The latest Cigar Aficionado landed at the Cake Eater pad a while back, but it's finally just made its way into the reading queue. Tom Selleck's the cover boy this month, and I'm amazed at how well he's held up. He's still cute, even without the Ferrari, the aviator shades and the flowered shirt. He's still got that impish grin and those dimples that made me swoon when I was in seventh grade. But, most importantly, it appears the dude has a brain!
Some bits and bobs (that I have painstakingly typed out for you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, because Cigar Aficionado doesn't put its articles up online and that ixsne's the cut and paste option.) that might interest you:
{...}"He makes you want to do the best you possibly can and encourages you by example. If he ever chose to run for office, well, he has the charisma, the knowledge---and I'm talking global knowledge---and the wit to make things happen. We joke about our votes canceling each other's out, [and} his take on global affairs and politics are a lot different than mine," Brandman says, smiling, "but over the years as we've discussed things and debated them, Tom's caused me to look at things differently---not necessarily to vote differently!---but to see things from a different perspective. He's broadened my own awareness of things, broadened my perspective, and that's a good thing."Selleck groans out loud when Brandman's comment "if he ever chose to run for politics..." is passed by him for a response and it's obvious that it's opened up a can of worms that he's simultaneously eager and loath to talk about. Selleck's political leanings have been commented on by the media---both accurately and not, says Selleck---constantly over the last decade or so and, frankly, he's a little tired of the whole thing.
"I'm not politically active; I'm politically minded," Selleck's insisted in recent years, and if a review of the actor's political donations over the last decade or so turns up a number of campaign contributions to Republican candidates, so, he points out, do donations to Democratic candidates. He's not ashamed of his conservative leanings in an industry that's heavily liberal, he says, but he's also tired---really, really tired---of being characterized as something he's not, and includes being, exclusively behind Republican support issues or thinking himself of running for office.
"I'm a Libertarian at heart, although it's not practical, [and] I'm a Conservative---little 'L', little 'C'---and I've been a registered independent well over a decade," says Selleck. "I don't fit into the box that [people] want to put me in."
{...}"Look, I've had a couple times people make a phone [call] saying...'we want you to run for governor,' And I said, "Why? Do you know how I'd govern or do you just think I'm famous enough to get elected? I'm not interested. I'm an actor.' It's vaguely flattering, but that being said---I mean, it's come up endlessly in every [film press] junket I've ever been on. You know, I finally had to say, 'Look, I don't want to talk about politics. I'm not running for office. I'm flattered you think I'm worthy, I guess that's implied in your question, but I'm an actor. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in politics, the subject, or that I don't vote, but...I'm an actor!"
If there's one political---or politically correct/incorrect---subject that Selleck doesn't mind discussing openly, it's that of ever-increasing bans on personal behavior, including smoking.
"It's not good to smoke a lot. It's not. But when people move from convincing to mandates, it's just not my deal. And I don't think that is what a free society is about. Government has a function in education but not [in] propagandizing, and that is not a simple world. That world is messier. That world allows for human failure and that world allows for messy solutions, which we ought to get really comfortable with if we want to stay free. It's real simple to practically abolish speeding if you apply the death penalty to it.
"Look," Selleck continues, "we don't stay free with what we're doing now. There's just no end to it [and] it's a question of what responsibilities we give up. My concept of society, which I tell kids as often as possible, is what they should be most grateful for in a free society is the first to fail. Which sounds kind of weird. But if you don't have the right to fail and you're protected from failure, you can't truly succeed. You're then stuck in this great gray middle where you're giving up responsibility for the perceived benefits that come from government, [and] that's a very slippery slope. Do you remember when the seat belt law came into being, and how every politician in the country would say: 'It's a law but it's really [just] a guideline and officer would never pull somebody over for not wearing a seatbelt?'
"Then you start, if you live long enough, to see the slippery slope and an erosion. That doesn't mean people shouldn't wear seat belts. It doesn't mean cars shouldn't come with seat belts, [but] you end up with this 'nanny state' and people don't see the correlation between that and all aspects of life. You can find a 'good reason' to prescribe anything.
"I think free society is supposed to be messier than that. Solutions to social problems have to be. I'm not on a crusade, it's just the way I think, and I don't know, I think we need, in the words of the most politically incorrect [laughs] character I can think of, Jack Nicholson [in A Few Good Men}, 'You need me on that wall.'"
I like a man with a brain and a love of liberty. And dimples.
Can't forget the dimples.
Posted by Kathy at November 30, 2007 12:42 PM | TrackBack