DISADVANTAGE OF A GIVEN NAME

A university professor of some distinction, Alfred Clownface-Foolface, applied for an exemption from traditional promotion practices, claiming that his given name acts as an impediment to being taken seriously in his field. Clownface-Foolface explained that both of his parents were Real Circus performers, hastening to add that the Real Circus was not, in his words, “a traditional entertainment in the sense of elephants and acrobats” but rather “an anarcho-comic collective whose stated mission involved using political theater as an agitant to destabilize the pillars of power.” The professor briefly reviewed some of the better-known actions of the Real Circus, including filling a Trojan Horse with popcorn and rolling it into the middle of a park near the Capitol, after which he elaborated on the way in which his name was imposed upon him without consent by parents whose “intense personal convictions unfortunately eclipsed the professional survival of any eventual offspring.” His mother, born Alison Chadwick, legally changed her name to “Clownface” when she entered the Real Circus. His father, born Lawrence Fulford, had “a shorter distance to cover but covered it just as aggressively.” The final blow was inflicted when his parents, upon marrying, opted to combine their names into a hyphenate to “illustrate their devotion both to one another and to the Real Circus.” The became parents exactly a year later with the birth of Alfred, who was soon joined by siblings Gerald and Patricia. “Both of then became entertainers, he a singer of satirical songs, she a monologist specializing in political burlesque, and were not similarly disadvantaged,” the professor attested. Alfred, an academic, found that his name “pulled in the exact wrong direction.” His writings on the Public Assemblages Law of 1926 has earned significant acclaim, when reviewed in a blind, but was rejected once his identity was clearly revealed. Similarly, students praise his classroom comportment but report at the same time that they cannot take him seriously. “And,” he added, “any thought of a promotion seems more distant than ever.” Clownface-Foolface concluded his petition with an emotional appeal: “I am torn here,” he said, “between my love and admiration for my parents, which includes my heartfelt desire to respect their lives, and the current and ongoing responsibility of managing my own. Somewhere along the way I lost the right to steer this ship, and I know exactly what wrested the wheel from my hands.” He held up his driver’s license and grimaced. Those sitting in the front of the hearing room report that his eyes were wet with tears. 

©Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas