What's the use?
Everybody likes whiskey, except for me, of course. At least, that's the way it seems. Countless times, or at least a number of times I cannot count, I have found myself with a shot of whiskey in front of myself due to the abject generosity of one of the dudes I happen to be in the same bar as. It's times like these, times such as the times I have described above, these times when I must force myself to choke down, yet not vomit up, many of the worlds finest whiskeys.
I like scotch, but nobody ever orders a round of J&B. No, it's always Crown, or Jack Daniels, or some other such bastard brine. The last time I took a shot of Canadian Mist I puked in the sink. Ever since then, I consider not puking while shooting whiskey to be a resounding success. It's the sweet that kills me; the sweeter it is the less likely I will be able to keep it down.
But really, this whole whiskey thing is neither here nor there. What I really showed up to talk about was names; crazy names.
A few years ago a friend tells me, he tells me, "I got a letter from a friend the other day, a friend who plays guitar in a metal band. Said friend, he signs his letter as 'axehandle.' I guess that's his new heavy metal name, because nobody has ever called him 'axehandle' before, at least to my knowledge." Needless to say, I was amused. I even used 'axehandle' as my own nickname several days later when I met some friends-of-a-friend in Seattle. My friends found it riotously funny, their friends thought I was a douche.
In any case, 'round about the same time, the same friend comes up to me and tells me all about how he and some of his other friends have come all up with their own "hillbilly names." To go with the names they had come up with titles for their autobiographies. Unfortunately, I cannot remember said friend's hillbilly name, but his autobiography was to be entitled "I Eat Corn." More memorable was his girlfriend's hillbilly name, notable because she was, in fact, given at birth the perfect hillbilly name. Actually, I inquired of my friend if anybody had noted the irony of his girlfriend picking out a crazy hillbilly name when she actually had a crazy hillbilly name. He told me that none of the people playing the game at the time were assholes, so it hadn't come up. So, I'm an asshole and her 'hillbilly' name was Sissy Pricket, and her autobiography was entitled "Nethergrope."
So anyways, he invites me to do likewise and I come up with "Ideatin' 'bout 'postrophes" by Ephus Spoonbread. It was me at either my most or least clever. Something like a rickshaw getting pulled around by another rickshaw.
So here we are. five or more years later. Where does that leave us? Hillbillies are passe, superheroes are yet to come into their own, and our real names make us feel inadequate. Let us come up with fake names, names that make us feel like heroes, or at least like everything hasn't already been invented. What kind of names, you ask? Punk rock names, the likes of Black Francis and Polly Esther? No, I guess not. Hardcore heavy metal names like Rob Zombie and Burt Baccarat? No, probably not those neither. Truth be told, I got drunk and forgot what kind of names we should make up, so lets just all get drunk and forget to make up names, shall we?
