It’s no secret that I spend a significant amount of my personal and professional time on the Internet (much to Jessica’s continued annoyance), but I can honestly say that very little of that time is spent at sites featuring questionably matriculated college co-eds or girls doing bizarre things with a cup. (If you get that last bit, I sympathize.) Instead, I invest a lot of effort in online activities intended to increase the exposure of my work to the general public and improve my appeal as a potential member of someone’s payroll. In a nutshell, I try to do whatever I can to raise my profile in the digital ether, because in this – the online generation – it’s vitally important to market yourself and make sure your name and your work are just one click away for anyone trying to locate a reliable freelancer or fill an open position.

Sounds simple enough, right? It’s sort of a “build it and they will come” scenario, with the “it,” in this case, being an online archive of your work. All you have to do is make it available online and the world is your audience…. right?

Unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated for those of us with famous – or rather, notorious – names. In fact, for those of us with certain names, it can be downright frightening.

Go ahead, conduct a search for “Rick Marshall” and see what pops up, folks.

Seriously, go ahead… I’ll wait…

…

…

Okay, now do you see the problem here?

While sharing a name with one of the most prominent suspects in one of the most notorious serial murders in the nation does afford me the ability to make terrible jokes like “Who do you have to kill to get a higher Google ranking?” It can also be a pretty frustrating situation. Think about it from the perspective of employers who do a search for a potential employee’s name before scheduling an interview. Or better yet, consider the parents of a new girlfriend who decide, on a whim, to do a quick search for my name upon hearing that I’m a published writer.

However, I have to admit that the situation is better now than it used to be. Sure, there’s a lengthy monologue in the film “Zodiac” devoted to explaining the ways in which “the Rick Marshalls of this world have rotted it to its core,” but I have managed to surpass one of pop culture’s other Rick Marshalls – in the digital world, at least. Apparently, the father in the television show “Land of the Lost” was also named “Rick Marshall.” Luckily for me, the series remains mired in obscurity – so much so, in fact, that several of the digital world’s Rick Marshalls have managed to achieve a more prominent ‘Net presence than the cult TV character. My personal favorite is the middle-aged man from www.rickmarshall.com who travels around the world in his RV and writes inspirational verses about Jesus Christ, American Eagles and his life on the road. I read his site for years, feeling as if our shared name was a bond of some sort and I had a vested interest in his travels. But now he seems to have vanished into the digital ether…

… I wonder what happened to that guy.

Rumor has it that a new “Land of the Lost” film is in the casting stage now, with Will Ferrell potentially taking up the “Rick Marshall” mantle. I’m torn about this possibility. On one hand, it will be Will Ferrell playing Rick Marshall. On the other hand, any ‘Net presence I’ve accumulated is bound to be drowned in a sea of Will Ferrell mania and film marketing once the word hits the online street.

To be honest, part of me has always wanted to reach out to the Rick Marshalls of the Internet. I wonder whether we could form a union – or, at the very least, a club with member benefits. Could we have an insurance plan? Would Richard Marshalls qualify, or would we limit it to Rick Marshalls? These are the questions I ponder when I’m left alone for long periods of time.

Occasionally, I think about what it must be like to be a “Jessica Bloustein” or a “Brian Warmoth.” I wonder what it would be like to have a name that provides its owner the sort of satisfaction that comes with knowing that anyone who wants to search for you on the Internet will always find you on the first click. But then, I guess, I would have to sacrifice the weird moments that come with having a common name…

A few years ago, I received an email message from a high school student working on a research project about the Zodiac Killer. She apologized for the unsolicited message, explained what she was working on and then simply asked, “So are you one of the suspects?” To be honest, I took a day or two to think over my response. After all, you don’t get asked that sort of question every day, so it’s important to make the best of it. In the end, I told her that yes, I was most definitely the suspected serial killer, and answered all her questions to the best of my knowledge (and, in this case, to the best of my imagination). I asked her to let me know when she received a grade for the assignment – and if the score is lower than she anticipated, to send me the teacher’s name, too. I never heard from the girl again.

Yet the most important aspect of sharing a name – for me, at least – is the personal goal such a situation creates. With all of the tools and traffic-tracking systems available on the ‘Net, my Internet presence is a real and measurable statistic. With just a few clicks, I can tell you how many people visited this site, where they came from and what they searched for in order to bring them here. I can tailor my subject matter to attract a greater number of visitors and find out what other sites on the ‘Net have mentioned “Rick Marshall” in the last 30 days (and which Rick Marshall they were referring to) with very little effort. I can act, react and effect changes in my ‘Net presence and the likelihood that somehow, somewhere, someone is reading my work. It fascinates me to no end, to be honest.

Sure, some people aspire to be firefighters, astronauts or doctors. Me? Well, I’m just looking to be more popular than a serial killer.