Ten years ago, I moved to New York in order to seek out fame and fortune as an actor/writer. Oddly, there was no Writers’ Welcoming Committee on the Triboro Bridge. The newspapers were utterly devoid of job opportunities for “Stars of Tomorrow.” I hung around various strategically-placed diners for a week without seeing a single leading man slip in a gravy spill, break his leg, and have his harried producer rush in, look at me and say, “Hey, kid, can you sing? Curtain goes up at the Biltmore in ten minutes!” This was disappointing.

I took a job at the Sunglass Hut at the South Street Seaport. Stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this.

As day jobs go, the Sunglass Hut wasn’t bad at all. I was a pretty good salesman, I made decent commissions, the management was kind and supportive, and packs of tall Brazilian women would frequently saunter in, buy hundreds of dollars worth of designer sunglasses from me, and invite me to stay with them when I came to Brazil, frequently while their husbands looked on or nodded encouragingly. It was a good job.

I soon became an Assistant Manager, but I turned down opportunities to advance further - I needed to keep some time free to write scripts and audition. So A.M. is as far as I ever went before (tiny) fame and (pitifully small) fortune in show business allowed me to quit after a little over a year. I left with a month’s rent, fond memories, some new friends, and several scraps of paper with the addresses of estates outside Sao Paulo.

Now, several years later, I still occasionally buy sunglasses and related paraphernalia at Sunglass Hut. When the opportunity comes up, I’ll recommend the store to friends. It’s not like I have stock in the company, I just have some lingering affection for the place. Call it “residual loyalty.”

So if I ever rise to a post of great political power and I’m put in the position of being able to do a favor for Sunglass Hut as opposed to some rival company, I’d have to confess that I’d be a bit biased. I’d have to be on guard against it in my decision-making process. I’d have to ask myself, “Do I REALLY believe the ozone layer’s not all that important? Or do I just want to flood the planet with UV rays in order to open up the valuable deer and cattle eye-protection market for for those who sell Ray Bans?”

It’d be a concern. Probably more so if I’d run the Sunglass Hut corporation, earned millions of dollars from it, still received an annual check for $150,000, and had only left the place a couple of years ago.

So when Dick Cheney says, “I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven’t had, now, for over three years,” he’s missing the point. Or rather, he’s hoping we miss the point. Either there is some bias (that he’s denying) towards foreign and domestic policies that help out the company he ran until 2000, or the guy’s got less loyalty, sentiment, and dedication than a 20-something retail drone looking to move on.

Neither possibility is all that attractive.

But when America finally wises up and Cheney and the rest of Bush Oil are sent to spend their sunset years down in Texas, I’ll be happy to help Dick find a stylish pair of shades that’ll protect his eyes and de-accentuate those overfed jowls. And I just might be able to recommend a good place to buy ‘em.