Dear Blogosphere,Recently, I have become increasingly distressed at the attempts to make David Hasselhoff a kind of hipster icon. No, not because of the infamous video, but because - at his cold, dark heart - Hasselhoff demonstrates nothing more than a relatively inflated ego, sharply defined lack of talent, and poor taste in plastic surgeons.
(However, the recent release of his autobiography does nothing to settle the dread which is creeping in my heart - if anything, I am increasingly unsettled).
However, as a public service to you, the reader, I would like to suggest five other men who are worthy of public, hipster recognition. (I can't think of five women, and encourage female bloggers to take this on as a challenge).
- Tom Jones - Unlike many hipster icons, this is a man who truly deserves adoration. He has one hell of a voice (don't believe me? Listen to these tracks, and watch as he makes the crappily written theme to Thunderball sound sexy). By comparison, Hasselhoff's singing sounds like an asthmatic death rattle. This is the man who wrote the book on reinvention - he deserves more love.
- Robert Conrad - Although 70s hipsters dug his Eveready commercial, there's one key scene that determines Mr. Conrad's coolness. On an episode in the The Wild Wild West - The Complete Second Season
DVD set, Mr. Conrad takes out a bunch of bad guys...with a bowl of fruit. If they weren't focused on comics, you know these two would be all over this.
- Avery Brooks - Ok, he was pretty intimidating on Spenser: For Hire; however, he played the greatest Star Trek captain - a man who combined Picard's tendency towards contemplation and diplomacy with Kirk's cowboy diplomacy, willing to make tough ethical choices. Plus, he was a tenured professor, has done Shakespeare...and doesn't toot his own horn. I mean, if that doesn't scream cool, I don't know what does.
- Graham Parker - I've posted about him before. Do a search yourself. Better yet, buy his records, and thank me later.
- Tom Baker - Finally, a man who in many ways is like a British William Shatner - well known actor from a pop culture phenomenon - only Mr. Baker is more eccentric, and doesn't quite take himself so seriously.
4 comments:
A vote for a woman:
Elaine Stritch - What is she, 90? And she can still act and sing most under the table
i'll accept your first 4, and Stritch, who's only 82, but she's a stitch. An interview on 60 Minutes (or some CBS show) was a revelation.
Wanna hear my great Hasselhoff idea? A one-hour drama TV series, about a family of cops. The three main characters are from three generations of this family: grandfather, father, son. Playing these three, respectively, would be: William Shatner, David Hasselhoff and David Boreanaz. Try to tell me that such a show wouldn't be fascinating.
Matthew - It wouldn't. Honestly.
Plus, I like Mr. Boreanaz too much to subject him to Hasselhoff and Shatner.
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