Carmel Vs. Potus

I've been having a debate, one which rages over several aspects of my life, something like Star Wars in microcosm. Of course, it's much more important than that.

So just who is the coolest person alive today? Until a couple of years ago I would've said the gravelly-voiced minstrel Johnny Cash would've got my vote, but for fairly obvious reasons, he's now disqualified from the count. So who's it going to be?

Although I'm certainly open to suggestions (The Hoff is generally considered too cool, and is therefore discounted), I've yet to come across anyone to topple what I see as the two main contenders. On the one hand, we have the man himself, Sir Christopher of Walken. This man can allegedly eat 800 hot dogs in a day, in between filming a movie and dancing like a demon. This is a man who's starred in such movie classics as Pulp Fiction, The Deer Hunter and, um, A View To A Kill. It's a man whose hair has a presence of it's own and commands, in some arenas, greater respect than even the great man himself. This is a figure who can bring gravitas and some nifty moves to a political arena chock full of stuffed shirts and uncool people. Vote Walken, he's watching you.


However. This is a big however, which tells you where my gut feeling lies. Can you tell me more than a couple of classic films in which the Walken stars, without resorting to IMDB? Now let's try you on Clint Eastwood, or to give him his full name: CLINT.


Now we're talking a legend, an epitome of manliness yet with a mastery of understatement all too rarely seen in Hollywood. As was pointed out to me recently, he's one of the few, if not the only, director who came up through the old Hollywood studio system, and therefore has a different approach to many of today's media types. And can you name the classics? Sure you can: High Plains Drifter; Magnum Force; Dirty Harry; all his Leone spaghetti westerns; I could go on and on. And that's just as actor, the man's won six Oscars for his direction, including Unforgiven, Mystic River, and four for Million Dollar Baby. Plus, look at him! He's so cool.

So, leave a vote with your comment or whatever, there's no-one to top Clint in my book.

While we're here though, I'll drop you an mp3 of a guy that in the music field, is up there with the coolest, one Dan Snaith of Caribou (formerly Manitoba as previously discussed): this is the funkiest thing you'll hear all year, 'Lord Leopard', from his most recent, The Milk Of Human Kindness: http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3K8K8AW4UZ3NK1379WKN079MU4