Your company's name and logo here

Deer Creek has changed its name to Verizon Wireless Music Center. Irvine Meadows in Irvine, Calif., was also renamed Verizon Wireless Music Center. \nI am confused. If I buy a ticket to see a show this summer at Verizon Wireless Music Center and I want to see it in Noblesville, Ind., how do I know I am getting the right ticket?\nI don't get it. Calling a venue the Verizon Music Center is bad enough, but they had to add that meaningless modifier -- Wireless. It makes it sound like Deer Creek is no longer going to use microphone cords. \nI can picture it now, as Dave Matthews steps up to the mic stand and there is just a paper funnel he has to yell into. As he bellows, "Stay for awhile" into this cardboard cone, he knows no one will stay because they can't hear him.\nThe telephone system will be "upgraded" there as well. No longer will we have to deal with those hard-wired, boxy, out-of-date contraptions called telephones; the new system is actually a wide array of strings connected to tin cans in an elaborate network copied right out of the pages of Sesame Street Magazine: "Make Your Own Telephone." \nWhen I found out about Verizon taking over Deer Creek, I begged my parents to cancel their cell phone service with Verizon. They told me to fight my own causes on my own time. \nFor my part, when trading Phish bootlegs from the classic Deer Creek shows of yore, and any from the future, I will steadfastly retain the right to write Deer Creek on the CD. Please do the same. \nWe are all familiar with corporate naming rights. There's the Conseco Fieldhouse, RCA Dome and numerous others. I should get a fee for typing those names into this column. \nI recently saw a piece on CNN that reported a company is about to start a biceps advertising firm. \nI didn't make this one up. \nRasheed Wallace was to be the first player to have a henna tattoo of a corporate name and logo. For his two weeks of advertising, he would receive between $10,000 and $50,000. \nBiceps advertising? I just want to know what kinds of products would go on his arm. Doritos? Budweiser? Tampax? \nIt seems that no space is free from some sort of advertising and corporate sponsorship. It is "stylish" to wear a shirt from Abercrombie and Fitch with the store's name covering most of the clothing. The whole shirt can fall apart, but that Abercrombie logo will remain. \nEverything has become a commodity as humans are viewed as consumers. We are not people to corporations; rather we are what we buy, what we like and where we will spend our money.\nOur lifestyles, our minds and our culture are being bastardized by companies in the name of the great American way. If we decide to let Verizon change our music venues, fine, but we must draw the line at advertising on our bodies. \nIf we succumb to the dollar signs involved, we are merely whoring ourselves. A society commodified has no interest in the greater good of others, and we become more and more separated from each other and the underlying truth that defines us as human beings. If we allow ourselves to become totally commodified as walking billboards, we have sold that which makes us free. \nStereotypes will no longer be a problem as they will be replaced by "productypes." We will be classified by the corporations we affiliate with, and this affiliation will be deeper than our wallets. \nWe will be selling our souls. \nSo, do you think if Cingular offers me a cellular phone deal for cash, I should change my name? In fact, from now on, don't refer to me as Ron Gubitz. My new name is Ron Cingularubitz. And to competetors vying for advertising rights in my first name, my checking account is with the IU Credit Union. Call them to set up a direct deposit.