What’s in a name? I ask you oh dear and gentle reader, if you’re into numerology quite a bit. Lest we forget the 666’s of Ronald Wilson Regan, and conspiracy tales of old- that Regan was a minion of the devil. The devil of cloven hoof and pointy pitchfork one is to presume. Personally I like to think that he was the Anti-Christ, and the second coming sort of lost his or her way somewhere in Los. Angeles wound up working in bikini pictures that wound up on Cinemax, but I digress.
Names are in interesting thing; it’s no surprise of course of the Hollywood types who have changed their names, after all what better for a manufactured name for a manufactured image. Though in the case of Rip Torn, you really have to wonder what they were thinking. Names are changed to protect the innocent, and the not so innocent. Wives routinely change their names to match their husbands, and of course the new age husbands are now changing theirs to match their wives or worse entering the hyphenation generation.
Does a name define you? My mother wanted to name me Christopher Robin, as opposed to Christopher Anthony – a somewhat Appling trend my father started of naming his children after him, that started with me and has been passed on to his next three children. It was my father who decided that being named after a character from Winnie the Pooh would all but guarantee playground fisticuffs. But there were still foursquare dustups, in point of fact I was the official nerd of the neighborhood, (yeah like you didn’t see that one coming) nothing was stopping me from getting my ass kicked. It was I fear, my destiny.
Not that middle names make a difference, they usually only come into play when your on a first date, and you have that moment where you look at each others ID’s (usually whilst being carded) then there is that cute moment where you see each others middle names, talking about the great aunt you never knew that your named after. Gawk at the truly horrible photo on said Id, and make many awkward jokes. On the plus side if it all goes well from there you will most likely be making out within the hour.
My real issues cam from my nickname, the name I was called by everyone until I went to college. It is a name that would stir my other pacifistic self into a furious frenzy at the mere utterance of it. It was a name that didn’t define me so much as enslave me, trap me into a little box. A box with a brass nameplate, the name: Kip.
Being the weird kid is bad enough, but being the weird kid, with the equally weird name and you have a margarita of misfortune. I grew up in Fridley, Minnesota, A suburb of Minneapolis in the North East. For some reason NE s’ are the same everywhere; cold a little industrial, tight knit and a bad place to be a stranger. Fridley is no exception. With a strange name and a Prince Valiant haircut (thanks mom!) and knickers- yeah no matter how you slice, some body is getting punched in the playground at 3.
My parents thought they had invented the name Kip, or Kippy as it was known till high school. This was before there were the “famous” Kip’s: Kip Winger,Kip King (a stand up comic of little renown), and the guy Tom Hanks played on Bossism Buddies. Kip as a name set the bar pretty low for greatness.Kip is the guy who has a tough time getting a date. Kip should be somewhere in Nantucket rowing a boat reading Emerson. You will never be tough if your name is Kip, being a Goth kid in a prep school named Kip- yeah that’s just unfortunate of course that’s who I was.
My first day of high school, I had decided that I would be Chris, then of course as the first home room bell rang, and the very first roll call of my new school career started, and I knew that this would be the day that everything would change, I waited anxiously practicing how I would say this name that I had never used before in spite of having been born with it. Finally my name was called, and I was supposed to say how it was pronounced, etc. I took a breath and just as I was about to say “call me Chris”, the one person in the school, who came from my old school blurted out” His name is Kip” and just like that I was a Kip.
Oddly enough the same girl went to college with me, this time I stopped her in time and became Chris. But to be honest it never felt quite like my name, sure I answer to it and obviously it’s my name, but for the longest time it felt a little foreign. Like a name you give a cat, because the cat needs a name, and eventually they answer to it- mostly just as habit.
While I might not have been completely feeling “Chris” I had a full Hate on for Kip. I refused to answer to that name or any variation of it. Which mostly just served to make the holidays awkward. To this day Chris never sounds right coming out my parents’ mouths. Its like they have to think about it first. Anyone who called me Kip, was met with scowls and glares, if I was drunk enough the threat of violence- of course it was a threat I could never make good on.
From that point on I was only called Kip by people who wanted to make me very very angry, mostly ex band mates, and the occasional ex girl friend. Kip became my secret, something I would only admit to at the most clandestine of moments, or alternately after consuming large amounts of Whiskey. Kip became my shame, the flowers in the attic of my troubled youth.
About a month ago, a drunk friend and soon to be former bandmate called me Kip in an attempt to pick a fight, this time I just shrugged my shoulders and said “ eh, that’s all you got?” and walked on.
Names only have power if we give it to them. Melvin is arguably the dorkiest name ever, but Mel Gibson is incredibly smooth, or at least he was until he became the most reviled Anti-Semite this side of Hitler. The point is there is power in a name, what took down Rumplestiltskien? Guessing his name, Babba Yagga? Same thing, it seems a lot of magic is taken down by the mere act of knowing a name. What is a name after all if not the truth.
So know you know one of my truths, but in telling my secret, it lost its power over me and I regained a little bit of my past. So you can call me Kip and I won’t want to shank you, I might not respond but you gotta start somewhere.
Welcome, this is the first post on the new blog, last September I decided to start this little blog experiment , it worked, and over 3000 people dropped by to read my blathering commentary. So I decided to try and step it up a bit, move to a domain, customize it a bit and tell my friends that I had done it (really only told a handful) and see what happens .
The name Tales of the Idiot, comes from something I had though about for more then 20 years. My plan was to publish a novel with that name by the time I was 30, a feat I did not succeed at. I did write a novel once in the 7th grade, It was a mystery story set during the filing of a Bob Hope/ Bing Crosby/ Dorthy Lamour movie. with of course me as the boy detective who saved the day- I think it goes without saying that I was a highly unpopular kid.
The title stayed but the plots changed and well I was too busy having a life to write about it. So instead here it is , Blog the new black, excuse me I mean novel.
I’ll go into detail later about my theory that “We are all idiots”. For now, enjoy the new site, its now all set up by categories, so if you only want essays, you can get them. Bloggy Bits are things that are just short, little bits, time wasters and the like.
Truthfully, oh dear and gentle reader I have a tough time calling myself a blogger, I am an essayist, a columnist without paper. Because we have to tile things such I become a blogger, but it still feels a bit like a lie, I don’t talk about technology, at lease not in a gadgetey way, I have no SMO skills, and no clever trips for link baiting, or traffic swapping, or feed burning. I can barely figure out CSS. I share stuff about my life, but they are stories and metaphors, not what I had for breakfast, or what I did with friends the night before. I spend very little time in the blogsphere itself, and rarely read any. Its not personal I know there are some great ones out there, I barely have the time to write mine, let alone read anyone elses.
Soon there will be podcasts, Me reading things aloud with a sound track, and the occasional bit of aural insanity. Also a promise of daily updates , well m-f updates at least.
so for now Dig the New Blog
Greetings oh dear and gentle reader, you may have noticed that I haven’t been updating very often as of late. To be honest i just haven’t been in the mode- busy certainly.But also, just a little broken. Writing in a vacuum can do that, writing is a lonely profession, its not like you have the chance to hear words reacted to. Before i get all maudlin let me just tell you the news. I am going to be updating the site. Giving it a new domain and a new title. not to mention a new look.
Given that I am rather crap at CSS, it takes me a little longer. but over the next week or so this will all get updated. with categories, and gasp..shudder..podcasts and the like. I just need to spend time on it and not as much procrastinating on writing. So if things look goofy when you drop by or seem in disary, you are probably getting me in the middle of some house cleaning/ experimentation. Have no fear, I will be back with the pithy soon.
your pal,
chris
Editor’s Note: this is a wedding ceremony that I wrote and performed for my friends Brian and Sheila, Yes its true I am a minister, form the same church that made Johnny Carson clergy so no its not a terribly serious commitment- in fact you can be one too ULC.org. A lot of folks have asked for it so here it is. All I ask is that if you use any of it, you drop me a line here and let me know!
Dearly Beloved, friends, relatives and other assorted strangers, Welcome, we are gathered here today to celebrate the ultimate union between two people, a corporate merger of the souls if you will, a contract in the eyes of God, and a tax deduction in the eyes of the IRS. Beyond all of that simply this is the loudest that you can shout their mutual love. Today we bear witness to the love and matrimony of Sheila Sweerin and Brian Jacoby.
This is a defining moment in both their lives, when two separate paths convergence and become one. Marriage is a legal and binding contract, but that’s not why Brian and Sheila and getting married, no one gets married so they can be bound to rules and guidelines, they get married because they have no other choice, and no I don’t mean that, they get married because if they don’t hey feel like they might break inside, because one day they realize that the only person they want to see in the morning is them. It’s the time in the cowboy movie when you know longer ride off alone into the sunset, rather it is now two silhouettes. Marriage means you never ride alone again, even if physically you’re a world apart this is the penultimate action of three little words “I love you”.
Though that sort of begs the question “ what is love”?, to illuminate that unanswerable question, I suggest we look to the be all, end all authority of all things culture-the pop song
love will keep us together, Love will tear us apart, Love is all you need, it’s just a love rollercoaster-step right up and get your tickets. don’t you want somebody to love, don’t you need somebody to love, wouldn’t you love somebody to love, you better find somebody to love. She loves you- yeah yeah, yeah. I gotta be cool relax, get hip Get on my track’s Take a back seat, hitch-hike And take a long ride on my motor bike Until I’m ready Crazy little thing called love. The look of love is in your eyes A look your smile can’t disguise, The look of love is saying so much more than just words could ever say
And what my heart has heard, well it takes my breath away, this guy’s in love with you, I love LA, But only love can break your heart,Try to be sure right from the start, yes only love can break your heart. What if your world .should fall apart? Only love can break a heart, Only love can mend it again Words of love, so soft and tender, Won’t win a girl’s heart anymore. If you love her,then you must send her Somewhere where she’s never been before. Worn out phrases and longing gazes Won’t get you where you want to go. Who wrote the book of love?
Monday you can fall apart, Tuesday Wednesday break my heart Or, Thursday doesn’t even start It’s Friday I’m in love .ohh baby I love your way, And they whirl and they twirl and they tango Singin’ and jinglin’ a jangle Float like the heavens above Looks like Muskrat Love
Suffice it to say that Love is a thing that lives outside its definition, that no amount of pop song or poetry, can truly define, and no one picture can capture its essence, the best we can hope to do is catch a glimmer of it , and if we lucky recognize it for the beautiful truth that it is. It’s a truth we see here today in the eyes of Brian and Shiela.
Love is the easiest thing to do in the world, and it is the hardest nothing lifts our spirits higher, or wounds the soul deeper, it is the stuff that makes life worth living love is easy, marriage is hard, but oh so worth the trip.
And now a reading
From C.S. Lewis: “Being in Love”
“If the old fairy-tale ending “They lived happily ever after” is taken to mean “They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,” then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense-love as distinct from “being in love”—is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be “in love” with someone else. “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”– C. S. Lewis
Definition of Marriage
Love is the easiest thing to do in the world, and it is the hardest, nothing lifts our spirits higher, or wounds the soul deeper, it is the stuff that makes life worth living love is easy, marriage is hard,
Marriage is not just the stuff of sitcoms and programs on the lifetime channel, It’s walks in the snow even if its two in the morning and freezing, it’s a horrendous argument that ends with I love you, it s holding your wife’s hair back as they vomit, profusely. Or brining your husband dinner at the office because you know if you didn’t he would never eat. It’s a lifetime pass to movies be it action film, or weep fest that you would never see on your own, it’s putting songs on your ipod that you can’t stand because you know that your other loves.
Marriage does not give you street creed, or make you punk rock in any way shape or form. Marriage is about the small things; knowing what he likes on his sandwich, it’s buying an extra good humor bar to keep in the freezer for when you see her later. Its walking for hours down a beach not saying anything, because you don’t need too. Just holding hands is enough. It is smiling when they ring your phone, no matter how trying your day has been-just because.
One could argue that marriage is simply a forgone conclusion to a true love accepted . So it is in that spirt that I ask if either you Brian and Sheila wish to chicken out?
If there is anyone here, who knows of a reason why the couple should not wed, don’t speak now, but do keep your peace, this a decision between them, so pbbbt.
Wedding Vows (editior’s note: Vows should always be personal and they should always come from your own heart)
HandFasting
In past times the ritual of handfasting served as a sort of “trial” marriage, a means of checking out what marriage is. Given that this is an actual marriage, the trial period doesn’t apply.
Rather if you think that Marriage is a bond, like an invisible cord that holds two souls together, then this is a symbol of that love . By tying your hands together we are making an unbreakable knot, well ok a knot that would be really difficult to untie. The legend goes that as long as the knot is tied you will have a long and happy marriage.
Declaration of Marriage
By the power vested in me by a 5.50 peace of paper from the state of MN I know pronounce you husband and wife, you are now officially stuck with each other for all of eternity, or thereabouts You may know kiss
Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls I know present you the legally married couple of Mrs. Sheila Sweerin and Mr. Brian Jacoby.
Recessional
Names are in interesting thing; it’s no surprise of course of the Hollywood types who have changed their names, after all what better for a manufactured name for a manufactured image. Though in the case of Rip Torn, you really have to wonder what they were thinking. Names are changed to protect the innocent, and the not so innocent. Wives routinely change their names to match their husbands, and of course the new age husbands are now changing theirs to match their wives or worse entering the hyphenation generation.
