It'd be one thing if I were 5 years old or I had Down's Syndrome. In that case, you could cutesy-poo my name to Sheboygan and back. However, the last time I checked, I seem to be a 22 year old of only slightly below average intelligence, and so anything but my actual name or a nickname I created for myself (Duke Awesome, The Pickle) is completely unacceptable.

In case you're wondering, I can trace this whole name-retardation thing to a single phenomenon in the early 90s. On ABC's hallmark TGIF line up, there was a little piece of magic known as Step by Step, starring Mr. Patrick Duffy and Dame Suzanne Sommers. And on this 8th wonder of the world, there was a super cool surfer dude named Cody, who was all about "chilling out" and "hanging ten" and "smuggling tortoises from Malaysia". Since he was such a delightful free spirit, he was always going by some delightful remix of his name, such as Codeman. Due to the incendiary nature of the TGIF lineup, it was just a matter of time before acquaintances brought this Codeman crap into my life, giving me another grievance to add to my "Things Patrick Duffy Has Done to Ruin My Life" list.

It died down for a while, but then teen super hunk Frankie Muniz decided to rename his blockbuster from "Exploding Crap Train Express" to "Secret Agent Cody Banks", thus ushering a whole new era of humiliation for the Pickle. If it wasn't totally obvious before, the big media is getting antsy about what I"m preaching here on Goulash, and is trying to shut my big, fat yapper however they can. Well, to those forces of evil, I proudly proclaim the following: you can make as many Frankie Muniz and Patrick Duffy vehicles as you want to where the name Cody is dragged through the mud, but Lady Goulash came here to sing. Get used to it, or get out of the way.