Whatever your "dream job" might be, it's a fact of life that if you ever achieved such a position for yourself it might not be as dreamy as you think. Take, for example, the story of Thaddeus Kalinoski, the middle-aged divorcee who stumbled upon his own personal cottage industry of impersonating Alan Garner, the character played by Zach Galifianakis in the Hangover movies. After making as much as $250,000 per year for personal appearances in Las Vegas, the former (and perhaps future) restaurant manager recently told The Sun that he had to walk away from his seemingly carefree life due to a "real life Hangover" that was taking a serious toll on his health and well-being.
As the story goes, Kalinoski's transformation into some kind of nocturnal were-Alan began in 2009, when he lost both his job and his wife in a short, terrible span of time. A couple of years later he found himself 20 pounds heavier and in Las Vegas, where he intended to "party his pain away." Instead, he discovered a curious fact: He looked a lot like Zach Galifinakis, and Vegas partiers were so delighted by this fact that they were willing to pay for the privilege of being photographed (and more) with him. Before he knew it, he was making hundreds of dollars a night in appearance fees – and that wasn't the only perk to his new career:
"The women were my favourite part, if I'm being truly honest. I've seen my fair share of breasts, some ladies have even shown them as a tip or they've let me grab onto them. I've made out with some total strangers in elevators and they think no one's watching but there's always security cameras there. I've had women giving me a tip in my pocket and grabbing hold of my junk. Being a single man, it wasn't too bad."
His fame continued to grow, even to the point of being flown to the set of The Hangover III to meet the cast (as well as his own doppelganger). It didn't take long for certain hazards associated with a career as a professional partier to present themselves, however:
"Playing Alan, everyone expects you to party, everyone expects you to drink. Whatever they have, and whatever is they want you to do for a tip, you better do it. People would give me full bottles of liquor before they hopped on their flights. I remember one night this caused me to blackout, falling into broken glass bottles, getting sliced open and I was robbed."
Unlike so many chubby veterans of the party wars before him, Kalinoski was able to pull himself back from the brink, thanks in part to an intervention by his mother. And so, he said goodbye to the glitz and the glamour of pretending to be a fictional character and went back to his hometown of Philadelphia, PA, where he now resides. If they ever make a Hangover IV, though, he might be in a little bit of trouble once again.
