A Naked Post

Tah-dah!

Brand new layout. Entirely coded by yours truly. Yep. No other. I didn't just browse through the blogger templates and pick the most tasteful one. Nope. Never happened. I'm an html whiz.

Anyway, let's test the old adage "All that glitters is not gold" by seeing if this new, shiny, glittery blog will now have posts of solid gold (not bloody likely).

Speaking of Au, today's extremely solvable mystery comes from the very elemental core of our human being-ness. What is it about our wild psyche, assaulted, as it is, by a constant barrage of odd quirks of society, internet fads and ugly, ugly people, what is it that makes us find the concept of a naked man in a cowboy hat playing a guitar so goddamn appealing?

I'm talking, of course, about the one-and-only Naked Cowboy of New York City.

For those of you who have never heard of him, which would require that you have never been to New York City, and therefore are probably reading this on Windows 2.1 on Mosaic Netscape with a tractor motor powering your CPU, and therefore you're probably still stuck on the word "psyche", thus making it pointless to give you background. However, let it not be said that I discriminate...especially since I have no readers...

The Naked Cowboy is an icon in Times Square and has appeared in New Orleans during Mardi Gras as well. But he is mainly a fixture of Times Square. What he does is go out in a hat and underwear playing a guitar and taking pictures with frisky old women. It's a neat gimmick and has brought him pseudo-fame.

Pseudo-fame being defined by the following conversation:
A: I went to Times Square the other day.
B: Oh? Did you see the Naked Cowboy?
A: No.
B: Oh. Did you spend your week's pay on dinner?
A: Of course. It's Times Square.

Now, I don't know about you, but I feel his outfit doesn't make sense. I mean, wrangling cattle in your undies just doesn't seem practical. What cowboys nowadays are cowboy jeans or other stiff pants with a smooth inside seam to prevent blisters. Over that they wear chaps, which are kind of like leather armor, they just cover the legs to protect from brush that might scratch a lonely cowboy up. Just wearing underwear? There's no way I'd hire him for my ranch.

The singing cowboy is another of those Hollywood-brand skewings of real life. John Wayne was at the forefront of this, with the 1933 film Riders of Destiny. But, and this is kinda funny, he had a crappy voice, so all his singing had to be dubbed over.

However, if Hollywood is good at one thing, it's finding the cheapest way to achieve the desired result. This took the form of finding a guy who could not only be a big, rough-and-tumble cowboy, but also sing like a sweet little angel.

Enter (through swinging tavern doors, of course) Gene Autry. Gene Autry is usually the one referred to with the name "the singing cowboy". Of course, as popular as he was, when he walked out of his contract in 1937 temporarily, he returned to find that his chaps were being filled by another man. This man was Leonard Slye. You might know him better as Roy Rogers, the KING of Cowboys.

They glared at eachother across the wasteland of key grips and makeup artists, while tumbleweeds of mediocrity rolled quietly across the studio plains.

Roy Rogers obviously won. Cause his burgers are just so damn delicious.

So the Naked Cowboy, seeing this tradition, stripped it of its dignity (AND CLOTHES) and now sings for nickels, whoring his tan, smooth body with its rippling muscles and....

I'm sorry, I forgot what I was saying.

So the Naked Cowboy pays tribute to this tradition and would never claim that he was the progenitor of it...

Oh.

Wait.

(Side note: The title of that article is "Candy Man Can't". I'm torn between fits of laughter and fits of anger that the person who came up with THAT title is a professional journalist and I'm just a lowly shmoe writing a blog for chimps...I mean...an intelligent, discerning audience)

Apparently, Mars Inc. decided to take the Naked Cowboy's impractical approach to cattle ranching one step further. It made a candy coated piece of chocolate responsible for the welfare of hundreds of cattle. It's just irresponsible.

A blue M&M appears on a screen in Times Square along with a series of other M&Ms with other city icons. The Naked Cowboy was at first appreciative of this tip-of-the-hat, but soon realized that he could be making lots of money by suing...I mean, soon realized that his brilliant (and original) idea of running around singing like a drunken cowboy in his underwear was being made to look silly.

The Cowboy is indignant, "I'm huge now, but I represent the little guy!" He exclaimed, right before demanding 6 million dollars from the candy giant.

We need more naked cowboys representing the little people of the world.

So, in conclusion...

I forgot what point I was trying to make.

Oh well.

Till next time!

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