It's been a "sad panda" time for me.

Just a quick check-in before I finally get around to revealing the magical occurrences that cropped up during Drew Drew’s Carolina Beach Bachelor Weekend Bash.

You may have remembered the mental anguish, psychological suffering and general, crippling distress I underwent after learning that a piece of my essence had been stolen and burdened with a price tag, that a bit of my soul had leaked away thanks to the unwarranted profiteering on my illustrious name. It was a “sad panda” sort of revelation.

Apparently, my howls of pain reached the presumably pampered, wealthy ears of Billykirk, Inc.’s Kirkland himself (at least it appears that way), as he tweeted after having the blessed serendipity to stumble upon my site following my original post.

My personal description on my Twitter account reads, “Writer. Insomniac. Pleasantly lazy.” The Billykirk, Inc. account tweeted the following in response to my post: “Writer, insomniac, pleasantly lazy, satirical wordsmith & in no way affilated with Billykirk, Inc.”

Satirical wordsmith?! Whoa, baby. They sure know how to make a girl blush over at Billykirk. They even had the decency to link to the post.

The above is property of Billykirk, Inc.

In all seriousness, it reflects well on Kirkland’s ability to take a joke. At least the folks over there aren’t stuffy, pretentious and boring. While I’m not sure I’m ready to officially relinquish the rights to my name, I suppose my good readers get the green light to purchase billykirk goods. Just, ugh, maybe not the $550 purses. That’s a wee bit much for me to stomach still.

Oh, and if Billykirk, Inc is interested in using the dashing, charismatic likeness of the real Billy Kirk, all will be completely forgiven. You know, with proper compensation in place, and all. Just sayin’.

"billykirk leather goods are bulls***!!" - Eminem

Ever have someone get their meal ticket off the renown of YOUR OWN NAME?

If you think such a dastardly deed is the exclusive domain of clown people, poo poo heads, and general asshats….well, you’d be right.

No doubt sometime shortly after tales of my greatness and general legendary status reached their ears, the “handmade leathermakers” over at billykirk decided to capitalize off my name, charisma, essence, and general “X-factor.” Look, I wish I could explain it any other way, but my narrow-minded logic keeps me from reaching any other conclusion.

If you’re unfamiliar with the identify-theft experts (read: d-bags) over at “billykirk”, they have purportedly been making various, upper-cut leather accessories such as wallets and belts for both men and women since 1999. Yep, for the math majors and those of you paying attention out there, that’s 13 whole years after my illustrious birth and all the prophecies that came with it. From their dubious website which will surely cop the design I have here within the next couple weeks:

We formed the company in 1999. We always knew we would own a company together and it would be called, “Billykirk.” What that was going to encompass just hadn’t surfaced. In fact, in the mid 90’s I made some “Billykirk Designs” business cards for Kirk who was graduating from college with a clothing design degree.

So, apparently these originality-deprived goons knew they wanted my name before they even knew they had an actual business – or any other direction or inspiration, for that matter (although I’ll admit, my name alone is pretty inspirational). You may ask, however, “But surely ‘Lil Bill, one of their names must also be Billy Kirk, right?” I’d love to tell you that is the case. Again from their official site:

Our brand name came from our father who often calls me “Billykirk” because my full name is William Kirkland. This is also probably due to our Southern roots and the melding of the first and middle names.

BOOM, exposed. The guy’s name isn’t Kirk. He may not even really bear the nickname of “Billy.” He’s a Kirkland, which everyone knows is code for “wannabe Kirk.”

Now these clowns have stolen my domain name (hence the hyphen I have to put up with in my web address), and sell “leather weekend bags” for as much as $550. Could they sell these bags for so much if my name wasn’t attached to them? Duh. No way, José.

What a sad tale of treachery, amirite? Fortunately, I own the Twitter universe, having gobbled up the Twitter name of “billykirk” in Sept. of 2008, apparently before they could. The one upside to all this? Due to the company’s goods, I now get tons of hashtagged comments such as (literally): “I just love me some #billykirk!” I know you do, baby. It’s cool.

Also, speaking of Twitter, I noticed that I have more followers than people I follow. Conclusion? I’m at “celebrity” status. Super cool. I’d like to thank the Academy.

Anyway, I am off to prepare for a big beach bachelor party this weekend. For more on that, look forward (or don’t) to my next post, “The Legend of Drew Drew.”

Thanks for listening to my little rant. Have a good day!