Bryan with a “y”

Kudos to Google, and the internet in general, for, in microseconds, providing me with multiple answers to every conceivable question I may have. Type in “who is Bryan Murphy” and in seconds, you will have 1,190,000 web pages describing every person on earth named Bryan Murphy - even me! This wonderful resource isn’t new by any means - you probably already read about it on the internet.

Years ago when I was a kid, one would have to go to a large building filled with books called a “Public Library”. It was like visiting a “public restroom” only with slightly smarter people. You could sit around all day, reading, looking for information and smelling homeless people. They still have these buildings today, only they’re now called “Barnes and Noble”. You could actually spend all day among real people looking through real books and encyclopedias for answers to questions that were usually very boring. I do miss the dictionary action. I used to read it while defecating. See, thats a word I learned to improve my vocabulary. Its no wonder people call me a smart ass. Now with the kids today it’s all dictionary.com this - which is much too afar from the lavatory for my delectation. Now I’m not anti-books, but I had a set of old hand me down encyclopedias from my grandmother growing up. It was a great help when I had to write a report on the 50 states and my encyclopedias had maps with only the 13 “new” colonies. My science papers also brought to light for my classmates recent progress in medical sciences, like bloodletting, leeching and witch burning.

I love how much information is at my fingertips. Thirteen colonies Boom! Bloodletting BOOM! Carmen Electra’s boobs BOOM! BOOM! Pages and pages of anything and everything I could ever, ever want…(que utopian harp music)

Now, is all the information relevant and accurate? Well, no. But I live in a country where the current standards let you go to war based on information that isn’t exactly relevant or accurate. And if thats good enough for our current president, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, its good enough for me (He’s our current President, I looked it up in my encyclopedia.)

One thing I love doing with all this information is researching the whereabouts and activities of person’s directly or indirectly, previously aquainted with myself. For the general purposes of this article, I consulted dictionary.com for a shorter discriptor of this activity. We will now proceed to refer to my innocent hobby as “cyber stalking.”

More than likely, I’ve looked for you - seriously. Along with a lot of irrelevant and inaccurate information, there’s occasionally a great little nugget worth trudging through the pages and pages of sludge. I know how early gold prospectors felt, wading in cold horrible conditions all day, hunched over and sifting through endless pans of dirt, to be finally reward with a little valuable golden nugget - although they’d then click their heels, do a little jig and blow the loot on drinkin’ and whore’n.

Every friend, relative, ex-girlfriend, co-worker, lunch lady, baseball teammate, cub scout and cellmate has been on my “cyber-stalking” er, research list.

Take Chris McGrath and Mark Dakin for example. I went to grade school with them. We were friends growing up. We’d play army guys and hang in Chris’s trees. Literally, he had a tree and we’d just hang from it. I’d sleep over Mark’s and we’d talk to girls from western Massachusetts on his CB. I think we said “shit” (defecate) on the CB one night. Some guy who was listening said he called the FBI. We hid under the bed. I stopped hanging with them both the day we were playing street hockey and Chris and this guy Paul talked me into getting into a fight with Mark. I was very impressionable growing up, so I fell for it. I punched Mark in the face. It was the first real punch I threw that landed. It was nothing like the movies. No large SMACK! Mark didnt go flying through some plate glass window into an exploding car. It was so dumb and it ruined our friendship. (Google: Mark Dakin, Chris, McGrath - Saugus)

I had a great friend, Bill Penley. We built forts, smoked and went to the voke. We farted and played video games. Talked about robots and comic books. Played Dungeons & Dragons. His dog would ALWAYS bite me and chase me when we walked by the room it would occupy. We both kissed the same girl on the same day, a friend of ours named Darlene. Bill and I were like brothers. Again, dumbass me started hanging out with the “cool kids” and totally lost touch with Bill. Dumbass kid mistakes. I’d love to talk to Bill again someday. (Google: Bill Penley, Saugus)

I Googled Steve Hyatt (nickname: Weaver) one time. I found his dad living in Florida. He told me Weaver was a carpenter down there and promised to get him my email - we never caught up. Weaver’s dog Barney bit me in the mouth. We played baseball growing up. Weave even gave me one of the scars on my face. He tackled me face first into a windowsill playing sock football. (Re-Google: Stephen Hyatt, Florida)

I was suspended in the 6th grade for something I didn’t do. Not In an every convict in prison says that kind of way either. I was blamed for pushing Jennifer MacDonald down a hill and instigating a pig pile on her - thereby breaking her hearing aid. Its a long story involving Big Mac, a broken hearing aid and me being suspended. I seriously didn’t do a thing - but got thrown under the bus by 9 classmates. I will blog this story sometime, it’s strange. (Google: Jennifer Macdonald, Jeffery Bishop, Karen Anderson, Alexis Kirk, Eric Tumaz, Roger Landry oh, Mrs. Curley, Veterans Memorial School, Asbestos)

I used to skateboard, party, listen to music and generally have a great time doing simple dumb fun stuff you do in high school together with a group of oddballs. We would all hang out at a guy named Rob Wing’s house. Some of the funniest, creative and most bizarre moments of my adolescence happened at this guys house. We were there all the time, an eclectic group of people from all over the teenager social spectrum. Rob joined the army and we never really got to say goodbye to “the crib.” I heard Robs dad died. (Google: Rob Wing, Eric Judge, Sean Kelleher, Andy MacDonald, Derek Carroll, Chuck Armstead, Jamie Figueria, Frank Manning, Joe Roman, David Mahoney, John and Ed Ankewitz, Mike Grasso, Mark Wish damn, the whole city of Saugus)

A girl from my hometown got into porn. Nuff said (Google: Tyler Faith)

A guy I skated with as a kid went Pro (Google: Andy MacDonald…)

A girl I worked with in NYC has a great blog, a book deal and a TV show about her coming out soon. (Google: Stephanie Klein)

We all have had that one relationship - life changing-ly amazing with a horrible train wreck at the end. That one you’ll always remember. We haven’t talked in years, but I always wonder what she’s doing. (Google: The-ex-who-shall-not-be-named)

I Google friends that died years ago to see if anyone still thinks about them (Google: Adam Grund, Angela Sarro, Paul Brown, Ron Hendry)

I Google relatives I haven’t talked to in awhile (Google: Scott, Chrissy and Kelly Murphy)

I Google co-workers I’ve lost touch with over the years (Google: Burger King, Austin Knight, Victoria’s Secret, ISM, Wunderman…)

Sometimes you strike it rich with information. Something relevant and interesting about an acquaintance - like she did her first anal scene with superstud Kirk Lockwood. Most of the time, its just pages and pages of Bryan Murphys but not “the” Bryan Murphy

I just want to see if these people in my memory are still out there and if they are, that all is well.

Perhaps theres someone out there Googling me, remembering the little golden moments we shared. Or, maybe they found something that led them right here, or to a post somewhere, or way over here. See, Google me now and youre bound to be rewarded with the same information Thomas Jefferson used to make his case for war. I wish I knew how to make me Murphy the #1 result when searching for Bryan Murphy - not this Bryan Murphy, or this Bryan Murphy. I’ll check my encyclopedia. On second thought, I’ll probably Google it.

And I hope to Google you soon and find you’re doing well. Sometimes I do and I don’t find anything. I’m sure I will, someday. Maybe I’ll find your email to drop a quick hello. Maybe I’ll find pictures of your first child. Maybe I’ll find pictures of your first anal scene.