Today … a blog about nothing.
I like to enter contests, especially ones where the players conjure names for new products and such. For instance, Advertising Age magazine once had a monthly contest — TNT, or The Next Trend — a few years back in which readers would submit names and made-up ad campaigns for imaginary products.
By the names and occupations of the winners listed, people from major ad agencies up and down Madison Avenue would enter. There was some pretty creative caca.
Ha … Perhaps most significant about the contest, it probably was an indication of people with too much time on their hands. But I liked to think of it as a good mental exercise for communications professionals to hone they skills.
Another justification in my mind is that one must “wear the bad idea jeans a lot, before they come up with the ones that fit.” Decipher that. I digress …
Anyway, so, I entered a few times — 3 to be exact. Must have caught the Ad Age judges on off days, because I won the darn thing twice. (They put my name in the magazine, my company name (so the employer could see who was slacking) and sent me a t-shirt. You probably know, I luvs me a good t-shirt …)
Hmmm …. what were they? Oh … one TNT contest I tried challenged the creative types to name and describe the latest in a series of trendy NY restaurants to be opened by a celebrity. In the contest, they suggested Madonna as the financier of the bogus eatery.
My winning entree … er … entry? A trendy, hip, vegan kinda eaterie called, “Like A ‘Virg-etarian.'” Ha … Ad Age ate it up. Go figure. Like I said, must have been a slow week.
Crud! What was the second one? I cannot recall, and my elaborate filing system seems to have swallowed up the hard copy. Let’s just give the benefit of a doubt and say the one I can’t find was better.
We touched on this contest habit in a previous blog, as some of the more dedicated readers can attest:
Anyway, on a similar note, a friend on Facebook recently invited her network to submit potential names for a female rodeo team. That is sort of like a contest … a gooder! Yeehaw! I thought this sounded like fun, so I went to work in my normal creative process.
First — word association. I listed some cowboy, cowgirl, ranch, farming type phrases … words of which we might play off.
- Rode hard, put away wet. (scratch that … great ranch phase, too many connotations)
- If you feel froggy, jump. (nope, think this is used as a precursor to a fight)
- Mad as a young pig, pinned under a gate. (hmmm … only knew one guy who said this …)
- Grab it by the horns. (ha … that’s what she said …)
- It’s a good day to die. (oh, wait, Little Big Man said that and he was an Indian)
- Put some giddy up in your get along. (just what does that mean?)
- Move ’em out, head ’em up, move e’m on (theme from “Rawhide,” potential copyright infringements to consider)
None of these seemed to apply, so they were culled.
Then I thought of the friend specifically … I had known her since about second grade, at which time I think she could already outride any kid in the class. Come to think of it … my first memory of her is hearsay about her and her horse. I heard second-hand the story of my oldest brother driving down the country road one day — between our farm and town — when he saw a little girl lying in a ditch. She had been thrown from her horse, I am told, and I think she may have suffered a broken limb. Yes … My brother helped her, driving her to her house. (Is that about right, Beck?)
Ha … another catch phrase comes to mind — “You ain’t rode, if you ain’t been throwed.” So, Becky was riding at an early age, in the truest sense of the term.
Fast forward a few years, and picture a lean, toned Becky … in a sleeveless western shirt … dusty … roping, branding in a cloud of smoke, herding, driving, what have you. If it involves horses, cattle, and now even buffalo, Becky has done it.
You know, come to think of it, Becky always reminded me of that blonde character in F-Troop. You remember F-Troop right? Remember “Wrangler Jane”? Ha … That’s it! I suggested to Becky that her team should be “The Wrangler Janes.” But alas, no cowgirl love for my idea … they chose another name.
Darn it … I hate to lose. So, for my own satisfaction I have been on this for a few weeks, wanting to better my entry in the contest to name the women’s rodeo team.
Well … you might say the “gate” of opportunity has closed, so my additional effort has been in vain. However, if you and some of your friends out there get together and decide to punch some dogies for fun and profit, in a competitive way. I have (what I think is a) stellar name, totally up for grabs.
I must have blown a gasket thinking about all of this … because my final answer came to me in a dream. I sat up in bed. I thought I had come up with the perfect name for a roping, riding outfit of competitive horsewomen. I shouted out the name (not because I really thought anyone needed to hear … more likely … it was one crazy dream …)
“Montana Wildhacks!”
Editor’s Note: We like the name Montana for anything rugged and western, and we are reminded of the dying words of the second in command of the rogue submarine in “The Hunt For Red October” when the Russian dissident, gurgles blood from a fatal shooting and says, “I wanted to go to Montana and be a cowboy.”
OH … and as you may know, Montana Wildhack is the name of a fictional character in a Kurt Vonnegut science fiction novel. So maybe none of this makes sense … except to us.
Know what I sayin?
