Readers want us to change our name - to our name

We set a Monday Mailbag record for sheer mass of messages this week with the two-pronged attack of our 40th aiversary at the Press-Telegram and our quest and solicitation for a new name for this column.

All of the aiversary-related messages were thoughtful and kind. We haven’t heard a peep, though, from the corporate offices, where our supreme commanders are being tantalizingly mum about their obviously complex and perhaps overly ambitious plans to celebrate the occasion.

Because we love our son Ray and are happy for his successes, we are not at all bitter about the fact that on the day following our 40th aiversary, Ray celebrated his sixth year at JetBlue. The company gave him four tickets to anywhere they fly, a raise and a bonus week of vacation. Good for him, is what we say. While fighting back tears of bitteess and remorse.

Anyway, onward to 50. Surely that’s a milestone that merits a coffee mug or lanyard. And we plan to march on under a new baer, rather than the What’s Hot! title that was foisted upon us some 25 years ago, when all the kids were saying “what’s hot!” all the time.

We asked readers for suggestions and got a few dozen.

Blues great Beie Pearl came up with a cool one: “ytab.org.” Nice and cyber, the way we like things these days. And the more astute or dyslexic among you might notice it’s our name spelled backward while appearing to be a Web address. Problem is, someone’s already got the address for some reason. They’re just sitting on it. Just like the guy from Rossmoor who registered timgrobaty.com is doing (which takes you to Google).

Our friend Beth Stine had another tech-ish idea: “LB-TG-A3,” for our city, our initials and the page on which we regularly appear. It, too, is taken. It’s used by a company called Lebho, that makes tempered glass for the Samsung A3 phone. It’s jauntily called LBTGA3 for (LB for Lebho; TG for tempered glass; A3 for the phone model).

We sort of like Long Beach Business Joual publisher George Economides’ suggestion, inspired by Long Beach’s mothballed motto Queen of the Beaches: “King of the Beach,” but that’s a lot to live up to. Heavy weighs the crown, etc.

Downtown Brian Addison goes long with “Wrong Beach: The Suy Column for Shady People,” which we like but it uses up our daily allowance of ink.

Culinary genius Russ Parsons, who has called us the “Bard of Big Town” for so long he owns the trademark, says he’ll let it go “for a modest sum.”

Former Long Beacher Charlotte Winer, who continues to read us from faraway Henderson, Nevada, because of our lie-beral views, suggests the appropriate titles “One Sane Voice,” or “The Voice of Reason,” or, best yet, “I’m A Better Human Being Than You.”

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Getting the most votes is just our simple, elegant name because, as one reader noted, column titles are so 1950s-ish.

While we should note that four of the name-only proponents are former co-workers, there were others, including our mayor Robert Garcia, who posted on Facebook, “I agree. Tim Grobaty is best.”

That’s better than a stupid job aiversary present, which we didn’t want anyway (sniff).

Contact Tim Grobaty at 562-714-2116, [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter.