A (Good)Man About Town

Round and round, round we go
I get around
Still clowning with the Underground
When I come around

"I Get Around" by Tupac Shakur

I'm not Tupac Shakur. He's dead [Unfortunately/Maybe]. I am, however, similar to Tupac or 2Pac or Makaveli or any other pseudonym he used when it comes to getting around. His song, "I Get Around," deals with getting lots of girls, to the point that it's almost like running in circles. We are not similar that way. Actually, Tupac and myself are not similar at all except that we both use the words "I get around." As I stated earlier, the phrase, for him, referred to his misogyny. I, on the other hand, use the phrase when I talk about the many Jared Goodmans populating the web. The truth is that I've Googled myself [haven't we all?] and I know that there is no "dirt" on me. I have also discovered, through my searching, that there are more than a few Jared Goodmans running around out there. Just from skimming, I would guarantee there are at least 10. Possibly millions. It's kind of interesting to know that there are people out there with the same name. You begin to wonder how well the name has suited them. Whether they are treated well. Were they taunted with politically-correct nicknames in school, such as Jared Goodperson? Or even more clever, and cruel, Jared Badman? Did kids try to rhyme Jared with Carrot? or Parrot? or that's actually all that rhymes with Jared. Were they complimented on the upstanding-sounding of their last name? When hitting on girls, after saying their name, would they quickly quip, "Don't read too much into my last name"? Snicker. Are they now inundated with modern abbreviations such as J-Good and J-Go and Goody and Redman [No one has ever called me Red or Redman, to my chagrin]? Did they secretly wish that they were related to John Goodman or were heir to the department store Bergdorf-Goodman? Not that I did, still do, dear god why couldn't I be John Goodman's fifth cousin? He was King Ralph!Some Jared Goodmans are cooler than others. One planned some trip for Cornell Business school. Another me is a filmmaker who made a feature-length documentary on aspiring Major League baseball players in the Dominican Republic. Baseball and movies, very cool. Maybe me and that Jared Goodman could swap careers. Others are less cool, like super-Christian Jared Goodman, who unfortunately forgets to spell check: " I am fist[sic] and formost[sic] a child of the living God." C'mon Jared! Don't make us look illiterate. You have multiple Jared Goodmans relying on you to give 110%. We have a reputation to uphold. Jared goes on to tell us that "I am a proud father of a funny five year-old little girl named Nova." Good thing she's funny because nothing about this Jared seems humorous. At least his daughter has a cool, interesting name, but this whole spelling thing needs to get rectified. I didn't finish near the top of my high school class, graduate from the University of Florida with honors, and then head on to a top-ten law school so my doppelgangers could go online, post information about themselves, and misspell "first" and "foremost." Our predecessors died expecting more from us.

Growing up I was the only Jared until high school, where there was one other Jared. It's a biblical name [meaning it's in the bible] and it means "descendant." Descendant from what, I don't know, but you can be sure it was something very cool. I relished in my name's uniqueness and relative normalcy that kept it from seeming too alien like Jameelio or something equally cringe-inducing. Often, people would say, "I like your name." To which I would reply, "It's been working so far." Then, while in junior high, the heartthrob actor Jared Leto shot to fame with his role in the short-lived, teen drama, My So-Called Life, starring not-so heartthrobby Claire Danes, who, personally, isn't that bad. [Sidenote: I thought she was okay/cute in Shopgirl]. After that, being Jared really took off. In college, I ran into more Jareds. Most were good people, except for a few who thought a little too highly of themselves. That was the Golden Age.

Then the bottom fell out.

I'm referring to, probably, the most-popular Jared of our times. No, it's not third-string quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, who previously was the third-string quarterback for the New York Giants, Jared Lorenzen. Nor is it one of the multitude of Jared Goodmans lurking the web [Shame]. It's none other than Jared from Subway. Yeah, that guy. So he lost some pounds by eating substandard subs at a place coincidentally named Subway where the tuna salad tastes like condensed crap and the hot pastrami tastes like rubber. That guy. He ruined it for us. I've been in shape my whole life. Now everyone assumes I was an overweight slob stuffing chicken fingers down until I crapped barbecue sauce. Before, everyone thought I had a chance with Claire Danes. Now, everyone thinks that at some point in my past I could have killed Claire Danes, if I sat on her.

Sometimes you think you turn a corner, people fail to bring him up, and you go on writing your own ticket. Then it slaps you like a nuclear bomb across the cheek. A woman at the gym yesterday asked me my name and when I told her, Jared, she informed me that she was going to call me "Subway." Thanks lady. You're clever. Apparently, Jared, is too difficult to remember. This probably explains why I neglect to correct people who incorrectly assume my name is Jerry because, if I corrected them, then I'd get clever nicknames like "Subway" and "That's Jared!" Then again, that was my own fault for bringing up Jared: The Gallery of Jewelry. When she acted as if she didn't know the Jared jewelry chain, I even performed parts of the ad, which refreshed her memory. What can I say, if these are my spokespeople, then I have to embrace them. I don't have any others, and may never get others.

I'd like to make a pledge to all the other Jared Goodmans out there to always represent our name with pride and integrity and to grin and bear it whenever I see Jareds failing to live up to our name's high standards or whenever I get called Subway. I hope you'll do the same.








Jared