Look, straight up, Joab as a name is a blessing and a curse. I don’t know where it falls on the “Freakanomics” scale of hireability. It’s paired with Gilroy, which is about as white as it gets, so it’s probably not freaking too many racists out, and being a Hebrew name, the racists it is freaking out are probably not people I want to work with anyway. Not that there are racists I want to work with.

It’s distinctive, though. It’s memorable. That’s a good thing when I’m doing good things. When I’m doing bad things, it’s less desirable. Fortunately the ‘bad things’ I do tend to be of the ‘mischievous’ sort, like getting too drunk and ordering chicken from somewhere and forgetting where I got it from. Or unwittingly blowing through an entire trip’s worth of per diems at the hotel bar on the first night. Bad in the sense that it’s not supposed to happen, but nobody got hurt so it doesn’t really matter.

So I’m fortunate, because when I do good things the name locks in for people. Even when they don’t remember the good thing specifically, they remember the name. There’s no other Joab out there doing bad shit for them to associate with my name, it’s not like I’m rolling around in the 90s calling myself OJ or something. 

But it’s annoying to have to tell people my name multiple times. To spell it out. Nobody is asking a Kerry to repeat their name over and over. Xander, despite starting with an X, doesn’t need to be spelled for anyone to understand.

But Joab? For some people, it’s not a real word. It doesn’t register. They hear the Trombone player of the adults in Peanuts, or perhaps a static hiss. It’s the colour out of space, something the brain recognises as a thing but cannot comprehend what reality it is from.

Their eyes saw my mouth make the motions to say ‘Joe’, but there was something appended to the end. An after credits stinger, but one that doesn’t make any sense. Like it’s from a different movie. You just finished watching Captain America, and Batman shows up and says “I’m here on behalf of Vought International to ask you to join the Seven.”

Some say “Joe?” and I nod and smile and say “yeah”. Because in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter. Joe, Joab, Joan, I’ve been called so many names. My all time favourite is still Geormie, because I can’t even imagine how they arrived at it.

Others try to be helpful. “Say it again, sorry?” they’ll plead. These people are doing both of us a disservice. Their accurate knowledge of my name won’t change their life in any meaningful way. I’d love to say it would enhance their encounter with greatness, but even at my most faux-arrogant this would feel insincere to me. Having me repeat my own name a half-dozen times is a killer.

Worse still is that 9 times out of 10, they’re doing this out of a genuine desire to do the right thing. It’s respectful, right, to refer to a person by their correct name? I ask people to repeat their name sometimes, when I don’t catch it the first time, because I think everyone likes to be addressed correctly. So I can’t fault these people for trying, I just wish they wouldn’t because I’m fine being called Joe too.

The other 1 time out of 10, they’re doing it because they are dickheads. These small people with few wits grasp at whatever they can to drag others down to their own level, because rising to any occassion is beyond them. By making me repeat my name and by riffing on the outcome, they can attempt to make me feel as small as they are.

What they fail to realise is this is Iocaine Powder to me. I have spent years experiencing it, and I have built up a considerable tolerance. I’ll happily sit there parroting my name back at them long after it has stopped being amusing to them. And then I will insist they say it correctly. These people remember my name, and when they ‘forget it’ next time, their dickheadedness is laid bare for everyone to see.

Anyway, all of this is to say I don’t care what you call me, just don’t call me late for dinner.

Other stuff!

I’ll have another piece out this month. And then I won’t skip a month. I don’t really want to go into it, but the essence of the matter is there’s just nothing below the surface with me. It’s not that deep. I’m a shallow person and writing a blog once a month is a real challenge for me. Hence the drivel above.

Even for self-deprecating humour the above feels a bit mean, but I’m gonna leave it. The real truth is life is a series of failures and living is us trying to do better than yesterday. Or last month as it were.

I am reading The Narrow Caves by S. Craig Zahler. Well I’m listening to it. I bought a bunch of new books and none of them arrived in a timely fashion, so I went back to audiobooks again. Or podcasts, in this case. It’s available here. I don’t know if that’s the official site, it’s just where I found it at.

Gaming wise, I’ve been getting ready for Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree by levelling my character way past 150. That way when everything in The Land of Shadow comes at me, I’ll have a bit more of a chance at living. I played Shadow of the Erdtree a little early, and wrote a preview of it for PC PowerPlay. I believe the magazine should be available early next month (July 2024), so grab it if you see it! As always, you can also hear me talking about it over on The Generic Acronym Podcast Podcast with my PIC Luke. The preview is in EP 711.

On writing, my next project is deeply underway! It’s very complicated, having one project in editing and the other being written. I don’t know how Brando Sando (the cool name for Brandon Sanderson) has five on the go at any one time but I assume that mormon underwear really is magic.

I think I’m happy to talk about it a bit. Two government agents travel across America hunting down conspiracy-theory related mysteries. Yep, it’s an X-File-alike. I loved the X-Files growing up, and as structure I think it’s fascinating. As a certified genius with 20 years of 20/20 hindsight up my sleeves, I know all the pitfalls an X-File can fall into and I can confidently tell you I won’t fall in any of them until I do.

I’m aiming for a serial format, though I don’t yet know if I’ll do it week-to-week or book-to-book yet.