Paul Newman, Dead at 83

This may seem like a funny way to start out an article about Paul Newman, but growing up I always liked Steve McQueen better. I loved Steve McQueen in movies such as The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, and I thought that Paul Newman was, frankly, boring.

There is an old saying, though, and it goes like this: "If you are young and not a liberal, then you have no heart, but if you are older and still a liberal, then you have no brain." The quote is paraphrased a lot, and mangled, and it has been attributed to Winston Churchill, but the fact of the matter is this: this quote applies to Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.

Steve McQueen was cool when I was growing up. It was great to see him shooting bad guys in The Magnificent Seven, or racing around San Francisco in Bullitt. As I got older, I realized that, while those Steve McQueen movies were great, Paul Newman's movies were of a higher quality.

The Magnificent Seven is my favorite western of all time, and my second favorite movie of all time, but Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a far superior product. It has shootouts, and one of the most famous last stands in movie history, but it is also thought provoking, bringing up subjects such as time, age, and obsolescence. And the impact that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had on popular culture is much greater. Robert Redford named a film festival and a ski resort after the Sundance Kid, and Paul Newman named his charity, the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp after the gang in the movie.

Do I hate Steve McQueen now that I am an adult? Absolutely not. But the days of me dreading when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was shown on television are over; I appreciate the movie, and its actors, more than ever. Especially Paul Newman.

Paul Newman was a great actor, one who never sold out, one who maintained a high quality product, and one who always remained active in the community and in society. And he will be missed.

Check out Paul Newman's charity, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a residential camp in Connecticut for children suffering from serious illnesses: http://www.holeinthewallgang.org/

Will Smith's Comment

Celebrities make me sick.

(You may think I am going one way with this, but just stick around...)

They are over-privileged. They are overpaid. And they are overrated. They flaunt their money and turn that money into power. They think that they can do no wrong. They think they are above the law. They think that they are gods.

And the populace has put them there. JFLY is not a highly paid celebrity because no one would even consider buying a JFLY t-shirt or seeing a JFLY movie. We have made these celebrities the new gods because we continue to idolize them by flocking to see their movies, purchasing their jerseys, and gossiping about the latest dirt spilled on those worthless early evening Hollywood TV shows.

Do some celebrities not suck? Yes. Do some of them do good in our society? Yes. I would love to shake Bono's hand for his work. And I would love to tell Oprah that she is an inspiration. But that's all any celebrity is getting from me; no autograph requests, just a handshake and a kind word - when it is deserved.

That is not often, by the way, but here is a nice blog that shows some of the good work that celebrities do: http://celebrity-do-gooders.blogspot.com/

Now that I have bashed the new gods, let me even out the scales. Celebrity does have its disadvantages. The most obvious one is privacy. Watch those garbage Hollywood TV gossip shows for more of that crap. Another is that even though those same celebrities are worshiped by the sheep of this world, they will be torn apart by those same sheep when something bad happens. Real or perceived.

Take Will Smith. Does Will Smith suck? I think not. But he is a celebrity and recently he was targeted by some vicious gossip journalists for something that he said. Allow me to reprint that quote, thanks to CNN.com:

"Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think that he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good'."

What Will Smith said was anti-Hitler. That is plainly obvious to me.

Okay, now here is where the stupid comes in...

The sheep out there in the world hear the word "Hitler" come out of somebody's mouth and think one of two things: 1) That was obviously anti-Hitler, so I like that person, or 2) That was not obviously anti-Hitler, so that person must be a secret Nazi.

The press knows that there are only two boxes in which to place a "Hitler" comment. They play on that. And they targeted Will Smith because they knew the stupid sheep would not be able to place such an intelligently phrased statement into box #1. The gossip press does not care. They will tarnish the good name of anyone to get a story. And when that story has played itself out, they will move on to another story. However, that person's image will still remain tarnished.

Will Smith issued a statement that pointed out the heinous disregard that the gossip press had for the context in which he issued his original comment. Part of that statement can be read on CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/25/people.willsmith.ap/index.html).

Will Smith, if you read this then know that the majority of the intelligent people out in the world realize what you were trying to say. Allow me to paraphrase it:

Adolph Hitler did not get up every morning and rub his hands together like a vaudeville villain. He did not try to think of new and interesting ways to do evil just because it is evil. Adolph Hitler did do some of the most horrible things this Earth has seen, and he did them because he though that what he was doing was right. That is the real horror of Adolph Hitler; in his own mind, he was doing good. In reality, he was bringing Hell to Earth.

How's that? What box do I fall into, huh?

Will Smith, you're alright in my book. And I would shake your hand if I ever met you.

And gossip press? If you are listening, then hear this: Hollywood is crawling with filthy, disgusting scum; pick on them! Leave out the folks who are trying to do the right thing. Focus on the scumbag drunk driving debutantes or the scumbag abusing athletes. Goodness knows that there are plenty of them out there! When you take comments out of context just because they have key buzzwords in them, then you are worse scum than the worst celebrity.