Monday, April 18, 2016

Me and My Doppelgänger

This is a little random, but I felt like sharing.

Back in elementary school, around 3rd or 4th grade, my friend Mark started calling me "Mahoney." He said I looked like Officer Mahoney from the Police Academy movies, played by Steve Guttenberg.

Guttenberg was seemingly everywhere in the mid-to-late 80s, starring in two Cocoons, 3 Men and a Baby, four Police Academies, and a stint with Johnny 5. I never thought I looked like him myself. And apparently no one else thought too much of the comparison (or no one else thought too much of the Police Academy movies), since the nickname never caught on. Soon enough, it was forgotten.

Fast forward to my mid-20s. I'm out at a bar with two friends, sitting at a table on the patio. A guy at the next table knocks into my arm, and when he turns to apologize I recognize him. Nick. We'd been classmates from about 5th grade on--friends for a year or two, then acquaintances the rest of the way.

Also, he's plastered.

He tells his friends I'm the smartest guy he's ever known, then starts rambling on about how he's really good at Jeopardy. How he can get many of the answers--only in the first round, though, not in Double Jeopardy, those are way too hard--when he stops mid-sentence, points at me, and yells.

"Steve Guttenberg! You're Steve Guttenberg!"

Yes, he was drunk. But two people picking the same doppelgänger for me fifteen years apart can't just be a coincidence, can it? Nick wasn't there for the nickname conversations. And I looked a bit different at 24 than I did at 9. For one thing, I had a goatee. At that point, to my knowledge, Guttenberg had never sported one.

Fast forward to today. A quick Google image search turns up just such a photograph. And yeah, now I see the resemblance. Hot damn, I am Steve Guttenberg.



There but for a full head of hair go I.

5 comments:

  1. If you are Guttenberg, can you tell us what happened to your career?

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    1. What do you mean, if?

      Anyway, it should be obvious. Since my success was entirely at the mercy of the Stonecutters, when they all defected to become the Ancient Mystic Society of No Homers, my career kind of hit a lull. My name may no longer warrant top billing, but I still get to act, and that's all I really wanted anyway.

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    2. Plus, family should always comes first, before your career. Which is why I spent most of the 90s and early 00s away from the industry, with Tom Selleck and Ted Danson raising our girl.

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  2. You are! You totally are! Do I have to start calling you Steve, or can I still use your secret identity?

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, due to copyright issues, you will have to start calling me The Blogger Formerly Known as Nate.

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