secret emulations

so, i don't know if you guys are aware of this, but howard hughes was fucking awesome. this whole time, i thought he was a tool just because he had the misfortune of being played by leonardo dicaprio in that sucky-ass movie (which i never saw). jesse would have been a much better casting choice, in my humble opinion.

so anywhoo, i read through a ton of boring-ass aviation, invention, movie-making shit, etc, etc to extract these amazing details from his wikipedia page:

"In 1947, Hughes descended into one of the most bizarre episodes of his life. In December of that year, Hughes told his aides that he wanted to screen some movies at a film studio near his home. Hughes stayed in the studio's darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving. He subsisted exclusively on chocolate bars and milk, and relieved himself in the empty bottles and containers. He was surrounded by dozens of Kleenex boxes, which he continuously stacked and re-arranged. He wrote detailed memos to his aides on yellow legal pads giving them explicit instructions not to look at him, speak to him, and only to respond when spoken to. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continuously watching movies, reel after reel, day after day. When he finally emerged in the spring of 1948, his hygiene was terrible, as he had not bathed or cut his hair and nails for weeks."

ok, so the not bathing or trimming his nails is a little gross, but you still have to admire his committment.

"After the screening room incident, Hughes moved into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel... His erratic behavior continued, however, as he would sit naked in his bedroom with a pink hotel napkin placed over his genitals, watching movies. In one year, he spent an estimated $11 million at the hotel."

a pink napkin. this cements him in my mind as being a classy guy. also, good work wikipedia geeks for tracking down and including that bit of (what some may consider to be extraneous) information.

"In a bout of obsession with his home state, Hughes began purchasing all restaurant chains and four star hotels that had been founded within Texan borders. This included, if for only a short period, many unknown franchises currently out of business...Another time, he became obsessed with the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra and had it running on a continuous loop in his home. According to his aides, he watched it 150 times...Hughes wanted to change the image of Las Vegas to something more glamorous than it was. As Hughes wrote in a memo to an aide, 'I like to think of Las Vegas in terms of a well-dressed man in a dinner jacket and a beautifully jeweled and furred female getting out of an expensive car.'"

seriously. awesome.