Name Recognition | The branding of your Soul

My van lost reverse this summer and with a lot of noise it healed itself so to speak and has been working ever since minus reverse and second gear. Normal daily driving and monthly trips to Manhattan and Brooklyn are still happening. I have adapted well to the reverseless lifestyle. It was hard going at first, head first parking at the fedex office. I have been told by friends it's ironic. It does prompt one to get out of their shell. Get to know the people. Gestalt even! I am getting to know my fellow man, interacting from a place of humility. It is quite a wonderful experience. I almost feel a sense of community, I love that feeling, no matter how fake I think it is. On a recent first date I had to push the van back up a 208 ft deadend in a D.C. parking lot. Shit, good for the soul.

So I am thinking of how I might pronunciate my name if I were a famous D.C. area NPR broadcaster. What would my show be about, a disecction of my "specimen life," self-centered, oversimplifying? My Rags to Internet Bubble Riches to Rags story, flacidly leaning toward resembling the flat line on a ekg monitor than that of a Hollywood Thill-a-comedy. Nonetheless, with some age comes a huge sense that you oughta know something or atleast have something seemingly wisdomatic to say to that blank faced 3 year old as he stares up at you, whilst everyone else at the party is socializing. And you realize you are now with your only true peer. Deep in my road coma I realize that all the announcers take great pains to clearly annunciate their NPR non de plumes. Everyday I laugh at the extravagance of Kojo when he steals that second of airtime to pause between the Naan and the Dee in his last name. How does one even know the correct way to pronouce ones last name? A trip to the motherland? Academia? Another female annoucer, with the loveliest sterile caucasian voice, wraps up her show or comments with a name you'd think frida kahlo spoke through the woman's larnyx. Perhaps they have these brand names pre-recorded and spliced in after each story and comment they make? It'll scare the shit out of you, it comes out of nowhere. Wonderful in a souless ok computer kinda way. Maybe long hours with grandma, or a speech therapist, a spanish tutor, time spent recording and re-recording your cell phone voicemail over and over, like some poor perfectionist caught in an infinite autistic subroutine.

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