Lightning McQueen

One of the girls in my youth group asked an open question in the van this weekend. "Who here absolutely loves the movie Cars?"

A few girls piped in agreement and I added my thoughts. "Well... I like the movie Cars."

"You sound just like Lightning McQueen."

A couple of other girls piped in agreement.

What? You're telling me I sound like Owen Wilson?

Who knew.


FUN FACT: I sound like Owen Wilson, apparently.

MUSIC SNOB: Fidelity by Regina Spektor

One of Those Faces

I have one of those faces.

I really do.

For as long as I can remember people have stopped what they were doing for just a moment, and they get this look in their eyes. This look of recognition. I ask them what the matter is and they immediately shake themselves out of whatever daze they were in. "Oh, well," they'd always say," you just remind me so much of my __________ (brother, cousin, son, grandson, etc.). You two could be twins. You know?"

Yes. Yes, I know.

There was a guy at Fine Arts one year. He looked just like me. Even I was impressed. There was one small difference. One key detail that was awry. A single thing threw the whole thing off.

He was 7 stinking feet tall.

But I still got the "Aaron, he looks just like you!"


There was a guy I went to church named Andy. I was in youth and he was in singles' group. People would ask me if I was going to the next singles event and people would ask him what we talked about in youth. Andy and I joked all the time about it. Incidentally, he just got married, which means that I may yet have a chance. The guy in the green shirt... that's Andy.







There was a guy in Bible college named Charlie. Every so often a friend of mine would approach me and say "Aaron! I saw you across the campus and I called your name but you didn't answer (or something like that). I got closer and I realized that it wasn't you. And he was Asian!" Despite my Germanic heritage, I've been accused of being Asian many times. Even by children. The reason? Probably my naturally squinty eyes, and Buddha-like build (ha!). At the time, though, I had long, black hair, which helped me slide effortlessly in and out of Asian social circles (well. . . not really. But I did enjoy eating noodles with chopsticks) and cemented my Asian stylings. I didn't really know the guy, though I did talk to him at an Insyderz concert and told him that he was my (or I was his) doppelganger. Charlie (his name) though it was funny, but his friends had never seen me and thought it was him.

Man, his friends are jerks.




My mom called me the other night and told me that everyone was coming up to her and saying that they saw me on TV. Well. . . at least it was someone that looked like me. I asked her who it was, but she couldn't name the guy. After some excellent deductive skills on my part (I gots mad sleuthing skillz, dawG) I figured out they were talking about Sundance Head on this season of American Idol. Yeah, the guy with the giant goatee and chest hair forest. People told her this, mind you. More than one. Oy.



And the best one, I think, is a friend of mine (more of a sister of a friend of a friend, but here I'll take all the friends I can get) and her boyfriend had just left the movie Catch and Release. They both were excited and were fumbling over each other to tell me that I was in that movie. Not only did a guy look like me, he even acted like me. We were one in both appearance and personality.

This man, of course, was Kevin Smith.

Out of all of my doppelganging, this is my favorite. I hate Jay and Silent Bob, and I never cared to see clerks, and I heard that Jersey Girl was terrible, but I like Kevin Smith.

Congratulations, Kevin Smith. . . the least you could do is send me some of that Clerks money. You owe me. . . I gave you your good looks and suave, smooth personality.




Why? Why do so many people "look like me?" I've given this quite a bit of thought and here are my conclusions.

Let's take any random, average guy.

Does he wear glasses? Check.

Does he have spikey hair of some sort? Check.

Does he have a goatee or other type of facial hair? Check.

Does he have brunette or dark hair? Check.

Does he often wear button-down shirts? Check.

Is he kinda chubby? Check.

Congratulations! He looks kinda like me!


FUN FACT: I can't roll my R's.

MUSIC SNOB: Read my Mind by The Killers

Phone Tag

I've said several times that I'm really good at being "someone people used to know." It's very true. I don't know why. If I had some strange, freakish fear of using the phone I may have an excuse. But I don't. I enjoy talking to people. These are the people that I've grown close to over the years. So why do I struggle with keeping contact with them? I don't really have an answer. Nothing witty. No quip.

So I picked up the phone. I've started systematically calling the people that I haven't talked to in a long time (usually years).

I guess you could argue that it's less personal if I talk to a person in this context as opposed to picking up the phone and calling only them. Meh, not really. The fact that I'm calling at all shows that I give a crap. I could easily continue not talking to all these people.



So, if I haven't talked to you in a long time, don't worry. You're on the list.

Also, I suppose you could beat me to it if you wanted. 618-316-3237

EDIT: I feel the need to mention that the man in the pic is not me. Nope, not even close. I don't have a mullet or awesome 80's glasses.

A man can dream, though.

Also, new things coming.

Just play Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come."