THE NAME GAME, PT. II

INT. SCREENED PORCH - MORNING

Maus, Cat #2, sits on the wicker furniture, eyeing a bird at the tubular feeder. If not for the screen, in between, she'd be looking at breakfast.

BRIAN (V.O.)
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, "Zillary Twill", the interior designer, had called and left a message on that freezing, midwestern, December day, 1996. Haven't even "googled" her yet.

Brian pulls up "the Google", punching in "Zillary Twill". His own blog posting comes up at the top of the list.

BRIAN (V.O.)
Top ranking, geez, that was easy!
(beat)
Back to the name game, and Zillary: well, it's not such a good idea to leave a message to a painter saying you need immediate assistance, right around Christmas, when St. Louis is a frozen tundra, and most any normal service business, besides a heating and cooling company, won't dare leave the house. Unless they're going on a beer run, that is.

And then in her tone, topping it off by saying, very loud and clearly, that her name was Zillary Twill. That had "complicated" written all over it! I could just picture it: me, with the ladder, juggling a few buckets of paint, precariously skating on the ice-laden sidewalk, followed by Zillary Twill, the pretentious interior designer, barking out orders.

In fact, it sounded more like a pen name for a writer, reminded me of "quill", the feathered pen. Now if it had been Jane Austen, Charles Dickens.. an Edgar Allen Poe, I might've risked bolting out in the van just to get a glimpse of this phenomenon. But Zillary Twill? Nah. I think I reacted by cracking open a Budweiser for another round of "Sim City" on my newly purchased, 1996 Packard Bell computer. Haven't heard of her since.

I recently started using a pen name. The decision to do so was multi-faceted: it's anonymity and security; shorter, and maybe more memorable to pronounce, than my tax-paying name; and it's my own sort of indoctrination into the screenwriting industry.

BRIAN
(out loud)
Brian Burke

BRIAN (V.O.)
Yep, short, simple, no bells or whistles. It uses my real first name, and three letters from my true surname. People like the "k" sound, it's been proven: Coca Cola, Spanxxx, Ronco, SHANE BLACK, the screenwriter who holds the record sale for a spec script, individually. DUSTIN LANCE BLACK, who won best original screenplay for "MILK".. see, there's that "k" sound again. We love it.

"Brian Black" just didn't sound real, too copycat-ish, like Bing's commercials, where Rachel Zoe gets on the laptop and says, "let's Bing it". Nope, Bing, we like saying "Google", it's funny like "noodle", funnier than "Yahoo", who ended up teaming with Microsoft to "Bing" it. "Forget" it, which would be better name for a search engine than "Bing". Did you "Forget it"? Get it?

Yep, so I've got my new pen name, and I'm not afraid to use it. Oops, forgot to "Google" it first, big mistake.

Okay, apparently there's a Brian Burke out there, an outspoken hockey president, former player. That's fine, just wanted to be sure he's not a mass-murderer or what. Those hockey guys though, some tough nuts, wow.

Okay, wish me luck with the pen name, more luck than Zillary Twill had on that cold December day!