What's in a name?

I decided, at this point in my life, that one of the most cliched things I could do would be to start a blog. fn1. After all, everyone else, along with their mothers and their dogs, has a blog. About the only thing that could possibly be more predictable would be for me to drop out of law school, start eating 'shrooms, and take some time to "find myself." fn2.

However, as the Cranberries asked, "Everyone Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We?" Of course, I have always been one to happily start new things, but finishing or maintaining projects has never been my cup of tea. So it is entirely possible that this blogging experience will start out with a flurry of activity and then disappear quickly. We'll see just how lazy I am.

Early on, I ran into difficulties, and that was just in picking a name. Choosing an appropriate name is a challenge for several reasons:

• The desire to look cool. The name of a blog should be an extension of one's personality. Consequently, picking a lame name should be avoided at all costs, unless one has a lame personality. For example, "Nathan's Blog About How Law School is Cool!!" just doesn't work.
• The desire to stay anonymous. Now don't get me wrong. I know nothing is really anonymous on the internet, which is why I have no intention of dishing good dirt or saying really stupid things about my employer which could land me in hot water. Anyone with half a brain and a modicum of knowledge about the internet could track down my identity. I just want to make it slightly more difficult to do so. This prevents me from using my name in the blog title, like K does. fn3.
• Late adoption of blog technology. As mentioned above (or, in keeping with proper Blue Booking, supra), everyone already has blogs. Apparently, most of those people are with Blogger.com, which means that I had to try about 23 different names before I found one that worked. And even then I had to add the weak "-NYC" tag to make it unique.

Despite these challenges, I persevered and found a title. So what does it mean? Or, as Shakespeare said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." fn4.

Black Red Yellow is the title of a Pearl Jam song. (It is the B-side to "Hail Hail" from the No Code album.) I am a huge PJ fan (favorite band of all time) and am a big music fan generally.

But the back story behind why PJ named the song Black Red Yellow adds another layer of significance. The song was named by Dennis Rodman, who was friends with the members of PJ during the mid-90s. fn5. Rumor has it that Rodman dyed the PJ "stickman" logo in his hair during the 1996 NBA Finals in exchange for naming rights to a PJ song. BRY is his song (apparently, black represents his skin color, red represents the Bulls, and yellow was his hair color at the time). It contains his voice on Ed's answering machine and a reference to Jordan. fn6.

So in short (this is for all you people bored by my ramblings), Black Red Yellow represents my love of music, PJ, sports, and sports starts who hustle. NYC was added on because some dastardly person had already used the BRY name.

1. I realize that I need an accent on the "e" in "cliched." However, I am currently distinctly unmotivated to figure out the ASCII command to create the e' character. So you'll just have to deal with it.
I am also discovering that a major problem with this Blogger software is that there is no footnote function. As someone who is very dedicated to using proper Blue Book style in all my writing, I want to drop footnotes to provide references or explanations for everything. I suppose either I will have to break this footnote habit or do footnotes the way Lexis does.

2. Contrary to the rumors my parents have heard, this is not in my immediate future.

3. For identification of the characters in my blog, see the "Characters" post.

4. I am so clever. And by "clever," I mean "incredibly toolish." Not only did I get a pop culture reference into this post, but I also managed a Shakespeare quote. Aren't I erudite?

5. For the non-basketball fans out there, Rodman played in the NBA in the 1980s and 1990s, and was one of the best pure rebounders to ever play the game. He was also an excellent defender. Unheralded out of college, he became a key member of five championship teams (1989 and 1990 Detroit Pistons and 1996, 1997, and 1998 Chicago Bulls) through hard work and tenacious play. As his career progressed, he started to get a little crazy, with excessive body piercings, tatoos, and constantly changing hair color. He also engaged in publicity stunts to draw attention to himself. Despite this, I've always been a huge Rodman fan because between the lines, he played with ultimate intensity and was willing to do the little things to help his team win.

6. Eventually, PJ cut off contact with Rodman after his erratic behavior became too much of a problem.