According to Chris Hansen on the Dateline NBC special, “To Catch an Identity Thief”, all the information necessary to steal an individual’s identity can be had for as little as $5, which I became glaringly aware of based on a recent internet search of my name, Mike Selecky. 

It seems there’s another Mike Selecky living in Brookpark, Ohio, and he loves the steel guitar.  He doesn’t just like it, he loves it. Check for yourself. He’s everywhere, and he’s using my name! On Google alone he’s got 91 search results from all the embarrassingly ridiculous items he’s dropped my moniker upon.

Yet another example of my impostor’s dastardly deeds can be witnessed within his posting on geocities.com, “The first time I heard the sound of a steel guitar, I really didn't like it. I was just used to hearing more hard edged sounds.”

That’s real good, buddy! Go with your first instinct.

My bizzare world counterpart then goes on to say, “Soon though, I found myself checking the musician’s credits on records for pedal steel, and the sound started to grow on me.”

Stop it, dude, seriously. Get a girlfriend, a dog, anything. I’ll even buy you a dog. And don’t tell me this loony tune doesn’t know he’s smearing my international and professional reputation. The very first results page from the Google search has my accomplishments and his lumped together like salt and pepper in the mashed potatoes, and I think that’s how he likes it!

I didn’t even know what a steel guitar was until this happened.  Now that I do, my horror has only increased. Apparently, the steel guitar is this contraption you sit down at like you would a table in order to strum upon from a rested position in a horizontal fashion. It looks like a really goofy version of the Harp and is featured in the musical stylings of groups like, “Steely Dan”, in songs such as, “Godwhacker”.

Wee woo wee woo! Nerd Alert! Boooooop! Booooooop! Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!.

What my impostor fails to mention is that according to the internationally renowned news journal, “Mad Magazine”, every single member of “Steely Dan” meets up with Chuck Norris once every other year in Guadalajara to punch baby bald eagles in the face, and not for any other reason than the pure sport of it. Those bastards!

To give you another insight as to how thoroughly my identity is being stolen, let’s look at his offering to roughstock.com. “My name is Mike Selecky, I play steel in the Northeast Ohio area and saw your recent addition of tablature in COWPIE. I tabbed out three solos that might be of interest to your readers. I use a 12 string E9/B6th universal tuning, but the basic E9th copedant shown below is all that is needed. Have fun!”

Wee woo wee woo! Nerd Alert! Boooooop! Booooooop! Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!

Thank the lord this reign of terror ends when he does, because I think we just established that in no way, shape or form will this huckleberry of a hound ever come close to breeding.

In the movie, “The One”, Jet Li seeks to hunt down and kill variations of himself in alternate universes to absorb a common life force. So, if I was to eliminate my impostor, do I gain his powers? I’m afraid I would, and that’s not cool, man. I mean, I don’t want the blood from the punched up faces of all those baby bald eagles on my hands! Not again, anyway.

On the other hand, if he takes me out and gets his hands on my, “Worlds Greatest Lover”, keychain, that would only further his misrepresentation to an extent for which I just could not take responsibility. I know it’s a title I won by default because I was the only one competing but I was able to learn a valuable lesson that day: one really is the loneliest number.

I want my name back! When a celebrity is impersonated, they’re paid royalties for their likeness. And me, what do I get when some yahoo goes buckwild on the internet, slapping my name on junktime noisemakers like his current band, the “Gypsy Lite Orchestra”?

That’s it! Heed my call, impostor Mike Selecky! We need to nip this thing in the bud right now, before Chris Hansen catches you on one of those other “Dateline” shows he does and the name loses its value all together.