I am dead in Buffalo.
This week, The Buffalo News featured an obituary for Screamin’ Scott Simon, the great keyboard artist for the doo-wop group Sha Na Na. He died, at 75, in Ojai, Calif., of cancer.
However, the newspaper ran a photo of me.
I knew Screamin’ Scott Simon. I’m sure he would have been as amused as I was to see what his daughter, the writer Nina Simon, calls “this sad but comical mix-up.”
Scott and I enjoyed any occasional confusion. Scott said fans would come up to him at concerts to say, “You sure are a lot more ... serious … on Saturday morning!” A flight attendant once saw my name on my ticket and asked, “The Scott Simon?” When I said yes, they told me, “You are a monster onstage!”
I did not correct them. I enjoyed that they thought that I could be the man who performed "Splish Splash" from a bathtub. Maybe I’ll try that in our studio someday.
For all we read about how insults and trash talk score more likes and thumbs up on social media platforms than respect and friendliness, social media has made it possible for me to become friends with several people with whom I share our name.
There’s also professor Scott Simon at the University of Ottawa, an expert on the indigenous people of Taiwan.
And Scott Simons — why that superfluous S? — keyboardist on America’s Got Talent, and voice of the theme song “Paw Patrol! Paw Patrol!” Oh, sorry.
There’s Scott D. Simon, a lawyer who is commissioner of the Westchester Hebrew Softball League. I like the sound of Commissioner Simon.
Scott Simon of Fayetteville, Ark., is head of a foundation that runs the Nelms Dyslexia Center.
And just this week I shared a stage with Scott Simons, an architect who is designing new quarters for Maine Public, the home of public radio and TV in that state. He says he sometimes gets mail meant for me. I may get calls meant for him from Maine Public if their roof begins to leak.
I think we Scott Simons are charmed and even a little proud to have such an interesting assortment of people share our name, and are sad to see our mover and shaker, Screamin’ Scott Simon, leave the stage.
And if The Buffalo News ever prints an obituary for me, I hope that under my name they run a photo of Colin Firth.
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