In his new Vanity Fair cover story (not online yet, sadly), Johnny Depp and writer Douglas Brinkley visit Little Hall’s Pond Cay, Depp’s private, 45-acre Bahamian island, just a short yacht ride off the coast of Nassau. We read the story on the train last night, hoping it wouldn’t just be a long list of reasons why it’s more fun to be a handsome movie star with a private island than an unsightly blogger with a fifth-story walk-up — which it pretty much is (“Money doesn’t buy happiness,†Depp actually says at one point, quoting David Lee Roth, “but it buys you a yacht big enough to sail right up to itâ€). Still, though, between all the snorkeling and lounging around on the island’s SIX BEACHES, there is one part of the feature that didn’t make us feel so bad: Turns out that if we did have a yacht and an island, we’d probably just watch funny videos on the Internet all day, exactly like we do now.
According to Brinkley, every night on the trip, he, Depp, and their three accompanying friends sat around in Depp’s docked yacht watching YouTube videos. Sure, they watched them on a giant flat-screen TV while eating delicious-sounding meals prepared by the yacht’s onboard chef, but otherwise it’s basically the same as one of your Saturday nights. How do you get Internet access on a yacht docked on a private island? We don’t know! Anyway, here are the videos mentioned in the story.
This one is George Whitman, owner of Paris’s Shakespeare and Co. bookstore, lighting his hair on fire to impress two women:
Here’s James Brown’s famous late-eighties CNN interview. “This is as high as you can get,†observes Depp in the article. “Unless you go on ether.â€
Says Brinkley, “Depp is a huge fan of the 1970s Dean Martin TV roasts with Don Rickles, so we consume them by the hour.†Here’s Rickles roasting Martin:
Also, “the old comedian Foster Brooks, whose shtick was sham inebriation, can almost move Depp to tears.†Here’s Brooks roasting Johnny Carson:
This one’s not technically available on YouTube, but Brinkley says, “we watch A Colbert Christmas, largely to see Willie Nelson in the Three Wise Men skit.â€
They also watch Tom Cruise’s appearance in Tropic Thunder. “That’s the best I’ve ever seen Cruise,†says Depp. (He must not have seen Valkyrie.)