Can't keep a good vamp down

News.com.au

 The Nicolas Cage vampire madness continues, as the pic—which was removed from eBay for undisclosed reasons—is back, but still sporting a US$1,000,000 price tag. Thankfully, the seller's willing to waive the US$3.95 shipping fee.

eBay

I wonder if the seller removed the item due to the lack of credit he was given for his 'work': the photo on the eBay listing is now embossed with 'Jack Mord / Thanatos.net' (right). As Jack Mord—aka diabolus—mentioned on his forum, 'A lot of people aren't crediting me though, I've noticed. It was on PerezHilton and he cropped out my watermark and put his on the image.'

It's good to see news sources are starting to chase the source (like The Stir and AllMediaNY), although, one may have jumped the gun in identifying him: 'Lieutenant G.B. Smith, a Confederate prisoner that was taken in 1864 at Johnson's Island prison camp in Ohio.'

I'm not sure where the author derived that information from, as the man's identity is not revealed in the eBay listing. After all, the seller claims (with tongue firmly in cheek) that it's Nicolas Cage. 

He appears to be confusing the a name which appears, upside down, on the back of the photo: Prof. G.B. Smith, Gallery of Fine Arts, Bristol, Tenn. (below), who the seller cites as the photographer, not the man in the portrait. The confusion's not helped by the dates in Mord's listing. Despite saying it's an 'Original c.1870 carte de visite', he also says 'It's an original photo taken in Bristol, TN sometime around the Civil War.' The American Civil War ended in 1865.

eBay

The question is, where's the evidence that Cage is a vampire? Why's that the first conclusion derived from the photograph? It's not mentioned in conjunction with him drinking blood. Where's the fangs? The widow's peak? What if he's another kind of revenant? Did anyone think of that?

Maybe he's not undead, at all: he could simply be Immortal. But there might be a simpler explanation for why an 1870s photograph kinda looks like him: time travel. 

Mord believes Cage 'reinvents himself once every 75 years or so.  150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult, or a  talk show host.' You know what other being's capable of regeneration, 'immortality' and time travel? These guys. 

All you'd need to determine is whether Cage has two hearts and an internal temperature of 59 degrees Fahrenheit. An x-ray and thermometer should do the trick.

However, if that's not feasible, there's always considering the possibility that it's a photograph of a guy—long dead—who bears passing resemblance to a famous American actor. Such phenomenon is not unheard of.

In all seriousness, it's clear Mord's having a laugh with the thing, though I doubt 'some rich asshole' will actually buy Mord's refuge in audacity. But wouldn't it be awesome if Cage, himself, bought it? Unlikely, as he's kinda broke at the moment.