You Gotsta Chill
With my first post and introduction to the AwesomeUSA readers I decided to return to a topic that has managed to allude each of us for the past several years. Am I talking about the top ten coolest people of all time? You bet your balls I'm talking about the top ten coolest people of all time. This list welcomes criticism, outrage, and throwing up at the sight of it. It is my top ten and has been developing for four years.
1) Muhammad Ali
-Greatest athlete of all time, fused sports with politics, lost three years of his prime for refusing to step forward in the draft. The best thing about Ali is that take all of that stuff away and his personality still made him one of the coolest people to ever live.
-On a side note, boxing is the coolest sport. There was a two year period where Natty and I were obsessed with boxing. It culminated in a summer of shutting down the pool we worked at and playing Knockout Kings for hours at a time. We seriously considered driving to Mississippi at one point to watch David "The American Dream" Reed box.
-My obsession with Ali began when I was 12. It reached its climax when I defriended a guy two weeks ago in St. Louis because he tried to tell me Mike Tyson was a better boxer.
-Reference Zaire74 (the unveiling of the rope a dope), Rumble in the Jungle (where Ali shut both of Frazier's eyes by the 14th round) , and When We Were Kings
2) Paul Newman
-One of the greatest actors of our time but he hasn't gone psycho like Brando. I really thought Marlon Brando was a better actor and looked just as cool on screen, but ballooned to 250 pounds, started eating his own toenails and who knows what else.
-Newman has also been married for over 50 years which is unheard of in Hollywood. He started his own salad dressing company that donates all of its profit to charity. AwesomeUSA is a big proponent of charity. People being helped by people that aren't us.
-Newman is a really good and humble person despite all of his success. He isn't anti semantic or a christian scientist.
-Reference Cool Hand Luke (greatest movie ever made) and The Hustler
3) Larry David
-co-creator of Seinfeld, creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm. He is a bald jewish narcissist but one of the funniest men alive.
-He actually did quit Saturday Night Live by walking into Lorne Michaels office and telling him the show sucked, he was embarassed to be a part of it, and he would never work for him again. The next day he realized he had just thrown away a year's salary so he tried to go back and pretend it never happened. That's cool.
-He also quit Seinfeld over 10 times throughout the years and wasn't allowed in production meetings with NBC because of his tyraids. That's also cool.
4) Charles Barkley
-He has the coolest nickname in sports Sir Charles. He scored 50 points in a game after Chris Webber did a reverse dunk and celebrated like an idiot. Apparently it was obvious it was in retaliation for the dunk. He also fought mascots and bounced a ball of Shaq's head and then wrestled him to the ground. I love Shaq, but I love Sir Charles more.
-I really do hope he's a politician someday, even though he's a republican. John McCain, Rudy Guiliani, and Sir Charles would be the only republicans I would ever vote for. Well I'd probabaly vote for John Ashcroft too since he lost to a dead guy in Missouri, believes Calico cats are a sign of the devil, thinks nude statues of woman are porn, and believes in executing retarded people. All things I support and enjoy.
5) George Clooney
-Sort of an obvious pick which I don't really like, but he is the closest thing to Paul Newman right now. I don't really enjoy that many of his movies, but Syriana was one of his most underrated movies. If you havne't seen it you should.
-His career was actually bombing worse than Christian Slater's at one point but he bounced back with another underrated movie Three Kings.
-He's also a liberal from Kentucky, which is pretty cool. He also talks about being a liberal from Kentucky a lot, which I like.
6) P. Diddy
-I really didn't want to put him on the list, because I've never been a big fan of him until recently. My turning poing was watching an MTV documentary about Diddy preparing to run the New York City Marathon. In the documentary he rode around his entire office building (which is several stories in a huge high rise ) on a Segway that made his head almost hit the roof. He would ride down the aisles and stop in people's offices, but he never got off of it. All of his employees loved him and you could tell really loved when he came by to see them.
-He also donated an ungodly amount of money to inner city Harlem schools.
-His music sucked, but he realized it kind of sucked and does other things. I think that's pretty cool.
7) Chad Johnson
-I just love his interviews, love watching him play, and love his gold grills. He is unique, loud, brash, and is the most entertaining person in sports right now.
8) Dave Eggers
-One of the most talented writers in the entire world. He also donates all of the money he makes to charities and created the 826 charities where people volunteer their time to teach kids reading and writing skills.
-Reference mcsweeneys.net and A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius
9) Craig Kilborne
-An odd pick I admit. But just think about it: He's worked for Sportscenter, The DailyShow, and had his own late night talk show. All three some of the coolest jobs you can have. He made really funny sportscenter commercials as well. He was one of the pioneers of that whole great thing that exists.
-He is also the most underrated comedic presence in Old School. "You can't tell you know? That's what chicks do, they tell on each other. You're not a chick are you?"
10) Richard Pryor
-The greatest comedian to ever live. He lit himself on fire in a drug accident and developed stand up to make fun of himself. He did a bunch of movies with Gene Wilder and would talk about the only reason he did it was for the money. He talked about how much his movies sucked but they paid him a lot of money so he would keep doing it.
-Reference a clip on Youtube.com where he does a 20 minute interview and is so high on cocaine that they can't use any second of the footage. It's one of the funniest things you can ever watch. It's not awkward because everyone there is laughing too hard
Honorable Mentions:
Steve McQueen, Conan O'Brien, Runs with Two Horses, Che Guevera, Ray Payne, Bill Murray, Hakeem Olajuwonand Mick Jagger.
10 People Who are Extremely Overrated:
1) Kanye West
2) Sean Connery
3) Michael Jordan
4) Psycho T
5) Rick Pitino
6) Randy Moss
7) Grey's Anatomy (the whole cast)
8) My Name is Earl (the whole cast)
9) Tiki Barber
10) Florida (the whole state)
1) Muhammad Ali
-Greatest athlete of all time, fused sports with politics, lost three years of his prime for refusing to step forward in the draft. The best thing about Ali is that take all of that stuff away and his personality still made him one of the coolest people to ever live.
-On a side note, boxing is the coolest sport. There was a two year period where Natty and I were obsessed with boxing. It culminated in a summer of shutting down the pool we worked at and playing Knockout Kings for hours at a time. We seriously considered driving to Mississippi at one point to watch David "The American Dream" Reed box.
-My obsession with Ali began when I was 12. It reached its climax when I defriended a guy two weeks ago in St. Louis because he tried to tell me Mike Tyson was a better boxer.
-Reference Zaire74 (the unveiling of the rope a dope), Rumble in the Jungle (where Ali shut both of Frazier's eyes by the 14th round) , and When We Were Kings
2) Paul Newman
-One of the greatest actors of our time but he hasn't gone psycho like Brando. I really thought Marlon Brando was a better actor and looked just as cool on screen, but ballooned to 250 pounds, started eating his own toenails and who knows what else.
-Newman has also been married for over 50 years which is unheard of in Hollywood. He started his own salad dressing company that donates all of its profit to charity. AwesomeUSA is a big proponent of charity. People being helped by people that aren't us.
-Newman is a really good and humble person despite all of his success. He isn't anti semantic or a christian scientist.
-Reference Cool Hand Luke (greatest movie ever made) and The Hustler
3) Larry David
-co-creator of Seinfeld, creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm. He is a bald jewish narcissist but one of the funniest men alive.
-He actually did quit Saturday Night Live by walking into Lorne Michaels office and telling him the show sucked, he was embarassed to be a part of it, and he would never work for him again. The next day he realized he had just thrown away a year's salary so he tried to go back and pretend it never happened. That's cool.
-He also quit Seinfeld over 10 times throughout the years and wasn't allowed in production meetings with NBC because of his tyraids. That's also cool.
4) Charles Barkley
-He has the coolest nickname in sports Sir Charles. He scored 50 points in a game after Chris Webber did a reverse dunk and celebrated like an idiot. Apparently it was obvious it was in retaliation for the dunk. He also fought mascots and bounced a ball of Shaq's head and then wrestled him to the ground. I love Shaq, but I love Sir Charles more.
-I really do hope he's a politician someday, even though he's a republican. John McCain, Rudy Guiliani, and Sir Charles would be the only republicans I would ever vote for. Well I'd probabaly vote for John Ashcroft too since he lost to a dead guy in Missouri, believes Calico cats are a sign of the devil, thinks nude statues of woman are porn, and believes in executing retarded people. All things I support and enjoy.
5) George Clooney
-Sort of an obvious pick which I don't really like, but he is the closest thing to Paul Newman right now. I don't really enjoy that many of his movies, but Syriana was one of his most underrated movies. If you havne't seen it you should.
-His career was actually bombing worse than Christian Slater's at one point but he bounced back with another underrated movie Three Kings.
-He's also a liberal from Kentucky, which is pretty cool. He also talks about being a liberal from Kentucky a lot, which I like.
6) P. Diddy
-I really didn't want to put him on the list, because I've never been a big fan of him until recently. My turning poing was watching an MTV documentary about Diddy preparing to run the New York City Marathon. In the documentary he rode around his entire office building (which is several stories in a huge high rise ) on a Segway that made his head almost hit the roof. He would ride down the aisles and stop in people's offices, but he never got off of it. All of his employees loved him and you could tell really loved when he came by to see them.
-He also donated an ungodly amount of money to inner city Harlem schools.
-His music sucked, but he realized it kind of sucked and does other things. I think that's pretty cool.
7) Chad Johnson
-I just love his interviews, love watching him play, and love his gold grills. He is unique, loud, brash, and is the most entertaining person in sports right now.
8) Dave Eggers
-One of the most talented writers in the entire world. He also donates all of the money he makes to charities and created the 826 charities where people volunteer their time to teach kids reading and writing skills.
-Reference mcsweeneys.net and A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius
9) Craig Kilborne
-An odd pick I admit. But just think about it: He's worked for Sportscenter, The DailyShow, and had his own late night talk show. All three some of the coolest jobs you can have. He made really funny sportscenter commercials as well. He was one of the pioneers of that whole great thing that exists.
-He is also the most underrated comedic presence in Old School. "You can't tell you know? That's what chicks do, they tell on each other. You're not a chick are you?"
10) Richard Pryor
-The greatest comedian to ever live. He lit himself on fire in a drug accident and developed stand up to make fun of himself. He did a bunch of movies with Gene Wilder and would talk about the only reason he did it was for the money. He talked about how much his movies sucked but they paid him a lot of money so he would keep doing it.
-Reference a clip on Youtube.com where he does a 20 minute interview and is so high on cocaine that they can't use any second of the footage. It's one of the funniest things you can ever watch. It's not awkward because everyone there is laughing too hard
Honorable Mentions:
Steve McQueen, Conan O'Brien, Runs with Two Horses, Che Guevera, Ray Payne, Bill Murray, Hakeem Olajuwonand Mick Jagger.
10 People Who are Extremely Overrated:
1) Kanye West
2) Sean Connery
3) Michael Jordan
4) Psycho T
5) Rick Pitino
6) Randy Moss
7) Grey's Anatomy (the whole cast)
8) My Name is Earl (the whole cast)
9) Tiki Barber
10) Florida (the whole state)
posted by HAL 9000 at 2:37 PM
4 Comments:
Furst things fisrt, we really nead to work on yur speling. Other than that I'm still wondering what the hell you were thinking with all but about 4 of those guys. Started off great with the first two and I pretty much disagree with every choice after that. I'm sure I'll have more to say later, but there's still a lot of gravy clogging up my brain.
Seriously, this is gonna come in parts because the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off each time.
Three of the people in your "overrated" category, MJ, Kanye, and Sean Connery could easily crack most top ten lists, and especially one that already includes Craig Kilborne. CK was great on sportscenter, decent on the daily show, and absolutely sucked big gay loser balls on late night.
Also, the Dream as an honorable mention? Sure, he was amazingly smooth on the court and there will probably never be another center that plays the position the way that he did. But cool? I don't think so. The only thing that he ever did that was remotely close to being cool was being featured in GQ, and if I remember correctly, he just looked really awkward and African. Shit, why not throw Dikembe on there while you're at it.
If you compiled this list just to piss me off (and I seriously considered that possibility until I remembered that you weren't Natty) then you did a helluva job my friend.
I was pretty close to letting you have it for a few of your selections, but then you catered to my vanity in your honorable mention section, and subsequently received my (nearly) full endorsement. I'm taking a stand on the shot at the cast of My Name is Earl, though. That show probably has the best collection of recurring cameos (Giovanni Ribisi, Christian Slater, Juliette Lewis, Jon Favreau, etc.) and Jason Lee is a former professional skateboarder with one of the absolute best mustaches out there. I'd also bet that you have at least three of Jason Lee's movies on DVD (hopefully not Kissing a Fool).
Honestly, Taylor, what in the hell were thinking with this post? Charles Barkley was bad enough (and by the way, he's now a Democrat), but P. Diddy. Seriously, I think I speak for everyone when I say that that makes Awesome USA want to revoke your posting privilges. P. Diddy may actually be the suckiest individual to ever walk the Earth. His music is horrible. His dancing is somehow worse. He wouldn't even be famous if he hadn't been B.I.G.'s man-servant. He's basically the prototype for Fonsworth Bentley, who sucks ass like there's no tomorrow. Additionally, there is a certain Old Man traveling through the lost empires to the South who would take great offense to your leaving Marlon Brando off of the list. Think about it for a second: you actually put George Clooney on the list and not Marlon Brando. Chad Johnson but not Marlon Brando. Chad Johnson? Honestly, did Leonard Peltier put you up to that one? Or, could you not think of anyone else in the world at the point in time. Since when did idiocy become cool? And Ali at number one? I'll leave it alone because you have an enormous, borderline creapy man-crush on him and you've marked your body for all of eternity with a memorial to him.
I don't even know where to start with Craig Kilborn. He may give P. Diddy a run for his money for worst human being ever. Fortunately for the world, Kilborn's shittiness is so obvious that no one will put him in front of a national audience anymore. And if you're going to put someone in your top 10 coolest people of all time list, please, for the love of God, learn how to spell their name. I mean, seriously. You should be embarrassed.
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