As I Stepped Out Upon The Landing My Heart Was Already Down The Stairs
I'm not going to lie to you people, I'm feeling a little down today. Not really sad or depressed, just sort of... I don't really know. It's hard to put a finger on.

Maybe it's the war. Maybe it's the bombings in Baghdad and Egypt and London. Maybe it's all the global warming. Maybe it's the side effects from the Xanax I bought off the internet from a guy in Nigeria. At least I think it's Xanax. It's supposed to be Xanax. It's hard to tell anymore since the label has faded so badly; I should have known something was up when it came all written in pencil. Plus the pills taste kind of minty. Is that right? It doesn't seem right. Ah well. It was only $800 for a three month supply. He told me it was a bargain, so I guess the joke's on him. He can afford to cut prices now that Africa is awash in all those giant piles of Live 8 money, so I don't feel that bad for him.

I've thought long and hard about it and I think I can pinpoint the source of my malaise. I seem to have arrived at another plateau in my blogging popularity. My Sitemeter numbers have been hovering steadily for a while. Part of it was because I was gone for a week, but I know what it is. The only thing between me and immortality is--still, after all this time and despite my best efforts--the fact that I don't have a nickname.

I covered this topic in some detail a while ago, but it still hasn't happened for me yet.

It's necessary, I know it now. All the greats have nicknames and until I get one of my own, I'll never amount to nothing.

See that? If I had a nickname, I totally would have avoided that double negative right there.

And don't tell me that "Pops" counts. It doesn't. It's not a nickname, it's a pseudonym. It's a nom de plume. No, hang on, that makes it sound a little fruity. A nom de guerre, then. Eh... less fruity, but still French. Let's go back to "pseudonym".

The point is I gave it to myself and everyone knows you can't give yourself a nickname. If you could, I would have been known as "Crackerpants" all through high school somewhere other than the inside of my diary. I don't know what it means, I just liked the sound of it. Try it out, go on, say it out loud: "What up, Crackerpants?" See, it just works.

It's the last stumbling block for me, I think. My writing is obviously genius and eminently readable, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be sweeping the nation. No, it's the lack of a nickname that's gummed up the works, I just know it.

Everyone who's anyone has a nickname. Honest Abe. Papa Hemingway. Babe Ruth. Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy. Billy the Kid. Wild Bill. Buffalo Bill. 50 Cent. P-Diddy. Ben "C-Note" Franklin.

Even executive-branch behind-the-scene douchebags like Lewis Libby and Karl Rove get to go around with great nicknames like "Scooter" and "Turdblossom". You think those people rose to those positions of power on merit? No sir. The nickname's the thing.

Like most growing boys, I think I just want to emulate my heroes. Look at the back cover of Elvis Costello's 1986 album Blood and Chocolate:


There are five different names--the circled ones--that the man goes by on one CD. And he's been making records for over 30 years. Coincidence? I think no.

And just to underline the point that you can't make up your own nickname, you'll notice that the name "Napoleon Dynamite" is one of the names on this 1986 album cover. So the kid who made that movie who thought he was being so original and clever, well... unless his friends start calling him "Sparky" or "Chip", he's SOL as far as this nickname goes. I hate to expose a guy like this and ruin his career, but the rules have to apply to us all evenly. If I can't be "Crackerpants", you can't be "Napoleon Dynamite".

I gotta go. It's time for my pill.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.8


Crackerpants
Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:57 AM