Monday, May 13, 2013

George Clooney vs. Backyard Oil


The other night, Arizona and I caught an episode of Backyard Oil, which follows a bunch of Kentuckians who have gone rags-to-riches discovering oil wells in their yards, and are wildcatting for new strikes. I couldn’t tell you why he and I glom shows like Deadliest Catch and Bering Sea Gold yet find many other pseudo-reality shows unwatchable … but Backyard Oil isn’t bad. (I started to abbreviate the title, but just no. This is not a blog about B.O. Maybe next week.)

Anyway, as we’re watching it, Arizona points to one of the oil drillers and says, “Hey, he looks just like that guy.” Which, of course, provoked the usual game of charades-plus-twenty-questions. You know, the one that starts with “What guy?” evolves to gestures and lots of “You know, the one in that movie,” and eventually (if I’m lucky) arrives at something I can work with, like: “He was the vendetta guy with Natalie Portman.” (Answer: Hugo Weaving.)

Now, if we’re talking about an actress, Arizona will know her name, vital stats, and that she’s married to “that other guy.” But when it comes to the male half of the species, he can name exactly four actors: Will Ferrell, Sam Elliot, the guy who plays Iron Man, and everyone else. Thus, the interpretive dance of “You know, the guy with the eyes. He was in Big Lebowski.” (Answer: Steve Buscemi.)

In the case of the Backyard Oil guy, I didn’t have a clue which actor we were talking about. So the conversation went like this:

Arizona: “He was in the movie that retold that story. You know, Homer.”

Me: “Simpson?”

Arizona (waves hands): “No, the other one. Ancient civilizations, required reading, boats.”

Me: “The Iliad? The Odyssey?”

Arizona: “Yeah. Except with a jailbreak in the deep south.”

(Long hesitation.)

Me (Not so sure about the epic journey, but putting together the other clues.): “O Brother Where Art Thou?”

Arizona: “Yes! Coomer looks just like the guy in that.”

Me (voice squeaking): “You mean George Clooney?”

Yes, folks, he was utterly convinced that this oil driller looked like George Clooney’s brother, maybe even his twin. Yikes! So after I got done snicker-snorting, I dug out my laptop to prove him wrong. Except when I pulled up the Google images, Arizona pointed to a picture and said, “There. See?”

This is what I saw:

 (Source)

And here's the guy from Backyard Oil: 


(Source

And you know what? I could kind of see it. However, I loftily informed him that most females, when asked for their mental image of George Clooney, would come up with something more like this:



Or this:

(Source


LOL!

So tell me, do you find that you and your men-friends have very different mental images of celebs? And do you guys do the “you know, the guy from that movie” dance?

8 comments:

  1. Jesse, my DH and I do that, too, and after the :coughcough: years we've had together, we can tell each other's "that guy" dance pretty well. For instance, British designer Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen
    (picture here: http://www.cornwallcommunitynews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/LaurenceLlewelyn-Bowen_1728_18794685_0_0_4001287_300.jpg)
    is "Other Nigel," because he resembles actor Steve Valentine (a favorite of both of ours, here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Steve_Valentine.jpg/220px-Steve_Valentine.jpg) played Nigel on Crossing Jordan and "Other Nigel" is now how DH knows the designer, not by name.

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    1. Anna- Brilliant! I love "Other Nigel" (and miss Crossing Jordan, despite the occasional WTF moments where they tried to get Boston right and failed). Yes, I suspect we will refine our "that guy" dance as the years go by.

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  2. He's right. That Backyard oil guy does strongly resemble George Clooney. They say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. Now this backyard oil guy has enough money to buy himself some class, and who knows what will happen. To answer your question, yes I very often times go through this "movie dance" with friends and family.

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    1. Hey Gerri! (waves) Yes, I'll confess that once I actually pulled up the pics, I was like "drat, he's right." Though in my defense, I started the conversation with "I think Coomer has really nice eyes and I would totally set him up with my mom," so that's not bad. LOL!

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  3. Replies
    1. I'm thinking there are worse ways to start off the week!

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  4. Funny, the look alikes worked in the oil workcap, but OMG, those pics of Clooney are a knockout. Wonder if the oil workcap guy would clean up and look like Clooney still? Fun post!

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