You Be You, Boo! You Be You!

I glanced at a news article, this morning, that entered my timeline on either Facebook or Twitter.  Whichever the case, it was about an Aussie mother that was complaining about her daughter's teachers abbreviating her daughter's name because it was too difficult to pronounce in it's entirety.  Even written out phonetically, I had no idea how to pronounce it, myself, and I'm pretty good at doing that, if you don't mind me tooting my own horn -- toot toot!!

In the article, it also mentioned that the daughter felt embarrassed about being called the abbreviated name, according to the mother, but I surmised in the comments that the daughter was probably, more likely to be ashamed because her parents were f**king morons and couldn't give her a normal name like Mary or Sharon, but some hippy nonsensical name that can't be spelled, much less pronounced by the masses.

I shared it on my Facebook, as I do with many of the stupid shit I discover on social media.  It got me thinking about names.  My name is Jeff or Jeffrey, a name I detest.  Also a name placed upon me by my late father.  I'm not certain as to why, exactly, but my mom claims that she wanted to name me Jason, but was overruled by my dad who wanted Jeffrey.  Named after a fella he knew, I think, but I can't recall.  What I do know is, I f**king hate the name and I've never met anyone with the name Jeff or Jeffrey, who actually liked the name.

I would have much preferred being named Jason.  It's such a cool name and you can abbreviate in a couple different ways to still make it sound cool.  Jay or Jase are two cool derivatives of the name Jason that still make the named coolness.  Plus, any Jason I've ever met, seems pretty frickin' cool.  I used to work with one, in particular, who if you don't mind me ripping off a line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off:  He's a righteous dude.  Plus, you have all those cool actors, named Jason: Jason Statham, Jason Lee, Jason Voorhees.  Can't go wrong with the name Jason. Ya can't do f*ck all with Jeffrey.  There's Jeff, which sounds very much like a cat sneezing.  You watch!!  Next time your feline friend has a sneezing frenzy, you listen.  Guaranteed, you'll hear my name.  Jeff!  Jeff!   JEFF!! 

I recall the Rob Lowe movie, Youngblood.  A hockey movie that he starred in with his fellow co-star from The Outsiders, Patrick Swayze.  Cool f**kin' movie, but I was quite taken with the name Youngblood.  I often thought that the name would spice up the Jeffrey name.  Jeffrey A. Youngblood.  Alas, I never changed my name, for obvious reasons.  I never wanted to dishonour my father or my granddad or great-granddads memories.  Still a cool f*ckin' name, though.

Over the years, I've come to accept my fate.  Using Jeffrey A. Richards as my go-to professional name.   If I'd followed through with the film school, like I'd initially planned, that's the name I would have gone with, but I failed to follow that dream and instead slid into a pit of mediocrity.  Now I'm just plain Jeff Richards.  A plethora of people too god damned ignorant or stupid to spell my name correctly, so I've discarded it completely.

That little girl in Australia, whose name is impossible to pronounce, may stick with the abbreviated terminology, quite to her mother's chagrin.  Or perhaps, she'll discard it completely and call herself something completely different.  Like the popular singer from the 1970s, Engelbert Humperdinck. Born Arnold George Dorsey, the popular crooner, chose to become Engelbert Humperdinck.  What the f*ck?!?  However, as f*cked up as that is, he chose his own path, his own name and achieved much success in doing so, although I couldn't for the life of me, name any of his songs.  Point is, we needn't be tied down by the names our parents saddled us with.  Life is freedom.  Freedom to be who or what you wanna be.  Whatever makes you happy in this life. 
I like to say: You be you, boo!  You be you! 

Wet and Juicy

I went and saw the most recent Jason Statham movie, "Parker" tonight.  I thought it was a decent flick.  It had great special effects and was filled to the nines with a shit load of blood and violence.  Everything that makes this boy laugh out heartily.  The movie co-starred Michael Chiklis (Vegas, The Shield), who was a fantastic villain and a formidable foe against Statham's character.  Jennifer Lopez also starred and for once, the sound of her voice didn't make me pray for deafness, nor did she make me want to gouge my f*cking eyes out.  (I don't find the whole 'ghetto booty' thing as attractive as so many others seem to.)  

The movie, itself, was fairly decent.  A formulated storyline, bad guy with a set of ethics, who's been wronged and he's out to get back at those who double-crossed him.  It's a story that's been told a million and one times, yet we, the movie going audience, still buy up that shit up.  The only real drawback that I found, was the company that were seated around me.

I like to see movies on my own sometimes.  After all, when the lights go out, nobody should be conversing anyway, so I don't see any big deal about it.  I like to find a nice seat that is centralized to the screen, but secluded enough that people won't sit near me.  I go early enough to find my place, but not so much that I'm sitting there like a f*cking idiot for too long.  This strategy usually works well enough, but was thwarted tonight.  I had a couple of guys sit directly in front of me, despite the entire row being open and free.  Thankfully the guy right in front of me was no taller than a garden gnome, but the other motherf*cker was freakishly big.  A great big dark fella who filled the space around him with a thick stench of smoke and buckskin.  Not cigarette smoke, but "throw another log on the..."  It was thick but I mustered through the pain. 

The next audience members to join the vicinity were a special couple.  They sat directly behind me, which is fine, as my view wouldn't be obscured any more than it already was.  However, they were chattery.  Actually the female of the two, was well-behaved and never muttered more than a couple of sentences before the previews began.  Her companion, on the other hand, wouldn't shut his f*cking mouth up during the previews and the first few scenes of the movie.  As each character appeared into frame, he'd announce to his row, practically, who was who and what was what.  I think someone finally shushed him into silence, but what followed was worse than the talking.

He'd cough, then clear his throat and if you thought the smoky buckskin clad fella in front of me stank, you clearly have never experienced someone with shit breath.  I kid you not!  He smelled like he not only ate a shit-sandwich for supper, but consumed an entire shit buffet.  When I was a kid growing up on the farm, there was a work horse there named JIM.  He was a nice enough horse, as horses go, I guess.  A gentle and kind demeanor that made him very approachable by us kids.  I mention Jim, only because he had a small problem with flatulence.  You'd be patting him down or running a comb over his back and I don't know if it relaxed him or what, but he'd let loose with a lengthy and very smelly fart that practically wrinkled his skin as it vacated his body.  The guy's breath who was seated behind me, smelled just like Jim's wet and juicy farts.

By the time the movie had begun, the small theater had filled to enough capacity that I was unable to find another seat that wouldn't put me practically on top of some one else, and even then it's a crap shoot (pardon the pun), as in the past, I've jumped from the frying pan into the fire and found myself in worse shape.  Kinda like that fella in front of me who smelled like he fell into a fire too.  Probably drunk...