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:

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And here's the guy from Backyard Oil: 

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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:

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Or this:

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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?