Googlewhat?

If you typed the words “necrophiliacs” and
“scrunchies” into a Google search, they’d produce
a Googlewhack.

For the majority of the world, the term Googlewhack, which
refers to a Google search that yields one and only one result,
means absolutely nothing. But for comedian Dave Gorman,
Googlewhacking became an obsession that took him around the world
three times, led him to financial ruin, then ultimately became the
subject of a one-man show that has brought comedic acclaim from all
corners of the world.

Gorman’s genre has been labeled Documentary Comedy, namely
due to the fact that his whole act is a story, complete with a plot
and characters, that happens to be 100 percent true. Gorman
stumbled upon his knack for this genre by accident years ago while
performing a show called “Reasons to be Cheerful,”
based on an obscure song from 1979.

“The show was about analyzing if the reasons in this song
were actually good reasons to be cheerful,” Gorman said.
“And I found that the more I talked about the research that I
did in making the act instead of the song itself, the funnier it
got. So the show became the story of how I made the
show.”

However, when it comes to the “Googlewhack
Adventure,” his credibility is often difficult to swallow.
Naturally, one might find it hard to believe that a sane man would
ever spend eight weeks of his life flying thousands of miles for no
reason other than to track down people whose Web sites contained
Googlewhacks. But that’s exactly what Gorman did.

“My shows are completely truthful, and I prove it to you
with the slides,” Gorman said. “It is not possible to
leave my show and think that I could have made it up.”

It all started when Gorman received an e-mail informing him that
he “is a Googlewhack,” meaning that his Web site
happened to contain a Googlewhack in it. This fact eventually
entangled him in a bet which interrupted his current attempts at
becoming a first-time novelist.

“The novel was going to be about a man who could imagine a
color that didn’t exist,” Gorman said. “Since
this idea involves writing about something that doesn’t exist
and couldn’t be described, it didn’t exactly help to
begin writing it.”

Oddly enough, it was the idea of this novel that brought about
Gorman’s Googlewhack travels. With a large sum of advanced
money from his publishers burning in his pocket and a computer
empty of any chapters, rather than diligently attempt to work
through his writer’s block, Gorman fled the scene.

“It’s like when you are watching a show like Montel
and there is a young single mum in credit card debt and her answer
to the problem is to get another credit card,” Gorman said.
“Rather than get in touch with someone about the problem, I
let my quest for Googlewhacks seem that much more important. There
was a lot of panic involved. In a way I was having something of a
breakdown.”

However, even the most solemn aspects of the show do not
undermine the absurdity of a routine that allows audiences to
vicariously meet a man who collects pictures of old women with
dogs, as well as an eccentric creationist who lives in San
Diego.

“Since it is a true story, there is inevitably a moral
aspect to it,” Gorman said. “But some people see it as
a crazy story about a guy doing random stuff.

“For others, it is a story about how the world is smaller
and friendlier than we perceive it to be.”

Inadvertently, the popularity of Gorman’s show has led to
the popularity of Googlewhacking. Proved by the e-mails that Gorman
receives, audiences everywhere are going home and finding
themselves playing with Google in an entirely different way.

“It’s strange, because I don’t necessarily
recommend Googlewhacking,” Gorman said. “My act is a
tale of how I was a complete idiot and almost let this thing ruin
my life, and yet all these people then go home and start
Googlewhacking.”