This Week's WAVE - Boyleing Points

Double Features

By Kevin Boyle

I’ve got a doppelganger reflex. Don’t worry, I’m not about to detail one of my weird medical experiences that I feel compelled to share right up to the ascending colon, so to speak. A doppelganger is a look-alike.

A lot of times when I look at somebody they remind me of somebody else. I can’t help it. Sometimes it’s a dead ringer. Sometimes people are a match for a famous person; other times somebody could cross the street in front of me and I’ll think that’s so-and-so. I mean, we’ve all got some friends who kinda look like a million other people. They fit a type and you see them everywhere

Some look-alikes are obvious and everybody gets it. Actor Omar Epps (from the show House) and Pittsburgh Steeler coach Mike Tomlin have never been seen together in the same room.

Other times it takes talent to spot a double. I’ve seen black people that have white doubles and vice-versa. My brother Chris, when he was sporting a blonde ‘fro, resembled Bill Cosby. I knew a couple of white guys who were just a lighter shade of Arsenio Hall. In fact, it can cross sexes. A former black NBA player, Terry Porter, looked exactly like this white girl I knew. Usually it’s the eyes. The guy might be taking a foul shot when the camera zooms in on his face. Suddenly, I think, damn, that’s Susan Smith (her name is changed because she might actually read this!)

When you point it out, most others get it. They didn’t see it at first but once they put both people in their mind at the same time – it’s like, damn, definitely.

Yes, look-alikes can transcend race and gender but also animation. You’ve got lots of cartoon and fictitious character doubles.

Bartolo Colon, former pitcher for the Yankees, looked like cartoon character Peter Potamus. My buddy Dave was both a Fred Flintstone twin and a Lou Ferrigno double. Presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal of Louisiana looks like Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Newman albeit one that fell asleep in a tanning bed. And another presidential hopeful, Joe Lieberman was a dead ringer for the Cowardly Lion.

Of course, you gotta be gentle with this talent. You really don’t want to tell your friend he’s a dead ringer for a guy 20 years older and 30 pounds heavier.

Anyway, I’m 10 years younger than winning Super Bowl coach Peter Carroll. But that didn’t stop me from getting multiple texts during last Sunday’s game telling me what a good game I was coaching.

Calling me Pete Carroll was an upgrade, I guess, to some others I’ve heard. Gary Busey, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, and Nick Nolte’s mug shot.

My generous son, Sean, who tabbed me Long Jaw McGraw, says he thinks Pete Carroll is a pretty good call. He tells me that’s the face he gets when I yell at him and the other is when I thought I was cool in the 80’s. Anyway, I’m not one to run my picture with my column. That isn’t me. It’s Pete Carroll, the angry and the cool.

I dunno….at least they didn’t say I looked like Peyton Manning.

As for you, I’m probably thinking you remind me of somebody.