alt.music.weird-al - 42!!!!
Stan - 0

As any Internet Al fan knows, the newsgroup alt.music.weird-al has been plagued by a menacing demon who goes by the earthly name Stan Rosenthal (not to be confused with the elderly landscape artist of the same name). Believe it or not, it goes far beyond a simple troll bothering a fanbase.

It all started mid-August of 1998. Most fans will remember that for well over a month without pause, he had posted roughly fifty or so messages on a daily basis...each one listing an obscure false connection to "Weird Al" Yankovic and slightly-famous groups such as Camel and Brave Combo. Some posts even went as far as explaining "hidden meanings" in some of Al's songs.

One of Stan's more prominent delusions was that Al's 1996 song "Everything You Know Is Wrong," which Al has said a few times is his own tribute to They Might Be Giants, is a line-by-line reference to the polka band Brave Combo.....even going so far as citing "examples" from the lyrics such as "the words '....evil twin.....' are from such and such a song" and "the phrase 'noisy ice machine' is about Brave Combo fans."

In addition to these delusions, as soon as he started posting messages did Stan start (for lack of a better phrase) "picking on" another member of the newsgroup (their name withheld to protect their identity). Stan claims that he knew this person from another forum, yet still does not explain his constant insulting and harassing of this individual. This definitely raised some eyebrows amongst the regular posters of the newsgroup. Why would someone start to harass an innocent bystander?

Outside of those attacks, Stan's posts at first seemed like just silly nonsense, like maybe an overzealous fan trying to act "goofy." For a little while regular posters seemed to just shrug it off. However, it became a little alarming when he started arguing with and making fun of people who asked him to simply "get a grip" or tried to explain why his notions just didn't make any sense....getting more and more hostile with each new individual.

Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, Al's drummer/historian since 1980, had told Stan that no connections exist, nor do any of his ideas about Al's song lyrics make any sense. On September 20, Al himself had to even fax a message to Bermuda to relay to Stan, confirming that there is no "sync" to anything Stan has talked about...and asked Stan to please leave the newsgroup in fear of his behavior scaring away fans.

This meant nothing to Stan (at first doubting it was Al who penned the message), who continued to post irrelevant messages on a daily basis....most often about some unclear "Gang" from the Weird Al IRC room (it should be noted that nobody has witnessed him entering the IRC room). It was then discovered that in the past, his own ramblings have broken up discussion groups about Camel and particularly Brave Combo. Band members from Brave Combo have been stalked by Stan via phone, e-mail, and fax almost daily. So it seems he had his eyes set on alt.music.weird-al for reasons unknown.

Regular posters from alt.music.weird-al started leaving left and right. People who just wanted to discuss Al and legitimately-related topics only to have this fungus clutter up the newsgroup.

And so a group of people including myself started a little flame attack on Stan in order to scare him away and save the newsgroup. Apparently, all of our efforts worked, because only days after we started in on him did he announce that he was leaving alt.music.weird-al (note the promise he made should he return).

The victory was ours, for the time being (this link is from a post I made thanking everyone for helping out).

However in January Stan returned, this time convinced that there was some odd connection between Al, Brave Combo, and the cover artwork for the 1996 Sam Goody CD compilation Besta Polka (particularly about the fact that the cover announces that there are eight songs on the CD). Although never clear on what exactly the cover-up is....well, covering up, Stan simply states that any "true" fan (like him, he claims) would see it.

Keep in mind all of this was coming from a guy who was asked by Al himself to leave the newsgroup.

I made a post to a.m.w-a in late January. It can best be described as a sum-up of Stan's obvious motives, and Stan's comment I was replying to gives you an example of how deluded his misconceptions are...as he thinks just because nobody bothered to validate his ramblings that he was in the right.

To finally shut Stan up, I contacted the Sam Goody/Musicland corporation and asked them about the Besta Polka artwork, to which they said....

"You are correct- the only meaning behind the number '8' on the cover is the number of songs on the compilation. There are no other hidden meanings." -Brant Skogrand, Musicland Stores Corporation

This expectedly did not satisfy Stan, so he then started posting irrelevant posts about old unrelated songs, claiming they're on the topic of Weird Al "because it's posted by an Al fan."

Starting in early February, Stan started fishing for personal information from newsgroup regulars, starting with yours truly (he must have a crush on me or something, I dunno). Since he was a member of AOL at this time, needless to say his behavior was a serious violation of their Terms of Service. Even now, if Stan asks you for any information you would prefer a delusional schizophrenic not have, report him to his domain immediately and if he persists contact your local police.

In addition to seeking out information on others in the newsgroup, he then started to add and change words to people's posts when replying to them. As the month of February progressed, Stan had become convinced that he himself had been the inspiration for every one of Al's songs since 1984! Needless to say, this goes far beyond "I think Al is influenced by Brave Combo." This is full-blown obsession!

(And before you say "Look who's talking," keep in mind this web page has been a live document since 1998. Despite Stan's claims of otherwise, the time and energy to update this page is minimal, since he provides all the material himself, so to speak. This is simply a compilation of Stan's crap.)

By mid-February, Stan had run out of anything to say. He was now resorting to re-posting his old, long, boring messages from September of last year, including rewritten song lyrics that are both off-topic and frankly kinda stupid, and editing Jon's quotes to fit his own agenda (whatever that may be). He had also asserted that Brave Combo and Al are officially related because they have both mentioned chickens and scratching in their songs. Yes, my head is also shaking in utter pity.

Being his old hypocritical self, around this time Stan had posted a message about Brave Combo which says:
"Yea, 'tis true. There is no connection between Al and BC"

He had even admitted to terrorizing the newsgroup, and again blamed his beloved Brave Combo for showing up on the group (wonder if his self-claimed "buddy" Brave Combo leader Carl Finch knows it's "his" fault). It has since become Al's fault and weirdal.com's fault in his eyes.

After trying to get someone named Conrad Dobler (a woman named Conrad) into the newsgroup to try to attack everyone for wanting to get rid of him, as February ended Stan claimed to be both a part of the band Brave Combo and Carl Finch's wife....had been convinced that the lyrics of Al's songs such as "Everything You Know Is Wrong" are wrong (and this brings doubt as to whether or not Stan actually owns any Al albums, since lyrics are easily available on many web sites).....had resorted to more profanity and flaming against Jon.....accused longtime members of the newsgroup of spamming.....and started reposting old messages from the Brave Combo mailing list (the one he forced to close down).

In March, Stan had posted an odd and untrue story about him meeting people on the newsgroup at a Brave Combo concert (something to this day he still believes happened).....and had started to dare people to debate him, proof that he never had anything valid to say to begin with and just wanted to argue. He had also started a ridiculously long argument that he has more credibility than Jesus Christ...and, most disturbing of all, started making references to Al's death.

Just to give you another example of how...um, perverted(?) his thinking is....in late March he was under the impression that he had been able to shut down the accounts of every member of America Online (except his own, of course). That would sound believable, if it wasn't for the fact that NOBODY'S account was down. You figure it out.

As April rolled around, Stan had resorted to attacking people's religions.....insisting he came up with the Internet acronym "IMHO".....and (again most disturbing of all) asking for everyone's ages and then bothering just the people in their teens. I'm sorry, but that sounds a little creepy to me. To put it bluntly, his actions mirror that of an Internet sexual predator (he even made a pass at me, I kid you not!). More than likely Stan is a card-carrying member of NAMBLA.

Meanwhile he had continued to "challenge" various people to debate him, calling someone a "chicken" for not going "one-on-one" with him ("chicken," huh? he's how old?). Also about this time someone passed along a link to an article at Time Magazine's digital site. Surprising enough, the article was about the former Brave Combo mailing list that Stan ruined. The article's writer used a pseudonym to protect Stan's identity, though. However Stan swore that the article is not about him, yet he still felt compelled to argue with it. If it's not him the article is talking about, then why is he so upset about it?

Still, this kind of double-talk was nothing new. One minute Stan argues that he doesn't care what Al fans think of him, then the next he argues that it's Al fans whom he is proving his credibility to.

In mid-April, Stan was convinced that there was a "vast right wing" (his words) plot to murder him, or so he told me. All right....who wants to say the words "full blown dementia" with me?

Regardless of the fact that he thinks so much of himself that people would conspire to kill him a la JFK, why would only "vast right wing" people plot to kill him? I'm sorry, but it's not like he's that big of a political icon or anything ("Daddy, where were you when Stan Rosenthal was shot?", "Who's that? The South Park kid?").

And no, I don't know why he chose to tell me (publicly, mind you) that there's a plot to murder him. Either he thinks I am part of his "vast right wing conspiracy" (LOL!) or that I am at least a liaison to it....but I don't know for sure since he's too much of a coward to be blunt and ask me.

Regardless, in the end nobody tried to kill him. One would assume that men in their late-forties had better things to do with their time than cry "wolf" to a bunch of people he's been harassing for almost a year.

Still in April, Stan posted the following message (to someone else, but aimed at me apparently):
"Talk to Catra. He (thinks he) knows EVERYTHING! ;-)"

I should point out that this is nothing new for him. I kept humiliating him back during the first time everyone banded together to get rid of him....and I have made no secret that I have this web page put up. He likes to (try to) harass me, however he did seem to stop once I called his local police about him....

Anyway, as to knowing everything....well, there are a lot of things I do not know. For example, I don't know why a guy in his late-forties is harassing and trying to pick fights on the Internet with people half his age. Nor do I know why he thinks he's going to get away with it or why he's trying to defend his behavior under the unrelated excuse of "censorship." I'm also not sure as to why anyone is supposed to be offended by his "chicken" comments (after all, isn't he the one who hides everything he says with "IMHO?"). I also haven't a clue as to why any of his supposed bandmates, fellow Brave Combo fans, or his beloved Carl Finch haven't come by to defend him.....unless of course, nobody is as close to him as he claims them to be.

As for other stuff I do not have the answers for, check out my Burning Questions.

By May, Stan turned his attentions to another novelty music newsgroup, rec.music.dementia. His reasons for going after those people is I assume because it primarily deals with Dr. Demento, so a lot of the same Al fans from a.m.w-a post there.

In June of 1999, there were two very big announcements! On June 10th, AOL introduced a killfile feature to filter Stan's messages...but also on that day, AOL terminated his screen name! A week later, Stan tried to weasel back under a different AOL screen name "StanSquncr" (isn't that a fruit juice brand?), and again started harassing other members and spamming the newsgroup with ads for his own moronic web site.

But once again, everyone kept sending in reports and before we knew it, the two-time loser was removed from America Online for good...and with absolutely no chance of him getting back onto AOL.

He tried to use services such as Juno to harass people, but they too didn't wait long before giving him the axe.

However, Stan had trickled down the Internet food chain and landed somewhere called remarQ.com under character names "Mr. Stitches" and "Purple Stain." Most prominently he had been using the moniker "The Messenger," which may or may not be Stan misunderstanding a sarcastic joke a Pink Floyd fan made about Stan being an official source of information on the band.

Speaking of Pink Floyd, in October of 1999 Stan (under the e-mail address tmwktabcptg@hotmail.com) crossposted some flames intended for posters over on alt.music.pink-floyd to a.m.w-a, alt.music.pink-floyd, alt.music.yes., and rec.music.g-dead. This led to a small flame war over an otherwise unheard of (to Al fans) person named Denise Sharp. Meanwhile, Stan tried harassing and flaming members as he used to. But the main difference is this time, most newsreaders were equipped with killfiles so almost everyone on the newsgroup could avoid reading his dribble.

No sooner than he started crossposting was Microsoft (who owns the Hotmail service) made aware of his actions...so they SHUT DOWN his account on November 1rst! This marks the fifth time Stan either left or was booted off the Internet because of his behavior on alt.music.weird-al.

At this point, the remarQ service had rightly marked Stan's posts as "junk posts," meaning that they can be filtered out by newsreaders that block "Make Money Fast," spam, and porn posts. His posts were only readable from remarQ.com (even deja.com didn't list his posts!).

Meanwhile in November, Stan had started spamming the newsgroup alt.tv.snl, which as one might guess is about the show Saturday Night Live. He has most likely turned his attention to this new group because maybe one or two posters had originally responded to his messages.

Like he did in the past with his cross-posting to four different music newsgroups (which ultimately got Stan booted off Hotmail), he is trying to "link" alt.tv.snl with a.m.w-a by making posts to snl about regulars and/or old posts at a.m.w-a (remember that episode of The Simpsons in which Homer submits a restaurant review that contains the words "Screw Flanders" several times?). Apparently SNL fans don't care about how Stan feels about Weird Al fans...since there has yet to be any further responses from any poster there (except for one person who rightly asked "Does anyone understand any of this?").

On a more humorous albeit personal note, Stan is convinced I'm (in addition to other folk) roughly nine different people. He presents links to pictures as "evidence," one from my business's web site and several from a site belonging to someone who is obviously a different person. Even with the chemical imbalance and/or mental condition Stan is believed to have, the new question raised is "Is he just frickin' blind??"

RemarQ finally had enough of "The Messenger" and the reports and complaints made against him....so in late December of 1999 they decided to kill The Messenger, more or less telling him "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

This was more than expected, since remarQ offers this stance on trolls such as Stan:
"We will deal with individuals who are bent on newsgroup disruption as best we can, but a pattern of abuse must be established. Complaints from more than one regular from the group being affected is helpful to show that the user has violated 'community standards,' etc."

Undaunted in his task to get barred from every major Internet carrier, Stan hopped onto Prodigy and used the new nickname "Who's Hot" (whatever that is supposed to mean). Instead of proving he's more than just a bottomless pit of spite and confusion, Stan immediately posted bothersome messages intended for various posters to a.m.w-a. Needless to say, complaints to Prodigy prompted them to discontinue Stan's service after one day.

Coming full circle, in January of 2000 Stan crept back onto AOL under the new screen name "StanSequencers" (in his continued attempt to make people think his entire self-claimed band is at fault for his behavior). He claims he wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton (because she has so much time on her hands to help him out), someone he has in the past defamed and mocked in his message signatures. Exactly how writing letters does anything to help anyone remains to be seen, since it is more than likely that he skipped mentioning things like harassing people and spamming links to sex sites. Let's face it, I can write to someone saying I'm a champion basketball player from South Central and how I am the victim of a vast political conspiracy orchestrated by Spike Lee, but that simply doesn't make it so. Most likely any letters he sent to anyone in power were immediately forwarded to the circular file. (and it should be noted that he claimed he'd show the letter to anyone who asked to see it; someone asked, and he clammed up)

Meanwhile, the members of alt.tv.snl were starting to understand the headache that a.m.w-a had suffered for a while. In responses that seem to echo the direction a.m.w-a was heading in August of 1998, regular members have more or less just said "You're not making any sense, you ***hole!" A few Weird Al fans hopped on to explain Stan to the SNL gang, and offered the simple advice of killfiling him.

To their credit, the alt.tv.snl members seem to be a little tougher and more direct in their replies....and frankly it couldn't happen to a nicer person (one actual response labeled Stan as "a mental midget").

Stan had again created a new account at remarQ.com. It could be he got a dressing down from AOL and had his "StanSequencers'" Internet access restricted, since at the same time he also started appearing with a new a screen name "thepurplestain." The remarQ service quickly handled the situation of their formerly-booted member.

On a more sad note, Stan had harassed a longtime member into leaving the group (their name is withheld to protect their identity). A close fan and friend to Al and the band since 1993, the person simply had enough of the unwarranted personal attacks coming from Stan (most notably making out-of-the-blue accusations of them having additional identities).....and instead of fighting the moron they decided to gallantly say good-bye to the newsgroup they were a prominent member of.

Stan had thusly turned his attention to two additional long-time members of the newsgroup (again, their names protected). Each time he had tried to bombard their respective Internet providers with "complaint" e-mails about them. He even went a creepier step further and tried to get one of them fired from their job! The Internet providers Stan was "reporting violations" to saw through his delusions and in turn each notified Stan's local police about him. This marks a total of three times there has been police involvement due to Stan's stalking.

In late February, AOL once again had enough and booted him from their service....for the third time in only a year (and the eighth time he has had his online service terminated due to his behavior on alt.music.weird-al). All along Stan was(/is) under the impression that he had a right to do or say whatever he wanted to even if that endangered other people. That is simply not true. As long as he pays for an Internet service, he must abide by their Terms of Service (and almost all of them have rules against harassment). AOL, for example, states "USENET is not a right, it is a privilege." Meaning, all of the cries of censorship in the world will not help if someone proves to be dangerous (ie, harassment).

Proving that he had not burned bridges at every provider yet, he quickly got an account with Microsoft's MSN service. Using the e-mail address "Stanley_Rosenthal@email.msn.com," it was only a matter of time before Stan's usual actions were brought to the attention of Microsoft (who also owns the Hotmail service that booted him off the Internet in November). On March 2nd, longtime a.m.w-a member David Tanny announced that MSN had informed him that they gave ol' Stanley the boot.

Right before this new victory, however, it was learned (through an underground source, their name protected) that Stan had started to troll the newsgroups alt.music.beck, alt.music.foo-fighters, and occasionally alt.music.tom-waits.

He even went a step further and posted under someone else's e-mail address! Using the AOL e-mail address "zandert33@aol.com" (which actually belongs to a teenager in Long Island), Stan posted messages complaining about getting kicked off AOL for using the word "bullshit." It's just funny that he doesn't mention stalking people as his real offense, huh? Oh, and he also is still under the delusion that Weird Al is connected to Brave Combo, and that they are working together on projects. Uh huh, I like how only he knows about that.

As expected, Stan hopped onto yet another Internet provider he hasn't made a jackass of himself on, Earthlink. Among his immediate violations to Earthlink's Terms of Service include spamming off-topic messages to a.m.w-a, alt.music.yes, and alt.music.beck (including his old tall tale about "meeting" Weird Al fans at a Brave Combo concert....whatever).

He has also started to hang out in the following newsgroups (in addition to the seven or so he's already known to haunt), trolling and spamming them as well: alt.music.beach-boys, alt.music.todd-rundgren, alt.music.blink-182, alt.music.fleetwood-mac, alt.music.limp-bizkit, and particularly alt.music.polkas.

Earthlink had been notified and started looking into the matter of booting him (boy this is getting too familiar!). Stan has feigned indifference and promises he'll just find another Internet provider...of course, he is running out of all of the major ones.

In addition to Stan's spamming of the aforementioned (and yet-to-be-mentioned) newsgroups, starting in January he had been giving a new fanbase some grief. Going to the web site of the group Vertical Horizon and posting on their "Unchosen Ones" fan message board, VH fans have started to feel the same headache that a.m.w-a and several other groups have felt in the past.

Mirroring his "routine," Stan's posts started off as normal "Hey, I'm a new fan, hi guys" kind of posts. But by February of 2000, he had started attacking members and just introduced his own delusional sense of reality.

One anonymous member going by the name "Former Stan-Basher" elaborates in a March 14th post. (the messages below that one are other examples of members' irritation toward him)

The board's fans quickly grew tired of him and, as happened on alt.music.weird-al in August of '98, have started to attack him and simply say "Welcome to reality, nutbar!"

The fans' reaction was very much like what has previously been said to Stan on alt.tv.snl...and alt.music.weird-al.....and the Brave Combo mailing list. One would think someone so right (as Stan thinks he is) wouldn't come across so much opposition. It must be a conspiracy! ::rolling up eyes::

His ramblings on this new board are nothing new to Al fans. He makes bizarre asides about people falling into some kind of trap he has set by not answering him (so he's saying he's right no matter what)...and about "pulling a number" on members. Just pure non-sequiturs, of course sprinkled with his catalog of quotes that have no meaning or relevance to anything he's talking about.

Also it seems he gets off on trying to come up with new acronyms and nicknames for bands. Remember how he kept referring to Brave Combo as "The Combo," something probably nobody else has knowingly referred them as. He had also done something similar when referring to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now Vertical Horizon has already been shortened by its fans as "VH." How else could Stan pervert that and try to make it his own? "The Horizon?" Close. "vh," and he insists upon the lower case, as if he knows for sure. He seems to get his jollies thinking he's making some grand creative contribution or decision when it comes to the long-thought-upon task of band nicknaming!

Meanwhile, he was still posting nonsense to a.m.w-a, and Earthlink started investigating him. With the exception of maybe one or two brave souls who have responded to him, almost every member of alt.music.weird-al has either ignored his messages or have added him to their killfiles...and newbies are made aware of him almost as soon as they introduce themselves.

In late August of 2000, Stan made his fourth attempt to attack alt.music.weird-al through AOL. This time under the name "StansSequencers" (he's running out of variations he can make his "band" name into). In addition to harassing a few regular, longtime members (moreso out of jealousy and spite than malice), he continued to crosspost off-topic, political messages to a random array of newsgroups, each time insisting that people wanting to respond should crosspost their replies to a.m.w-a.

Fortunately though, almost every newsgroup he has tried to crosspost messages to have greeted him with the same message: "Go away, you psycho." And fortunately for us Weird Al fans, it seems that nobody is believing that he is any authority or representative of the Al newsgroups.

He also started harassing the members of AOL's own Weird Al message board, acting in no new way to anyone who has seen him on a.m.w-a.

In mid-September of 2000, Stan had been sending out e-mails to Weird Al fans stating that his 60-day free trial on AOL was up and that his "StansSequencers" screen name will be no more. It wasn't true, as his screen name was still coming up as active on AOL. Perhaps AOL was warning him that he was not going to be welcomed to stay past his sixty days.

On a side-note the Vertical Horizon website had temporarily shut down its "Unchosen Ones" message board, promising a revamped board with more security and registered user prompts. Seems it's yet another case of "Stan, go home. You aren't welcome here." It reopened about half a year later and now records the ISP's of posters as a precautionary measure.

In October, Stan had started posting onto a.m.w-a through two new services. Still posting under his AOL e-mail address, Stan had been posting most of his messages through Supernews, owned by the same company as remarQ. Meanwhile, his messages sent "from" his Earthlink address (which, by now, was no longer active) were in fact being posted through Singnet, a web space provider out of Singapore (apparently every domestic provider knows about him by now).

Of course with a Presidential election coming, his posts had started to overflow with even more perverse ramblings about his homo-repressed love for politics and 1970s rock and roll. At one point, he even made a claim that his opinion is as important and serious as the Doobie Brothers. Is that egotism or a delusion that he thinks the Doobie Brothers are an important milestone in our culture? Then again, this is the guy that thinks groundbreaking humor began and ended with Saturday Night Live's fifth season in 1979 (and that the group They Might Be Giants only secretly wants people to drop words from their band name, but I digress).

A rumor started to circulate in the newsgroup that Stan is a former child molester, as indicated by a post made several times by a member. Whether or not this is true is unknown, but with Stan's current track record it wouldn't be surprising in the least.

Meanwhile, Stan made a post onto a.m.w-a that Supernews has cancelled his account! Whining about censorship, the real reason was he crossposted several off-topic messages to a variety of newsgroups (as he has done so in the past). A report e-mail address for Supernews was added here only a day before, so it's a toss-up whether or not enough people reported him or Supernews was keeping an eye on what he was doing. Still, it marks the tenth time Stan lost an Internet/newsgroup provider because of his behavor on alt.music.weird-al.

In mid-November, Stan started posting through a new service called Newsfeeds...using one of his AOL screen names as his address, "StansSequencers@aol.com." Near Thanksgiving though, Stan was once again booted off AOL (making it the FOURTH time he lost his AOL service due to his a.m.w-a behavior)....much to the glee of the members on AOL's Weird Al message board. Losing his AOL addresses made his access through Newsfeeds obsolete.

However, Stan hopped onto yet another free Internet service, StartFree, using the e-mail address "StansSqncrs@startfree.com." He also started using a new service called MailandNews, posting messages from that account through Supernews. After a few posts, MailandNews blocked his first account for terms of service violations. Stan then started using a second e-mail address there, but MailandNews not only cancelled Stan's account but also got in contact with his ISP to prevent him coming back to the service under a new name. Still using StartFree, Stan hopped onto Prodigy once again, but was bumped from their service after one day of use.

Stan was also using Netcom's UK division but still posting under StartFree. He soon followed by posting through Prontomail under aliases such as "PurPle STAiN."

In January 2001, Stan had crossposted a thread to a.m.w-a from several other completely unrelated newsgroups, bringing members of that thread into the newsgroup and talking about death threats, Hillary Clinton, and other nonsense.

Stan was still posting through both Prontomail and StartFree, but was also heavily using Netzero (kind of symbolic to the depths he has to sink to keep posting, huh?) through Netcom.

Stan tried posting messages through the news.cis.dfn.de website soon after it was mentioned on the newsgroup and this page. The company soon booted Stan from their service after a few complaints were sent in. And to think he's the one always talking about setting traps for people!

Meanwhile Stan said in a newsgroup (that is, in one of the posts in which he doesn't misquote Al Franken...did he even read the book he is attributing??) that his Internet providers have limited his access to newsgroups to only a.m.w-a and rec.music.country-western. It was unknown if he's telling the truth or not. After all, this is a guy who has said that he has been married to Al (note: Al was married in February, and for a couple of weeks before Stan was obsessively demanding to see a scanned picture of his fiancee). It was also rumored that he was planning to somehow sabotage the fan campaign listed elsewhere on this web site to get Al's movie UHF released onto DVD. And we're to believe he's an Al fan? LOL!

Regardless of the free service he was using, Stan kept posting under the e-mail address "sigother@netzero.net" in all his posts. One of the ISPs, Usenet.com, immediately started investigating him after a few complaints.

While it was believed that Airnews (where he was posting under a StartFree address) had finally booted him from their service, Stan had started posting through AT&T;, the only major domestic ISP he has yet to disgrace himself on. AT&T; soon looked into the matter as well.

AT&T; (Worldnet) said in late-February that they have cancelled Stan's Internet access due to his cross-posting/spamming and use of a certain "F"-word. Since the Worldnet announcement, Stan has fallen back on using Netcom/Netzero. It does now also look that Airnews, StartFree, Prontomail, and Usenet.com have indeed prevented him from posting through their services as well. Meanwhile, Stan had started whining about how the fans are not really upset with him, but with an "invention" of him concocted by rumors and lies. Just remember folks, he invented it the minute he started harassing the newsgroup members, and just like Dr. Frankenstein and his monster he is realizing that his "invention" has become his own problem.

In late March Stan had returned to Prodigy, who in December 1999 cancelled his account after only one day of abuse.

In April it was learned that Stan had become a little obsessed with another poster on the newsgroup, Goldmine writer Chuck Miller. Chuck had written a fantastic cover story on Al for the magazine in April of 2000 and had since become a regular member of a.m.w-a. In fact, Chuck had tried to offer a voice of reason to Stan on a few occasions, but received the same goofy responses Stan gives when anyone tries to explain the truth to him.

Anyway, Stan had started bothering another member on his other crossposting hangout rec.music.country-western, another Goldmine writer named Tim Neely. Stan had started asking Tim about Chuck's Al article, saying non-sequiturs about doing a number on Elvis (as if someone outside of the Internet fan community would know what on earth that means). Stan then started posting messages to Chuck, asking him if he knew Tim. Very bizarre stuff. Was Stan hoping to get some rift started between the two writers? Was he trying to get responses so he could finish posts with "Stan Rosenthal, Goldmine contributor?" Was he hoping that talking to writers of the magazine would in his mind vindicate his syncs and mental connections?

And it should be noted that Stan's obsession with newsgroup member "Elvis" and the little bit about him in Chuck's Goldmine article stems from Stan's habit of "cut and pasting" words to fit ill-conceived and often petty insults. In this case, he pieced apart text excerpts from Chuck's article, completely taking them out of context and adding meaning to words and phrases that were not there to begin with. Needless to say, the article's author took offense to Stan's butchering of his work. Stan pretty much denied it, using his tired and unclear excuse "Straw man argument" when challenged about harassment (Stan uses "Straw man argument" when he believes that someone is making an out-of-left-field, unrelated attack on him....even though the fact that he did the same thing to instigate this new problem doesn't seem to dawn on him). Stan has since made immature statements that Al has publicly insulted "Elvis" on various occasions, when nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, very recently a very kind soul stood up for Elvis.

But meanwhile, a Weird Al fan had asked if there was any attempt to get Stan institutionalized. Theoretically it could be done, since Stan acknowledges that the real posters on the newsgroup are his "close, personal friends." If someone was devious enough, they might be able to use that to show a relation to him to hospital administrators. I'm not saying there are any plans to do that, but it can be used as a lesson to be careful how you present yourself to strangers and not to force bonds with them if they don't want you.

On June 15th, Prodigy informed newsgroup members that their complaints have been heard and Stan was removed from their service. As expected, though, he hopped onto a posting service called ev1.net, which is somehow linked to NBCi (more than likely this gave him the delusion that his messages are approved by the same folks that own Saturday Night Live).

He also started trolling the Backstreet Boys newsgroup, singling out members whom he suspects are Weird Al fans using aliases (yawn...been there, done that).

Throughout July, Stan had gotten into a pretty funny crossposted thread in which trolls from other newsgroups started picking on him, saying things like "Just fess up and admit you're one of us!" The poor hick was completely tongue-tied, saying nothing more than stupid song quotes that were immediately mocked. It appears he may have learned his lesson on which threads he spams into a.m.w-a.

In mid-August, it seemed that ev1.net finally dropped him from their service, so he created a "new" account on Google. Still using his "sigother@netzero.net" e-mail address, Stan started referring to himself as "Never Falls" ("Never?" Read the score!).

Stan also landed once again at MSN, who had booted him once before. He quickly lost that account. He either posted through or masked his posts with a service called Newzpig (while still using his Netzero address). He stopped posting through them after they received a few complaints.

After Stan challenged another member on another newsgroup to track down his ISP, they did and it turned out to be at Ev1.net once again. A quick letter prompted them to boot him again. He soon after got an account through K-Mart's Bluelight.com (that's really scraping the bottom of the barrel).

In late October, not only did Stan announce that he lost his Newzpig account (you can tell when he's licked because he'll start whining and moaning like a little baby to some invisible representative at the previous Internet provider), but in a little over than a week's time did he lose five Hotmail accounts all in a row! (not to mention being banned from a new Weird Al message board even before he had a chance to post)

Ev1.net also booted him again, and both Freeservers and Tripod removed his web pages from their sites.

But perhaps the most bizarre occurrence happened in mid-November, when an actual owner of an ISP got involved. Ken Rozinsky, operator of the Newzpig service, was contacted by a newsgroup member looking for assistance in the whole mess. Reportedly, Mr. Rozinsky echoed that he would love to see Stan off his service, and was looking into the matter. He then went a step further and discussed the situation openly on a.m.w-a. Although he wasn't exactly aware of the real problem with Stan (harassing members, spamming inappropriate material in forums kids frequent, etc.), at least he saw enough of a problem to put a block on Stan. Stan tried firing back with insults and threats (not exactly the way to appeal a decision like that). Mr. Rozinsky then threw Stan's tired old I-think-this-will-really-irk-you-jab "Close, Personal Friend" back into his face by offering him a special "Close, Personal Friend" billing fee of a thousand bucks a month.

Stan even recreated his "stanwillneverfall@hotmail.com" account to make a pathetic plea to Mr. Rozinsky to reinstate his account to harass the N'SYNC newsgroup (he claims Newzpig won't accept his posts from Bluelight...boo hoo). Hotmail promptly cancelled the account.

He was last seen using his netzero name again, this time posting through a service called Teranews. He claims he was already booted once but said that he will continue to post there...and he supposedly tried to blame Mr. Rozinsky for that. Whatever. He's like someone's drunk father who always blames everyone else for his problems.

In mid-December, Netzero finally terminated Stan's "sigother" account. Stan quickly created a new account on there as "midician@netzero.net" (is that supposed to sound like "magician" or "medicine"?).

In the span of two weeks, a lot of crazy stuff happened. First off, Teranews had been keeping an eye on him after numerous complaints, and has even gone as far as blocking any posts he makes containing his web address. Stan claims that he had written to them to protest it, but so far there has been no change. Way to go Tera!

Stan next tried to start a new account on Newzpig (remember them?). Newzpig administrator Ken Rozinsky announced on a.m.w-a that Stan can expect to be billed $1000 as warned. I doubt a CDR copy of Brave Combo's Greatest Hits will get that much on eBay!

Meanwhile, Netzero is investigating Stan's "midician@netzero.net," as they believe it may be a forged account (Stan doesn't seem to think so, using that as his e-mail address when trying to sneak back onto Whizzi's World of Weird Al forums).

Most recently, Stan popped up on another K-Mart-owned (LOL) Bluelight account as "NeverFalls@mybluelight.com" and is posting again through Google. At the moment, it does not appear that Teranews or Netzero have completely blocked him from their services, so those two abuse addresses will be included as well.

Stan's posts from Teranews seem to have stopped, but the address will be up until it's confirmed that the account is closed. Ditto for Newzpig posts, although here's hoping he keeps posting from them and is charged the thousand he owes.

In the meantime, Stan has tried to supposedly forge an e-mail address at Hotmail to which they are investigating. He had since split his posts as coming from either Newsfeeds or a service called Randori, but still using his Netzero address at all times. Randori has announced that he has been blocked for cross-posting and trolling, only a day and change after he first started using them. Binaries.net has also shut down a new account he created there.

Now, Stan is using a service called Newsranger, but again posting under his Netzero e-mail.

Speaking of which, Netzero has confirmed that the "midician@netzero.net" account was indeed terminated. Stan is still using it as his "handle" address, so killfiles shouldn't be altered. One of his posting hosts was kind enough to reveal his real e-mail address, and that provider is already investigating into the matter.

Newsranger quickly punted Stanny-boy, which apparently made his phony "midician" address obsolete since most newsreaders and posting hosts need a valid address to ping for registration. Might as well keep the old Netzero address in your killfiles, or do like some and just block the whole netzero.net domain if you have that function.

It should also be funny to see how long his Bluelight address remains, since more than likely that service will be one of K-Mart's first casualties as they try to salvage their faltering company. Nevertheless, he's still using that address while posting through Google, so that info will stay up.

He also started posting through a service called Newsguy using a new Netzero e-mail address "neverfalls@netzero.net" (the temptation to do a "jerking" hand motion is strong). Newsguy has already sent him a warning, and Netzero is already investigating, so this page will most likely be updated soon.

Apparently the warning was enough to scare Stan away from Newsguy, as he started posting through a service called Meganetnews. Now, this is a free service that prides itself on letting its members post to newsgroups freely without censure or monitoring.....and even they booted Stan! How funny is that!

In the following week, Stan's posts were split as coming from Binaries.net and Newsfeeds...which is odd since they are the same company. In both cases, Stan had started using a new phony e-mail address for himself, "stan@neverfalls.com" (with variations on capitalization).

But perhaps the most embarrassing attempts came soon after, with Stan trying out various accounts with "remailer" services. You know the kind, the services that offer mask e-mail addresses like "nobody@nowhere.com.org," etc. He had gone through at least four in a row, each time maybe posting one message each. Needless to say, if he had any credibility on Usenet before, it pretty much has been flushed down the drain. Some have already compared this new turn of events to other trolls such as Zorak and The Boinger...is this how Stan wants to be seen? And isn't Stan the one who usually asks for personal information or tries to challenge people by calling them "chicken?" Well, look who's hiding now.

Currently, he seems to be settled on a service called WebUseNet, using his "neverfalls" (so, does that mean he's a Weeble?) fake e-mail address. Between making up a phony e-mail address and using second-rate remailers usually reserved for spamming porn links, this is probably the lowest Stan has sunk. It leads to the question, are there any doubts now that he is anything more than just a troll?

During the early months of 2002, nothing very new happened. Stan held onto his WebUseNet account, and continued to crosspost bizarre and inappropriate threads from other groups into a.m.w-a...and invited those groups' trolls to start posting there, too. Ho hum, nothing some slight filter adjusting can't fix.

At one point, he had given himself a promotion from the newsgroup's "rabbi" to "ruler." I'm not sure how accurate this is. He may very well be twelve inches tall, but I personally have never used him as a straight edge.

In late April, soon after everyone was coming home from the Chicago-area ALCON III, Stan had responded to some of the recaps of the event. In one post, however, he had actually admitted his inexplicable hatred for and intent to harass the one newsgroup member whom he had first started to bother when he first showed up. And apparently he doesn't seem to know much about '60s rock, unless "Paul and Simon" is some local group they listen to down in Texas.

In late May, for reasons unknown he stopped posting from the WebUseNet server (whether or not this is permanent remains to be seen). He had a brief stint on Teranews again, but then jumped ship to Hotmail, who booted him within a day.

Currently, he's posting through Airnews again, but still using his dumb "neverfalls" domain "address." So, killfiles shouldn't need to be altered.

Hey, it's been eighteen months...how about an update on the cancer known as Stan Rosenthal? Who, you ask? Oh, you remember, that loser from Texas who harasses people on alt.music.weird-al and tries to pass himself off as a liberal when his actions and behavior indicate nothing of the sort. Yes, that's right, that nutjob you had killfiled long ago. Well, since he's still there, so is this page. I'd personally like to get rid of this page once and for all, but alas, it's all up to him and his decision to leave. Period.

When we last left off, Stan had continued to sneak onto amw-a through a variety of "remailer" addresses such as "couldbeanyaddress@any.server," all the while cross-posting messages to other newsgroups and inviting other trolls to post on amw-a.

In June, 2002, he directed his cross-posted attacks at occasional target Amanda Cohen, producer of the Chicago-area ALCON events, by leeching onto a post about the Boston song "Amanda." ALCON III had taken place just two months before, and Stan's online behavior in the past had caused him to be permanently banned from the events (despite threats that he would "crash"). It seemed very much like a case of "It's your party, so I'll cry if I want to." Nothing new, but still harassment nevertheless.

In September, Rainbow (see below) received an e-mail from a woman who had quite a story to tell. During one of Stan's brief disappearances in 2000, he joined the same Freegroup as this woman (one note: my math on the year may be a bit wrong, as the info relayed to me didn't pinpoint an exact year). In a situation that seemed all too familiar to regulars on amw-a, Stan's initial posts on this Freegroup were pleasant if a bit abrasive. Then one day, he snapped, attacking the entire group and particularly the woman...making bizarre accusations about members' genders and identities (claiming her to be a man named Timothy Mays, for example), writing to the members in the guise of his own parents and making horrifyingly negative comments about him, and essentially driving the group to disband and resort to privately e-mailing each other. The woman who wrote to Rainbow went a step further and, in fear of being tracked down by Stan, changed her name, address, and even computer!

Please just take a minute to reread that last paragraph.

That month, so soon after what was possibly the most disturbing revelation in this whole mess, it was revealed that Stan was using the e-mail address "netfalls@netzero.net" to solicit Paypal donations from amw-a, alt.fan.backstreet.boys, and others for dental surgery. Later that month, Stan used his "neverfalls@mybluelight.com" address to (as he claimed he was doing) write to the employer of the newsgroup member that he had first joined the group to harass all those years ago. In what can be called the first real sign of self-induced dementia and paranoia in Stan's psychosis (in case the other dozens of examples weren't clear enough), Stan accused that it was in fact the other member who had been harassing both Stan and music groups under a variety of "aliases" and in a variety of forums and newsgroups. Such an action would have been shocking if it wasn't so predictable. We're only talking about a paranoid, delusional, narcissistic, projecting schizophrenic with an obvious parental complex here. So, surprising? No. Troubling? As always.

Toward the end of the year he once again took advantage of one of AOL's free trial offers, this time using the name "stanneverfalls" (once again, never? Check the score!). Sure enough, the name was gone in July, 2003, and Stan claims people tried to boot him off. Well, if he wants to believe that, all right by me. Let's add another point up there then.

In August, 2003, Stan went back to his old fictitious stomping grounds and continued to use his fake "neverfalls.com" domain (I guess the Sequencers disbanded or left him or never existed or something). But of course, since that "domain" has been the killfile that this page and Rainbow's have advised you, gentle readers, to use for quite some time, you should have nothing to worry about.

On the technical side, the troll and his make-believe "neverfalls" domain have aligned themselves with the Altopia Corporation, which is one of those Usenet wannabes and attracts the scum of the Internet by claiming to be censor-free ("Hey, if one of our members wants to talk about child porn, we are in no position to stop them," their web site seems to convey). But still, they do have strict rules about needless cross-posting, something Stan does do quite excessively. So, take a wild guess what has been added down in the abuse address section.

And, that's where we are now.

At some point in the past year, someone had written to me asking why do I even bother keeping this page up. What would be the point after all this time, the e-mail asked (or rather, the person writing it asked).

To a point, the person may be right. Stan has been harassing a very small group of people for the past five years because...why? Well, who knows. Frankly, who cares? Knowing what makes him tick most likely would not end it. But the fact of the matter is that he is there, he is still harassing these people, my friends and fellow fans. I don't pretend to know exactly what went down in the Brave Combo list (although truth be told, it doesn't seem as if the hostility was a one-way street there). I only know for sure what happens on alt.music.weird-al, and unless I am some superhacker who is being grossly underpaid, Google can easily back up everything said here in regards to amw-a. Knowledge is our power, and in the face of the bullies of the world (the Stans, the Bushes, etc.), it is at times our only ally.

I don't pretend to be making friends with this web page. In fact, in this whole mess, Stan seems to be the only person pretending. I don't believe he is just a misunderstood genius any more than I believe that he is a liberal. He knows the headache he causes many people, and he has had several chances to slink away with his reputation intact. But alas, he decided it would be more fun, or mischievous, or masturbatory, or whatever to keep coming back with a new "theory" or a new "story."

And again, it just leads to the question of why? He knows anyone on that newsgroup with half a brain has killfiled him already. He knows there is already a moderated, fully functioning Weird Al forum online that acts as more of an official hub than amw-a ever could, and many regulars migrated over there and have never looked back. He knows by now that his name has become a punchline. For someone who has been alive for five decades, one would think he would take the hint and live the rest of his meaningless life offline or at least away from online social circles.

Most Al fans have done their cathartic bit of mocking Stan and throwing his own cache of catchphrases back at him, but in all seriousness he is a very disturbed person. He has proven to be dangerous to others and who knows how long he has gone undiagnosed with mental diseases. A sad existence, sure, and he may very well think that people are out to "get" him, but in any case he's obviously well enough to know that he is involved in a situation that leads to trouble for him. Even if he was a victim as he claims to be, wouldn't a rational person in that same "position" simply leave and never look back?

He is aware of what he's doing, the fear that he's causing people, and he is obviously getting off on it. It's a sick way for a person to live, and unfortunately it's exposed to innocent people who don't deserve it.

And that's why this page is still up.

I personally want to be done with this page, as I'm sure some people are sick of reading this, but we can't always get what we want. This page will stay up and continue to be updated as long as Stan is on amw-a. I don't think that point was ever in question. It's all up to one person.

To everyone else, talk to you soon!

Peace.

So now, what can Al fans do about this whole mess?

Well, if you enter the e-mail address "Stan@NeverFalls.com" into your newsreader's killfile, you won't have to deal with him (or adding the word "Stan" into your subject or message filters). If you want to forward Stan's posts to Airnews, you can use the e-mail links below.

By now, most newsreaders offer killfile filters, even Google! Pretty much adding "stan" or the non-word "neverfalls" to the exclusion filter will do the trick.

It's just sad that he cannot take the hint that he has harassed people so much to the point of those same people getting him booted off the Internet over FORTY times for his behavior.

And it should be noted that after three whole years since he first came onto alt.music.weird-al to harass one of its members, nobody has been scared away permanently. Why doesn't he just give up at this point? He can't win.

The best course of action is what many have tried to do ever since this whole mess first started....ignore Stan. I know that it seems at times like the more you cover your ears the louder the noise gets, but read this quote from one of Stan's heroes, Brave Combo's trumpet player Danny O'Brien, who had this advice to give to alt.music.weird-al.....

"...about Stan representing your newsgroup. I personally take everything he says with a grain of salt (and two aspirin). You may post this to your news group if you wish to assure your members. But I don't think that it will help with the bigger problem. It is my experience that stating fact only adds fuel to the fire."

Doesn't sound like the band is as "buddy-buddy" with Stan as he would have one believe on any given post. (the group even denounced his "official" web site by revamping their own with the same info Stan had presented in his usual twisted and picked-apart fashion)

However, if you feel threatened in any way by what Stan is doing (stalking and harassing people), contact your local police....you won't be the first one to do so. Stalking IS against the law, despite what ol' Crazy Boy says. Also if you'd like, you can call the Bellaire, Texas Police Department.

We've beat him before, "Gang!" And we can definitely do it again!