Them's Fightin' Words

As a blogger, there’s no better feeling in the goddamn WORLD than having your phone ring and picking it up to hear, “Hey Slicky-T, there’s a collection for you at reception.”

That exact thing happened to me last week after I returned from collecting my shiny new iPad2. It was like the universe was saying, “No more stray cats for supper Slick. Here’s some cool free stuff for toughing it out and always being rad.”

And that’s how I got my hands on a bottle of some fine 12 year old Oude Meeste brandy and got a free history lesson about a man I had no idea was such a badass.

I’m talking about author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, diplomat and lady-killer Benjamin Franklin, whose face adorns every bottle of Oude Meeste brandy, including the one I’m making out with in the pic below.

Here are some neat facts I learned about The Dude Meister thanks to the print-out that came with the drop:

1. He was one of 17 kids, all fathered by the same man, Josiah Franklin who enjoyed making soap, candles and his wives pregnant.

2. He spent a grand total of one year in school and then started working as an apprentice to his brother, who was a printer and who treated young Benny like a total douche.

3. Among other things he gave us bifocal glasses, clean burning stoves, lending libraries, fire brigades, the first insurance company, swimming flippers and political cartoons.

4. Chicks worshipped the ground he walked on and not because he was a playa, because he was always legit, respected women and treated them as equals.

5. Even though he was the world’s biggest celebrity of the 18th century, he kept his affairs private and and was highly annoyed by the fact that people were always trying to get up in his biznizz the whole time and found gossip intensely irritating.

6. The French loved him. Read that sentence again very carefully. When have the French ever loved something that’s not French?

7. Besides signing the Declaration Of Independence, he negotiated treaties with Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Germany and Spain that helped secure America’s place in the world.

8. He was humble. He worked hard and had no time for anyone who thought of themselves as special just because they were rich and famous. He was a salt of the earth kind of guy, not someone who started out cool and then turned into a prissy, whiny little bitch the minute he became successful.

The gift from Oude Meeste was also to announce that the brand has chosen a new master – “a man who embodies the hard-working spirit and unending dedication that Franklin represents.”

And this man, ladies and gentlemen, is Jamie Foxx.

Which is an interesting choice and one I can almost guarantee you was a product of the Oude Meeste marketing department reverse engineering a “master” that fits the target market they are trying to reach, but still, Foxx was the first African-American actor, and only the second man in history, to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year for two different movies, so that deserves some kudos.

It’s not quite signing the document that came to represent a moral standard on which the American Nation is built, but hey it’s still a damn side more than you or I have ever achieved, let’s be honest.

Check out the new ad with Foxx here, and decide for yourself if the new master has the stones to top ol’ Benjamin F, the original badass.

-ST