yodaOG 2003

A Bronx native with the confidence of a man twice his posting count, Dan Paro arrived on eZabel in the summer of 2003 and immediately made himself impossible to ignore. His writing style was pure stream-of-consciousness New York energy — no punctuation could contain him, no story had a clean ending, and he knew it. He once started a comment with "dont know where im goin with this story.. carry on just go on and read the next comment," which might be the most honest thing anyone ever posted on this site. His journals were even better: a California trip that devolved into run-ins with Mr. Belding and Kato Kaelin, a Texas dispatch marveling at "POURABLE" ketchup bottles, and the saga of stray cats colonizing his shed after he bought a house with his fiancee. His brother hunkpapap was his closest ally on and off the site, and together they originated "The Buck" — a dollar bill representing your dignity that you'd forfeit if you went back to an ex. Pat raised the stakes to a hundred-to-one odds and never lost. Dan's crew ran deep through the NJ scene: skaorsk8 traded barbs with him constantly, forrestina threatened to hurt him every other thread (while clearly adoring him), and malibu and thatdarngirl rounded out his orbit. He also had a dedicated hype woman in yodasucka, who publicly declared "I LOVE YODA" after roasting him for his work ethic — or lack thereof — at a babysitting gig where she mostly smiled, nodded, and collected thirty dollars.

Dan had strong opinions delivered with zero filter. A white t-shirt and dark jeans on a woman was, in his professional assessment, "SO HOT!!!" Long hair was "for beautifully gorgeous women" while short hair was "for girls trying to be cute." He once described the proper disposal method for the new Metallica album — throw it under your back tire at 55 mph, then reverse over it for good measure. His job in fire alarm and security systems sent him on trips to Texas and California that he narrated like a bewildered anthropologist discovering alien civilizations. He attended a staggering 25 events but only posted during two concentrated bursts in 2003 and late 2004, burning bright and disappearing like a firecracker. His last known words on eZabel were a decree that an overweight man in a Superman shirt must "be brutally flogged and that shirt burned so that the man of steel may never be disgraced again."

eZabel Personality Type: ESTP — "The Bronx Raconteur." Dan was the guy who turned every mundane experience into a five-paragraph epic, delivered with the comedic timing of someone who genuinely cracked himself up while typing. He came, he roasted, he told you about pourable ketchup, and then he vanished — leaving behind a trail of journals that read like a one-man stand-up special performed entirely in run-on sentences.