Kevin Spacey is well known for being the real Keyser Söze, cultivating a low-profile in Hollywood, channeling the world’s worst boss, and for his halfway decent impression of Christopher Walken. While Spacey has dominated film and TV (or at least Netflix), his brother, Randy Fowler, has his own sort-of celebrity career.
Twitter user David Friedman has unearthed Fowler’s limo website, rodslimos.com, in all its jarring, circa-1999, javascript-animated-text glory. Traveling to the site reveals that while Spacey has spread himself thin, Fowler is focusing on a niche market. Specifically, he’s offering a limousine service, chauffeured by a Rod Stewart impersonator. You could also probably tell yourself that you’re being chauffeured by Toby Huss dressed up as the third and sixth versions of Doctor Who. Either way, Fowler is relying on the trusted business model of picking one thing and doing it better than anyone else.
While the limo web site is strange enough on its own, it opens a pandora’s box of tangential strangeness. Consider the Rod’s Limos YouTube channel, which offers a better portrait of the man. One commercial touts the customer’s freedom to request which bizarre ensemble Rod Stewart will be wearing. Another, showcasing the Idaho State Lottery, stars fake-Rod Stewart—serving both as an advertisement for the Idaho State Lottery, and as compelling evidence that the Idaho State Lottery is mismanaging its budget.
But then, as is often the case on YouTube, things take a strange for the sad and weird. Fowler appeared on Boise’s local-access program Treasure Valley View to share his (completely sober) rock-star life. Some of the interview is uplifting, including his work for the make-a-wish foundation helping children who are pining to be chauffeured by Rod Stewart. Others moments strain credulity, such as his recollections of being mobbed at the Idaho Center, by people who wanted their picture taken with a limo driver who allegedly looks like Rod Stewart. And then there are the depressing moments where he discusses taking the brunt of child abuse, sparing his younger brother. The host seems unfazed by this admission, but then again, she’s already called herself out on day drinking.
He doesn’t name his brother in the video, but it’s clear from earlier interviews and from his personal website that’s he’s talking about Spacey. Here he goes on at length about feeling wronged by his younger, famous brother. Fowler presents a rambling history of title changes for an unwritten biography. Some rejected titles, like Living In The Shadows, Brothers Split By Secrets sound vaguely like entries in V.C. Andrews’ Dollanganger series. Others, like I’m Spacey’s Brother, Whether He Likes It Or Not, and Spacey’s Brother: Out Of The Closet, sound a little more angry and accusatory. As a professional musician, it’s surprising he never went with the somewhat obvious Fowler: Space(y) Jam.
It’s dark and depressing stuff for a simple chauffeur’s website Q&A, but you can cheer yourself up at his links page, which is a veritable internet superhighway roundabout for all things Fowler.
[h/t Gawker]