I’ve long been searching for a pen name, on the hunt for a moniker to write under. It’s not that I’m not fond of my actual name; Sam has served me pretty damn well for the last 22 years. It’s the fact that—believe it or not—apparently real jobs aren’t impressed by a Google search of your name that yields such responsible, professional results as a suggestion about the best places to eat when you’re drunk at 3 a.m. and an account of the horrors you discover the morning after a night out. And I’ve been told that once you graduate, you’re apparently supposed to get one of these “real jobs.” Anonymity is probably for the best in this situation. Unfortunate, I know.

Anyway, after toying with some alliteration (Shot sippin’ Sam? Eh…), some rhymes (Brew Guru? Again...eh) and some complete nonsense (T-REX?!), I settled on—wait for it—Mark Twain!

But apparently that shit’s taken.

So after more strenuous research (i.e. dictionary.com), I found it. I imagine this is how people feel when they find their soulmate. For me, it was like how I described discovering Kebabalicious: angels sang, a beam of light shone down and I had an epiphany. I would be: The Dipsomaniac.

Dip-so-ma-ni-ac (dip-suh-mey-nee-ak):—noun; a person with an irresistible craving for an alcoholic drink.

It’s perfection, really. I don’t know if I like it, because it reminds me of the song Listomania (which is totally sick by the way), or just because it has the perfectly fitting word maniac in it. Either way, it has the delightful quality of allowing me to still get one of those “job” things. Bottom line is I sound cooler and I’m now hire-able. It’s golden.

And it sounds soooooo much cooler than Mark Twain.