OUT of HIS LEAGUE - THE REAL JOHN STAMOS

"Each Monday, Rivalfish's Rival Room awards two athletes from the previous week that have performed 'out of their league,' for better or worse. As the Jersey Chasers of the land open their mouths and aim for the midsections of anyone wearing a jersey, we at Rivalfish help them navigate the VIP room waters with precision and class. While we usually award our Jersey Chaser Target of the Week Award to a celebrity, we reserve the right to venture away from these over privileged cokeheads and give the hardware to someone more unique and deserving. So congratulations John Stamos, 25, of Wrigleyville, you are Rivalfish’s Jersey Chaser Target of the Week. Why? We’ll let the Real John Stamos take it from here…. " - Rival Room Editor

jer·sey cha·ser, n, A person who only pursues, or is receptive to, the advances of athletes. Most commonly women and most commonly found on or around college campuses or professional sporting contests.

By John Stamos, jastamos@gmail.com

Like most people, I was named after a relative, in my case my Grandfather. In a perhaps twist of fate and satire, my grandfather’s name just so happened to be the name of a slightly exotic (but not really) 80s teen heartthrob who never decided to go away and got famous just after was born: John Stamos.

I still remember the first encounter in which I endured being, what my friends from college called, “a famous name-alike.� I was riding the bus as a quiet and subdued kindergartener when two second-grade girls tapped me on the shoulder, and to confirm their suspicion, asked me what my name was. A bit skeptical, albeit excited, I hesitantly told them. They giggled. I got mad, and they tried to explain. I thought they were playing a trick on me that I didn’t get, so I cried, and that was that.

Yes, I’ve heard it all. I now know everything about the guy, and just about every Full House reference anyone could dream up. One guy claimed he could stump me by asking me where Rebecca Romajin went to high school: Berkley High… next question (I was asked this while John Stamos and Rebecca Romajin were still married before they broke up because he cheated on her with a 19 year-old model from Indiana that this kid I met at a party went to high school with).

Probably the most reoccurring thing I hear is when people who try to distinguish the actor from me refer to him as “the real John Stamos.� People ask me how Alex and Nicki are, and every time someone calls me “Uncle Jesse,� they laugh like it’s the first time I have ever heard that in my entire life. Really, the only genuinely funny comment ever made to me was completely unintentional. Reminding this guy that we had met several years prior and that we had the common bond of being students at Wisconsin from Connecticut, he excitedly shouted: “Yeah, yeah! I remember…. You’re Jon Travolta, right!?!�

In college, I even became acquaintances with a short hippy white guy named Danny Glover, just because “its so funny, you just have to meet him!� To add more pleasure for people, his RA placed him in a room with a kid named Jon Stewart freshman year. Although Danny and I never had any mutual friends or hung out in the same social circles, we always greeted each other out of the mutual respect we had for each other’s situation.

All of this was annoying. None of it made me mad, really, just annoyed. That was until about two weeks ago, when I tried to log onto the website Facebook.com. I was unable to log on, and was informed that my account was suspended. It instructed me to contact info@facebook.com for details. The next day I got the following response:

Hey,

Fake names are a violation of our Terms of Use. If you would like to usethis profile again, just get back to us with your real name and we willreactivate the account for you.Thanks for contacting Facebook.

Brendan

Customer Support Representative

Facebook

This was total bullshit. I was accused of something pathetic, and got kicked off of a standard service without warning or consultation. John Stamos (the real one) isn’t so fucking magical that he is the only one entitled to that name. While I recognize that there are certainly more serious injustices, I was livid. “Violation of our Terms of Use!?!?!? � Thanks for policing the internet super highway “Brendan� (fucking douche bag).

While thanking “Brendan� for his reply, I asked him refer to my email address and a variety of other clues that point to the idea that I might actually share the same name as somebody else.
After several days of anxiously waiting, without any ability to pseufo-stalk girls I find attractive and know through one or more social connection, I was re-instated. It’s not all bad being a famous name-alike though. It certainly draws a lot more attention than I deserve. Less than 24-hours after my facebook reinstatement, I got another email:

Katie Hillenburg has requested to add you as her boyfriend, but before we can do that, you must confirm that you are actually in a relationship with Katie.

To confirm this request, go to:http://wisc.facebook.com/

Thanks,

The Facebook Team

This sounds normal, but I’ve never met Katie in my entire life. As I was logging in, I was trying to determine if I was going to accept her invitation to be her boyfriend. There was something just so wrong and creepy about having an internet girlfriend that I had never met before. I was just about sold. Unfortunately, she must have gotten embarrassed by her (or her friend’s) actions, and rescinded the offer, as there was nothing to confirm upon my login. It was too bad, because I looked her up, and saw that she was a 19-year old freshman from Ball State. Even better.

So if there’s one thing that I hope you can come away with, its this: the next time you meet a guy named John Mark Karr or Chris Everett please don’t make the first joke that comes to your mind, and certainly don’t ask for evidence in disbelief. It’s just a fucking name.