On July 28, 2023, I decided, on a whim, to call TiVo’s metadata support on the telephone. About five years prior, they had decided to remove my and all of my band’s albums and information from their database, thereby erasing me from AllMusic.com’s (and AllMovie.com) database. I was really upset about that, because I felt that they were in the wrong. I had sent them countless emails requesting that they correct spelling mistakes in song and album titles, and fix release dates and record label information. But after several electronic mails, they resolved the problem by banning me. Once a year, I attempted to undo the ban by sending out an electronic mail to their department, apologizing for losing my temper. At times, I received condescending replies, but most often I was ignored.

I figured that enough time had passed and that perhaps a humanly telephone call would be convey how badly I wanted to be re-admitted back into their music database. While on call, I spelled out my last name, Julien (j-u-l-i-e-n, like Julian, but with an E instead of an A). A few minutes later, I spelled out my band’s name Vision Eternel (e-t-e-r-n-e-l, like Eternal, but with an E instead of an A) – the connection immediately hit me. Both had the same English pronunciation, but were spelled with a E instead of an A. I was really impressed by that, since I had never made the connection in the past. Eternel was deliberately misspelled that way to form a word half-way between the French and English spelling; one that would give original search results on Google (before illiterate fundamentalist christians from Africa decided to start using the word in their publications). Both my last name and Vision Eternel were frequently misspelled with a’s instead of e’s.

Once I was off the phone, I called Rain (from the bathroom) to tell her of the striking similarity. It wasn’t until she repeated it out loud “With an E, not an A”, that the sound of that phrase sounded so amazing. It felt like it should be the title of my (auto)biography, because it represented both my name, and also my own favorite band. I looked up the term on Google, to see if others had previously used it, and came upon a frequent discussion over the spelling of the word grey/gray, which happens to be my favorite color. The concept of the title became even more appropriate. I do recall that when I was a teenager, I deliberately spelled grey/gray the opposite way that most people did in the United States, but I wasn’t aware of a regional preference (I cannot recall which I chose). I simply did it because I felt that it looked better visually. However, I will be making a conscientious effort to spell it “grey” from now on, to tie in with this concept.

After having so much trouble with interviews, with editors either refusing to publish my answers, or editing them to beyond recognition. I got the idea on March 12, 2024 to subtitle the title “The uncensored biography of Alexander Julien”