I picked the name Herbietown in the spring of 2007, after passing the reins at The Tuck Profit, a fake news site I created in business school. I thought Herbietown would be a site for posts and pictures about my kids, for the primary use of my family. I also liked that the sheer idiocy of the name conveyed a certain tongue-in-cheek Colbert-like self-obsession, a type of humor that I love and often use.
But has the name run its course? It is such an awful name. It makes people think of Herbie the Lovebug, or worse.
The leading contender for a replacement name is “Damn Yankee Lad.” It’s from an old civil war era bluegrass song, performed here by my friend Nick Reeb and his band King Wilkie. (I posted this same video here a few weeks ago.)
I like “Damn Yankee Lad” because that’s really what I am. A carpetbagging Yankee from Connecticut who fell in love with southern belle and is moving to the South. It gives immediate context to all of my rants about the South, too, which is good. Because everyone loves those.
One problem is the word “damn.” My kids are getting old enough to read and I’m not sure they need to know that Daddy spends a lot of time working on a website called “Damn Yankee Lad.” They’ll undoubtedly learn that word pretty quickly, and that’s not exactly accepted in polite society, especially in the South.
Oh, the dilemmas I face!
