Tag Name Changing

And Now…Something Sort of Different

Michael 2 Comments

A few years ago I had a great idea to change the name of the blog. The Real Reality Show Blog made sense in the beginning as a response to the reality being foisted upon us by cable television so-called reality shows. Come on now, let’s have a show of hands, how many think those housewives are really real. And not to spoil anybody’s surprise, on almost any of those shows where somebody gets surprised, didn’t you ever wonder how the producers managed to get the surprise-ees mic’ed up without them knowing it. So, since the reality of those shows was more than a little in question, the Real Reality Show Blog filled the gap with real stuff, real places, and real people from wherever I really happened to be.

Over time (a lot of time – I started writing this drivel in 2012!) the reality wasn’t any less but it was sometimes augmented with commentary, thoughts, and suppositions. It became more the musings of some old, single, white guy. In fact, the first alternate name I thought of for the blog was just that – Old Single White Guy. Even though it describes me to a T, it really pushes the bounds of political correctness. And then I thought, oh no, I can’t call it that because any time I started following a new blog the blogger would get an e-mail from WordPress stating, “Congratulations! Old Single White Guy just started following you!” and I just don’t have the money to spend on keeping a lawyer on retainer.

It was clear that my first thought was not my best thought. Not surprising considering I recently wrote an entire post about poor first thoughts. And then it hit me! The famous sign from that post, the one I’m looking at while I’m writing this. The one I’ve looked at writing almost every post for the last almost ten years. Don’t Believe Everything You Think. That’s it! I got it and I got it good. Or bad.  Or whichever is good nowadays. That could be “THE” perfect name for this perfectly imperfect nonsense.

Yep, Don’t Believe Everything You Think. But I’ve built a brand. How will people find me? Duh, who the … um, who might be looking for me. I’ve never “advertised.” I’ve never linked from there to here from the various there’s I haunt – cyberly speaking that is. Yet somehow in just the last 4 years people have landed on this site over 20,000 times. If I only had a nickel. [Sigh] Not to worry though. I’m not changing the name of this blog so if you haven’t subscribed but you just know how to get here you can keep getting here however that is. But I am using the name for a new podcast version of this.

You’ve all seen the notices from WordPress, turn your blog into a podcast. Well, it seems easy enough and I want to experiment a little.  If I’ve done this right, you should find a link Don’t Believe Everything You Think on the Anchor platform where you will hear me reading this drivel. And some other stuff. And each time I do this there’ll be more other stuff. Go listen and please come back here and tell me what you think. (This particular drivel you should find right here.)

01a39c24efcfb5bde1debe2de75e473c90853c0da5e44078e88df466a2e22901.0And remember, even though you may not have known it, chances are pretty good that there’s an old, single, white guy following you.

Oh, one more thing. When I set that up over there, or over here if you’re now listening instead of reading, they ask for a category I guess so they can figure out where to pigeonhole you. What could I say about this? There isn’t a category for claptrap. So I called it a personal journal. And that reminded me of something. You’ve heard me speak of my daughter many times. She does many things, including writing. For her though it’s professional. Yeah, she actually makes money writing. She’s written something new that’s not meant to be read but to encourage others writing. I thought of this when I was selecting “personal journal” for my category. She’s written journal prompts, but I think pretty cleverly. She’s developed a card deck of prompts. According to her, “Everyone has a story, but not everyone knows what their story is.” The deck has 52 cards packed in a study box. Go check them out, at Untitled. She doesn’t know I’m telling you this, so if you see her, don’t say anything. Thanks.

Nay Nee, I Say

Michael 4 Comments

I once toyed with the idea of changing the blog name to better represent who I am. But I was concerned how some to whose blogs I subscribe would take receiving an email from WordPress saying “Congratulations, A Single White Male is now following you.” And then there’s that whole “weren’t you something else before” thing to deal with.

Myanmar doesn’t have that problem. In fact, it is because of that country that I thought of this at all. One scarcely ever hears reference to Myanmar that it isn’t immediately followed by “formerly known as Burma.” Indeed it is. And indeed even WordPress refers to it as “Myanmar (Burma)” in its statistics reports. It’s been a fairly recent change but not much more recent than Bangladesh, Belize, or Zimbabwe and not as recent as Cambodia and Somalia yet you never hear their “formerly known as” designations.

MyanmarIt all came to my attention as I was reading a book. A minor character working as a data miner (legally and legitimately) had completed a project. As he submitted it he told the recipient to be sure to call him, don’t email him, with any questions because he will be leaving for vacation to Southeast Asia in the morning and won’t be bringing his laptop. He explains that it is very difficult to bring electronics into Myanmar “which you may know as Burma.” First of all, who talks that way? And secondly, for a character appearing on only seven pages of a 460 page novel, he’s being pretty cheeky taking that tone, wouldn’t you say?

It seems that we’ve been double designating Myanmar as that place formerly known as Burma since it barely stopped being known as Burma. I refer you to the 1996 episode of Seinfeld when J. Peterman escapes his world to, in his words (word?) “Burma.” He tells Elaine “You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me.” Admittedly, this makes finding Myanmar on a map easier if you haven’t updated your Google Maps since 1989. By that same token though, it would be handy if we started calling Mumbai formerly known as Bombay or St. Petersburg formerly known as Leningrad formerly known as Petrograd formerly known as St. Petersburg. Ok, maybe that one might not be so easy.

I think if you’re going to change your name, just do it and let every else figure out who or what you were before.

If you have an opinion I’d love to hear it in the comments. If I don’t respond right away, don’t fret over that. I might take a few days off and see a play or two and maybe do some shopping in New York City.

Formerly known as New Amsterdam.