Every other day somebody says ...

This is Stephen King.


This is me.

Every other day, someone tells me ... that I look like Stephen King. I travel frequently and airports are a hotspot for having people ask me. Sometimes 2 or 3 times in the same airport.

My wife and I were recently in San Francisco and a group of nouveau-hippies, sitting on the sidewalk singing joyous hippie songs, thought I WAS Stephen King. They stopped singing long enough to ask for an autograph. I just kept walking, ignoring them. My wife played it up by telling them, "Sorry, Mr. King isn't signing autographs today." I reminded my wife that Charles Manson and his hippie crew were from California too, best to just leave singing hippies alone and not upset them. (I also noticed they had cell phones - NO self-respecting hippie would EVER carry a cell phone ... just us 55 year old hippie sell-outs.)

I don't like playing up the whole Stephen King look-alike thing. I did, however, autograph a Red Lobster coaster for our waitress one time. But I misspelled it as S-T-E-V-E-N ... guy's an author and can't even spell his own name right!

Went to an antique bookstore in Salt Lake City several years back and the owner starts carrying on a conversation with me ... I have no clue of what he's talking about, but I'm politely nodding my head as if I'm following the conversation ... come to find out, Stephen had been in his store several times in the past ... the owner thought I was Stephen making a return appearance and was chatting with me/him.

My favorite episode was in a restaurant in San Antonio. I'd gone to dine by myself and read a book (not a King book, though I do read his books - The Dark Half is one of my favorite books) so asked for a secluded corner. As I ate, I noticed more and more employees appearing and standing around the server-station near my table. I remember thinking, "Damn, this staff sure spends a lot of time just standing around whispering to each other. And 3:30 in the afternoon's an odd time for a shift change." I paid with a credit card and my waitress looked at the name on the card, looked at the large group of employees milling around and shook her head - no, it wasn't Stephen, just dumbass Rick. They were disappointed and disbanded. I wasn't - the steak was GREAT!!!