Bezos, Blackmail, and Dick Pics

Why, oh why, do guys think their junk is their best feature? The body part that must be immortalized by cell phone cameras and shared with the world?

Look, we've all done stupid things in our youth. I'm just thankful most of my stupidity happened before the advent of the smart phone. But Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon is my age, i.e. mid-fifties.

Instead of being a stupid kid, he hit that wall we lovingly call a mid-life crisis. That point where full-grown adults, faced with their own mortality, decide to act as stupidly as a lot of teens and twenty-somethings. Yep, he allegedly sent his girlfriend a dick pic.

Ok, Bezos was stupid. But why is there always a guy who feels the need to prove he's even more stupid than the first one?

DH and GK lovingly refer to this as the Malfoy Effect, after Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter books. The inciting incident in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is when Malfoy breaks a school rule in order to tattle on Harry, Ron, and Hermione for breaking a school rule. Malfoy is then shocked when Professor McGonagall punishes him as well as the other three.

Our Malfoy in this case is Mr. David Jay Pecker, CEO of American Media, Inc. (AMI) Yes, that IS his real name. AMI publishes the loved/hated gossip magazine The National Enquirer.

AMI already got in trouble with the U.S. Justice Department last year when it came to light that they had paid off several folks with dirt on the current president of the United States. Part of the plea deal was that company keeps their noses clean.

Well, allegedly, a representative of AMI got hold of Bezos's dick pic through his girlfriend's brother. (I wonder what that next family get-together will be like!) Instead of running an embarrassing cover story as is their wont, AMI allegedly decided to extort Bezos for political reasons.

And here's where Bezos pulled the Madonna Move.

You see, when Madonna was a starving artist on the streets of New York, she had posed for some nude photographs. A few years later, Like a Virgin was climbing the charts, and guess what popped out of the woodwork? The singer's reaction to the attempted extortion and embarrassment was "So what?"

The story quickly died, and a few years later, Madonna went on to publish her own book of nude pictures of herself entitled Sex.

So, back to the original topic, Bezos's junk. He did the smart thing by calling AMI's bluff and posting his response in an op-ed on a news site owned by a third party. He allegedly also turned the matter over to the FBI for investigation.

If the e-mails allegedly from an AMI executive are found to be fact, then not only did AMI violate the plea deal from last year, they're looking at extortion charges, which is a hell of a lot more serious than paying off porn stars and prostitutes.

Here's the thing, folks. Don't let your middle-age fears get the better of you. It doesn't matter how good that girlfriend/boyfriend half your age makes you feel. If you'd tell your kids not to do it, then you shouldn't be doing it either.

Because you never know what could happen to those pics after you send them to your significant other.