only challenge being remembering the lines when he got home. He even played in a band called The Front, posting videos from shows at Centenary College where he covered Weezer and Brand New and sang originals with a guy named Tin Tin. Sports-wise, his defense of the Rangers against modestjesse's Devils advocacy was legendary -- a multi-post demolition of Martin Brodeur that concluded with the observation that Brodeur's backups had better stats than he did, and that "the only thing he's an All-Star at is cheating on his wife with his wife's sister."

What elevated John above mere hobbyist was the sheer earnestness of his enthusiasm. He organized the annual Yankee Extravaganza -- securing 60-plus tickets and coordinating payment from friends across the site. He pitched in his congregation softball game wearing a Ben Sheets #15 Brewers jersey because he loved Ben Sheets that much, then posted photos of himself "mowin' down my brothers." He defended Fall Out Boy not because he loved them but because he hated the cycle of hype and backlash, writing a mini-essay about how "a year ago, fall out boy would be the cool scene band to like" and predicting the whole thing would repeat with the next band. He stood up for baseball itself in a 700-word love letter that invoked Tino Martinez's grand slam, Jeter's walk-off, and the simple magic of a father playing catch with his kid. His top interaction partners -- brotherman, socalgal, fivezero, iwz, and juicymango -- reflected someone who engaged deeply with everyone who shared his passions. He surfed the Outer Banks in November, lost a beloved surfboard off the roof of a VW van into the Chesapeake Bay at fifteen, and dreamed of a Costa Rica trip with flomojopoanode that was equal parts missionary work and wave-riding. At 21 he was wise enough to know he wasn't ready for marriage, telling the Macking forum "a lot of the reason i havent found someone i want to marry is that i guess i dont want to settle down" -- and honest enough to add that he was having too much fun to care.

He also had a magnificent rant about pretentious rock fans that deserves to be quoted at length: people who "sit around their barren apartments on hard chairs with their pretentious rock friends and discuss the rousing nature of that last song where minute-long gaps of silence are used as a metaphor to symbolize the despair of the poor mariner who lost his dog to the wrath of the sea." He feuded good-naturedly with theremin and web-toedchloe over Pitchfork's year-end lists, admitted he only recognized 19 of 50 bands, and still insisted that liking music should be about fun rather than cred. He had quirks -- the TV remote's infrared beam had to face the television and never point at him, the sight of someone using a knife to coax ketchup from a bottle made him physically squirm -- and he once confused a LAN party with an "Ian party," showing up expecting some kind of celebration for the site's creator. He never did figure out how to burn a DVD.

eZabel Personality Type: ESFP — "The Entertainer." John was pure extraverted sensation -- every experience lived at full volume, every opinion delivered with infectious conviction, every mix CD assembled like a love letter to the listener. His feeling side showed in his loyalty to underdog bands and underdog teams, and his perceiving nature kept him perpetually open to the next great album, the next road trip, the next verse. He was the guy who wore a Bob Dylan shirt to a punk show just to be different, who organized sixty-person outings to Yankee Stadium and offered to spot people who couldn't pay yet, and who genuinely believed that the right song at the right moment could change your whole week. In a community full of music lovers, jp loved music the loudest.