Me Vs. Not Me

As I type this page, I am near to shopping around a new novel and I want to address a topic I’ve mentioned on twitter a few times before.

Please be careful when Googling my name.

I have one of the most generic first names in the English language, and while my last name is not common (I can trace every Douton I’ve heard of to me, even the Argentina branch), there are other Michael Doutons.

There are three of us. The problem with putting my name into google is one of them is a multiple felon. Bonus points because we’re both from the same home town. Quite annoyingly for me, the state of Connecticut’s judiciary website, nor the Norwich Bulletin, nor the New London Day ever put his middle initial in the records.

I am Michael F Douton (just go with Mike though)

He is Michael S Douton Jr

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This is a problem I’ve been dealing with since I was a little kid. Not Me is eight or nine years older than me. Back in the early 90s the town police pounded on my door at 2am and woke up my mom saying “We’re looking for your son for stealing cars” and they wouldn’t hear anything until she brought me downstairs and was all “He’s eight. Go away.”

In high school I had some burnout try to buy heroin off me thinking I was him. I almost got denied a job because the hiring manager knew Not Me but I had a friend working there who told him I was a different person.

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I have always signed everything with my middle initial thanks to him. His arrest records aren’t even good ones. One arrest for a bad check, the story goes it was for a puppy. That google result for the repaving scam? Yeah, he ripped off the first selectman of town and apparently was surprised that this led to bad consequences, like people finding out he didn’t legally have a contractor’s license. Bonus points, it was a parole violation.

Fortunately, I moved to a different state, but it’s still a headache I wish I did not have to deal with. I really do not want to publish under a pseudonym.

I did make sure my kids don’t share names with anyone sketchy.

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