I Finally Googled It And…

Sometime in the early 90s I was listening to Allan Prell, a talk show host on WBAL radio, Baltimore. His subject was weird names parents give their newborn babies. Some are really fucked-up. Like naming a son Adolf Hitler (then the surname). Hey, it’s happened. More than once.

The names he had callers talking about were unbelievable. According to a story he heard, an African American woman had a thing for Jell-O and therefore when she gave birth to twins, she picked her favorite flavors and the result was Lemonjello and Oorangejello. He seemed incredulous at first but then he walked the line. It’s an urban legend, terribly racist, as I found when I finally googled it; banking on the myth that black people are illiterate and stupid.

Of course, there’s a bit of racist in everyone, so legend be dammned, awful names children get burdened with are too easy to believe, even though it isn’t a question of race, religion, politics or even gender: parents of all walks are fucking mean.

Here’s this sweet bundle of joy, a blessing, and it needs feeding, warmth, mother’s tenderness.

But what happens? They come around with the form for the birth certificate, and suddenly nothing is about the baby. Nothing..

It’s about the parents, their whims, narcissistic power, and perhaps a bit of the drugs they use for “recreational” purposes. Oh, I’ve had a few gear-grinders come past me. The kind who, I mean to say by metaphor, will make you smoke the clutch and miss a gear. That kind.

Names like “Castle”, “Truelove”, and worse. Those were grown men. Women have it far worse. You wonder how the heck they ever made it to adulthood with names like those. I don’t mean names like Ian Fleming used for Bond girls, like “Plenty”, “Pussy” or “Kissy”; even though they’re pretty bad. But there’s a better than even chance that you have or had a female classmate with a name that draws bullies like shit draws flies.

It isn’t the child’s fault that his or parents were too selfish and full of themselves to give them a proper name.

The study that gave slight odds that children would end up in the juvenile justice system were better if their names drew ridicule, hatred and bullying or committed crimes is significant to me. In addition to the fire they drew, they probably already hated their names themselves. Low self esteem can cause severe social problems and inhibit learning at school. They stuff their resentment for what their parents did to them down deep which at some point will result in rebellious acting out, and that can take any of a thousand forms, none of which are good. Remember that if the percentage seems low, it still translates to individuals who can feel shame, embarrassment and humiliation. Plus a deep resentment for their parents. And that’s often all it takes to fuck up a child and do damage that’s for life.

Yes, they can change their names once they reach the age of majority. True. But by then, if their lives have gone sideways, it really won’t matter, will it?

Look around you. What do you see? A planet our race is determined to so contaminate as to make mass extinction unavoidable, and that means us; humans. Not just the poor. All of us. Trees are blighted, and if not, affected by LED parking lot lights that throw their nighttime and seasonal patterns off; temperature rise facilitates invasive species from insects to fungi and water levels underground are at their lowest in all of human history. People don’t mind driving even for stupid reasons, and you can’t recycle plastic because the recycling station crushes it and bales it and it goes to a landfill.

We keep proving that we don’t care.

And if children are treated so horribly, then why do you crusade against animal abuse? Don’t you realize what human beings are by now? They kill everything they touch.

You know what’s in a name?

You answer the question. And if you see this as pessimistic or nihilistic, you’ve got your eyes closed to the truth.

But what difference does that make? Nazis, MAGA Republicans and far-right “Christians” lie all the time, really using the most absurd and outlandish bullshit even when they are confronted with facts, video, audio; it doesn’t matter.

We obviously hate the truth, each other, our children, our pets, and this world.

What’s in a name?

Does not matter when it’s on a death certificate, Does it?

If we don’t look up from our cellphones and start paying attention to what counts instead of dirty texts, we’re doomed. And no matter what your name is, it’ll be on a headstone.