My Celebrity Look-Alike

I love when friends in my everyday life share an unanimously stark resemblance with a universally famous person. I think we all do. For one, it's a devastatingly powerful weapon to wield when pressed to describe them to a third party. I could say, "She's a blond with blue eyes... She's got a great body.... um, She's very intelligent and always interesting," or I could say "She's a dead ringer for Jessica Simpson. Fiercely smart. Loves crossword puzzles, base jumping and skinny skiing." Which is more helpful? If I drop ole Jessica's name in front, I can more readily address her personality qualities and quirks. It's the name that helps, because now instead of thinking about what she might look like, my friend is now picturing Jessica Simpson's alterego doing all these things: Pensively tapping a blue ink pen against a twice folded New York Times in the morning, jumping off a suspension bridge at the height of the day and then flopping around in the evening mist for one last pass around Lake Wallenpaupack. See what I'm saying, the name is huge. Totally huge.

With this is mind, I find it important to make one absolute distinction. What I love even more than having a friend who looks like a celebrity, is having a friend who THINKS they look like a celebrity (and usually in a flattering way) except they don't at all. Examples I’ve heard in person have been Mariah Carey (she had the crazy part right though), Ricky Martin (he had flaming part down), Tom Cruise (he put on a jean jacket and went as him for Halloween one year, hilarity ensued) and of course Chris Farley (he actually adopted personality traits of Farley's different routines, which is either a brilliant homage to the late comedian or a wonderful way to go if you don't really know what to make of yourself during your formative years. Just assume the role of the drug abusing, painfully self-aware clown/party-animal when you go out on a Friday night with your buddies. A recipe for success any way you slice it).

I'm reminded of the scene from the movie Friday when "Janet Jackson" pulls up in front with her weave on and Chris Tucker rolls up to the car, makes an astonishing discovery, spends the next 45 seconds peaking as a comic actor and then sends "Ms. Jackson" on her way. It's that mistaken identity that throws people, the humor lies is the false perception. But here's the thing, there's really no way to tell your friend that he or she looks NOTHING LIKE the proposed star in question. The only true recourse to something like this is to immediately call other people who know your friend and inform them that the self-actualized celebrity comparisons are flying. Are you doing this to gauge reactions? To gain a third party perspective? Perhaps. But most likely you are already fully aware of the reaction. Unbridled laughter.

I also want to talk about the emergence of the "What Celebrity do I look like?"Wheel-O-Fun. It seems like these puppies are on every third Myspace page and I invariably end up looking at them going "Nope... nope... not even close... ugh-unh" inside my head. Now, I understand that the facial recognition software used here isn't from NASA and these findings are only really 60% accurate. But for me, I think we need to look a little deeper at what this seemingly trivial piece of web junk is trying to say:

"Look at my face. Do you see it? Are you sure? Have you looked hard enough? It's a good shot of me, don't you think? Do you think I look like these people? Cuz I got numbers here that support my claim! Okay, keeeeep looooking. Great! I'm fabulous. Let's do lunch.”

On a semi-related note: My ex-girlfriend used to tell me I looked like Mark Wahlberg. After informing me of this, I would often start doing the "New Kids Dance" wearing a confused brow and a well meaning smile. Then she would hit me and say no, not DONNIE Wahlberg. MARK Wahlberg. You KNOW! Marky Mark. The One with the FUNKY BUNCH. Then I'd pause and look at my abs (or where I’m told my abs are supposed to be) and then I'd look up at her and shake my head. But she persisted and made me believe she was completely sold on this fact. (Later I found out it was all just a ploy to get me to wear Calvin Klein boxer-briefs and not my usual standby of Homer Simpson boxers replete with memorable quotes. Long story.) Anyway, after enough confirmation that I looked like Mark Wahlberg, I started walking around my house with no shirt on, blue jeans sagging and a baseball hat on. I would play pool like this, I would watch Sportscenter like this, I would periodically excuse myself to use the powder room to do twenty push-ups like this. This went on in the King household for about a week when finally my Dad said to me,

"Son, what the hell are you doing? Put a damn shirt on! You're flexing at the dinner table now?"

I'll never forget that. He was right, I was posing. However, in retrospect, I think I was doing it all with a touch of irony. At least I hope so. If I wasn't, let's just chalk it up to high school and move on.

OK, so when you live in a society that values Cool like currency, I suppose it's somewhat understandable to try and link the ordinary with the fantastical. We do live in a very quotational place and time where our most viable social tool is having the information needed to be IN on the reference or joke. At the end of the day, we want to be able to walk into a room full of strangers and be able to hold their rapt attention while relating our interests and insights. By knowing what artist is playing on the stereo or by drawing the perfect comparison to a well documented story in the news, we begin to form a positive feeling about ourselves and our relevance within the surrounding world. Simply put, we want to be the guy with the finger on the pulse. Along with self-esteem maintenance, this is one of our primary motivators in almost every social exchange. So I suppose the forcing of a famous likeness with noble intentions is just a way of fitting in, of assimilating, which is completely understandable.

***

Well, after years of having "a familiar face" that hot girls "can never place in their minds" it appears that my possibility for a celebrity doppelganger may still have legs. In the past six months, three people have voluntarily informed me that I look like someone with a slight degree of celebrity. Now, the fact that these three people are completely unaware of each other and named a very esoteric person leads me to believe the comparisons are genuine and accurate. Now, I personally don't see the resemblance, but THREE PEOPLE CAN'T BE WRONG! Supposedly, I look like Jason Hervey. Don’t know him? How about Wayne Arnold? Kevin's older brother from Wonder Years?

Yeah. That's right. I guess I look like a fictional douchebag.

Good times.