Heartbreak of America: For Naked Cowboy, Chevy takes the lost highway

It's always bothered me that the Naked Cowboy, the iconic street musician in Times Square who wears little more than briefs, a cowboy hat, and a guitar, isn't quite naked. Oh, I doubt I'd enjoy watching a guy play guitar with an occasional view of private parts -- but still: he's called the Naked Cowboy, and he isn't.

Similarly, the 2007 Super Bowl spot for Chevy's HHR, a car nobody was too excited about to begin with, is not quite naked, not quite hot, not quite what it says it is. "It's getting hot in here!" goes the strip-club soundtrack, as men in Times Square rush toward a car filled with youngish women to perform a Paris Hilton–style shirtless carwash. "Guys can't keep their hands off it," the commercial wishfully proclaims.