Butch

This is off subject from the Coffee Experiment, or maybe it isn't.

Yesterday I learned that Paul Newman had died, and it hurt. I guess saying that would lead some people believe that I follow Hollywood closely and take what actors do way too seriously. Though it is true that once upon a time I wanted to be an actor, make films, etc., that is not the case anymore. I find most of what Hollywood is to be a carnival of sideshows propped up to sidetrack the citizenry from engaging in public service/activism. And for that, I hate much of what Hollywood is about.

But here is where Paul Newman stands apart. Not that he was a huge political activist, which I find rather tiresome in today's actor/actress guild, but in the fact that he had the one true trait that leads people to better a better world - integrity. I won't go into why I believe he had integrity, I'll just say that he did. And yes of course I loved his movies.

Hud, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the immeasurable, Cool Hand Luke. The last movie's character of which I have contemplated naming a son after, Luke Jackson. Maybe my kinship with him lies in the movie Butch Cassidy in which he costars with Robert Redford, for whom my father's nickname is derived from. (My father was called Red because he had the hair of Robert Redford.) Or perhaps it's because I see so many similarities in mannerisms between Newman and my father in the character of Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money.

Whatever the reason, Paul Newman, his body of work, etc. meant a lot to me. Thankfully that body of work will live on as well as his charitable endeavors.

Here's one of the most memorable scenes I've ever watched...and I've watched a lot: