Resistance Is Futile

So it turns out I have a celebrity double. Personally, I don't see it, and for a decade now I've been strongly resisting any inclination to agree when I'm at a party, or the grocery store, at the airport, or a car dealership and somebody says to me, "Hey, you know who you look just like?" This happens all the time. Not just when girls are sitting around being silly and saying, "No really, who do you think I look like the most?" Strangers, friends, family, EVERYBODY says this to me. I've even been asked for an autograph.

You know who they think I am?

Here, take a second and think about it. I'll show you a picture or two. Any guesses?

This is an "I just got a great haircut!" picture:



Also, this. Here I think I kind of look like Elmo, though that is never the celebrity people guess. Also, you can see the gum in my wide open maw.



Or how about this lovely version of me. Here I'm doing the inimitable Look of Unadulterated Seduction:



I know, I know. Dead sexy.

So there. Have you got any ideas? If you answered Janeane Garofalo, you answered like a million other global citizens, with the singular exception of a potentially delusional but very insistent Nicaraguan man who believed I looked like Kendra from that show about Hugh Hefner's girlfriends that live in the Playboy Mansion (click the link on her name and let me re-emphasize the "delusional" part of "potentially delusional").

In 2003 when I went to go buy L'il Mazdie I took my dad with me to the car dealership to sign the papers and whatnot. As we pulled up in the parking lot, the salesman who approached me came towards like they always do, big smile, hand stuck out for a handshake, etc. But as he got a little closer, he stopped. "Um, hi," he said, and then sort of just stood there for a second before he kind of shook himself out of it. "Sorry, it's just that you look an awful lot like, um, Janeane Garofalo?" I laughed him off and kept walking. "Yeah, I get that all the time," I said over my shoulder. Superdad thinks this is hilarious, though, and so as we walked away he turned back and stage-whispered at the guy, "That's cause she is Janeane Garofalo!" As we sat in the cubicle doing the paperwork, people kept doing unnecessary walk-bys, and heads kept sort of popping up over the dividers to check it out and see if a famous person really was buying a Mazda Protege 5. Nothing against my L'il Mazdie, but I kind of doubt that's what Janeane Garofalo drives.

So I don't know, what do you think?

Here's Janeane Garofalo (sorry, I could only find thumbnails, and I'm technologically dumb):



I've always resisted being told that I'm her doppelganger, largely because the only thing I knew about Janeane Garofalo is that she played the "ugly friend" in that movie The Truth About Cats and Dogs. I didn't think she was particularly ugly at all, though her wardrobe in that movie could have used some work, but for that matter so could have Uma Thurman's. It's more just that, really, who wants to be told they look like the girl who played the ugly girl in any movie?



The sheer weight of overwhelming evidence however, is making me re-evaluate, and it's not just all the "hey you know who you look like" comments. Now even SCIENCE is making me think there might be something to this. Have you ever done the celebrity match-up at myheritage.com? You might have to sign up to do this, but it's kind of hilarious. You upload a photo of your face, forward-facing, and it does some fancy-schmancy measuring and matching kind of sciency thing, and that wha-boom! Presto, there you have it: the celebrity you most resemble, and also the percentage to which you resemble that person.

Aha! I thought, when I first heard of this. Finally, my chance to see for real whether I look like Janeane Garofalo! So I uploaded a photo or two, and waited for the results. Please, please, please, I murmured, let it be Kendra from that Playboy show! It finished and gave me my results:

Janeane Garofalo. 80% resemblance.



So there you have it, and now that I've looked on the interwebs for more pictures of this lady, I have to say, not too bad! If Janeane Garofalo ever needs a body double, I'm going to make a million dollars. I suppose, all things considered, I got pretty lucky. A good girlfriend of mine put in her picture and they told her she looked like Peter Sellers. Gah.