I have a good friend whose name is Michael Cohen.

[NNadir]

Wonderful guy, very intelligent, very liberal, a good and supportive friend, but I haven't been in touch with him for a few years.

I called him up this week to make fun of him and his name.

Those of us who have common names that are shared with famous people take a certain amount of crap about it. I've had it my whole life, and it was nice to kid him about it.

Of course, as I know full well, people making jokes about you sharing a name with a famous person always think they're being original and funny and of course, you've heard those jokes 10,000 times, and I'm sure he's going through that, but having been a victim myself, I just couldn't restrain myself.

I try to have a good nature about it, and so did he.

At least the person(s) with whom I share a name aren't going to prison for helping a racist criminal into the White House.

If this state of affairs is a tragedy for our country and the world, a small silver lining for me was to connect with an old friend with whom I needed to be in touch.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Like "Michael Bolton" in "Office Space."

[yonder]

3. It's off topic,

but I forgot how fun that movie is. We'll try to watch it again tonight. Thanks for the refresher.

[NNadir]

5. Yep, exactly.

At least my name isn't Donald Trump.

[sdfernando]

2. No one famous but my name is a hit song

took a lot of razzing for that when I was younger.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. My name is not all that common

but it caused me some trouble once. My wife & three kids were checking into a hotel about 50 miles from our.home, and the desk clerk gave me a funny look when I gave my name. A few minutes later as we were settling into our room, a knock at the door announced the presence of rwo sheriff's deputies. They asked for my ID and once that was cleared up, told me that their former boss had the same name and that he'd been arrested for drug trafficking - among other activities. Thirty years later, I still remember that incident when checking into a hotel.

[NNadir]

7. Well, my name is so common that I was once on a business trip...

...and I was given the key to a room which I entered throwing my bags in - I was dead tired from traveling, only to find a man and his wife in the bed making love.

He shared my name apparently, and the clerk made a mistake. It was awkward as hell, but after everything, everybody kind of laughed albeit with some embarrassment.

I got profuse apologies from the Hotel, as did the person sharing my name and his wife.

I gave my kids my wife's last name because of lots of stuff like that, people in my seat on planes, people I didn't know calling me up.

When I bought my house I had to sign page after page after page of "I'm not that guy..."

Some of these guys were in prison, some were embezzlers, and god knows what else.