Recently, someone e-mailed me asking if the aged, stone-faced action hero Steven Seagal, who stars in Robert Rodriguez's Mexican-immigration revenge flick Machete as a badass drug lord, was one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's "special deputies." You know, like Lou Ferrigno, Ted Nugent, and other lesser lights.
I told the e-mailer I kind of vaguely recalled Seagal coming through town and stopping off at the Joe show, but couldn't remember precisely. I forgot about it till today, when I spotted Joe's tweet, "Ironically one of my very own special deputies is starring in tomorrow's controversial film `Machete'."
Joe posted the above photo of the pair on the aptly-named "twitpic."
Gotta wonder if Arpaio offered Seagal some acting lessons, being that Seagal comes from the wooden Indian school of theater, and Arpaio is pretty good at acting like he's not worried about the federal grand jury looking into him for criminal abuse-of-power charges.
The trailer's so good, it's worth watching for the umpteenth time
You'll recall, of course, Rodriguez's special Cinco de Mayo trailer of the film, which is dedicated to Arizona by the film's protagonist, played by Danny Trejo. If the film is half as good as this trailer, it should be worth the price of admission. I plan on checking it out tonight.
Some have suggested that a murderous cop vigilante character played in the film by Don Johnson is in part inspired by our own goofy gendarme.
In an MCSO press release, Arpaio took exception, saying, "I am quite sure that `Machete' producers did not have me in mind when they developed this character."
Of course not, Joe, which is why that whipper-snapper Johnson scored the role. After all, Bea Arthur's dead and Eli Wallach was unavailable. The 60 year-old Johnson's way too young to be playing a geezer such as yourself.
Seems Seagal is actually a fully-commissioned deputy in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. This was the basis for his A&E series Steven Seagal: Lawman, wherein he actually ran around after real criminals. That gives him one up on Joe, who prefers illegal dishwashers and landscapers to rapists, murderers, and bank robbers.
Hey, they don't call Joe "nickel bag," for nothin'.
