Dr. Frank's What's-it

Oh, Just Call Me Darling

As you may have noticed, my book is being published under the name "Frank Portman," which is my actual real name. There was some discussion over whether to use the more familiar "Dr. Frank" on the book cover, but the thinking was that people outside of my bizarre little world might be confused by it: "who is this guy?" we imagined them saying. "Some kind of weird doctor or something?" And maybe a few of them might have added something like, "well, I'll tell you this: there's no way in hell I'm buying a book by a weird doctor like that. I have my standards." It didn't seem worth the risk in the end.

Still, most people know me as "Dr. Frank," including me. I mean, I have used Dr. Frank way more than Frank Portman in my so-called adult life. I see the name "Frank Portman" and I have to remind myself: dude, that's you. Whereas anytime I hear anyone say "doctor" or "doc" I'll turn suddenly and say something like "hey, over here!" (Or I'll duck behind a hedge or into a closet, depending on my mood and who's saying it, and whether or not there happens to be a hedge or a closet handy.) Visiting a hospital can be kind of exhausting.

Why I have shied away from my real name with such determination is a matter for the psychologists, I guess. I am named after my father, who was named after his father, who was also named after his father. The name of the first in that train of fathers was actually Franz Portmann, but he Anglicized it during World War I, like many immigrants with German surnames. (He was Swiss-German, by the way.) Lots of things would have been different in this world of ours if the United States had never entered World War I, among them the fact that my actual real name would have probably ended up being Franz Portmann IV. Which would have looked pretty impressive on a book jacket, now that I think about it.

Did I feel that my name had been spread a little thin by the time I came by it, that it wasn't truly mine? I'm nowhere near in touch with my feelings enough to be able answer that one. But I have always avoided it when I could, opting for the goofier, less sensible stage name in even the most inappropriate situations. (And lying about it when asked: for awhile there I engaged in a campaign of disinformation, giving out fake last names when I was asked in interviews, hoping to deflect attention from the real one: O'Hara, Rodriguez, Lebechevsky, Lego, Bucket, Window, Cup, Shoelace - you name it, I've claimed it as a surname. Sorry about that.) If I have the family folklore right, my parents originally named me Christian in a tentative stab at defiance of the family tradition; then changed me back to Frank when they chickened out. So here I am.

This is a roundabout way of mentioning my website, which I haven't really told too many people about till now: frankportman.com. Because, you know, in for a penny, in for a pound. I'll have to get used to it some time.

There's not a whole lot of content yet (and if you can think of anything that would be cool to put up there let me know.) At this point, the most interesting bit is on the index page after the "enter" page: if you click the appropriate link, you'll get a pop-up window with a random entry from the King Dork glossary. (This is an appendix that defines terms used in the book in the "voice" of Tom Henderson the narrator.) A lot of them are pretty funny, or so I have been told.