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You can now visit me on facebook at,
facebook.com/worldsdumbestman
Facebook must have repeated (when I chose “worldsdumbestman” as my URL) that I can NOT change it and that it would be permanent five or six times- like a parent talking to a kid who wants to buy yellow shoes.
Years ago, when I chose WorldsDumbestMan.com as my website, I thought it was a great idea. SeanFlannery.com was not available and WorldsDumbestMan.com, I thought, was a funny alternative that is both easy to remember and easy to spell.
It has, in truth, been a disaster:
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• Re-enactment of Every Conversation I’ve had about My Website •
comedy fan: “Hey man, I keep checking-out your website but it never works?”
me: “really- I don’t know of any problems.”
comedy fan: “Yeah- stupidestManInTheUniverse.com, right?”
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You would be amazed at the number of incorrect combinations people have created, trying to remember my website:
- “GalaxysBiggestIdiot.com”
- “DumbestManInSpace.com”
and (my favorite): “HistorysFirstMoron.com”
Occasionally, I think people are not even trying to remember the website and, instead, are just sharing their negative image of me. Why else would I hear, “WorldsBiggestDrunk.com” or “WorldsMostUnreliableEmployee.com”?
– II –
No matter how many times a comedy fan forgets me because of my website, its address will still be worth it from an incident that happened nearly ten years
ago. At the time, I was not even in standup and was, instead, just using WorldsDumbestMan.com to post letters to friends (you can still read a few of them here). Each letter was a raucous story about drinking, being thrown out of classes, fired
from jobs- all the stuff you do in your early 20s (or at least I did). At the same time,
there was a different Sean Flannery who wrote highly technical spy novels. In fact, they were
beyond technical from what I have heard- for people that find Tom Clancy too approachable.
One week –just after I graduated from college– he (the other Sean Flannery) was on Oprah and about a dozen or so of his
fans found my website and read my letters, thinking I was one of the world’s leading experts on
military threats. The front page of my website –at the time– had a letter where I talk
about getting drunk on beer foam at a party because the keg’s tap was broke (I was the only
person drinking, yet I kept yelling “house beer”). At the end of the letter, I mention, passingly,
that I was being audited by the IRS because I forgot that a seventh employer had fired me that
year and, due to the oversight, failed to file a W2 for that six hour shift.
The emails from his fans were HILARIOUS and, to this day, make every
mistake about the website worth it.
• Re-enactment of Every
Email I’ve received from •
fans of Espionage Novelist Sean Flannery
“WOW. You are a lot different than I imagined. I never pictured a former cryptographer having
this much fun! I can’t believe you stole your
car out of an impound lot. Did your friend realize that he’s helping one of the world’s leading
writers on tribal warfare steal his car back?
I always assumed that military experts are straight laced. Yet here
you are, a philosophy major (which I didn’t know) who was thrown out of art school!
Now,
are you worried about the government reading these stories? Don’t they still pay you
for consulting? I know, for example, I have a nephew who makes maps for the Air Force and,
because he sees where classified bases are, he’s not allowed to get black-out drunk,
where he forgets what he did the night before (like you do, in some of these stories). I’d
watch what you put up here.
Thanks for writing so many interesting books. I love spy novels and your’s are, by far,
the best! It was nice to see you on Oprah and I can’t wait for the next book.
Oh, and
good luck with the IRS audit!”
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– Endnotes –
The real Sean Flannery (to spy fans… …and a man who does NOT look
like he drinks beer foam out of a broken, thirty dollar keg):
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August 24th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
fantastic stache