Published: August 18, 2008 04:52 pm         

THEREFORE I AM: J is key to being an Initials Guy; I don't have it

I could never be Initials Guy. Sometimes I wish I could. Initials Guy is usually pretty cool. Initials Guy often is fun to be around, and he tells a good story. Initials Guy knows what needs to be done, but at the same time he's relaxed enough to go with the flow. Being Initials Guy isn't for everyone, however. You need raw materials. You need good initials.

I, for one, don't have the raw materials. I don't have good initials. David Allen Spates. No one's going through life as D.A. It doesn't sound right — like I'm trying to pass myself off as a district attorney or something. I'm sure they're a nice enough group, but generally people don't want to have anything to do with a district attorney. There aren't a lot of freewheeling, laugh-a-minute, fun times to be had in a courtroom.

If your first name or middle name begins with a J, you're in prime position to establish yourself as Initials Guy. Pretty much anything sounds good in combination with a J. I came to this realization one day at the gym while I was working out with my trainer. His name is R.J.

I won't waste valuable fish-wrapper space here, but run through the alphabet in your head and combine each letter with a J. It's like watching your life flash before your eyes as you recall the Initials Guys you've known over the years with names like J.C., J.T., A.J., J.B., K.J., J.D., D.J., J.J. (that's just not fair), M.J., and on and on. Oh, sure, some of those Initials Guys were jerks, but I'm willing to bet the vast majority were solid, dependable guys who would have loaned you 100 bucks if you needed it. Initials Guys are like that.

As R.J. and I sweated through the workout (actually I was the only one sweating), we tried to think of other Initials Guys that don't utilize a J. There are a few, but not as many as you might think: B.B. King, C.S. Lewis, e.e. cummings (I never cared for those little letters), W.C. Fields, M.C. Escher, T.S. Eliot. There must be others, but it was time for me to hit the treadmill.

Some Initials Guys go a little overboard. Take J.R.R. Tolkien, for example. What was going on with that guy? Using initials as a name should be a timesaving device. His first name was John! Who replaces a nice, strong one-syllable name with three capital letters and three periods? It's a mess. Try to say J.R.R. Tolkien's name five times. You can't do it, can you? After the third time my throat begins to constrict, and my voice sounds like I'm gargling with marbles. Typing it isn't much better. Shift-J, period, shift-J, period, shift-J, period — it's absolutely exhausting. I think writing about hobbits, orcs and Middle Earth made John, a brilliant man in seemingly every other capacity, a little bonkers.

There's a young boy down the street whose name is Jake, but sometimes he goes by J.C. (I forget what his middle name is, but it's not really germane to the point I'm about to make. In fact I'm not even sure why I'm writing these sentences now. Nor can I explain why I deemed it necessary to segregate them within parentheses. And I called J.R.R. Tolkien bonkers? Hello, pot. This is the kettle.)

Anyway, I'm interested to see how this young lad's name plays out. Will he end up as Jake or J.C.? It could go either way. Jake is one of the most popular names in America, and you can't beat the ease of one syllable. Jake is certainly quicker to say than the two-syllable ‚"Jay See." However, J.C. is a great name for an Initials Guy, because, as we've just discussed, almost everything goes well with a J. The jury's still out on this one.

For whatever reason, women don't seem interested in being Initials Girls. The only explanation I can think of is that women tend to be more mature than we guys, and it's hard enough for women to get a fair shake in what is still a fairly male-dominated world. (That gap is shrinking, however. What? Again with the parentheses?) I doubt Joyce Diane would have gone as far had she decided to go through life as J.D. Brothers, doctor or otherwise.

Admittedly, I'm sunk as an Initials Guy, and unfortunately I saddled my poor son with unsatisfactory Initials Guy letters. P.A. won't cut it, unless he wants to go through life subjected to Pennsylvania jokes and cracks about being a public address system. Sorry, son.

David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday.