Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

The happy news is that actor Johnathon Schaech, formerly dumped by Christina Applegate for a musician of some kind, has gotten engaged to “One Tree Hill” actress Jana Rae Kramer.  Yay!  The pathetic news is that he chose to film the proposal and post it on Facebook.  Really.  In the grand scheme of things, proposals are beautiful and romantic and happy occasions.  Some of us dream of receiving our engagement rings after seeing an “I love you.  Will you marry me?” on the JumboTron at Camden Yards.  Some want to have a romantic dinner and find their diamond rings in a champagne flute.

Posting their engagement, with oodles of dignity.

Others, I guess, want to send it to the masses on a social network.  It is because it is nearly 2010, or is it something else?  Schaech rented out an ice skating rink near in his hometown and brought his unsuspecting girlfriend there.  She’s been skating since she was a child.  He had been on skates only once before, apparently.  He proposed on the ice, with the help of a video camera.  That was romantic.

Where it seems to have gone from the romantic to the WTF is posting it on Facebook.  Millions of people are addicted to it, and so many people would have an opportunity to share in their joy!  But really?  On Facebook?

Kramer was ecstatic and cried and couldn’t get over how beautiful the ring is.  She was afraid of hurting it and wanted to get off of the ice.  Precious.  “It was the happiest moment of my life,” Schaech told People.  It was everything that an engagement should be, except for the later, from-the-couch play-by-play that the couple recorded for their Facebook video.  That just seemed, I don’t know, cheesy.  A video for family and friends?  Great idea.  But for every pimply-faced teenager taking quizzes to find out which character from “Twilight” they should marry?  Not so much.

Either way, congratulations to Johnathon and Jana.  We can all look forward to seeing their wedding, reception, and birth of their first child on Twitter.

What does cleavage and lingerie have to do with selling hamburgers?  The same thing that bikinis, barely-there one piece bathing suits, and transparent dresses do.  Fast food chain Carl’s Jr. has taken the concept of “sex sells” and taken it to a whole new and nausea-inducing level.  Their first brush with controversy was Paris Hilton suggestively washing a car while eating a burger far too large for her mouth.  Who decided that cleaning automobiles was sexy, and why would someone eat a hamburger while covered in suds?  Because it was Paris Hilton, mostly naked, opening her mouth.  At least the advertising department at the chain knew not to let her speak.  

Because We All Eat Hamburgers In This Position. If We Can Get Into It.

The newest ad features Kim Kardashian—still without an engagement ring from on-again boyfriend Reggie Bush.  It gives all the young men who watch Carl’s Jr. ads hope that Kim will dump her famous multi-millionaire honey and be available to date boys who frequent drive-thru windows.  Let them dream.  It’s what the company counts on. 

None of the ads in the Carl’s Jr. ‘porn series’ inspires me to eat a hamburger.  Of course, I’m not a 17-year-old boy begging for the keys to Mom’s station wagon, hoping that Kim Kardashian will be at the Ventura location, picking up her delicious Cranberry Apple Walnut Chicken Salad for the night.  Then she’ll change into her lowest-cut nightgown to spill dressing on herself (close your eyes and try to hear the smooth jazz) only to wipe it off and suggestively lick her finger.

This is parody, right?  Like the “I Like Square Butts” campaign that sold patty melts in kids meals that included a SpongeBob SquarePants toy.  SpongeBob should be hanging his head in shame.  You know, if he had a head. 

Kimmy finishes the ad by—what else—taking a bath.  With her salad.  Always good to have a snack there.  And a video camera. 

What is completely vexing is that it is so hard to tell if Carl’s Jr. is making fun of itself, thereby somehow justifying these ridiculous displays of flesh and incessant sucking on apples, or bacon, or burgers the size of an Oldsmobile.  Or are they seriously using the ancient “sex sells” mantra?  No one does that anymore.

They ARE getting plenty of attention for it, that’s for sure.  Maybe that’s the goal.  Still, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a hamburger or salad the same way again. 

Now I’ll need a soundtrack for it.

Def Leppard was awesome.  From the first time I saw the video for “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak”, I was hooked.  Joe Elliott was to be my future husband.  Granted, I was a child still, but I loved those guys.   Pyromania was released, and I owned it on vinyl.  It’s probably still at my Mom’s house alongside Zenyatta Mondatta and Under a Blood Red Sky.  When Hysteria came out, hit after hit after hit kept coming.  As soon as an 18+ dance club opened, we were there, dancing our tails off to “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. 

Soon To Follow "Rugrats" On Cartoon Network.

The boys from Def Leppard were known for performing “in the round”, on a circular stage in the center of an arena.  During “Armageddon It”, My Future Husband Joe would spend 15 minutes or so getting the crowd pumped and screaming while the other members of the band were underneath the stage.  Debauchery ensued.  Groupies for hair metal bands were not, as everyone knows, particularly unusual.  They were more common than lice, and often less clean. 

But now the mates from Sheffield, England have traded in the three-ring circus for wedding rings.  All of them.  Their wives travel with them and they have become quite a bit calmer.  Maybe it’s because they got tired.  Maybe it’s because of the string of tragic events that came to be known as the “Def Leppard Curse”. 

More likely, it’s because they’re all in their late 40s and early 50s.  They still look like rock stars in the way other aging rockers like the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith do.  And they’re pretty well-preserved, really.  Okay, so no-longer-my-dream-husband Joe Elliott could lay off the bleach and let his hair do what it did 30 years ago when it was brown and wavy, but other than that… 

Now they are embracing change and making themselves into cartoons.  They signed a deal with music publishing company Primary Wave that is working on a cartoon TV show based on Def Leppard, with the bandmates as the primary cast.  According to Primary Wave CEO Larry Mestel, the project is still in the early planning stages, but the five members of the group would be in a “fictional, adventurous setting”.  Probably not more adventurous than the bacchanalian carnival that was the entire 1980s, but fun nonetheless.  One has to wonder in what kind of cartoon environment a group of aging rock stars might find fun and excitement when they are now husbands and parents. 

SpongeJoe SpandexPants?
Sav the ‘Splorer?
Ricky Mouse?

Evidently, Primary Wave is also developing an “unusual” video game with the band, and working on some iPhone applications.  Want some Def Leppard?  Yeah, there’ll be an app for that.  Aerosmith already has a video game, so that’s nothing ground-breaking.  And iPhone apps?  Well, there’s one of those for everything.

The cartoon, however, is something that those of us who STILL remember all the lyrics to “Pour Some Sugar on Me” really, really want to see.

The story sounded familiar from the beginning.  With the urging of Simon Cowell, his “X Factor” winner Joe McElderry was well on his way to having the Number One Christmas track in the UK.  A Facebook group spearheaded a campaign to have political hard-rockers Rage Against The Machine’s 1992 single “Killing in the Name” beat out the television talent show winner.  A statement for the group wrote, “Fed up of [sic] Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No. 1?  Me too…So who’s up for a massive purchase of the track “Killing in the Name” as a protest to the X Factor monotony?”

Cowell has never been afraid to put up money to have his acts go big.  Look at Susan Boyle.  He also arranged for final contestant Stacey Solomon to get decked out in over $160,000 worth of diamonds for the show, and she didn’t even win.  So politico-rockers commonly known simply as “Rage” staged a coup.

"Wait, we did WHAT?"

Did they realize that the same thing was done in the Ultimate Chick Flick, 2003’s “Love, Actually”?  In that movie, aging rocker Billy Mack (played by Bill Nighy) recorded a Christmas variation on The Troggs’ hit “Love Is All Around”, renaming it “Christmas Is All Around”.  He vowed to do anything to have it beat fictional boy-band Blue out of the top spot, even though he referred to his own recording as a “festering turd of a record”.  He promised that, if he won, he would perform in the nude—live—on television.  His unusual campaign to win the number one spot succeeded, and he kept his word, performing only in cowboy boots and a well-placed guitar.

Rage Against THe Machine Followed THIS GUY'S Lead.

This is a story that every straight woman and gay man knows.  Some of us can recite the movie from start to finish.

But this is probably not what Rage’s Tom Morello had in mind when he began his war with the UK’s version (which came first, by the way) of “American Idol”.  He’d probably be horrified by the comparison.  Rage Against the Machine is not exactly known for sappy love ballads and weepy stories—unless they bring attention to some kind of worldwide injustice.

And so, without a Christmas album coming out, Rage raged on.  Cowell referred to the whole thing as “stupid” and “cynical”.  Fans called it sabotage.  Cowell’s money couldn’t buy him out of this.  It was war!

Tom Morello gave a last-ditch attempt to overtake McElderry by (naturally) tweeting.  He wrote, “Rage’s Killing in the Name & the X-Factor’s goofy Christmas single are neck and neck for the num one spot on the UK chart.  England!  Now is your time.”

And it worked.  “Killing in the Name” was downloaded over 500,000 times in the past week, while McElderry’s Miley Cyrus cover sold 450,000.  And the winner is…

(drumroll, please)

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!

They must be so proud to have succeeded where only an aging fictitious rocker and his ridiculous cover song had prevailed before.

No word yet on whether or not Rage intends to perform “Killing in the Name” nude on Christmas Eve.

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina—the man who made Miss Teen South Carolina look clever, the man who made The Guy Who Had Intimate Relations with A Horse twice look selective—has officially been censured.  That’s right. Censured.  Not impeached.  Even after his very Christian wife, Jenny Sanford, tossed her wedding and engagement rings aside and filed for divorce, the South Carolina House Committee decided that lying, misusing government funds, and disappearing to Argentina for international booty calls were not reasons enough to boot him out of office. 

Find the pig in this photo.

Sanford faced 30 ethics charges and broke about 3 dozen laws, including (but not limited to) buying expensive airline tickets to see his Argentine mistress, using state aircraft for personal trips, filing false expense reports, and turning off his cell phone while he “followed the Appalachian Trail” to see his ‘soul mate’, Maria Chapur.  That’s all stuff you’re generally not supposed to do when you’re governor. 

AND he was getting ready to run for President.  I think he can cross that off his Christmas list.  Although, who knows?  All he got was censured. 

This was the guy who was supposed to be all about family values, Christianity, and general Conservatism.  He ditched his family, engaged in some pretty radical activities, and did some things definitely not considered ‘Christian’.  Some lawmakers are still calling for him to step down, despite his successful dodging-of-the-bullet.  One noted that any regular state employee would lose his job if he didn’t show up for five days, which is how long Sanford went missing in June.  I guess you get a pass of some sort if you’re the Governor.  Even if you are a hypocritical moron.

So over the next 13 months—the amount of time life in Sanford’s term—we are stuck with him.  Perhaps South Carolina can hire little Caitlin Upton to act his new spokesperson and Rodell Vereen to procure suitable women for him.

Poor South Carolina.  All they want to do is forget about it, and they’re Sanford will sit on his Governor’s throne, governing away for 13 more months while the natives hang their heads in shame and wait for a suitable Democrat to come along.

Bethenny Frankel, the natural foods chef and creator of “Skinnygirl” cocktails (less calories, more brawling), formerly of “The Real Housewives of New York”, has fulfilled all of her Chanukah dreams this year.  First, she got pregnant, relieving her gay male friend from the show of any promises to impregnate her if she didn’t find a straight man in time.  Then the babydaddy and boyfriend of almost one year, Jason Hoppy, proposed with a suitably-large 8-carat diamond engagement ring.  And now, her naked tush is 58 feet tall, hovering over Times Square in Manhattan. 

"I'd Rather Be Airbrushed Than Wear Fur."

With a billboard now befitting her ego, Bethenny can continue on cooking health food, getting rich women hammered (but not fat!), becoming someone’s Mommy (God help that kid), and, probably, getting married.  But first, she will talk as much as anyone will listen about why she joined the ranks of celebrities who have posed au naturel for PETA’s anti-fur campaign.  Evidently forgetting that it was for a cause, she said of the picture, “I am especially pleased because it doesn’t look like there’s been any airbrushing, and I was already pregnant when I shot it”. 

Yeah, that’s what the real issue is here: whether or not you appear to be airbrushed.  As long as you look thin, that’s great.  What was the cause again?  Some animal thing, right?  (She was, incidentally, airbrushed beyond recognition).

It was only for her big mouth and incessant cattiness that people came to love watching Bethenny on the show, despite her constant whining about being single.  She always considered herself a celebrity, although her only major exposure prior to “Real Housewives” was as a contestant on the catastrophic spinoff “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart”.  Now she’s leaving the “Real Housewives” for a spinoff of her own, although the details are fuzzy.  It seems she didn’t have much of a choice, as rumors persist that her friendships with her castmates are tense and drama-filled.  Bethenny, apparently, makes the egomaniacal Kelly Bensimon look like a pussycat this season, and will be off the show after several episodes.

In the meantime, she’s naked in Times Square, and couldn’t be happier about how thin she looks. 

By posing for PETA, she also gets to be associated with well-known animal rights activists/celebrities like Pamela Anderson, Christy Turlington, Alicia Silverstone, Roselyn Sanchez, Eva Mendes, Christina Applegate, Joaquin Phoenix, Tommy Lee, Anna Nicole Smith, Jenna Jameson and Dita Von Teese. 

There are no faster routes to fame than reality television and being naked on film.  Bethenny Frankel is making sure all of her bases—if not her backside—are covered.

Can the stories of Tiger Woods’ various infidelities get any more ridiculous?  Apparently, yes.  With yet another mistress coming out of the woodwork—lucky number 13, no less—who is better to weigh in on the subject than Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend.  Crystal Harris, who claims to be the octogenarian’s “number one” girlfriend over 19-year-old twins Karissa and Kristina Shannon, clearly disapproves of Tiger’s behavior.

"I Smile Like This Because She Doesn't Know What I Did Last Night."

No, really.

Maybe it’s the wisdom she’s gained in her 22 years.  Maybe it’s jealousy because her boyfriend has Old Man Butt.  Maybe it’s because posing for playboy.com doesn’t require that you know the meaning of the word ‘hypocrisy’.  But without any sense of irony, she has said, “…if I [were] his wife, I wouldn’t stay with him!”  That’s with an exclamation point, so you know she really means it.

Hef himself cleared up a rumor that he commended Tiger for his hyperactive libido.  He did not, in fact.  He explained to PopTarts that, “I don’t approve of it.  I just was not surprised by it…he’s traveling the world.  He’s a handsome, young guy and beautiful ladies are throwing themselves at him”.  Hef seems to be very happily settled into his relationships with his three standard silicone-enhanced blonde fem-bots.  It isn’t the same situation, he rationalized, because he “…think[s] that the immorality of infidelity is the lie.  It isn’t really the sex.  It’s the cheating”.

Yes, Hef.  Men are like lions, right?

Well, Elin Nordegren Woods seems to agree with Hef and at least one of his women, as she was photographed over the weekend without her wedding and engagement rings on.  And that was when there were only TWELVE known affairs.  Was it because the New York Post reported on Friday that Playboy model Loredana Jolie (surely her real name) admitted to an ongoing relationship with the womanizing wunderkind?  Jolie said that, “He purchased gifts for me, diamonds and stuff like that”.  Or was it because former Madame Michelle Braun claimed in the same article that he PAID $15,000 for a ‘date’ with the Jolie?  The Playmate insists that, on the occasions when she received gifts, no sex occurred, so it wasn’t really prostitution.

Which brings up a whole other issue.  If Tiger Woods did, indeed, as Madame Braun claims, pay nearly $60,000 for escorts between 2006 and 2007, then he can be charged with patronizing a prostitute, which could land him in jail for a year if convicted.  Any part of that would drive most women to shed their wedding jewelry. 

The rundown of women goes like this (so far):
            1. Rachel Uchitel, who wins the prize for being the first woman to be linked to Tiger in a salacious way.
            2. Jamie Grubbs, no stranger to fame since appearing on VH1’s reality dating show “Tool Academy” (not kidding).  She couldn’t wait to share dirty golfer voicemail.
            3. Kalika Moquin, a 27-year-old club manager from Las Vegas.  I guess that, this time, it didn’t stay in Vegas.
            4. Cori Rist, a swimsuit model who claims to have flown to ‘secret locations’ for her affair with Woods.  He also met her 7-year-old son.  Classy.
            5. Jamie Jungers, rumored employee of Madame Braun, former employee of Trashy Girls Lingerie (I swear, I’m not making this up).  She also met Tiger in Vegas. 
           6. Mindy Lawton, server at a pancake house in Orlando, who claims that a photographer caught him dropping her off at the trailer park where she lives, and he was blackmailed over it.
           7. Holly Sampson, 36-year-old porn star, who claims that she was intimate with Tiger at his bachelor party, but not after he was actually married.
           8. Joslyn James, porn star, said the be in an ongoing relationship with Tiger, according to Deadspin.com.
           9. Loredana Jolie, mentioned above.
          10. Julie Postle, whose ex-boyfriend said that his then-girlfriend and the golfer had relations both before and after he married Elin. 
          11. Random Girl, a former cocktail waitress from Orlando, who began their affair when she was just 20.
          12. Random Girl 2, a British television host who ended the affair when SHE got married.
          13. Random Girl 3, a much older woman who couldn’t get enough of the virile young stud.

If there is a lesson to be learned here, it must be this:  KEEP TIGER WOODS OUT OF VEGAS AND ORLANDO, for heaven’s sake.

Susan Boyle, everyone’s favorite frumpy spinster (if anyone uses that word anymore) with the voice of an angel, has been tearing up both US and British charts.  Topping all contemporary music, beating out the likes of Rihanna and Adam Lambert for the #1 position, Boyle’s debut album “I Dreamed A Dream” is taking her out of her little village and on tour. 

When Boyle first appeared on “Britain’s Got Talent” and was nearly laughed off the stage, she said that she hoped to have the same kind of success as her idol, Elaine Paige.  Simon Cowell and whoever Piers Morgan is could both hardly contain their laughter.  Until she started to sing.  Now the egomaniacal jackasses have gotten the proverbial “suck it” from Susan Boyle, as the both took part in creating “I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story”, which aired last night.  For the event, Boyle and Elaine Paige were decked out in diamonds, with Boyle herself wearing about $65,000 in borrowed diamond jewelry that included a pair of diamond earrings, a Deco onyx and diamond pendant, and a diamond ring.  Norwich jeweller Winsor Bishop outfitted the two for their duet performance, also lending Paige a pair of vintage teardrop diamond earrings.

This Is Susan Boyle.

With Susan Boyle’s star on the rise, becoming more popular in the US than any hip-hop, rock, or country act, it is only natural that other musicians would want to collaborate with her.  She’s a hot name.  Use her while you can before the world unceremoniously ships her back to Scotland, postage due!

Enter another great lover of diamonds, 50 Cent.  Fiddy has made it clear that he wants to work with Boyle.  Imagining the two of them pairing up for anything is like…like…

This Is 50. One of these things is not like the other...

Chocolate-covered gefilte fish.

A woman over 18 at a Jonas Brothers concert.

Hugh Hefner and a woman his own age.

And yet, it could happen.  The now-multi-millionaire spinster who had never ventured far from her small Scottish hamlet could go into a bulletproof recording studio with a guy who claims to have been shot nine times, although police reports are conflicting on this point.  Regardless of the number of times that Fiddy has taken bullets, we can say with relative certainty that the closest Susan Boyle ever got to being shot was staring down the barrel of Sharon Osbourne while onstage to perform that first time.  One puts holes in your body, the other puts holes in your soul as Osbourne sucks out your lifeforce.

50 Cent told the Daily Mirror, “Susan Boyle is hot right now.  I got to get her on a track.  We’d make a hit”.  Possibly, Fiddy, but you’d have to teach her what a “gat” is, and explain what the lyrics were really about in “Candy Shop”.  Or maybe that’s best kept secret.  The rapper went on to say that, “She’s got an amazing voice, and, together, we’d get everyone dancing…she’s cool. So I’ll ask somebody to let her know”.

You can just SEE her looking at that person, cocking her head to the side and saying in her thick Scottish accent, “Fifty Whooooooo?”

If they do meet, Fiddy has plans to “…take her clubbing, show her around my world.  She’d have a great time”. 

Think so, Fiddy?  She’s barely off the commune and you want to show her a world in which people leave behind showtunes in favor of lyrical musings like, “You can have it your way, how do you want it/You gon’ back that thing up or should I push up on it”. 

As 50 Cent makes the promotional rounds for his album “Before I Self-Destruct”, Boyle is busy belting out “How Great Thou Art”.  If there is middle-ground to be reached, I can’t wait to see where it is.

Daniel Radcliffe Will Never Live “Equus” Down.

Ever since our beloved little Harry Potter blossomed into a handsome—though short—teenager, young ladies are seeing him a bit differently.  Gone is our shy, unassuming little man with the unfortunate bowl haircut.  In comes the guy who took it all off on Broadway, who revealed his little Harry in front of live audiences and got rounds of applause of standing O’s all around (so to speak). 

Once You Go Equus, You Never Go Back.

In the upcoming Harry Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, Radcliffe will go au naturel with Hermione.  As a person who has read the entire series, cover-to-cover, and on their release dates, I don’t recall any of the characters appearing in the raw.  In the film version of “Goblet of Fire”, even when Harry was in the Prefect’s bathtub, he was carefully surrounded by bubbles and the scene was filmed in such a way that only Moaning Myrtle seemed to get a charge out of it.  And while the characters all began to emerge as attractive adults, with Hermione dating Durmstrang Tri-Wizard Champion Viktor Krum; with Harry falling for Cho Chang, who was, at the time, involved with Cedric Diggory (played by a pre-Twilight and well-shorn Robert Pattinson); and with Ron clearly in love with Hermione but unable to speak it. 

Our little Hogwarts kids were growing up.

While Daniel Radcliffe was taking his bare bows onstage, Emma Watson (Hermione) was posing in suggestive ad campaigns for high-end designers and even accepted an engagement ring from boyfriend Jay Barrymore, who was afraid she’s go off the University in America and meet some other guy.  Which she, evidently, did.  Enter drummer Rafael Cebrian of Spanish band The Monomes—don’t worry that you’ve never heard of them.  No one had, until Hermione Granger Emma Watson started dating their drummer.  The story is that they met at Brown and have been “hanging out”, although Watson’s fiancé was making plans as recently as late October to move to the States to be with her.  Rupert Grint, our flame-headed and painfully shy Ron Weasley, has managed to stay out of the tabloids by not dating.

But nothing was going to keep this story—ahem—undercover.  “Deathly Hallows” Director David Yates created scenes in which Harry could be in the buff again.  For some kind of magical creature to conjure a scene in which Harry and Hermione are kissing without clothes to bring out Ron’s jealousy is one thing, but to have him standing at King’s Cross Station stark naked just seems a little uncalled-for.  Granted, the Harry Potter series started collecting fans of all ages, and the kids who began reading “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” are now well into their teens and maybe wanting to see a little more magical skin.

If they missed “Equus”, they’ll get their chance to see new parts of Harry Potter.  Anyone who has seen a fashion magazine in the last two years has seen little Hermione turn into a bit of a sex kitten for the sake of fashion.  And, if you have an itch to see Ron Weasley without a shirt, the 2010 release of the film “Cherrybomb” will show a completely different, darker side of the actor (again, so to speak). 

Some of us don’t really want to think of Harry Potter as even HAVING naughty bits.  Alan Strang, his character from “Equus” can have the naughty bits.  But now that he’s opened the floodgates (yet again, so to speak), Daniel Radcliffe has also opened the door to having any director decide to write in naked scenes.

Harry, what would Lily and James say?  And where’s that Invisibility Cloak when you need it?

Johnny Depp, the man who has made man-jewelry popular, who has been declared People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive (again), and who continues to dodge wedding rumors, is now actively promoting his new film, “Public Enemies”—despite having not seen it yet.  The 46-year-old seems to enjoy creating controversy around his films, perhaps because that’s just who he is, or perhaps because it takes him out of the hotseat regarding his long-term relationship with Vanessa Paradis, with whom he was supposed to exchange wedding rings this past spring.

Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t.  For all we know, they could be married in her native France, where the couple lives and raises their two children together.  Choosing to remain elusive and out of the public eye as much as possible, he keeps up guessing.  And we all eat it up.

Johnny Depp Shows Up, and Girls Ask, "Christian WHO?"

“Public Enemies” is a film about Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger, who was eventually shot to death by police.  Depp says he took the role because of a childhood interest in the career criminal, a man who chose to live outside of the rules of society.  Depp has said of the movie: “I haven’t seen the film yet, but I hear great things about it”.

So he’s not a movie-goer.  He probably doesn’t even know that ultra-popular Facebook application Mafia Wars has created a buzz around the film by creating new jobs to complete, new items to collect, and opportunities to pre-order the DVD on blu-ray.  Honestly, many computer nerds who take out their aggression playing a game on Facebook heard of the new movie first because—YAY!—there were valuable new weapons to collect because of its release.

Depp appeared at the Chicago film premiere rockin’ a total mobster look.  Pinstripe three-piece suit, pocket watch, and his attitude.  Co-stars Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard to a bit of a backseat to Depp on this.  Not because they are lesser actors, but because Johnny Depp is, well, Johnny Depp.  Normally, Christian Bale’s arrival would cause the avalanche of pre-teen screams and panty-tossing, but not this time.

Because you’ve gotta love a guy who hasn’t even seen his own blockbuster movie yet.  He’s not a blockbuster kind of guy, despite having appeared in many of them.  He remained philosophical even as he promoted “Pirates of the Caribbean 4”, in which he returns to his role as the skirt-chasing, drunken, hygiene-avoiding, morally-questionable and always adorable Captain Jack Sparrow.

Regarding “Public Enemies”, Depp said, “The scariest enemy is within, allowing yourself to conform to what is expected of you”.  Having earned an estimated $35 million for “Pirates of the Caribbean 4”, he is among the highest-paid actors in Hollywood.  He can definitely afford to not conform.

Basically, he can do whatever he wants, and we’ll eat it up.  How do you not love this guy?

And thanks to geeks (like me) who have learned more about his upcoming film from Mafia Wars than from tabloids, his weirdness can continue unchecked, forever.

Now I just have to find that ‘Dillinger’s Gun’ and my collection of “Public Enemies” loot will be complete.