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Showing posts from June, 2010

My Friend Monty

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I have a friend named Monty. He's a few months older than me, and he's dead. Not to be morbid, or anything like that, I just think Monty would appreciate putting that right out there first, a statement of basic fact. Today is June 13th. Today is Monty's 49th birthday and I'm going to write about Monty's life. Or, at least, a few small part of it. Monty had a lot of life. I first "met" Monty Smith sometime in the late '80s or early '90s. I'm not really sure. We had both found something on what was then known as the "arpanet list of lists" called "Backstreets." In the late '80s, email mailing lists were still a bit exotic, so much so that there was actually a publication listing them all. "Backstreets" was a small list for fans of Bruce Springsteen, and we, plus a few other geeky die-hards, also found it. Over time, it became apparent that, whatever energy anybody else on the list had, Monty matched