Origins of a Name

I didn't want to have to write the first two posts for this blog, but it looks like I'm going to have to backpack these slobs until they can find something to write about (joking).  My best idea for writing that I have now is just a little more insight into who I am, and why I only sometimes call myself Chase Robertson.

I'm almost done with this shit.

Among many other pieces of catchy bullshit, William Shakespeare once wrote "What's in a name?  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  If you don't believe me compare his classical play with its semi-namesake Gnomeo & Juliet, or examine the immense difference between Eva Longoria and Evan Longoria (I still claim that to be the most important N of all time), now you see my point.  It is in the opposite stream of thought that I was in when I made my decision to adopt the name Chase Robertson for random intents and purposes.

Suck it Shakespeare, that's my job.

I can trace the idea back to a few years ago when my brother and a friend of his were going to the beach for a week and were making up fake names to use when talking to girls because they would likely only see them that once in their entire life, and it can be fun to be someone else for a day.  This struck me as particularly interesting because I have a very common first name (Shocker! My name isn't really Chase Robertson!) and have actually had people forget my name because it is so common they just guess another common name and get it wrong.  So I started out by trying to find a unique first name that I know would stick in people's heads when I told them, since I am a big baseball fan I eventually heard the name of Chase Utley and instantly liked the sound of the name Chase.   The last name came from my desire to keep my initials intact, because it would be a clever way of not being completely full of shit, and I went with a simple last name, Robertson.

Is it the name or the professional athlete part that makes him more attractive than me?

Now that we know the origins of Chase Robertson, we can now indulge into the character he turned out to be.  I kept the name on the back-burner for quite some time, but eventually in college I started using the name when I talked to girls when I was drunk, as well as in general when I was drunk.  My friends always thought it was a weird thing to do but to tell you the truth, I think making up stories and getting people to believe them is some of the most fun I've had at parties, it always reminds me of that part of the Catcher in the Rye when Holden is talking to one of his classmate's mom on the train.  After a few times out using the name, my friends embraced the name Chase Robertson as the collection of all my bad attributes, including the tendency to make up fake names and stories.  I have tried to keep him from coming out into the real world, and finally succeeded by allowing him to exist only in the Blogosphere.  And that is the story of why Chase Robertson writes and why he only sometimes calls himself Chase Robertson, I hope it wasn't a boring story, and continue checking us out at Retentive Gibberish.

I hope this isn't what we have going on now.