It's hard to kill the undead.
It's even harder to kill the profit motive.
Earlier this week a Civil War era photo of a man bearing a striking resemblance to Oscar winning actor Nicolas Cage ended up on Ebay.
Asking price: $1 million.
The original auction showed up in The Hollywood Reporter a week ago. "The seller insisted the photo was authentic, and taken around the time of the Civil War."
At that point, there were 78 offers to buy it, all rejected.
When one potential bidder asked why "Nick Cage has aged terribly in the past 10 years," if, in fact, he's a vampire, the seller replied, "My theory is that he allows himself to age to a certain point, maybe 70, 80 or so, then the actor 'Nicolas Cage' will 'die' — but in reality, the undead vampire 'Nicolas Cage' will have rejuvenated himself and appeared in some other part of the world, young again, and ready to start all over.
From time to time somebody might mention to him that he bears a slight resemblance to the young version of that dead American actor, whose name they can't recall, but eventually, those occurrences will stop altogether."
Well, this week, the photo disappeared from Ebay!
Then, faster than a stake through the heart, it was back!
The seller, who goes by the name Jack Mord, claims he truly believes the man in the photo is Nicolas Cage. "150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult, or a talk show host."
One senses that Mord is about as serious about the vampire thing as George Hamilton was in "Love At First Bite". That said, he does link to his own, slightly macabre, website specializing in "early post-mortem and memorial/mourning photography."
Nice.
What pleases me most about the picture be relisted on Ebay is that Mord has reposted the Q&A. Here you can read conversations with potential bidders like:
Q: dude....YOU smoke way too much weed!!
A: I am insulted. I have never even tried "weed" in my life, and do not even drink beer. At the very worst, I am perhaps guilty of a little 25 year addiction to Mexican black tar heroin.
Q: Why are you trying to sell this for one million?
A: Because I thought two million might be a bit unreasonable in this economy.
Hmmm. Given Cage's real life financial problems, and assuming he has a wicked sense of humor, what are the chances the actor is using a "nom de Ebay" to sell his own picture? After all, he may live forever, but a vampire's life still sucks in a recession.
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