A couple of weeks ago I described myself as 'entirely self-obsessed', well, get this then! I am about to take that self-obsession to the next level.
Last year sometime I decided to search for my name on google, as everybody has at some point I presume, and there were loads of results. Tom Sadlers everywhere. Like a rash. All over the internet.
This interested me for all of about an hour, as I clicked on all the links and photos to see what all of my namesakes were up to. There were photographers, businessmen, a basketball player, a conservation and fishing expert, a comedian. Loads. And these were just the people who were on google - I guess the more successful ones. There must be thousands of them out there! Or at least hundreds. Maybe tens.
Anyway, forgot about that for a while, until a few weeks ago, when I decided to befriend the conservation and fishing expert Tom Sadler on facebook. He's great! I get constant updates on my newsfeed about wildlife conservation and good places to go fishing. Not that I'm massively interested in fishing, and it almost strikes me that fishing isn't massively helpful to conserving fish - but I guess he's the expert.
If anything, I quite like that too. The contradiction in the man. Something I can identify with. The fight between good and evil. A bit like Darth Vader. I mean, he wants desperately to help conserve the fish, because he loves them, but equally he can't help himself but to go fishing, because he loves fishing. That's Tom Sadler, by the way, if you haven't seen Star Wars, not Darth Vader. Those films may have been less exciting if instead of the balance between the the good and the dark side of the force, it was more a moral struggle between liking fish but also wanting to catch them. But maybe a 'Fish vs. Fishing' film is just the original idea that cinema needs. If it is then I'm sure Tom Sadler would love to play the lead.
Tom lives in a place called Verona, in Virginia, in the good old U.S. of A. He is married, sorry girls, and from the look of the photo looks like he is probably somewhere in his mid to late fifties. His profile titles him as a 'key grip and trout wrangler in 'The Middle River Group'' - as far as I can make out some kind of official body that provides expertise in conservation and fishing projects.
In another source I read on the internet, Tom is described as "Playing Doc Holiday to the Wyatt Earps of the fish and wildlife conservation world". Which I love! I mean, wow! What a reputation! This is one impressive man. I am entirely proud to share a name with him. Haven't actually managed to pluck up the courage to message him yet, but I kind of want to. Not sure what to say though;
'Hello, I'm from England and have the same name as you. I don't really like fishing but totally dig conservation. I like you. Goodbye'.
Probably not. But it's nice to finally have become friends with myself, if only on facebook. Although, I suppose he did actually accept my 'friend request', so there must have been part of him that saw this, let out a short, but uncontrollable snigger and thought 'Ha, another Tom Sadler wants to be friends with me! I shall accept his request'. That's probably what happened, but in a broad Virginia accent.
If you want to see a picture of him, check out this link (not sure how copyright laws work exactly, so thought it best not to post a picture of him on here, plus he's my friend now so I wouldn't want to offend him);
https://plus.google.com/117955064299281017666/posts
Anyway, not wanting to sound too Dave Gorman-y (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Are-Dave-Gorman-Danny-Wallace/dp/0091884713/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1326827344&sr=8-4) - not that I have a problem with stealing other people's ideas, I am a folk musician after all - I actually quite enjoyed this almost-meeting with another one of me, so maybe this could be the start of a new project. A 'see how many other Tom Sadlers I can become friends with on facebook' kind of thing. I'll have a search tonight.
Howdy Tom! I am entirely proud to share the name with you as well! Now you don't have to worry about messaging me.
ReplyDeleteI was happy to accept your friend request, we tom sadler's need to stick together. No snigger and no Virginia accent either, I was born and raised in New Hampshire and the natives won't let me forget it. Something about the unpleasantness some 100 plus years back...
It is quite interesting that you picked up on the fishing thing. The short story is here in the US a lot of conservation work is done and paid for by fishers. So the fishing and conservation are tied pretty closely together.
The catching of fish is really a small part for many of us. It is the going that is more important than the catching.
I think I will write a blog post about my new friend the folk musician tom sadler rather than clog up you comment box.
your friend tom