On a recent trip to “internets”, I accidentally found myself in the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist. Of course I’ve never been there before, so I didn’t know what I was doing when I clicked one of the posts entitled “Hurley Look-alike – Bear Seeking Cub”, but what a stroke of luck for our dear TVZ readers! Turns out that this young man that posted a message seemingly looking to find friends with similar zoological tastes (again, I can’t stress this enough – to my wife – I’ve never been in the Casual Encounters/Men Seeking Men section of Craigslist) is not only a Hurley Hugo look-alike, but he is also a semi professional Hugo Hurley Impersonator! Through means I can’t detail (because I didn’t know what I was doing and I’ve never done anything like that before), I contacted him to hook up.

-For an exclusive TVZ interview.

Meet Douglas Pinkwelling. Semi-Professional Hugo Hurley Impersonator.

I arrived at Taco John’s to find Douglas working behind the counter, taking lunch orders. Sure enough, if I squinted – looked away – and looked back really fast while still squinting, he made for a pretty darn good Hurley. I waited for a few other people to place their orders, than made my way up to the counter. After he greeted me, I made the “finger-mustache” sign (the internationally recognized Craigslist Man Seeking Man motion of placing one’s finger horizontally under their nose, which I had only just learned about) to alert him to who I am. He let his manager know that he was going to take a break, and we headed to a vacant booth in the back of the restaurant.

Matty – Thanks for joining us, Douglas.

Douglas – Us? Dude, you didn’t say this was going to be a threeway.

M – Oh, no…I mean us as in myself and my readers. Remember, this is for the website I was telling you about?

D – Oh. Sure. You want to do the interview first? Whatever turns your crank.

M – Uh. Thank you. Okay, first of all, Douglas – how did you get into this line of work?

D – My brother-in-law is the manager. *motions to the man behind the register chewing on his fingernails and spitting them out*

M – I didn’t mean Taco John’s. I was referring to the Hurley impersonating.

D – Oh, um. I just kind of fell into it.

M – That seems like a pretty specialized thing to “fall into”.

D – Well yeah, kinda. I mean, it wasn’t easy, but I didn’t really have anything else going on.

M – So have you always looked like Hurley?

D – No, actually. That’s kinda what took the most work.

M – What do you mean by that?

D – Well, before I started doing this impersonation gig, I was in really good shape, so I didn’t exactly have the Hurley “shape”.

M – So you weren’t “fat?”

D – No. Not at all, actually. I was an Olympic gold winning triathlete.

M – Wow, I didn’t expect that. How did you gain all of that weight?

D – I guess that was the fun part, because I used to always be training for the Olympics, but now I can eat whatever I want. I’ve gained over 150 pounds, but I’m still probably not even half of what Hurley actually weighs.

M – So what kinds of foods did you eat? What was the most effective for getting that distinctive Hurley paunch.

D – I ate a lot of doughnuts. Deep fried cheesecakes. You gain a lot of weight if you dip everything in Ranch dressing, too. There’s a trade secret for you.

M – That can’t be good for you.

D – Definitely not. I have given myself a seriously debilitating case of diabetes. And I don’t know if it’s possible, but I think I gave myself Krohn’s disease, too. I mean, I shit A LOT.

M – Yes. I suppose one would expect that with this kind of diet.

D – It’s pretty expensive, too. I mean, I wish I could get by on just my Hurley gigs, but with the amount of food I’m eating I had to bump the Hurley-ing down to part time and get my job here at Taco John’s to fund it. But I worked out a pretty sweet deal where I took a $2.00 per hour wage cut with the condition that I can eat as many Potato Ole’s® as I want while I’m on the job. It’s pretty much the most fantastic situation I could imagine. Jealous much?

M – Indeed. So what do these “gigs” entail. Walk me through a typical Hurley impersonator job.

D – Well, I’ve got a few different acts goin’ right now. Probably my favorite one is where I’ll make a bunch of Others dummies out of hollow mannequins filled with meat and blood and then run over them with my VW Bus. I did that last week for a ten year old kid’s birthday.

M – What does something like that pay?

D – I got a hundred bucks for that one, but I guess I undercharged them quite a bit because I probably spent about seventy on the ground beef and pig blood. Plus the mannequins. And gassin’ up the bus. That shit’s four dollars a gallon now. I think it cost me about a thousand dollars. But I think it went over pretty awesome. The kid’s mom couldn’t give me the money fast enough. There was a lot of crying, so it was hard to hear her, but I’m pretty sure she said it was spectacular.

M – Wow. That does sound pretty…spectacular. You must be making quite a name for yourself.

D – For sure. Did you see the sign out front? I think my notoriety is really bringing in the business.

M – Oh. I thought that referred to the kid that played Walt also working here.

D – …What?

M – Yeah, right over there. Frying the Potato Ole’s®. Isn’t that Malcolm David Kelly? The actual actor that played Walt on Lost?

D – I…uh…

M – Well, for sure that’s him. That’s why the sign is clever. Remember, he was “Lil’ Saint” in the film You Got Served? I guess now that he’s just CG’d into the show he probably needed some supplementary income, too. Huh, now that I think about it, that’s pretty ironic that you guys both work here.

That pretty much concluded the interview, because after this he dashed into the parking lot, broke into a 1971 Camaro, and sped off. A few days later he checked himself into a mental clinic. I think he’s just trying to get deeper into character.

And for me, I guess it’s back to cruising the Craigslist Casual Encounters section for some more man on man…interviewing.

Ole!