So I’m new here at Current as evidenced by this being my first blog entry. I won’t get into too much about that now, you know about the whole Cousin Larry driving from Wisconsin to the big city with nothing “gonna stand in his way”… I frankly need to milk the “I’m the new kid in town” thing for at least six months if not more and by that point, I may need to find another place.

One thing I’ve noticed out here in SF that seems mysteriously more commonplace than RICE A RONI�, is the preponderance of folks who have the hyphenated last names…which is all great and progressive and stuff-but unfortunately only a stop gap measure used for an inconsiderate generation of selfish progressive folks who don’t care what sorts of regressive debts they leave for their children in their wake-and here’s why…

Lets say I Daniel P. Beckmann were to marry aaa, Sara Silverman, and we had Sarah Jr.–she would be Sarah Silverman-Beckmann (or whatever name goes first, I don’t know). BTW, not planning to marry her-just wanted that “man-man-squared” effect…

So that would solve the progressive dilemma for one generation-right? The mother’s name would be successfully preserved in nomenclature and business cards for decades to come. But what happens when Sarah Jr. wants to marry another progressively named person-you’ve begin to have a hyphen-train-that-spans-this-great-nation? Consider the following scenario of situational comedic incest:

The marriage of Malcolm Jamal-Warner to Keisha Knight-Pulliam officiated by non other than Dr. Cosby (for our purposes we’re assuming that both actors are not merely using middle names for the sake of avoiding the lesser known Malcolm Warner for their SAG union entry).

We now present to you the lovely marriage of Malcolm and Keisha Jamal-Warner-Knight-Pulliam (aren’t they a cute couple sans the Must SEE TV incest)?! Two progressive people certainly need to marry each other right? But consider the amount of ink that would used? The extra paper to fit all that ink and the trees that had to die in order to preserve all that progression!?

Further Progressive people may marry in order to make more progressive kids…but imagine what their child’s football jersey would look like? Its hard enough preserving a childs’ self esteem do they really need FIVE times the names to be made fun of (name calling is an unavoidable fact of nature EVEN in this progressive society)?

Then there’s college-and filling out those little bubbles on all the standardised tests all the way up to the SATs. Even if they could make the form long enough, by the time their child fills out all those circles, they’ll be more tired than the other students, not to mention all the number 2 pencils they’ll have to carry, maintain and sharpen. They’ll certainly be at a disadvantage to the other less progressive students and THEN how could they even dream of getting into Harvard, let alone even Wesleyan!?

The good news is there are some progressive options to consider to get one’s self out of this horrible regressive triangle, but please, if you can, try to bring an open mind to these ones:

I have this life-long friend that I met at the back table in 4th grade (there and prison are where most dangerous relationships start)–his name is Mark Genet Nugent. His parents treasure their connection to “Citizen Genet” (a revolutionary French rabblerouser who was one of the first to seek political asylum in the US) and so named their first-born son after this prospect. That name is now shattered along with his last name Nugent which made many famous iterations of which I hold dear such as “CRAZY NOOOGE”, “Senor NUGENT-O”, “Mark NUGENT the Glass City Madman”, as well as just “NOOGE”.

Since he got married to Jessica Kerley (a sweet darling girl of whom we all love), they’ve just kept their old names-tabling the problem until date known. I was looking forward to having another Mrs. Nugent for my generation to know and love as I did Mark’s own Mother (she’s from Minnes-O-ta and has that OOO so nice accent she’s managed to keep all these years)–none of that either! They managed to curb the matter until they had a baby last September who really needed a birth certificate.

ENTER Kannon Tarliton. So Mark and Jessica researched their names to find that in their original languages Nugent means “New People” and Kerley means “people who ransack from the sea”. They combined the two (I hope I’m getting this right) to form the name Tarliton.

Now Kannon is not only the cutest smartest thing ever, he’s already well on his way to �progressively’ being recruited by the Minnesota Vikings Football team as their great h-OOO-pe for 2039 as the smartest, biggest player there ever was.

Another option-we could do as the Scandinavians do and just add “SEN” to our father’s name. I would be DAN DAVIDSEN for instance… But so would the sons of David KORESH-we would somehow be distance relatives. Despite their similarly epic nature, my pops in business, Koresh in Cultics, I don’t know if we are made up of �similar genetic fiber’-at least not of the specifically catalogued type needed to help scientists to know pretty soon here-if we’re PROGRESSIVE ENOUGH-about genetic ailments that come from your oldest relatives-a damn good reason to have some sorta “name traceability to your past”–that is if preservation of large segments of humanity is something YOU consider to be progressive…

So finally that brings us simply to the numbers. We could easily add a name on top of our numbers to decorate ourselves, but something only as beautiful as math behind it all could really eat our way out of this problem as we attempt to PROGRESS as humanity. Who may you ask would deserve the position as person �1′? Well its not the president of the United States, nor Simon Cowell… Not even STREEP would get this role…

It would have to be Jonathon Frakes-the actor who played Commander William T. Riker on the Star Ship Enterprise as the “Number 1″ to Capt. Jean-Luc Picard as he has it long claimed in over six seasons of syndicated television and motion picture archives (major shotgun here)

Will this really get us out of this PROGRESSIVE problem, I don’t know. There’s already too many hyphenated names out on the market these days-and probably at least ONE generation-OUR GENERATION-will again be LOST in between thanks to all that sex, drugs and rock n’ roll we didn’t get to enjoy in the 60s (while they instead implanted Nancy Reagan into our television show “Diff’rent Strokes” to keep watch of us-but that’s another entry).

“All I do know” is I’ve already got a great pick up line should people be progressive enough to let the federation have its way: “1 and 1 is two and if this one could be with you what a wonderful world this would be…”