What Happens When the Money Runs Out!

Anytime I see a fairly respectable, Academy Award winning actor with a history of generally prudent film choices star in some questionable high concept fare or carry a one week and done cheapie or some mindless live action Disney drivel or have a pointless role in some creatively bankrupt sequel, I always suspect that they secretly have some severe financial problem. I'd like to think that these are generally intelligent people with enough aesthetic discretion to know what is a decent script and what is a total embarrassment. Maybe it's serious tax issues or ruinous divorce judgments or severely misplaced investments or a cripplingly costly cocaine addition; whatever the unknown reason it may be I give them the benefit of the doubt that at the end of the day their hand is being forced by the overwhelming need of the paycheck.

How else could you explain Sir Ben Kingley in "BloodRayne" or "Lucky Number Slevin"? Something had to give when Jack and Diane signed up for "Something's Gotta Give". Was Dame Judy Dench really that blown away by the script for "The Chronicles of Riddick" that she had to get on board? How desperately in debt was Jon Voight in 2004 that he was forced to play the villain in both "Superbabies: Baby Genisues 2" and something called "Karate Dog"? Have you seen what Kathy Bates has been up to for the last five years? What sort of extended financial quagmire could be the reason for the last ten or so years of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s career?

So with the recent news of the staggering financial problems of one of the biggest Oscar winning offenders, Nicholas Cage, my pet theory may actually have gained some credibility. Looking at his career after winning the Best Actor Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas" in 1995, it's pretty obvious that he had drifted away from his more humble cinematic roots (pretty sure he won't be doing any Coen Brothers movies anytime soon) and fully embraced his new career as a blockbuster actor. Sure every once in a while he'd flash some of his acting chops like in "Adaptation" but for the most part it was popcorn action flicks ("The Rock", "Gone in 60 Seconds", "Con Air", the "National Treasure" movies) or slick studio comedy-dramas where he essentially plays himself on auto-pilot ("The Family Man", "Matchstick Men", "Lord of War", "The Weather Man").

On the whole it was a pretty fine career, the sort of generally accepted work that you'd expect from a popular a-list actor. You knew he was in it for the money but he obviously had enough clout to choose his scripts. However as his spending started to spiral out of control and his financial troubles started to mount, you can clearly see that his discretion was starting to take a severe slide as more and more questionable roles kept trickling in. It think you can trace it back to his all time ludicrous performance in the completely unnecessary "The Wicker Man" in 2006. Next came "Next" in 2007. His lone feature for 2008 was the offensively terrible "Bangkok Dangerous" (was he supposed to be an Asian guy here?). 2009 has thus far shaped up to be another banner year with "Knowing" (Cage sees into the future yet again) and voice over work in "G-Force" (that guinea pig movie) and "Astro-Boy".

As his serious financial problems grow, the fear is that he will really start to lose more and more discretion with his movies choices and eventually be driven completely by the needs of his mountainous debt. According to IMDB 2010 and beyond already don't appear all that promising (looks like "Ghost Rider 2" is in development). If Mr. Cage doesn't start taking better care of his personal finances and cuts back on the dinosaur skull bidding wars, he might perhaps one day find himself actually making a snuff film for 8mm 3 (yes they actually made a 2!).

Opportunties (Let's Make Lots of Money)

Game show money, similar to game show fame, is a fleeting thing. Between Uncle Sam's crippling rabbit punch of a tax on all my winnings, the mountain of student loans courtesy of NYU, and the debt that I'm accumulating right this very moment as I fail my way through St. John's Law; there's little to nothing left over for offensively ostentatious displays of wealth. On top of that, to maintain this oh so fabulous lifestyle of prudent loan repayment and educational investing I, along with my fellow "Twisted Mister' compatriots, will have to win another World Series of Pop Culture. It's not that I'm lacking any confidence that we will repeat, but considering the economics and pay scales of game shows as a whole, for the work we put in we're going to have to work hard for the money. If you consider the three way split of $250,000 a year for beating the toughest competition the US has to offer, it would take us years of continuous Patriots-esque perfection to equal the amount some overly excited rube would get for a night of randomly picking suitcases. Of course I'm far from complaining, a third of $250,000 was an amazing win fall that I'll be forever gracious about; but sadly you can't live your whole life on it.

That leads me to to the million dollar (neigh multi-million dollar) opportunity I hinted above. Why am I sharing this idea with you the public at large? Well, for all my inspiration, I lack the requisite 99 parts of perspiration. While I have the goal in mind, I need someone with the wherewithal, gumption, along with other old timey synonyms to cut the Gordian knot (I just learned what that meant and have been trying my best to use it in my daily conversations, properly and improperly) and solve the difficult problem of achieving it. In sharing my idea I would hope to appeal to everyone's sense of right and fairness and that someone wouldn't just take all the credit themselves and leave me stuck in miserable, law school less one world changing idea. I'm not asking for too much, just a reasonable cut of the action, maybe like 30% as essentially a finder's fee.

So like Mr. McGuire said to a young Benjamin Braddock, I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Ketchup.

I guess regionally some folk may substitute that with catsup, but the idea remains the same. Everybody has ketchup (well almost everybody since last I heard salsa was the top condiment in this country). Millions upon millions of bottles are consumed every year, it complements hot dogs all across the land, it's considered by some a last resort substitute for vegetables, and it partially funds the opulent lifestyles of the Kerrys. Despite the apparent universal success of ketchup, you would be able to see its greatest failing if you go to your fridge, open a bottle and hold it upside down. Before you got to that good stuff, you know exactly what you'd get. You'd get pre-ketchup.

That's my patented official term for it, and frankly there's no better way of putting it. It's that thin, watery discharge you get from a bottle that's been sitting around for a while. Unless you get rid of that beforehand, you're finding yourself with a soggy hot dog, or a dripping burger, or wet fries. Half the time you don't even think about it until it's too late. No type of bottle or brand is immune to this phenomenon, even plastic packets if left around long enough will give you a trickle of pre-ketchup. With the advent of the plastic squeeze bottle the problem seems to have gotten even worse in recent years. It's a baffling commentary on modern times. We have fiber optic cables, cars that park themselves, a complete map of the human genome, foot prints on the moon; and yet no one has definitely solved this simple problem.

So as the old maxim goes "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." If anyone can find a viable way to eliminate the nuisance of pre-ketchup from America's kitchens, ballgames, diners, picnics, and backyard barbecues, you can write your own check. Can you imagine the bidding war that would erupt among America's premier ketchup barons for the exclusive patent rights to the perfect bottle of ketchup? It'd be the greatest innovation in the industry since green ketchup. You could play the Heinz people against the Hunt's people and then throw in all the supermarket brands as well for maximum returns. And you know what's the best part of all this? You can double your already enormous profit by repeating it again with the mustard industry; just replace the top guys with French's and Gulden's.

That's basically the gist of the plan. Now there's the slight formality of coming up with a solution. Anyone can try, I'm not sure if there's any background or discipline that is best suited for solving this conundrum (mechanical engineering? physics? graphic design? ketchup fluid mechanics? tomato theory? modern condiment relations?) If you feel like never wanting to have to work again and living the rest of your days in grand leisure, you owe it to yourself to take a crack at it. After you've given it said thought and you've perhaps come across a possible solution send it over to the official email hotline at PreKetchupSolution@gmail.com and hopefully we may be able to turn that red into some green. Opportunity's knocking and this time he's not telling you to buy a Honda.