In the process, I found a site that gives you statistical information on how your name ranks in popularity, and it tells you where people with your name live.
In fact, there are thirty-three ‘Michael Dane’ listings in the entire country (making it the 613,590th most popular name), and I/we can be found in twenty states (with five of us in Massachusetts).
A quick search yielded almost ten thousand pages on the internet that have at least one reference to a ‘Michael Dane.’
Most of them aren’t about me. So, it was time to see how my life’s work stacks up against that of the other various ‘Michael Dane’s.
My research staff, researching things
The first result I found was for a karaoke singer in Spokane, Washington. Seems like a pleasant enough guy in his YouTube videos.
Next, I found a guy in North Carolina who owns his own company, Dane Construction. The only thing noteworthy about this Michael Dane is that federal campaign records show he donated money to both candidates in a recent two-person senate race. Pick a side, buddy!
Rounding out the first few, there’s a Michael Dane who’s listed as a ‘voice talent.’ But I went to his website, and first of all, he’s based in Athens, Texas, which isn’t even the hippest Athens in the U.S. His bio says that he was a DJ at a club called ‘Toppless,’ so we’re probably not aiming for the same audience.
There is a link to the MySpace page of a twenty-one year old girl in Lorain, Ohio, but I didn’t like the looks of her friends. She could do better.
I found an actor with my name, but according to IMDB, his entire resume consists of the roles ‘Transvestite Steve’ and ‘bad guy.’ No disrespect, Mike, but neither of the characters you played even had last names.
Also in the world of showbiz, Canadian singer Michael Dane apparently had a minor hit with the 12″ disco single “Let’s Make Love” (the flip side, as we all remember, was “The Dead Are Making Love”), but that was in 1981, and I’ve seen no evidence of a comeback. By him or Canadian disco.
The rest of the top ‘Michael Dane’ results include:
A Goth kid who takes far too many pictures of himself
A lawyer in Kirtland, Ohio who in 37 years of practice has never had an instance of professional misconduct (and has apparently never left Kirtland, Ohio).
A man who owns an ‘architectural products’ company in Phoenix with a sharp-looking website. Curiously, twelve of the sixteen links are ‘Under Construction.’
A guy credited on the album “A Victorian Christmas For Brass” who is listed as the ‘bell ringer.’
Pretty eclectic group, aren’t we? And I think I more than hold my own. Although I do wish I had ‘bell ringer’ on my resume.
The next contender was fun to read about. An English professor at two colleges in Hawaii, he’s listed on ratemyprofessors.com. Here are a few quotes about Professor Dane:
“Sometimes he seems like he’s weird but he’s very helpful.”
“He is entertaining to listen to, but jokes can be repetitive.”
“First impression makes Dane seem intimidating. He has a strange sense of humor.”
Weird. Those are all really accurate descriptions of me. I had to think back, because I wondered for a few minutes whether I had simply forgotten that I had been an English professor in Hawaii. As it turned out, it wasn’t me.
My favorite search result referred to a movie character named ‘Michael Dane,’ and from now on, I’m gonna tell people that I was named after him, just to give myself a more interesting backstory.
In the 1923 western “North of Hudson Bay,”cowboy star Tom Mix played a rancher named Michael Dane. Sadly, according to the book ‘John Ford,’ ‘only portions’ of the film survive, ‘with titles in Czech.’ I have no idea why.
Here’s a synopsis of the plot:
“Rancher Michael Dane falls in love with Estelle while en route to Northern California where his brother Peter had struck gold. But there he finds his brother dead and his partner MacKenzie sentenced to walk the ‘death trail.’
Dane tries to help MacKenzie, earns the same sentence, but both escape, battling wolves, and meet Estelle, pursued by her uncle, the real murderer, who dies after a canoe chase over a waterfall.”
It’s absolutely uncanny how much that sounds like my life. Just replace ‘rancher’ with ‘writer,’ and replace ‘battling wolves’ with ‘writing.’ Oh, and instead of a ‘canoe chase over a waterfall,’ picture me . . . making a meatloaf.
Acknowledgements
All content ©2009-2012 by Michael Dane
Some excerpts previously appeared online at
OpenSalon.com and MisterComedy.net
All images used are in the public domain, except:
Title page, ‘Kitchen Mistakes,’ ‘I Dropped the Meatloaf,’ ‘I Know It When I See It,’ ‘The Pot Pie Pizza Process’ Kara A. Bray
‘Cooking Through the Crazy,’ ‘Where’s My Other Whisk,’ ‘Tempting the Fates,’ ‘A Splendid Conversation’ (picture of spatula), ‘I Need a Catchphrase,’ Michael Dane
‘Behind the Cooking’ Noran Neurological Clinic, Minneapolis
‘Sometimes I Cheat’ San Gennaro Foods
‘The Girlfriend Draws the Line’ Weston Supply
‘The World According to Stan’ Stan’s Doughnuts
‘In Which I Pester a Real Chef’ Bret’s Table
‘As Seen on TV’ SlapChop
‘My Dinner With Marjoram’ Steve Schwab
‘You Should Hear the Zucchini’ (first two pictures) Zoefotografie
‘Fear, Loathing and Porridge’ (first two pictures) Hell’s Kitchen
‘All the Music You Can Eat’ (fudge) Janice Milnerwood
‘Cooking With Testosterone’ (Talos Outdoor Cooking Suite) Frontgage
‘Hot Dogs and Haggis’ (picture of haggis) Edinburgh Blog
‘A Splendid Conversation’ (picture of L.R.K.) Lynne Rosetto Kasper
‘Careful With That Blowfish!’ (black garlic machine) BlackGarlic.com
‘Modern, Schmodern’ (‘Modernist Cuisine) The Cooking Lab, LLC
‘Cooking Is Believing’ (picture of Rabbi) Temple of Aaron, Minneapolis
‘Oatmeal for Supper’ (picture of Mary Olson) Mary Olson
‘Oatmeal for Supper’ (picture of lefse) Lance Fisher
‘About the Author’ (picture of Michael Dane) Christopher Grey
Does This Taste Funny? A Half-Baked Look at Food and Foodies Page 15
