Capt. Larry Beane?

Not Father Hollywood...

I know there aren't too many of us out there with the name "Larry Beane."

My dad is one of them. There is a park ranger named Larry Beane. And there seems to be a photographer called Larry Beane (and this one is neither my dad, who is a real photographer, nor me, a hack with a camera). But this "Captain Larry Beane" is a new one, offering a "Sailboat Charter Service" in which you can "charter a sailboat for harbor tours, day sailing, sunset dinner cruises, moonlight sailing, whale watching, fishing and diving trips, and Catalina adventures."

Wow!

I got an accidental e-mail from a guy looking for this Capt. Larry Beane, who sails a yacht and is a gourmet cook. Boy, is that ever not me! Sadly, I had to reply that I can barely swim, and don't even know how to make toast without a lot of help from the Mrs.

I'm really hacked off at this Captain Larry Beane.

Look at him! The guy is the very epitome of cool. It's bad enough that I have to compete with my motorcycling, former-Marine, fifties-rockstar, Trans-Am-driving father who can build a radio out of a paper clip and a gum-wrapper, thinks nothing of single-handedly building an extension to his house or transforming a conversion van into an RV after sketching out plans on a napkin, and who has the know-how to re-engineer any internal combustion engine from scratch employing my choice of three random tools from the garage. I mean, come on! I look inept enough as it is. It takes me twenty minutes to reload my Swingline stapler.

And now this Captain Larry Beane is setting further unrealistic expectations concerning my moniker, and I'm not happy about this at all.

But then again, maybe I can contact Captain Larry Beane and get a same-name discount on a Marina del Rey cruise, although a similar attempt to exploit my appellation failed miserably at the L.L. Bean store.

Sigh.