User:WTMerkin/LarryPalooza

The LarryPalooza Tour
A tour by one Larry Lomax to meet all the other Larry Lomaxes

The LarryPalooza Tour was first conceived in Winter, 1995 by Larry Lomax, while he lived in Bozeman, Montana. Suffering from severe cabin fever (later diagnosed as Seasonal Affective Disorder) Lomax proposed to visit all the other Larry Lomaxes in the world. Poring through Internet telephone listings, he identified 37 apparently-unique Larry Lomaxes located throughout the United States.

His odyssey became known as The LarryPalooza Tour.

Sell-Out/Flame-Out
Lomax initially conceived of his Tour as an extended corporate-financed vacation, with wide-ranging television and print-media coverage. Hoping to pioneer the incipient Reality TV revolution, the self-promoting Lomax had promising (but eventually futile) discussions with Dateline NBC, was featured in a Swing Generation Magazine article, finagled a minor posting at CarTalk.com, and brazenly attempted to secure corporate advertising at every turn.

Ultimately, Lomax’s shamelessness in seeking corporate sponsorship for his Tour was matched only by his stunning lack of success. Despite possessing the ethics of a QVC huckster, Lomax could not convince even a single corporation to associate with his lamentably marginal quest.

The NASCAR-Palooza idea (multiple Larry Lomaxes in the pace car at Daytona) never gained traction; The Snapple “Paloo-zade” flavor never launched; both Ben and Jerry emphatically rejected the Larry-Berry-Palooza flavor; and even the hope of a sponsored ride in the decidedly down-scale 3-wheeled Lomax kit-carwas at best a pipe dream. Not surprisingly, the proposed LarryPalooza Edition of the Playstation Lemmings video game The Adventures of Lomax remained hopelessly mired in trademark-infringement negotiations.

The Tour Begins
Unsponsored but undaunted, Lomax finally hit the road in August, 1998. Accompanied only by Puck, the Official Dog of the Tour, Lomax covered over 14,000 miles during the ensuing two months. During that span, Puck and The Montana Larry (as he took to calling himself) visited a dozen Larry Lomaxes, including a Veterinarian (and Pathobiologist), a process server, a father-and-son set of Larrys (Woodbridge, VA) and the Christian Radio DJ "Larry Lomax" (not his real name). Lomax appeared in an on-air "Dueling Larrys" feature at Christian music station Spirit 105.3 as part of his visit.

During his travels, Lomax's web site generated tens of new fans, gaining momentum with each new Larry visit; through word of mouth (and Lomax's borderline spamming of friends and acquaintances), Lomax soon developed a fervent but insignificant following.

A further 9 Larrys were definitively identified but unwilling to meet.

Shortly after completing the North American segment of the Tour, Lomax moved to London, England and attempted to expand his Tour throughout Europe. While working on his The Book of the Tour, Lomax attempted to search phone listings to identify possible Larry Lomaxes in the region. However, European Union privacy laws hampered his efforts, as did the no-longer-surprising lack of corporate sponsorship interest.

Lomax did contemplate expanding his search to include “Lorenzo” (Italy, Spain, and possibly Portugal), “Laurent” (France), “Lykaios” (Greece) and “Lars” (Scandinavian countries).

Unable to find a publisher for his book, plagued by inertia and fatigue, and on an emotional rollercoaster following the birth of his son, Lomax permanently postponed the overseas segments of the Tour.

The Reunion Tour
In the years since the LarryPalooza Tour, there was sporadic talk of a Ten Year Reunion Tour with the original participating Larry Lomaxes (to be held in 2008). As yet, and ultimately still without corporate sponsorship, the Reunion Tour was stillborn.

Interest in the "LarryPalooza" name briefly resurfaced in 2002 when the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen TV program So Little Time aired an episode entitled "LarryPalooza" on March 16, 2002 on the ABC Family Channel. The title for the episode appears to have been directly lifted from Lomax's 1998 tour and web site, probably through an associate producer who had been working at NBC back during the Dateline NBC discussions with Lomax.

Other Name-Alike Projects
Other “name-alike” projects have surfaced in the intervening years, including the 2001 BBC Television series “The Dave Gorman Collection,” in which a Dave Gorman met 54 other Dave Gormans. Unlike the hapless Lomax, Dave Gorman enjoyed wide critical and economic success, subsequently parlaying his efforts into a book and Off-Broadway show, both entitled Are You Dave Gorman? (Ironically, Larry Lomax lived in London in 2001 and watched Dave Gorman on the telly, no doubt bitterly lamenting his own lack of success.)

Additionally, an article appeared in the short-lived San Francisco magazine Might, in which a Phillip G. Campbell staged the First Annual Phil Campbell Convention in Phil Campbell, Alabama in 1995. (Might was published by Dave Eggers and its history was chronicled in his book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.) 22 Phil Campbells (plus one Phyllis Campbell) attended, though the Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell did not.