Pop Cultured: Nicholas Cage

Preface: I know I haven't blogged in some time, I'm just too busy.  I know that's not a good excuse, just as it wasn't the other hundred times I've said it.  Between school work and my work at my university's newspaper The Contraband, I literally have no time, nor the urge to write anything else.  To hold you over until a time when I might be more willing to write something again, here are some pieces that originally appeared in The Contraband.  I write a weekly pop culture piece, sometimes they are funny, sometimes they're not trying to be.  Although I think if you look hard enough you'll see some of me in there.  I hope you enjoy them, as I'm posting them one right after the other.

Have you heard that Nicholas Cage is a vampire?  Actually, let me start from the beginning.  Have you heard that Nicholas Cage has been living for hundreds of years, during which he has somehow tricked the general populace into turning him into a celebrity and lavishing him with riches?  If this sounds ridiculous, that is only because it is. 

    

This rumor cropped up when a man living in Seattle tried to sell a picture on the auction site eBay for one million dollars.  The picture in question was taken in 1870, and damn if its subject doesn’t look exactly like Nicholas Cage.  The picture is so uncanny, that it’s easy to believe that it isn’t a real picture at only, and instead a clever use of viral marketing for some future project in which Cage plays a vampire who feeds on Civil War soldiers.  Of course the internet has run off with this rumor as it is wont to do, and has turned Nicholas Cage into the undead. 

  Although I do not believe in vampires, I do believe that there is something weird going on.  If Nicholas Cage is not a vampire, then how did he become famous in the first place?  If you’ve ever seen one of his films you’d have to assume that he was feeding on the casting director, putting them in a deep enough trance to let him in front of the camera.  Vampirism is about the only explanation for the long-faced, gravely-voiced acting we’ve been forced to endure since the eighties. 

  

  And if Nicholas Cage is a vampire, than it’s probably true of many celebrities and notable people.  How else can you explain the fact that the cast of Jersey Shore has permeated our lives, if it’s not because of the supernatural?  I’m going to go ahead and start a rumor right now that that Snooki has been parading around her over-tanned, big haired self for centuries.  And what about Sarah Palin, who is clearly the most blood thirsty individual to come into public conscienceless in recent memory?  You can practically see her fangs glistening when she mentions President Obama, and this stands as the most probable reason why. 

Vampirism also explains why Lindsay Lohan is still among us.  If alleged alcohol and drug-use can’t kill her, it is clearly only because nothing but a wooden stake can.  I would attempt to attach the stigma to Lady Gaga, if only so that she has a rumor about her other than the fact that she was more than likely born a man; but sadly there is just no evidence to this as she has some modicum of talent, and therefore didn’t need to be a vampire to become famous. 

So if you believe the internet, vampires are indeed among us.  Not only are they around, but apparently we are paying them to entertain us.  Which begs the question, why are we still allowing anyone with an extra fifty-five dollars a month have access to the internet?