| i was writing a manifesto the other day for a pitch. it didn't really go anywhere. but whatever. it was all about being "the guy." not "you know, the guy who sits in the corner," or "the guy who always wears plaid," or even "the guy who never talks." just the guy. and i had a thought: we all do it — we label our friends. especially the johns. because there are so damn many of them. look at your facebook friends. that's a lot of johns, right? some we call by their last names. some we're all "you know, melissa's john." some we label by how we know them: "john from work" or some characteristic of theirs like "john with the hipster glasses." but what you really, REALLY want to be if your name is john is THE john. the one who's automatically implied at the first mention of john. the one everyone thinks you're talking about when you forget to say their label. "oooooh, you mean desert john. because i was gonna say, john doesn't have a camel farm." because between john doe, john jacob jingleheimer schmidt and every famous john (for a taste, see left), it's easy to get your johns mixed up. tall john. short john. drunk john. sucks to be you. because you're not THE john. am i picking on johns? maybe. but i'm not really trying to. i have uncles john. i have friends john. hell, i spend time in the john every day. it's not really about the name. i'm using it to make a point. i could have done it with "matt." since i date one, toddy is engaged to one and theresa is married to one. we all had to qualify "my matt" when talking about our matts. what i'm really trying to get across is that we can all learn a lot from THE john. about being exceptional and standing out in a like crowd. plus, i kinda wanted to make a potty joke. and it was pretty fun googling "john" and seeing what came up. (see last image.) |