My Name is Your Name

Is the background music “Let’s get metaphysical” ? Nah, Just playing my own name game.

I had to refrain from writing what is in the vein of declaration of blue as the sky color, but indeed “I like podcasts”. And I mean listening to them. My time for doing this in while driving, often on once or twice a week errand trips to towns, maybe 25 or 30 minutes of time to soak up some audio casts.

I’ve noticed lately my own fascination in listening to a podcast and being tuned in for some small kernel statement, not really even related to the show’s content, that lodges a mental note of, “I gotta look that up later.” And when that happens, Ye Olde Rabbit Hole of Internet Curiosity pops open.

For example, I was listening two weeks ago to into a Dot Social podcast episode (a podcast mostly about the the “new social web”?) where host Mike McCue recorded a conversation with dynamic and energetic web advocate and BS critic Molly White at the recent SXSW conference. But the small thing that jumped out was her response to a question of how she got to be a good writer- to wish she credited 20 years of being qn active Wikipedian. That was like a fleck of gold right out of Gardner Campbell’s old bag.

Hey I already wrote this up in the OEG Connect Space, my blog train went sideways. I am veering back to share a fantastic episode I heard today from the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast, a long time listen for me into the world of sound. This was an episode where host Dallas Taylor interviewed like six other people named… Dallas Taylor.

It’s just so good on so many levels, and I will not ruin it with trying to summarize. But woah, how many of his namesakes had a sibling named “Austin”! And when he asked another Dallas Taylor for the origin story of his name, and they ended up calling his Mom to have her explain out loud. It’s just brilliant audio storytelling, top to bottom, and to me. good case that there’s more to podcasting then recording some yammering conversation.

All the Alan Levines

But on the name thing, back in the day I did my own “ego-surfing” and found I was a lawyer, mathematician, art trader, even a knife retailer, and things got even more funky when I tracked the Google Ad words. A recheck finds me as CEO of a Healthcare system (actually more than one of me). a professor of political theory and another me is a professor of Pathology, a film production manager (I worked on Escape from New York), and finally a painter (that one I will link).

I doubt I have the motivation of Dallas Taylor to go out and interview the others that bear my name.

My name. Which was not supposed to be by name.

When I was born, in Jewish tradition, I was named after a relative who was no longer living, in this case my paternal grandfather, Abraham Herman Levine, who was a big deal in the construction business in Baltimore. A few clicks back I learned he earned his credentials through distance learning (in the 1920s).

As my mom told me, she felt that “Abraham” was a bit old fashioned for a name for a kid born in the 1960s, so she modernized it to Alan.

Thanks Mom.

Say it Like Levine

And for my last name, I never am consistent on its pronumciation, Le-veen or La-vine and when asked I shrug and say, “Just call me Alan.” One time in 2010 while hanging out with Gardner Campbell in New York City, likely those Baruch Symposiums, we were in line to get some true Brooklyn pizza. Gardner was needling about my lack of consistency, so I said, “let’s settle this.” So I called Mom in Florida, so Gardner could ask The Source about the correct Levine pronunciation.

You could not script it, but Mom gave the same reply. Case close, Gardo!

[Don’t] Call Me Adam

More recently, say over the last five or so years, this weird thing happens. I make a reservation in my name, or order a package sent to me under my name, make an aoopintment under my name, the person behind the desk or on the phone addresses me as “Adam”,

Not just there, often I will send emails to people with my name on the sender field and also in the footer, and people reply with, “Hi Adam”.

It’s a Big Maroon 5 mystery (and by the way I have never heard one song by the man). I’m no longer bothered, and tend to make a joke about it.

I imagine the band preparing for the start of a concert or showing up fior a signing and the people in the front shouting “CogDog! CogDog!”

Poor Adam I bet is besieged in people whio repond to him as “Alan”. Dude, I know how it feels.

Well, I’ve strung my name along as far as I could. This all goes to all the Dallas Taylors who warmed my heart listening to that episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz. If you are not subscribed to that podcast, Adam suggests you should.

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Featured Image: My own remix of my own remix of Wikimedia Commons image Hello my name is sticker thats in the public domain. So it is.