This is a blog about the Nitty Gritty Slams Slammaster Dain Brammage, or from the point of view of Dain Brammage, or from the point of view of the imagination of Dain Brammage. Basically, this blog is written by Dain Brammage. But it will all be covered, and much much more.
First and foremost, if you have not figured it out yet, my nom de plume is a spoonerism for Brain Damage. I completely understand if you did not pick that up, not everyone knows what a spoonerism is so here is the (slightly edited) beginning of the reference from Wikipedia:
A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched. It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency.
So there you go, make up of some of your own.
Now I did not make this nom de plume up myself, I stole it from Bob Nelson, a comedian who had a special on HBO. He did bit that you can find on YouTube titled the Football Routine where he put balloons under a football jersey and made “shoulda my pads”. Well, during this bit dropped the spoonerism Dain Bramage and remembered it.
Flash forward to the beginning of the World-Wide Web, when I found my true calling in life, trolling. It’s true, I used to troll people at my lunch table at work, and now I had an outlet for this pent-up energy, message boards. Well, I needed something to call myself, and it became Dain Brammage.
As I grew tired of trolling, to a degree, because it is a serious social disorder that you really never outgrow, I mean I have tried to stop trolling cold-turkey, that did not work at all, I entered TA, Trolling Anonymous, a twelve step program but that was impossible. I just couldn’t make amends because some of the people I had trolled on the internet had to be institutionalized due to the mind-fuck I had bestowed on them. But I digress, my trolling lead to trolling poetry, and then I finally found that poetry was far more fulfilling than trolling and walked out from under my bridge. OK, so I still troll from time to time, but mostly just my wife and kids. Yes, we are like a family of Shreks, trolls, all of us, and my children are getting quite good at it.
So that is the story of how I became to be known as Dain Brammage.
I did not realized there was a name for this idiosynchratic form of speech I’ve developed. I like how you re-appropriated someone else’s mistake years ago for your own purposes. That’s quite post-modern (for lack of a better term), objective truth and all. Trying to do that in my own poetry as of late.
Anywhooo, attended my first Nitty Gritty this past month. Great event, look forward to the next one.
peace,
Terrence
Now it all makes sense. Thanks Dain!