May 2023
Brian ABEL Ragen
05/16/23 Filed in: Moments
The Academia.com website has a feature that informs a scholar when his work is cited by other scholars. It was most recently referred me to in an essay with the engaging title “The testosterone metabolite 3α-Diol enhances female rat sexual motivation when infused in the nucleus accumbens shell.” Evidently people are attracted to the racier parts of “B. Ragen’s” oeuvre: the essay cited is “The effect of acute bupropion on sexual motivation and behavior in the female rat.”
Now, I don’t recall writing that particular piece, any more than I recall, say, passing the California bar exam. But Academia.edu tells me—and I have asked—that it sees no reason to limit the works it ascribes to me to those that appear under the byline “Brian Abel Ragen.” The California Bar also thinks middle names unnecessary, hence the congratulations I received after my first cousin once-removed Brian Michael Ragen completed his legal studies a few years ago, bringing perplexed e-mails from a few college classmates who actually belonged to the California Bar. So, I will accept that I am every Brian Ragen and accept the citations and congratulations. But I suddenly feel that I should know a bit more about what makes female rats horny. My scientific reputation is even wider than my legal one. Every “Brian Ragen” is one person, according to the California Bar Association, but all “B. Ragens” share a single C.V. for Academia.com.
But enough of my alter ego who spends his days trying to compromise the virtue of innocent maiden rats by dosing their pellets with Spanish Fly. Academia.com at least does not confound the B. Ragens with B. Regans, and being mistaken for one of the world’s Brian Regans would land me in real trouble. Some of them are not too bad. Brian Regan the stand-up comic is not me—and his elder brother Dennis Regan is not my elder brother Dennis Regan. (His big brother is another stand-up comic; mine is Deputy Attorney General in California.) I get perplexed messages whenever Brian Regan has a show near me, but as his jokes are funny and reasonably clean, I don’t mind too much. I have attended one of his live shows, and I enjoyed it. He’s the most respectable of the lot, though. I don’t know anything scandalous about Brian Regan, the screen writer who has second writing credit for 102 Dalmatians and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. (Being second-billed writer, I assume, has all the prestige of teaching at a university with an “at” in its name.) But it goes downhill rapidly from there. Brian Regan the actor (Brian James Regan) had a good role in an English soap, but then there were those murder charges. (He’s out of prison and back on TV.) We hit bottom with Brian Regan the spy (Brian Patrick Regan), who tried to sell US Air Force secrets to the Libyans. The jury decided against the death penalty, but he’ll be in Federal custody for a good long while. Aside from my cousin—who is once-removed, after all—every Brian Ragen or Regan I’ve mentioned was born between 1957 and 1962. The spy and I share a birthday.
People sometimes wonder why I prefer to be known as Brian Abel Ragen. I wouldn’t mind being thought of as a qualified lawyer or getting the royalties for “Dog on a Zamboni” or even being mistaken for a murine sexologist. But I do want to stay out of the slammer.
Now, I don’t recall writing that particular piece, any more than I recall, say, passing the California bar exam. But Academia.edu tells me—and I have asked—that it sees no reason to limit the works it ascribes to me to those that appear under the byline “Brian Abel Ragen.” The California Bar also thinks middle names unnecessary, hence the congratulations I received after my first cousin once-removed Brian Michael Ragen completed his legal studies a few years ago, bringing perplexed e-mails from a few college classmates who actually belonged to the California Bar. So, I will accept that I am every Brian Ragen and accept the citations and congratulations. But I suddenly feel that I should know a bit more about what makes female rats horny. My scientific reputation is even wider than my legal one. Every “Brian Ragen” is one person, according to the California Bar Association, but all “B. Ragens” share a single C.V. for Academia.com.
But enough of my alter ego who spends his days trying to compromise the virtue of innocent maiden rats by dosing their pellets with Spanish Fly. Academia.com at least does not confound the B. Ragens with B. Regans, and being mistaken for one of the world’s Brian Regans would land me in real trouble. Some of them are not too bad. Brian Regan the stand-up comic is not me—and his elder brother Dennis Regan is not my elder brother Dennis Regan. (His big brother is another stand-up comic; mine is Deputy Attorney General in California.) I get perplexed messages whenever Brian Regan has a show near me, but as his jokes are funny and reasonably clean, I don’t mind too much. I have attended one of his live shows, and I enjoyed it. He’s the most respectable of the lot, though. I don’t know anything scandalous about Brian Regan, the screen writer who has second writing credit for 102 Dalmatians and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. (Being second-billed writer, I assume, has all the prestige of teaching at a university with an “at” in its name.) But it goes downhill rapidly from there. Brian Regan the actor (Brian James Regan) had a good role in an English soap, but then there were those murder charges. (He’s out of prison and back on TV.) We hit bottom with Brian Regan the spy (Brian Patrick Regan), who tried to sell US Air Force secrets to the Libyans. The jury decided against the death penalty, but he’ll be in Federal custody for a good long while. Aside from my cousin—who is once-removed, after all—every Brian Ragen or Regan I’ve mentioned was born between 1957 and 1962. The spy and I share a birthday.
People sometimes wonder why I prefer to be known as Brian Abel Ragen. I wouldn’t mind being thought of as a qualified lawyer or getting the royalties for “Dog on a Zamboni” or even being mistaken for a murine sexologist. But I do want to stay out of the slammer.