Name

Yes, I am one of those sorry individuals who has Googled his own name. You might be laughing right now and thinking superior thoughts, such as “I’d never do such a thing!” or “How does it feel finding 0 hits?” or “What’s for dinner?” I applaud your self-control and your lack of involvement in the New World Order.

By the way, the answer is pork and beans.

Sometimes I do it to see if the local newspaper has included my latest column. I write for them once or twice a month, separate from this mattbaxx foolishness, and I like to print out a copy for the “All About Matt” bulletin board that dominates our living room wall as well as forward electronic copies to discriminating readers.

If I’ve never forwarded one to you, don’t be upset. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. You can stop by and see the bulletin board if you’d like to.

Enough about your insecurities, though, let’s talk about mine. I think when my name comes up people ought to be thinking about me. They ought to picture my face (full head of hair, rosy cheeks, wide smile—actually none of the above) and all of my accomplishments and where they were when they met me and aren’t I just the greatest Matt Baxter there is? But it turns out if you Google me you are likely to meet . . . someone else.

First and foremost there is always mattbaxter.com, the web home of quite an accomplished jazz guitar player. When I first wanted to preserve myself on the Internet, I found someone else already had. So I came up with mattbaxx. It was either that or matthewabaxter.info, and let’s be honest, that was never going to trip smoothly off anyone’s tongue.

There’s also Matt Baxter, photographer extraordinaire in Tennessee. His pictures are nice, but he hasn’t updated his blog in nearly a year and a half. Slacker.

Matt Baxter, the head coach at the Portland [Maine] Porpoise Swim Club, also shows up on my self-congratulatory Googling. The Portland Porpoise web page has a picture of Matt with some of his young protégés, and he appears to be young, handsome, and bearded. I can relate. In at least one way.

And though he left one consonant out, Mat Baxter of Sydney, Australia, the former chief strategy officer at MediaCom, was recently appointed chief executive of Universal McCann (in a surprise move, some say). You probably hadn’t heard this news before because it happened in late August, the same time that I was celebrating my twenty-fifty wedding anniversary. Sometimes we Mat(t) Baxters cancel each other out.

In the entertainment capital of the world, Los Angeles, California, a fellow by the name of Matt Baxter was promoted to the position of Vice President, Multi-Platform Marketing. My only concern is that the position was described as “newly created,” which makes it sound less exciting. After all, Big Fish Marketing, his employer, is one of “the entertainment industry‘s preeminent brand marketing and advertising agencies, specializing in the design, creation and production of consumer and B-to-B campaigns.”

I don’t really know what that means, but if the position didn’t exist before, has this Matt sullied the reputation of us all by succumbing to the Peter Principle? Why did a new position have to be created for him? Was he a failure everywhere else? I demand an investigation! And until such time that we can determine the truth, I insist that he no longer be called Matt Baxter. We don’t want to sully the brand name, after all.

Matt Baxter is a Web developer in Dallas, and Matt Baxter is a senior at Kent Island High School in Maryland (running back on the football team), and Matt Baxter is a technician at Mike’s Foreign Car, Inc. in Anaheim, California. This last Matt gets good press on the company Web page:

“Matt has a degree in automotive repair from Automotive Training Center in Pennsylvania. He has ten years in the automotive industry as a Technician for Volkswagen Inc. He attained Expert Technician status through Volkswagen's training program and has the skills, knowledge and tools to fix your vehicle right the first time. The training he received from Volkswagen gave him the ability to be a great Technician!”

I think we can all agree if you need any work done on your 1981 pop-top Vanagon, go to Matt. Matt at Mike’s.

Finally, Matthew Baxter of Colorado (or just "Baxter" as he is commonly known) has been actively researching the paranormal for over fifteen years, dealing with such specialties as UFOs, ghosts, demonology, fraud detection, psychology, and cleansings, among other areas.

Hmm. The rest of us sound all right, as though we might be normal guys, going through life with a most extraordinary name. That last fella seems like a nut, and might just be ruining the name for the rest of us.

I think at the next Matt Baxter club meeting I’ll propose that our membership director (Matt Baxter) begin to take a look at exactly who we are letting in. Perhaps our membership standards should be tightened up a bit.