Hello, Jerry. Goodbye, Newman.

Bad news, folks. Paul Newman died yesterday.

I have to admit, there's a lot of Newman classics that I haven't seen. I still haven't watched The Sting, or The Color of Money, or even Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I've seen Road to Perdition and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and a few others, but really, it doesn't matter. Paul Newman to me equals one thing.

Cool Hand Luke.

I first saw this in college with my buddies Zimm and Johnny and the Docta (none of whom seem to really post much anymore) and I don't know about those guys, but for me this movie helped define what cool really is. The eggs, the box, the failure to communicate. And through it all Paul Newman's little grins and intense eyes and just general bad assery. It was all so good.

All that, and the man made salad dressing too.

I don't know what his last minutes were like, but I like to figure it was something like this:

"He was smiling... That's right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn't know it 'fore, they could tell right then that they weren't a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker."

Saying good-bye here, boss.