Column:

Give 'Beck' back to Beck

By Ryan Beck

Published Nov. 9, 2007

There is a major problem here at MU.

I am not talking about the construction or even the absence of everyone's favorite Add Sheet guy at Speaker's Circle. (What happened to him anyway?) Not even the raised prices on the assorted pizza and chicken bullshit that's served at Brady Commons have me in a bunch. No, I am talking about something more serious. Someone here, — and you know who you are — has the same name as me.

It's time to sign up for classes, and e-mails are flooding my mailbox. I don't need twice as many e-mails, and I don't want your Freshmen Interest Group e-mails notifying me/us about a book discussion.

Really Ryan Beck, "The Tortilla Curtain"? Get some taste!

I will say this to you, sir: Listen up, Ryan Beck; if that is your real name.

I won't stand for this! I don't want your mail, which I have, and if you want it back you can contact me, and we can work out some kind of payment plan. I don't want your refund check — although that would be nice — all I want is my name back.

This is not too much too ask. You have an opportunity to do what all 6-year-old children want to do: You get to pick your own name. You can use initials in your name, which many great Americans have. Names such as JFK, Booker T. Washington, B.B. King and Homer J. Simpson. You could even use all of your names.

Many people have used all three names and had mostly successful lives, including John Wilkes Booth and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, granted they both were actors and then killers — although the only thing JTT murdered was his career after "Home Improvement."

Point being, I despise you, Ryan T. Beck. Clearly, I am Ryan Beck, and frankly I don't want to share. I find this whole name ordeal to be annoying — just as annoying as the guy who sits at the front of two of my classes and talks to the floor because he is afraid to look at the professor in the eyes.

Yes, you are even more annoying than the sorority girl that talks on her phone on the bus, listens to her iPod mini (it's OK, she doesn't need the extra gigabytes because she only listens to the same six Brad Paisley songs anyway.)

You are even more annoying than when the Add Sheet lady outside Brady Commons shoves a yellow coupon book in my face immediately after I take one step off the bus. Oh yes, Ryan Beck, that is how much you annoy me.

And to that guy in my classes: Next time I see you, I'm going to tell you, "Stop looking at the floor or I'm going to punch you in the mouth."

Same goes for you, Ryan Beck. But I think this issue of nomenclature warrants quite less mouth-punching. I am older than you, thus I have been Ryan Beck many more times than you have been.

What's mine is mine, and what you think is yours is actually mine. It's like a divorce: I get half of your stuff, and since your middle name has three syllables, I am taking back the Ryan Beck.

Now, I guess I might be being selfish. I guess it's possible we could share the surname, but can't you get some sort of nickname? Call yourself T-Bone or something. If not, I will give you a nickname, and it will probably sound even more homoerotic than T-Bone.

So get it together, Ryan Beck.

Love, the real Ryan Beck

rjbwbc@mizzou.edu