My Time as a Disgraced Delaware Mayor

The Week in Selfies: 2/15/21 - 2/21/21

Feb 19, 2023

Tom Sherry. Krem 2 News. He never aged but he did recently retire.

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I don’t like to Google myself. I am actually afraid of what I might find. There isn’t necessarily anything to find but, for some reason, I still fear the depths of the internet. Plus, if you are looking for me, you might find a couple of actors and at least one therapist with the same name. Well, I guess…if I want to look into being a different Samantha Cooper, there are some options.

I do, however, have some Google alerts set up for myself. Most of them are for my specific play titles but I have a couple set up for variations on my name. If I win some award I am unaware of or become famous for some reason, I would like to know about it. Which is why I let Google do the work of Googling myself for me.

These Google alerts are how I know when Samantha Coopers die or are left behind, when they are on the honor roll, when they have run-ins with the law. It’s also how I found out that Sam Cooper Boulevard in Memphis, Tennessee is, what seems to be, a very dangerous urban highway. There are so many accidents on this highway every week. What is going on there? Someone needs to like, do some better urban planning I think.

As a side note, my Google alert for my play Invincible Ones is how I know that the show Invincible exists. I have never watched it, nor do I have a desire to. But if you watch it, let me know what you think? It’s certainly doing better than my play is so maybe I should take some tips?

The one time I spent a decent amount of time Googling “Sam Cooper” was for the weekly happy hour on February 19, 2021. The theme was to be someone with our name…or something along those lines. And after much Googling, I decided to take on the persona of Sam Cooper, the disgraced former mayor of Rehoboth, Delaware.

As a Sam Cooper scandal, it’s not actually that interesting although this article will give you a good overview. Basically, Rehoboth is a summer destination because of the beach which, of course, means a huge influx of weekend tourists and partiers. And with that, also of course, it means a lot of Air BnBs were springing up. Concerned about the number of residences being turned into or built as temporary rentals, Mr. Mayor Sam Cooper and the town council (or whatever local politicians) tried to pass an ordinance in 2015 that even if a rented house had a pool, those renting the house could not use that pool.

I have so many questions about this ordinance: How would you enforce it? Would such an ordinance deter a lot of tourists and thus, I assume, affect your local summer economy? Do you really really think you could stop drunk beach partiers from going into a pool in their rented abode? (The answer to that last one is unequivocally no.)

Many other people may have had the same sort of questions because trying to pass the ordinance did not go well. I can’t remember if the ordinance did eventually pass but the mayor got kicked to the curb. In 2017, Sam Cooper lost his bid for reelection. Another quick Google tells me that the current mayor of Rehoboth is a man named Stan Mills. He doesn’t look like that different of a man from Sam Cooper so, maybe it’s actually Sam Cooper in disguise.

All this is to say that sometimes, Googling yourself (hee hee) will bring you to a mundane local feud and a fantastic costume idea for a happy hour that you absolutely kill. Exhibit A:

And pro tip: baby powder isn’t just for baby’s butts. It’s a great way to give yourself gray hair. You know, if all the stuff in the world isn’t giving you grays fast enough.

Monday, February 15, 2021