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The story lacks drama and intrigue, or deep intellectual and spiritual meaning. So I had to invent it as the persona grew.
About six years ago I was sitting in front of the log-in screen of a local BBS. I had less than four minutes to create a screen name and password. I wasn't prepared for this amount of thought, not at 2:30 AM. With the clock ticking down in the lower right hand corner of the screen I typed "Sparky Toadlip" and keyed in "biteme" as my password. Still had a minute to go. I was proud.
The next day the sysop phoned and asked me about the name, said it was a great nick. I blinked dumbly and said thank you.
The name has stuck through four BBSes, two telnet services, three ISPs and I don't know how many "personalised" portal pages. It has evolved—SparkyT, Sparky_T, the Toad, Toadlip—but at the core, it's still "Sparky Toadlip."
Toadlip was derived from an old joke:
A man walks into the doctor's office with a frog attached to his lip. The doctor looks at him and says, "Sir, what can I do for you today?"
The frog answers, "Doc, you gotta help me. I've a man growing out my ass."
Sparky just was.
I was naïve enough to think that Sparky was a unique nick. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there were literally millions of us out there. I thought about starting an Internet Sparky club, but I didn't have a clue as to where to begin. Now the idea holds no appeal at all.
Mythological Origins
I don't believe that we make our choices by accident. I do believe that names have a life of their own, and that they can have an impact on how we are preceived in this world.
Think about if for a minute. What do you picture when you think of a person called Irving? Norbert? Clint? Justin? Ethel? Hazel? Tiffany? Tawny?
See what I mean? Each name has a story of origin. My son's name translates from Irish Gaelic as "Noble Bear Warrior". That was no accident. It was by no means as spontaneous as Sparky Toadlip. I researched his name and chose it months before he was born.
Whether you call it a flash of creative inspiration, or the desparate act of a tired man, Sparky Toadlip has stuck, and can be associated with some of the great mythologies of the world.
The toad has mythic significance in many cultures, as does the frog. You might think that the toad and frog would be associated with dark symbols.
While the toad is associated with darkness, it's usually a positive assocoiation. Both the Chinese and Vietnamese cultures revere the toad. The Chinese associate it with "the great symbolic chain which links water with darkness, darkness with the moon and the moon with Yin." The Chinese believe that the toad is the moon goddess, However, they also believe that it is a toad that eats the moon.
The Vietnamese consider toads to be "the heralds of rain," and the sky god's uncle, "and tells him where to pour out the Beneficent Water"
In the new world, the Mayans' rain god, Quiché, was a toad. Aztec iconography depicted the toad as a symbol for the earth. In South American mythology it was toad who helped man to steal fire. And, closer to home, the Haida believe the frog to be "the intermediary between the two worlds of the Haidas, the land and the sea. Imbued with supernatural power the Frog is one of the shaman's spirit helpers."
What's in a Name
The mythological connection is fun, and fleshes out my online persona. The name is unique in a world where people name themselves after media figures, after specific body parts, after their self images ("luzr4life"), or after what they seek on the Internet, which is often a vulgar expression of sexual desires or fetishes.
In the real world, however, the toad, doesn't exist, not in a tangible way. There is enough of me in the toad to make the character believable, maintainable, but Sparky is still nothing more than an avatar.
I've learned from the persona. The persona has grown as I've matured and learned in the real world. We're each a better person because of the other.
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