Rain as Metaphor and Nom de Plume
You cannot repress the invincible, thus the name "Vincent" I was given around the age of ten. Rain is my favorite of all metaphors. It is water that makes this planet blue. It is rain that nourishes the green. It is rain that drives all creatures to seek shelter. It is rain that streams from faces that cry. It is the rain I used to walk in when I was a runaway from the orphanage where I spent five years, one of many hellish journeys. It was always rain. It was rain that killed the smell of the industrial city where I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. It was rain that washed away the poison. It was raining during half the tragedies of my childhood. It was rain that enabled two escapes from reform school. It was rain that silenced the cold uncaring mechanical sound of the streets. It was rain that gave contemplation its haven. It was always rain. It was the gentle and terrifying crack of thunder that drove away the torments of life. It was mortifying thunder that sent floods through my city. It was always rain that wetted my hair, soaked into my scalp and became a deep intrinsic part of my brain. The first street I ever lived on was Blaine Avenue. Blaine rhymes with rain. It means source of a river.

For ordinary people rain was outside. Rain was for me and all the urchins I came to know on all the streets, a baptism, a holy renewal, an initiation, and a confirmation of hope. In rain there are all glories but the Sun, whose wonder is merely hidden for moments, then gloriously brought to the fore in rainbows. Protected classes and loved children hide from the rain. Those forced to journey through rain, find the great fertile fields of dreams.

Rain separates the sheltered from the vulnerable. It defines the cold and wet divisions of social order. Rain quenches the flesh, the mind, the soul. It is the experience of the thinking, pondering being. In rain there is penance. In rain there is hell and joy. Nobody can stop the rain. Anyone can harness its power. But nobody can control it. Rain is a most invincible, honorable teacher. He who curses rain or calls it "bad weather", curses life itself.

Long ago I adopted the nom de plume of Vincent B. Rain. I use other pen names as well. But I like the sound of rain. I love the way that it feels. I love the smell of rain. It is deeply inspirational. Rain comes from the heavens. Thus rain becomes my primary pen name as a writer. All the inspirations of all great writers in all of time, come from within, but ultimately from outside. The hells we observe or endure in life often make us more aware of our blessings. Inspiration is delivered only from the heavens, much like rain comes from the sky. True inspiration cannot be forced nor can it be stopped as it often comes in like a flood, just like rain. Nothing I write belongs to me. I am merely the observer and scribe bound to duty. Rain is my metaphor.

After writing most of the above, I learned that Rain as a name means "abundant blessing" according to at least one source. This further affirmed my choice of a pen name.

What does the middle initial 'B' stand for?
At first it never really stood for anything. The 'B' was just there to suggest Brain as a theme. And that intent remains. But the first actual name I ever conceived it to represent was "Blaine." Back in my hometown, the first street that I ever lived on was Blaine Avenue after I came home from the maternity ward of a local hospital. I only lived on Blaine Avenue for so short a period of time that I scarcely remember a single day there. We moved a couple blocks away and then the family broke apart when I was five. But I came back to Blaine Avenue many times while growing up. Not long ago, I looked up Blaine as a name. It means "the source of a river." And so the juncture of these three names Vincent, Blaine and Rain, is rather fortunate. The writer is always listening for the muse. The muse flows through the writer like a river.... an invincible and abundant river, a power to reckon with. The writer is not the source of anything but merely the conduit of the muse.

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines the word blain (not blaine), as "an inflammatory swelling or sore". And then there's that old expression "dag blain!"which is a euphemism for God damned. Pain is the human condition found in literature and love songs. In contrast, rain has always been a writer's metaphor used to represent relief from life's miseries. For instance, that old song Pennies From Heaven says "every time it rains, it rains.... pennies from Heaven" meaning that every curse comes with a blessing. And Gene Kelly was "happy again" when he was "singin' in the rain." One of my favorite songs of all time came from the 1980s. It was Midnight Summer's Dream by the Stranglers. It speaks about watching the rain all night and alludes to some astonishing state of inner renewal after a profound dream: "When we put a foot wrong, do we learn from all the pain? Midnight summer dream, and then awake again."

On rare occasions, I use other pen names. But Vincent B. Rain is the real me. And of course, I have a given legal name. But I do not publish it here. As Bob Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, has said: "If my thought dreams could be seen, they'd put my head in a guillotine."

It is common among writers to use a pen name or even multiple pen names and to be known by such pen name exclusively except when becoming the subject of a lawsuit, tabloid scandal, inquisition, torture or obituary. These pen named writers, including the likes of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, aren't so much protecting their privacy or dodging accountability, especially if they write mainly poetry, songs, literature and theater and not scientific journals or news articles about political scandal. The writer who uses a nom de plume is almost always inventing a character not unlike Ziggy Stardust or the Thin White Duke, created by David Jones (aka David Bowie). The real question is 'who doesn't use pen names or stage names?' The name Vincent B. Rain best embodies the character and personna of the writer who I am.