Naming Rights and Wrongs

Sidney Lanier is a man we’ve chosen to remember as famous. How do I know this? The man warrants his own well-written Wikipedia page. Some would say Sidney Lanier, a guy you’ve surely never heard, is not worthy of having his own Wikipedia page. After all, it appears that Sid was nothing more than a Civil War-era musician and poet, which explains why the Confederacy lost. For it is our opinion that musician/poets make terrible soldiers. Especially flutists.

That’s why we invented Fife and Drum Corps a hundred years prior.

But Lanier would go on to greater mediocrity, publishing poetry in low-circulation Southern magazines and finding a chair in the world-acclaimed, um, Baltimore Peabody Orchestra. (The Peabody was no match for the Boston Pops or the new York Philharmonic. So, it was pretty much EXACTLY like the A.L. East division in MLB.)

But apparently being an above-average fish out of water of the past is exactly what it takes for someone in the future with too much free time to pen a Wikipedia page about your life. And what’s more, that is not where the legend of Sidney Lanier stops, no-no.

The man’s got a middle school in Virginia, too.

Yes, after much recent construction, my morning commute vision is no longer obscured and I can now see that Sidney Lanier Middle School is the name of the bastion of learning next to the 7-11 on Jermantown Road. It’s a beautiful facility that will surely do the children of Fairfax Country much good for years to come. How an average musician/poet from Macon, Georgia got his name on a Virginia school is beyond me.

Sonnets make crappy bribes.

As baffling as that is, it gives me hope that my name will someday be arbitrarily plastered on a civic locale of note. The way I see it, there’s tons of things that need random names assigned, and my strong background of alliteration and, well completely awesomeness, should go a long way in securing naming rights. But just because you’ve got your name on something doesn’t mean you’ve reached the holy grail of existence. There are levels of name fame, and here at You’re a Blog, we’ve decided to save you the legwork.

Our following categories will denote how famous you’ve become based on how awesome your memorialized plaque item is. The theme for today if you’ve yet to reach that top tier? Don’t Settle.

TIER 1: middle schools, hurricanes, deadly diseases

TIER 2: a grandchild, elementary schools, high schools, university building/facilities, libraries, your own cable news show, an intergalactic star, hospital wings, production company, mixed beverage

TIER 3: a new species of plant/animal, element on the periodic table, passed federal legislation, a character in a movie, a street in your hometown

TIER 4: a college or university, an internationally-recognized prize of distinction, a professional sports stadium, a professional sports franchise, international airport, Fortune 500 company, France

TIER 5: national monuments, national parks, mountains, major city, a new United State

TIER 6: the Christopher P. Condon Pearly Gates of Heaven

Any other ideas? Let me know in the comments and I’ll let you know where they fall.