A guy with the same goofy shrug and simian ears as President George W. Bush is telling a story.

“The lady just had to have her picture with W and Ozzie Osborne in front of this shop in Vegas,” he says, leaning in. “But didn’t have anyone to take it. I said, ‘Just have Bill Clinton take it,’ and he did.”

It’s a sequence that seems to belong in a bizarre parallel universe, and it does—in the dimension called celebrity impersonation. “W” is Kevin Klein, 48-year-old Carmel Valley native and the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s lead electrician. (His friends Ozzie and Bill are impersonator pals from Grass Valley and Fresno, respectively; he spent most of his time at a 2003 impersonator convention in Vegas with them.)

While Klein’s stories are surreal, so are the eerie similarities he shares with the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“‘Uncanny’ is a word that I get a lot,” Klein says.

“It’s the furrowed brow,” says Ray Isaacs, who works with Klein at the Aquarium and has also collaborated with him on an amateur short film. “And the lack of intelligence, the pained expression.”

It’s more than just looks. When he talks, his rancher twang—Klein lives on a ranch with his wife and three kids in Cachagua—sounds almost Texan, especially when he “turns it up.” And as he squints his blue eyes and grins awkwardly, it’s almost instinctive to search for Dick Cheney lurking nearby.

“I met a good friend of Bush’s who had flown in from Texas and was at a big Italian birthday party at the Wharf.” Klein says, “He told me, ‘You’re doing a great job of George.’”

Klein says the advertising exec who signed him to his first impersonator contract (after seeing Klein at a Yosemite snow play area) agreed. “He was blown away,” says Klein. “He also knew Bush and told me, ‘You have the same mannerisms.’” But it was Klein’s now-15-year-old daughter who originally suggested his second identity.

“We were watching [President Bush] on TV and my daughter Christina said, ‘You look like W.’ It had been noticed by other friends, but with her encouragement I went as W on Halloween. Then the discovery came with the agent that I could turn this into something real.”

• • •

Becoming a professional impersonator has led to some amazing experiences and equally entertaining anecdotes.

Klein starred at BET’s 2005 Comedy Awards in the opening sketch opposite Ken Harvey, in which Klein’s Bush was brought before a Roman court headed by Emperor Harvey and beaten by a 350-pound black woman called “Katrina” as punishment for the way he treated black people in the wake of the hurricane.

“It’s been so much fun—that’s been the highlight,” Klein says. “It’s been a whole other world.”

He shuffles through pictures of himself next to Ozzie and a Howard Stern look-alike, then Harvey. “Everybody wants a picture with George W,” he says. “whether you agree with his politics or not.”

Klein has also made appearances at local Republican events, like the annual Red White and Blue Barbecue at Toro Regional Park—where he gave an impromptu speech about freedom that drew upon themes from his childhood in a military family—and a party for State Senator Abel Maldonado.

“Abel hired me and I met people and took pictures with them at the barbecue,” he says. “[A look-alike] Bo Derek was also there. She gave a speech and then I did.”

Not all incidents have been so positive, however. “Once a skinhead approached me at a local pub,” Klein recalls, “and said, ‘You’re that guy that does Bush. You’re lucky you’re not dressed like him today or I’d put your head in the toilet.’ Luckily I was surrounded by a group of my Carmel Valley friends.”

Recently, Klein’s been recruited to star in a 75-minute feature called George Bush Goes to Heaven, a piece his producer hopes to show at the Cannes Film Festival. The political comedy is due out later this month.

Klein clearly enjoys the projects, parties and paychecks, but he still says he lives to make river otters warm with just the right lighting at the Aquarium (his current focus there) and to spend as much time as possible with his family. He practices his W shtick with his daughter Christina frequently, and always checks in before his gigs.

He nailed the look during a recent check-in. “I walked out to get her approval and she said, ‘Kevin, I’m eating,’” Klein says. “‘You look great, but I’m eating.’”

Klein’s familiar with that sensitivity to his alter ego. “There’s one thing I have learned in this business,” he says. “I don’t discuss politics when I’m working. I’m not sure George does either.”

For more information about George Bush Goes to Heaven, visit Hbfilmworks.com. Kevin A. Klein can be reached at rentabush@yahoo.com.