High school memories
A brief history on the Spungos…
Not a day goes by that I don’t have some small child stop me on the street and ask me to explain to them the meaning behind my internet screen name. So gone are the days of me pushing that child aside and continuing towards the Pink Berry, put the iTunes on mute and read along as I tell you the two-part tale of the Spungo…
Part I: An Origin
The Spungos first appeared to me in an episode of the Simpsons entitled, “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday”. In the episode, Homer and gang go on a trip to the Super Bowl, but it’s no ordinary trip. No, this trip is filled with comic mischief and unrealistic cartoon events and imagery! In a scene where Homer and the group attempt to enter the stadium, they find out their tickets aren’t exactly what they thought they were…
Ticket Taker: Uhhh, sorry, fellas, but these tickets are counterfeit.
Homer: Counterfeit?
Ticket Taker: Yeah. See, the hologram’s missing, and there’s no such team as the Spungos, and finally, these seem to be printed on some sort of cracker. (Ticket taker takes a bite out of ticket)
Homer: Stop eating our tickets!
Part II: A Destiny
Dateline 2002. A fresh-faced junior in high school, I joined the school newspaper team in hopes of spreading my message of sarcasm and satire to a school just asking to be lambasted. After a year of establishing myself as the school’s own Andy Dick of the printed word through both editorial cartoons and written pieces, a new editor-in-chief took over and decided the newspaper should focus less on fun and more on covering ‘news’ stories like the pack of wild dogs that had just recently taken control of the school’s gymnasium. As I was slowly being pushed aside, an idea began to creep into my once shapely little head. Why not take the idea of a well-renowned satire newspaper like The Onion… and copy it? Thus, The Spungo was born — my school’s first ‘underground’ newspaper and most certainly it’s last (Apparently satire isn’t taught in schools for a reason, young man). The Spungo later headed online — www.angelfire.com/indie/thespungo — and the name has been my online moniker ever since.
Addendum — When pronouncing the word Spungo or the plural Spungos with friends or family, the following pronunciation is the most accepted:
Yes:
spən-gō (spun-go)
No:
spən-jō (spun-joe)
spəng-ō (sponge-oh)
spoon-jō
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