Digital Cowboy

Take a quick look at this and then tell me:

1) Is there a penis in that room?

and

2a) Do you have any clue who either of these self-important twits actually is or about anything they’ve ever done? (Without using Google, cheaters!)

2b) Even if you happen to know, do you care?

Incidentally, just as I was about to hit the “publish” button, I realized that I inadvertently misled you with the title of this post. These are rhetorical questions and I don’t really care what you think. In fact, I only brought it up because I stumbled across it accidentally and it played in to the thinking I’ve been doing lately about the utter bass-ackwards-ness of the world.

Until a few minutes ago, Jessica Simpson was my poster child for unearned money and Nick Lachey was the whore sellin’ it cheap for the easy life on somebody else’s dime.

But then I ran across yet another news story about yet another dumb broad suing David Letterman. She got a restraining order against him. A restraining order!

Against Dave Letterman. Uh-huh. He is pretty scary. He throws pencils and is blessed with a positively biting wit. (If you were smart enough to not be stalking him, you might even call it “acerbic.”)

On a note more related than it looks, the tamest headline on Drudge today is, “MOST AMERICANS WANT ALITO…” (I’ve never quite understood why he’s always yelling and is obsessed with the ellipsis, but I’ve been told I’m a drunk and a porn addict. So who am I to point fingers?)

This isn’t as rambling and disjointed as it seems. Drudge also told me that Barbara Wa-Wa pulled a 16 share last night with her special in which she coddled and laughed with a failed terrorist while making insane claims about evangelical Christians.

“All Jews must die and, of course they all will go to hell to be burned forever” is just a differing ideology, after all. We can inter-splice that in editing with an Iman saying that none of that is in the Koran and he doesn’t represent “mainstream” Muslims.

But “evangelical American Christians” all follow men. They’re also judgmental and the worst of their sins… They elected George W. Bush twice. As near as I can tell from the program, they did it all by themselves.

But I probably was too harsh on Merrill. She’s not evil, just silly.

I’m watching a movie that I’ve seen only once before. I paused it to come do a post here because the first time I saw this movie was a long time ago when I was far too young and “inexperienced” to get it. Now, all these years later, I’m only ten or fifteen minutes into it and I’ve already got at least 6 or 8 quotable lines and a promising night of movie entertainment.

I’m not gonna tell you what it is. I’m really interested to find out if anyone can name it from a line or five.

“If you want me to investigate your father’s death, I get ten dollars a day. Plus expenses.”

“Will two hundred dollars be enough in advance, Mr. Reardon?”

“Two hundred, I’ll shoot my grandmother.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Never can tell. Last case, I had to throw my own brother out of an airplane. The poor sap. Where’d your father keep his papers and correspondence?”

That was only one of many and, as I said, I’m only a few minutes in. It works both ways, ya know… Genius is as genius does.

Some times you’re the ball and some times you’re the bat. A few days ago, I couldn’t lose and the last couple, I can’t win.

I’ve also noticed that some people don’t have the stomach for gambling.

I love them, too. Quitters never win and winners never quit.

.. I’ll tell the story.

I worked for a guy a few years ago that had a 365 Daytona just like Crockett’s except it wasn’t a Spyder. Same color, same tan leather inside and even the same wheels. It just had a hard top. I haven’t looked recently, but back then it was worth about $300k and his had only around 22,000 miles on it. (It’s probably only worth a third of that now. That was in the early 90’s when the collector car market was foolishly out of control. I think they were trying to show the dot-com folks how hysteria should be done.)

I was selling Saabs and BMWs at one of his car dealerships and when he pulled up outside the store in it one day, I was the only one that even knew what it was. (One of the silly chicks even said, “With all that money, he’s driving an old Corvette?”) I nearly came in my pants and after I finished drooling on myself I asked him if it was legit. He said, “Sure. Do you know what it is?” I stuttered and stammered and then said, “Of course I do! Who doesn’t?”

He laughed, put one arm around me as he waved with the other and replied, “Everyone else here. I like you, son. I never have figured out how people can make a living in the car business when they don’t even care about cars. That’s probably why we’re losing a million a month here. Maybe you can help me turn it around. Walk and talk with me.”

Anyway, he drove it regularly. I admired that. Of course, he was worth a couple hundred million dollars and the 365 was only one of the cars in his collection of about 200 or so. He owned an old hangar that he called his “toy box,” where he stored his cars. While we were talking that day, I asked him, “Are the stories I’ve heard about your ‘toy box’ true?” He chuckled and said, “Probably, but I don’t know what you’ve heard. Would you like to see it some time?”

Incidentally, he was also one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. As Malcolm Forbes once said, “Contrary to the cliche, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it.”

Guys like me dream of someday owning a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. He had at least a dozen of each and also knew Enzo.

Try that on for size.

The writing on “Miami Vice” was quite gay.

In fact, maybe Philip Michael Thomas isn’t so bad after all. Maybe he was just saddled with bad lines. I mean, you can’t say things like…

“I hate machine guns! When I get shot at by a .30 caliber, M-60 machine gun, I get scared! And when I get scared, I get angry! I will not calm down! Machine guns effect my ability to perform and I don’t like that!”

… and then expect to hold your own on-screen next to hot women and hotter guns and Ferraris and one of the sexiest men that ever worked in Hollywood.

The directing made up for the bad writing, though. That’s easily the prettiest TV show ever made. As TV Land recently said it on “Pastelevision”: “The best episodes, the hottest guest stars and the finest cotton separates.”

(I linked that for you, Dif, because I missed your “Best of” post and that one was as much fun as I think I’ve ever had with this blogging nonsense. But my best would easily be The real gospel. I didn’t write it myself. I was just privileged to type it and it’s been the source of some controversy, so it must be right. I’ll never back down from it, either.)