Top 5 War

Top 5 Inventors

2008-10-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Nikola Tesla
I can’t even explain a lot of Tesla’s inventions and how they work. But I do know that, aside from providing the city of Buffalo, NY, with hydroelectric power, inventing alternating current (AC) power, the lightning rod, ways to use x-rays, and a host of other transmitters and transformers, Tesla was the first to envision a main characteristic of modern life—wireless communications and energy transmission. Think about that the next time you talk on your cell phone.

2) Thomas Edison
Let’s just get it out of the way: the light bulb, phonographic recording, movies, voting machines, and even tattoo stencils—the man had over 1,000 patents before he died. Revival of interest in the struggle between Edison and Tesla around 1886 has produced a lot of books and documentaries showing Edison to be a real jerk. (Try to find footage of the film he produced of an elephant being killed using Tesla’s alternating current—actually…no, don’t.) But he is indisputably the giant of American ingenuity (well, until those Google guys came along).

3) Johannes Gutenberg
The Chinese may have invented a version of moveable clay tiles in the 1300s, but it’s Gutenberg’s 1438 invention that ushered in 600 years of books, newspapers, and every sort of printed material, and consequentially, mass literacy among the merchant classes of Europe.

4) Philo T. Farnsworth
The man who invented television (and his wife, whom he always gave equal credit) is almost completely forgotten by history—due in part to the selling of his patent to RCA Victor, which led to a classic little-guy vs. big-corporation battle. (You don’t have to guess who won).

5) Bo Diddley
Aside from his rightful claim as being “The Originator” of the link between country and blues to create rock 'n’ roll, Bo Diddley truly was the creator of the “Bo Diddley Beat”—heard in his namesake song, his hit “Who Do You Love?”, the Buddy Holly song “Not Fade Away,” and countless other crossover hits.

Top Guy

1) Henry Ford
Ford often is erroneously credited with inventing the car. He didn’t. But he did create the assembly line, which revolutionized heavy industry and made the United States the world’s leading superpower.

2) Tim Berners-Lee
A group of super-smart American nerds invented the Internet (aided by massive Congressional funding spearheaded by then-Senator Al Gore). Berners-Lee wasn’t one of those folks, but the British-born computer scientist did invent the World Wide Web, which made the Internet accessible to the average guy and gal. It’s just a guess, but he’s probably not too thrilled that most people use his invention to look at porn or to goof off at work.

3) Orville and Wilbur Wright
Let’s get this straight; Ohio is the birthplace of flight. Yes, North Carolinians, I’m looking at you. The Wright Brothers were from Dayton, they developed their ideas about flight in Dayton, and they even did their early testing in Dayton. The Wrights only moved to North Carolina because the lighter winds and lower air density made it easier for their plane to take off.

4) Les Paul
If Les Paul was nothing more than a jazz guitarist, his place in history would be secure. But Paul pioneered the invention of the solid-body electric guitar, and created recording innovations such as multitrack recording, overdubbing, delay effects and phasing effects. If you listen to recorded music, you’ve heard some of Paul’s inventions.

5) Otto Rohwedder
Who’s Otto Rohwedder? He’s the Chillicothe, Mo., man who invented sliced bread.

Top 5 Months

2008-10-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) May
Like I wasn’t going to put my birth month No. 1 on this list.

2) December
We celebrate the birth of Christ by giving each other presents. We celebrate the start of a new year by getting drunk and kissing people. Sure, it’s always way too cold, but December has plenty of upside.

3) June
In the immortal words of Alice Cooper: “School’s out for summer/ School’s out forever/ School’s been blown to pieces.”

4) November
Two of my favorite yearly events happen near the end of the month: the Ohio State-Michigan game and Thanksgiving. (And yes, they’re in that order.)

5) October
The last day of the month is a treat for boys of all ages. When we’re young, we get a nearly limitless amount of candy. When we’re older, women use Halloween as an excuse to dress as slutily as they can. October also gets props for inspiring a kickin’ U2 album.

Top Lady

1) October
Rocktober rules because the weather is fantastic pretty much everywhere in the United States, fall fashion comes back into play, you get the random day off of Columbus day, everyone gets crazy around Halloween, and after it's over, my own birthday happens. Also, Oktoberfest (which, I know, is technically in September, but still…)

2) January
Let’s be honest—aren’t you a little relieved when the holidays are over, the in-laws leave, and you can get back to your normal work/school life? When the clean slate of January is accompanied by a clean, quiet snowfall, it’s even better.

3) July
The sight of fireworks in the night sky turns everyone into a gape-mouthed five-year-old, and July is the perfect month for backyard cookouts and road trips. It’s also one of the few times a year when you can get locally grown peaches and berries.

4) December
Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, New Year’s, the Holiday Office Party and Festivus. December just has too many reasons to drink to not be a top month.

5) March
Weatherwise, I hate March—the whole month is like a wet, slushy, windy bruise on the calendar. But there’s one day when the sun shines, people have hearts full of song, and young girls dance on slow-moving flatbed trucks. On the day that the Chicago River turns green, though, try and have a Guinness, instead of drinking beer the same color….

Top 5 Clash songs

2008-10-09T20:10:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Spanish Bombs
Ardently political, punky, poppy, with a touch of romanticism (“O mi corazon”)—this song perfectly embodies the Clash.

2) London Calling
In the Clash’s world, a perpetual war rages on--in economic, social, and environmental spheres. That military-march guitar sound (that could have been coming from the Gang of Four) is offset by that mysterious, ominous bass line that seems to come from the Thames at the start of the song, and the distress-call lyrics are finalized by the fading S.O.S. Morse code at the end. Pretty terrifying for a song you can rock out to.

3) Janie Jones
A song about a young laddie—how British (and a precursor to about three dozen Blur/Oasis songs).

4) Guns of Brixton
Joe Strummer learned everything he ever knew about reggae from Clash bassist Paul Simonon, who wrote and sings this one. Kind of a precursor to the “Bad Boys” song from COPS, now that I think about it…

5) This is Radio Clash
A fun, youthful song that pushes them over into “Should I Stay or Should I Go” territory, but they’re still singing about the First Amendment, so I guess it’s political enough. Interestingly, this song contains the line “this is not radio free Europe” and came out in the same year as R.E.M.’s song of that name—but I doubt there’s a connection.

Top Guy

1) Garageland
The Clash’s eponymous first album closes with the perfect punk rock song. It’s loud. It’s fast. It’s angry. And it has a great first line: “Back in the garage with my bullshit detector.”

2) Guns of Brixton
Speaking of great first lines, it’s difficult to top “When they kick in your front door/How you gonna come?/With your hands on your head/Or on the trigger of your gun?” The beauty of the Clash was that it expanded what could be considered punk—“Brixton” owes more to reggae traditions than it does to the Ramones.

3) Straight to Hell
The band had pretty much broken apart by the time it recorded Combat Rock, and the resulting record was a mixed bag at best. For every “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah,” there’s an “Overpowered by Funk” and “Ghetto Defendant.” With its wiry guitar line and almost trance-inducing pace, “Straight to Hell” is the album’s true gem.

4) I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.
Bands tread a fine line between insight and sloganeering with political songs, and the Clash walked that tightrope better than most. It took Joe Strummer and the boys less than three minutes to synthesize everything wrong with the American dream, and they get bonus points for having the balls to open their first-ever U.S. show with the diatribe.

5) Train in Vain
London Calling closed with the greatest hidden track of all time. Why was “Train in Vain” hidden? Because it’s not political. Instead, it is a love song (or more precisely, an ode to love gone wrong). But “Train in Vain” proves that the Clash could write a great pop song but instead chose to write about what it thought truly mattered.

Top 5 Paul Newman movies

2008-10-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Cool Hand Luke (1967)
At some point, everyone wants to be as cool as Paul Newman’s Luke. He earns respect by always dragging himself back up, he makes dumb bets because 50 seems like a nice round number, and he’s the ultimate thorn in authority’s side. Luke proves again and again that sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.

2) The Hustler (1961)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof made Newman a star, but this is the film that made him Paul Newman. He plays pool shark Eddie Felson, and Newman seems to live and die with each of Felson’s ups and downs. The scene where Felson hustles the wrong guys—and gets his thumbs broken in the process—is one of the most excruciating images captured on celluloid. He later revived the role for The Color of Money, winning a Best Actor Oscar in the process.

3) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
There might not be two more beloved anti-heroes than Cassidy (Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford). They rob banks and trains, trade wisecracks and flee to Bolivia when times get too tough in the United States. The final scene, where the pair tries to shoot their way through the Bolivian army, is the ultimate us-against-the-world statement.

4) Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
He’s grumpy. He’s mean. And he’s the ultimate villain opposite Tim Robbins’ awe-shucks Norville Barnes.

5) Slap Shot (1977)
There are great baseball movies (Bull Durham, Pride of the Yankees), football movies (The Longest Yard, North Dallas Forty) and basketball movies (Hoosiers, Hoop Dreams), but there is only one truly great hockey movie. The film follows a struggling team that turns around its financial and athletic fortunes by using a steady stream of fighting and violence during games. Newman was the star, but Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and David Hanson steal the show as the ultra-violent Hanson brothers.

Top Lady

1) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Newman always looked cool playing a tough guy or outlaw; in this drama, however, he brings a heartbreaking complexity to the role of a son and husband who has to overcome alcohol addiction and a few other unspoken, unresolved issues to fulfill his place in the family.

2) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
OK—does anyone not want to ride around on the handlebars of Paul Newman’s bike?

3) Road to Perdition (2002)
In one of his few coming-out-of-retirement roles, Newman plays an Irish mob boss outside of Chicago who must make a choice right out of Greek tragedy—his own son has killed a trusted ally. Does he punish the crime? Only someone with 57 years of acting skill behind him could bring such nuanced anguish to the screen.

4) Hud (1963)
The film where Hollywood and everyone else realized that Newman could play a role that would otherwise be characterized as “the villain” yet turn him into a charming anti-hero.

5) The Sting (1973)
Basically Butch Cassidy, Part 2, The Sting has some neat twists and turns, but it is basically just another romp with Robert Redford and Newman in period costumes. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Top 5 World Series Teams

2008-09-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) 1982 St. Louis Cardinals
Ozzie, Willie, Vince, Whitey, Forsch, Sutter, Tommy Herr, Keith Hernandez, and those powder-blue uniforms made for one of the best series teams of all time. Every other house in St. Louis has a VHS tape of this series sitting around.

2) 2006 St. Louis Cardinals
It was actually the NLCS against the Mets that made this team memorable for me, before they took down the Tigers in a five-game series. Yadier Molina’s game-winning home run in the 9th inning of Game 7 was the moment of a lifetime for thousands of Cardinal fans.

3) 1974 Oakland A’s
This was the A’s third consecutive WS win, qualifying the team for “dynasty” status, despite lots of intra-player theatrics. Rollie Fingers matched the bar set high by this era of excellent pitching, and certainly got help from Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson. However, the 1974 Oakland A’s will most likely be forever remembered for the true awesomeness of their mustaches.

4) 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates
Definitely a little team that could, the ’79 Buccos were led by the spirit of Roberto Clemente and the leadership of MVP Pops Stargell. Their earnest love for each other and their city was rivaled only by the sheer ridiculousness of their uniform design.

5) 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers
Featuring all-stars Roy Campanella, Sandy Koufax, Pee Wee Reese, and Jackie Robinson, Dem Bums miraculously won this series against the Yankees—their first WS win since 1900, and their last before the team moved to L.A.

Top Guy

1) 1975 Cincinnati Reds
The 1975 World Series is generally considered the greatest ever played. There was history—the Reds were the first professional baseball team, the Red Sox one of the sport’s most storied franchises. There were stars—Johnny Bench and Pete Rose for the Reds, Carlton Fisk and Carl Yastrzemski for the Red Sox. And there was drama—Fisk waving a home run ball fair during the 12th inning of game six. In the end, the mighty Big Red Machine won the series, then backed up their title with a sweep of the New York Yankees in 1976.

2) 1986 New York Mets
This was the year I got into baseball, and the Mets were my team. They easily won their division, beat the brutally tough Houston Astros in the National League Championship Series, then compounded the misery of the Red Sox by winning games six and seven following Bill Buckner’s agony-of-defeat-worthy error. Led by young stars Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry, this Mets team was supposed to become a dynasty. Instead, it will go down as a one-hit wonder.

3) 1998 New York Yankees
Like almost everyone who doesn’t call the Bronx home, I hate the Yankees. But the 1998 team was close to perfect. It won a then-record 114 regular season games, then backed it up with an 11-2 playoff record and a World Series sweep against an overmatched San Diego Padres. This also was the year that David Wells pitched his perfect game.

4) 1948 Cleveland Indians
Cleveland’s last championship is most noteworthy because it was the first time black athletes won a World Series title. Cleveland won it with black stars Larry Doby and Satchel Paige.

5) 1924 Washington Senators
Rooting for the Senators before 1924 must have been like rooting for the Kansas City Royals now. They were so putrid that one journalist quipped “Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.” That losing tradition changed when 36-year-old Walter Johnson led the team to a fluky World Series win against the New York Giants. This team showed there is hope for everyone—maybe even the Royals.

Top 5 Food Shows

2008-09-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives
Do I love Triple-D because host Guy Fieri reminds me of one of my old co-workers? Yes. But that’s not the only reason. Fieri searches out the best American diners and shows viewers how they make the food—spotlighting a segment of the culinary industry that is seldom scene on the Food Network.

2) Iron Chef America
Two competing chefs have 60 minutes to cook a five-course meal featuring a secret ingredient. Those meals are then judged by a panel of culinary minds, and a winner is crowned. The real treat is getting an inside look at how some of the world’s top chefs—always including Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto, Cat Cora or Michael Symon—operate in the kitchen.

3) Mexico One Plate at a Time
If I could have lunch with anyone in the world, Rick Bayless might get the nod. The catch is that he’d have to cook. The Chicago-via-Oklahoma chef knows more about Mexican cuisine than anyone else on Earth, and One Plate is the perfect showcase for his knowledge and skills.

4) The Restaurant
Reality TV generally turns my stomach, but this now-defunct show was a can’t miss for me. Rocco DiSpirito was one of New York’s great young chefs until this series; now he’s a cautionary tale. From a chef who’s almost never in the kitchen to whiny employees who don’t care about the eatery’s success to a power struggle between the two principle owners, Restaurant was basically a primer of how not to run a restaurant.

5) 30-Minute Meals
I know it’s trendy to hate Rachel Ray, and I agree that she can be more than a little annoying at times. But who can argue against a show where the central premise is to teach parents that it’s possible to cook healthy, tasty meals at home in less time than it takes to load up the car and drive the kids to McDonald’s?

Top Lady

1) Good Eats
The most satisfying thing about Good Eats is its orientation of episodes around a single ingredient. It’s great to spend 22 minutes showing how to make eggplant parmesan—but even better to show five different things to do with an eggplant, as well as getting a little history and nutritional information besides. The fact that Alton Brown never seems to get tired of showing the best way to do simple things such as chop an onion is particularly endearing to those of us who were never taught how to chop an onion. Last year, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my family, due in no small part to this show. (It was awesome, by the way.)

2) No Reservations
I realize that some people have a problem with Anthony Bourdain. Aside from his New York ‘tude, he often remarks on how his adventures take him to places no mere American tourist would dare go or taste—as if having a producer that hooks him up with local guides, a camera crew, and a significantly larger travel budget than most backpackers makes him a mere tourist. However, he’s definitely willing to laugh at himself, and he seems deep down to want to encourage people to get out in the world and taste new things.

3) America’s Test Kitchen
Another science-y cooking show but on a PBS budget. What I like best about ATK is that they approach cooking with techniques out of a high-school lab workbook. What’s the best “room temperature” for baking with butter? Let’s make a hypothesis, set a control group, and find out!

4) The French Chef
The original is still the champ. I don’t know that Julia Child necessarily made things look easy, but listening to her breezy talk while she butchers up a rooster for coq au vin was the original comfort food of cooking shows.

5) Yan Can Cook
OK—this is not the greatest cooking show on Earth. But my mom will attest that I loved this show as a kid. Wearing aprons that said things such as “I Wok My Dog Every Day” (I know, sick, right? I don’t think he got it), chef Martin Yan made simple stir-frys and other Chinese dishes probably toned way down for the American PBS crowd. But he had a goofy sense of humor that appealed to kids when no other cooking shows did.

Top 5 Photographers

2008-09-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Lee Miller
Model, Photographer, Reporter, Muse: Lee Miller had an extraordinary life on both sides of the camera. As a young model, she graced the cover of Vogue in the 1920s, then learned photography (and a few other things) from her relationship with Man Ray, making abstract photographs. In the 1930s, she became a photojournalist for Vogue and Life magazines, covering World War II in France and North Africa. And she was the only photographer with the American troops when they entered the Buchenwald concentration camp, sending her images of dead and dying bodies back to her editors with only the words “Believe It.”

2) Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky creates wall-size photographs that often act as if they were paintings, often capturing large-scale scenes such as infinite layers of hotel balconies or the eye-popping colors of a huge 99-cent store. His free and open use of digital alterations also brings in the question the nature of the medium, which Gursky clearly believes is as malleable as paint.

3) Taryn Simon
A working contemporary photographer, Taryn Simon’s trademark is getting access to remote or off-limits areas to take “forbidden” images. A recent show at the Whitney Museum held pictures of green-glowing nuclear waste, the Death Star prop from Star Wars (packed in storage in a Hollywood lot), and a portrait of Kenny, a white tiger with mental retardation and other problems due to massive inbreeding.

4) Gordon Parks
Aside from being the photographer of the Civil Rights Movement, Gordon Parks also produced hundreds of images of simple beauty. And, yes, he directed Shaft.

5) Ryan McGinley
Ryan McGinley is definitely the toast of the town at the moment, and he should be. A young, working photographer in New York, his images capture the spirit of the 2000s in a way no one else does. Young, beautiful hipsters frolic in a park, find ecstasy at a Morrissey concert, and graffiti-bomb buildings at twilight. They seem to think they will always be young and beautiful, and in these pictures, they will be.

Top Guy

1) Richard Avedon
I often had been struck by beauty in photographs, but I had never really been moved by a still image until seeing Richard Avedon’s In the American West series. American West featured striking photographs of common people living hardscrabble lives as oil workers, cowboys and drifters. Walker Evans and Robert Frank also have captured the essence of the American soul, but Avedon’s work made a deeper impression on me because I saw it first.

2) Henri Cartier-Bresson
Cartier-Bresson is known as the father of modern photojournalism. He’s an innovator who took some of the most famous photographs ever. He co-founded Magnum Photos, possibly the greatest collection of photojournalists ever assembled. But Cartier-Bresson makes the list for one simple reason: When I elicited responses from my photographer friends, one wrote back “Cartier-Bresson (duh…).”

3) Nick Ut
Sometimes you become famous for being in the right place at the right time. Ut’s defining moment is a photo of a group of crying Vietnamese children running down the road after their village was napalmed. The photograph won Ut a Pulitzer Prize and helped end that disastrous war. In addition to being a great photographer, Ut proved himself to be a great man—he didn’t return to his bureau to publish the photograph until he had rushed a little girl to the hospital, saving her life.

4) Charles Peterson
Annie Leibovitz is probably the best known rock ’n’ roll photographer, but the Seattle scene wouldn’t have been Seattle without Charles Peterson. His gorgeous action shots of bands such as Nirvana, Mudhoney and Soundgarden are often slightly overexposed or out of focus, but they provided the perfect illustration for a grunge sound that was equally muddy and unfocused yet brilliant.

5) Gordon Parks
Few photographers could move back and forth between the worlds of journalism and fashion as deftly as Parks. His photographs for Life depicted life at both the top and bottom of black culture, and his fashion photos for Vogue were groundbreaking for the simple fact that they were shot by a black man. After a lengthy career, Parks tried his hand as a film director, scoring a hit with Shaft in 1971.

Top 5 Matador Records Releases

2008-09-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair
When this record came out, I couldn’t decide if I wanted Liz Phair to be my cool sister or my even cooler girlfriend. Sadly, Phair never again matched the excellence of Exile, which is supposedly a track-by-track answer to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. The highlights are “Stratford-On-Guy,” “Divorce Song” and “Help Me Mary,” but every song is a gem.

2) Bee Thousand, Guided by Voices
GBV didn’t reach its commercial height until Isolation Drills, but the Dayton, Ohio, band reached its artistic peak here. Bee Thousand is the album that brought lo-fi into the mainstream, and songwriters Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout turned a collection of two minute pop songs into a work of art.

3) Superchunk, Superchunk
No Pocky for Kitty is consistently better, but Superchunk’s eponymous debut scores here because of “Slack Motherf**er,” possibly the best song the group ever wrote, and a song that should have served as the anthem of the Reality Bites generation.

4) Mass Romantic, New Pornographers
I used to work as a music critic, a job that makes you listen to so much bad work that you actually start hating music from time to time. It was at one of those low points that I first heard Mass Romantic, and it restored my faith in the art form.

5) Slanted and Enchanted, Pavement
If someone ever asked me what indie rock sounded like in the early ‘90s, I would hand them this record.

Top Lady

1) What’s Up Matador, Various Artists
Everyone, and I mean everyone I knew in college had this compilation when it came out in 1997. And, with stellar tracks by Matador all-stars, as well as sweet little one-tracks by bands whose whole albums you really don’t want to buy (Pizzicato Five, anyone?) it’s a great dip into an era and sound when electric guitars were still the tool of choice over bloops and bleeps.

2) If You're Feeling Sinister, Belle and Sebastian
Twee core was around well before B&S (see also: Beat Happening), but these moody Scots certainly ushered in the trend of inviting all 16 of your friends to be in your band and play random instruments. Stuart Murdoch’s pleasant, Nick Drake-y voice, ambiguously sensual lyrics, and no identifiable photos in the CD cover intrigued millions of fans and critics alike.

3) Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement
If someone ever asked me what indie rock sounded like in the early ‘90s, I would hand them this record.

4) And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, Yo La Tengo
YLT has been around forever, played with everyone, and covered everyone. That said, when they get together and do their own thing, they can crank out the lo-fi like no one else. “Our Way to Fall” is a truly beautiful forgotten love song, and “You Can Have It All” lets you know that mellow groovin’ is still possible in the 2000’s.

5) Mass Romantic, The New Pornographers
I first heard of the NP’s when someone in Chicago told me she saw them last night and people were dancing. For those of you who didn’t go to rock shows in 1999, this was the equivalent of saying that the Supreme Court had just delivered its most recent opinion to the tune of “Hello Dolly!” People did not dance at shows. People looked at their shoelaces with their arms crossed. For me, these power poppers from Canada, along with the Strokes, truly ended the grunge/slacker movement once and for all, and ushered in the 2000’s with a really joyful approach to music that allowed bands to look like they were having fun again.

Top 5 Films Featuring Steve Buscemi

2008-09-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Ghost World (2001)
Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson turn in outstanding performances, but there’s not another actor that could have pulled off the sad-sack audiophile who gets duped into a fake date as well as Buscemi does in this movie. As a side note, the Blues Hammer/old bluesman scene is one the funniest, saddest and most spot-on set pieces in the history of film.

2) The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
This list could have been populated entirely by Coen Brothers films because Buscemi also acted in Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing and the Big Lebowski, as well as Fargo, which is next on the list. He only has a small role in The Hudsucker Proxy as a Beatnik bartender in a watering hole frequented by Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Lee), but this gets my nod because it’s my favorite Coen Brothers movie.

3) Fargo (1996)
Two years after The Hudsucker Proxy, the Coen Brothers gave Buscemi a much meatier role as a kidnapper-turned-murderer and later murder victim. The role was written specifically for Buscemi, who turns in a star-making performance despite being upstaged by Frances McDormand. One piece of trivia: The film isn’t actually based on a true story.

4) Billy Madison (1995)
Buscemi is perfect in small roles, and this might be his smallest. He’s onscreen only long enough to put down a shotgun, smear some lipstick on his face and cross Adam Sandler’s name off of a hit list. Despite his short time on screen, he gets the film’s biggest laugh.

5) Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Mr. Pink is an unfortunate name, but he has the good fortune to be the only major character to survive—he’s most likely arrested at the end. Mr. Pink’s best lines are at the film’s beginning, when he debates the meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and gives an anti-tipping monologue.

Top Lady

1) Fargo
Probably the performance that most people remember—especially since Steve ends up in a wood chipper. I bet he still gets people referring to him as a “funny lookin’ little guy.”

2) Ghost World
If he’s impossible to forget in Fargo, most people have to be reminded that Steve is also in Ghost World (and, in fact, has the third-largest role after the two girls). His roles often get described as “eccentric” but his personification of Seymour makes him into an eccentric who is actually trying to adjust and be a little more normal. His femme fatale is Thora Birch’s Enid, who obsesses, seduces, uses, discards, wins back, and then loses him.

3) Pulp Fiction
OK, so he only has a bit part as a waiter in this one, but it’s a memorable scene (at the diner, where Uma Thurman and John Travolta win the dance-off) in a movie that is basically a composite of memorable scenes.

4) Art School Confidential
This film begins as a satire on the level of “P.C.U.” but, midway through, turns truly dark and pessimistic. Co-written by Dan Clowes, this film is a nice counterpart to Ghost World, and is genuinely funny, especially when John Malkovich, as an art teacher, sighs with frustration while looking at his “greatest works”—paintings of solid triangles. Steve plays a coffee shop owner in this one.

5) Barton Fink
A Top 5 Steve Buscemi list could easily double as a Top 5 Coen Brothers list, so I tried to be selective. No, Barton Fink isn’t as good as The Big Lebowski or even Blood Simple, but (with the exception of Adaptation), it’s portrayal of how the process of writing can drive someone insane is unparalleled. Steve plays a bellhop named “CHET!”

Top 5 Comic Strips

2008-08-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Achewood
To know Achewood is to love Roast Beef the Cat, little Philippe, Ray, Mr. Bear, Teodor and their friends. Definitely a critic’s darling at this point, Achewood’s unique voice comes from a blend of straight-faced parody, macabre dips into Edward Gorey territory, sweet innocence, ironic desperation and references to béchamel sauce. http://achewood.com/

2) The Far Side
I remember a 60 Minutes profile of Gary Larson where Lesley Stahl tried to dissect a Far Side cartoon featuring a bunch of featherless chickens on a beach and a sign that read “No Ducks.” Lesley had real trouble trying to put into words the reasons why it was funny, and I’m not going to try either, but I will say that, thanks to Larson, we know all know that, when a dog is just barking, they’re saying “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!”

3) Peanuts
Charles Schultz’s paean to the last of the nice guys, Charlie Brown, is held dear in the hearts of those who still believe in hope over experience. He’ll get that football someday!

4) Teen Girl Squad
Does this count? Seeing as I’m usually on the edge of my seat waiting for the next one, I’m going to throw it up here. Technically a comic within a cartoon, Teen Girl Squad is drawn by Strong Bad on the Homestar Runner website, who also happens to have total contempt for teenage girls. Seeing as anyone in the comic might randomly get attacked by possums or spring rolls in the next panel, this is probably the comic that most exercises the freedom of the artist to make anything happen.
http://www.homestarrunner.com

5) Calvin and Hobbes
I didn’t really like Calvin and Hobbes when it was actually running. I was a little too young for the nuances, and I seem to remember thinking it was not that funny. But in retrospect, it’s pretty amazing that someone looked at the medium that produced “The Lockhorns” and thought, “You know, I could use this to explore issues of free will, predetermination and the social relationships of mankind,” and then succeeded in doing so.

Top Guy

1) Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles
The tale of a lonely, depressed man and his drug-and-sex-crazed teddy bear is as hilarious as it is depraved. Many of the Neil Swaab’s comics, found at mrwiggleslovesyou.com, are centered around bodily functions, violence and unconventional sex, but storylines also have featured an alcoholic Jesus, buying a senior citizen at a thrift store and a visit from a suicidal future version of Neil.

2) Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin is a precocious six-year-old boy with an active imagination and unique views on culture and politics. Hobbes is his stuffed tiger, who comes to life when no one else is around. The comic was widely read, and with good reason: It managed to be funny, touching and intelligent. Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes’s writer and illustrator, gets special props for never merchandising his characters. (The emblems with Calvin peeing on a Chevy logo are all bootleg.)

3) Bloom County
Doonesbury is considered the gold standard for political humor, but Berkley Breathed’s comic, which filtered politics and culture through the lens of children (with mature personalities and vocabularies) and talking animals in small town Middle America skewered the right and left much more effectively. Bloom County also introduced the world to the penguin Opus, one of the most beloved and enduring characters ever created.

4) The Far Side
Gary Larson is a genius. The Far Side was like The New Yorker comics for people with a weirder sense of humor.

5) Peanuts
This makes the list for two reasons: longevity and influence. Charles Schulz wrote the strip for 50 years, making it the longest running story ever told by one person. And nearly ever other comic artist talks about Schulz in the same excited tones that baseball historians talk about Babe Ruth. Peanuts also was consistently entertaining, and two television specials based on the characters—A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown—are must see holiday fare.

Top 5 Beers

2008-08-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Leinenkugel's
The Leinenkugel family has being brewing beer in middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin for more than 140 years. My favorite is Leinenkugel’s Red, but the Original and Honey Weiss also are quite excellent. (There are 11 varieties in all.) You can even cook with a Leinie—the company’s website has an entire section with family recipes that use the beer.

2) Pabst Blue Ribbon
This makes the list for three reasons. One, it did win a blue ribbon in 1893. Two, now that Budweiser is owned by a Belgium corporation, PBR is the quintessential American beer. Three, thanks to Blue Velvet, whenever anybody orders a Heineken within earshot, you can say “Heineken, f--- that sh--. Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

3) Newcastle Brown Ale
The bottle looks cool, the beer tastes great, and the city’s soccer team isn’t half bad either.

4) Guinness
If you don’t like Guinness, then you should just admit that you don’t like beer.

5) Yuengling
Founded in Pottsville , Pennsylvania , in 1829, Yuengling lays claim to being America ’s oldest beer. Pennsylvania has a proud brewing history—the Keystone State was also the birthplace of Rolling Rock and Iron City —and Yuengling is the best cheap beer that never won a blue ribbon.

Top Lady

1) Żywiec
If you live outside of Poland or Chicago you’ve probably never had this beer, which is too bad. Pronounced “Ziv-yetz,” it’s crisp, not too bitter, very smooth, and 6.0% proof (most American beers are around 4.0%).

2) Carlsburg
The thinking man’s Heineken. (That thinker, of course, is Soren Kierkegaard.)

3) Guinness
A German, and American, and an Irishman walk into a bar. The German says “Bartender, give me the best beer in the world—a Beck’s!” Then the American says “No, give me the best beer in the world—a Budweiser!” The Irishman says, “I’ll have a glass of water.” The other two look at him, perplexed, and the Irishman says “Well, if the two of ya’s are drinkin’ it, I didn’t want to be rude.”

4) Barley’s MacLenny's Scottish Ale (Columbus , OH )
As good as some of the international brands can be, beer is meant to be microbrewed. Micropubs and breweries are kind of like indie labels; some get to be “major indies” (like Sam Adams) with worldwide distributors, some remain region-specific, but you can typically find them in the grocery store—especially if they have clever packaging, like Great Lakes Brewing out of Cleveland. But the blessing and curse is finding a great brewpub—and then moving away from being able to enjoy their products. Well, that’s what vacation is for, right?

5) Busch Light in a can
I know. It’s kind of gross. But who hasn’t been to a party, opened up the fridge, and found this to be the only remaining option? Who hasn’t taken a sip of Busch Light out of some aunt or uncle’s can as a kid at a backyard picnic? Also, for some reason, cans of light beer seem to be the only option available for underage high schoolers. Despite its metallic, bitter taste, for many Americans, the taste of Busch Light from a can is our madeleine cookie.

Top 5 Olympic Events

2008-08-12T05:46:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Track and Field
I realize a lot of events fall under track and field: running, shot put, discus, high jump, long jump and hurdles. But they are compelling and exciting because there are few complicated rules or strategies: just be the fastest or strongest. It’s pretty easy to imagine the ancient Greeks doing these.

2) Luge
The luge is sledding gone insane. It is the fastest event in all of the Olympics (summer or winter) and, aside from gymnastics, might be the one that requires the most muscle control. The only thing crazier than the luge is the skeleton, in which the pilot does all that zipping around, inches to the ground, face first.

3) Gymnastics
Like track and field, a lot of activities fall under gymnastics: floor, pommel horse, rings, balance beam, parallel and uneven bars. These athletes’ bodies are like perfect machines, and the stunts they do put Cirque du Soleil to shame.

4) Ski Jump
OK, we’re going to strap some pieces of wood to your feet and send you speeding down this hill. At the end, jump off, fly for a few seconds, and then land in one piece. Sound good? (For an example of when it didn’t work out so well, check out the “Agony of Defeat” guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinko_Bogataj)

5) High Dive
Perhaps I’m so impressed by this because the most I could manage as a kid was an arrow-straight, feet first, nose-holding plummet off of the high board. That someone has the ab strength to manage all those twists and turns and not manage to end with a giant backflop will always amaze me. Plus, there’s always the chance someone will chuck it all and do a cannonball.

Top Guy

1) Baseball
Sadly, the Beijing games will be the last Olympic hurrah for the greatest sport on Earth. It’s even sadder because baseball has truly become a world sport, with teams from North, Central and South America, Europe and Asia all holding medal hopes. Major League Baseball has filled the void, at least partially, through the World Baseball Classic, but winning that tournament can’t compare to Olympic gold.

2) Hockey
Without hockey, there would have never been the “Miracle on Ice.” As a three-year-old, I was too young to remember a bunch of American college kids upsetting the nearly invincible Russian squad, but I do remember the U-S-A chants in the theater when the based-on-a-true-story movie version hit the big screen 24 years later.

3) Swimming
I didn’t catch Olympic fever until I saw Michael Phelps win his first race. I don’t plan on missing any of Phelps’s events as he tries for an unbelievable eight gold medals. This also seems to be the sport with the most trash talking—Alain Bernard said the French were going to “smash” the Americans in Beijing, and the Australians raced right past U.S. swimmers in 2004 after American Gray Hall Jr. said that “We’ll smash them like guitars.”

4) Basketball
There’s a reason Yao Ming carried the flag for China this year: This sport has the most star power in the Olympics. The 1992 Dream Team was one of the best Olympic stories ever, and their dominating performance sparked a worldwide interest in the sport that has resulted in a huge infusion of foreign superstars (Ming, Dirk Nowitzski, Manu Ginobili) into the NBA.

5) Marathon
This could be considered the Olympic event. First, like the Olympics, it originated in Greece. Second, it embodies two-thirds of the Olympic motto: Citius (faster) and Fortius (stronger). Third, it’s coach potato proof—unlike beach volleyball or shooting, you can’t sit on your couch and (however fleetingly) think “I can do that.”

Top 5 Seinfeld Episodes

2008-08-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) The Contest
The beauty about Seinfeld was that each show had various plotlines interweaving. While most viewers remember the “Master of Your Domain” contest between the four principal characters, they might not remember that this is the same episode where Jerry dates a virgin, George’s mother is hospitalized after catching him masturbating, Elaine has an exercise class with John Kennedy Jr., and Kramer falls for a nudist in the adjacent building.

2) The Junk Mail
Kramer opts out of the mail—and wages an anti-mail campaign—after getting one too many Pottery Barn catalogs. Hilarity ensues.

3) The Strike
This is the one with Festivus, a truly great anti-Christmas holiday featuring the airing of the grievances and the feats of strength. The episode gets its title from Kramer’s storyline—he goes back to work after being on strike for 12 years.

4) The Implant
As a teenager, I couldn’t tell whether Teri Hatcher’s breasts were real, but I knew they were fantastic. This also is the episode where George double dips a chip.

5) The Race
This is another episode where each character gets a major plotline. Jerry has to race an old high school rival to impress his new girlfriend; George responds to a personal ad in The Daily Worker, and then becomes the Yankees liaison to Cuba; Elaine gets herself and her Communist boyfriend blacklisted from a Chinese restaurant; and Kramer loses his department-store Santa gig for spouting Communist propaganda. And it all happens in less than 30 minutes.

Top Lady

1) The Parking Garage
This episode, which consists entirely of the four characters looking for their car in a garage, perfectly captures the anti-sitcom aesthetic of the show.

2) The Boyfriend (Parts 1 and 2)
Jerry meets Keith Hernandez at the gym, and Hernandez later starts dating Elaine. These two episodes also contain the “JFK” spitting parody (featuring Kramer and Newman), George telling the unemployment office he has a job pending with Vandelay Industries, Kramer dropping a baby, Jerry feeling like things are moving too fast when Keith asks for help moving, and George talking about getting to sleep with a tall woman: “like a giant.”

3) Serenity Now!
George’s dad starts yelling this whenever he gets mad. This is also the one where Kramer installs a screen door, and sits in front of it with a barbecue grill flags, and later, a sparkler. Also, a kid at a bar mitzvah tongues Elaine, because now he is a man.

4) The Susie
This episode has a whole other b-plotline about Kramer’s friend Mike thinking Jerry is a dangerous maniac; but the memorable part is Elaine’s imaginary alter-ego at work, “Susie.” Many memorable sitcoms involve funerals, but this might be the only one for an imaginary person.

5) The Fusilli Jerry
Where to begin? Most memorably, Kramer gets a license plate that says “ASSMAN” by accident but uses it to park in a doctor’s parking space at the hospital. This one also features “stopping short” and “the Move” (passed on from Jerry to Elaine’s boyfriend Puddy to George).

Top 5 Books About Sports

2008-08-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) God Save the Fan, Will Leitch
I’m a huge fan of Deadspin.com, and Buzz Bissinger’s face-to-face assault of Leitch on Bob Costas’ show a few months back makes me like it even more (especially since Leitch stayed as cool as a cucumber the whole time, even though it was pretty clear that Buzz has no idea what a blog is). Also, midway through the book, he describes watching the Cardinals win the 2006 NLCS in a bar in New York—and I was there with him!

2) Moneyball, Michael Lewis
The concept that you can win a baseball game without getting a lot of hits (or, for that matter, any hits) is pretty revolutionary. The fact that I understand that concept (and know who Billy Beane is) is thanks to this book.

3) The Natural, Bernard Malamud
A great work of literature about the appetite for success that drives successful athletes in any sport.

4) Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
See above, non-human category.

5) Kids' sports books of fun facts and bloopers
Every house with one or more boys has these. They tend to be oversized, they have cartoon drawings instead of photos, and your mom probably bought it at the grocery store. But, 20 years later, I can still tell you that the first basketball game was played with peach baskets nailed to a wall instead of nets.

Top Guy

1) Veeck as in Wreck, Bill Veeck
Bill Veeck is the greatest promoter in baseball’s history. He planted the ivy at Wrigley Field, introduced fireworks and exploding scoreboards to the game, and convinced then White Sox announcer Harry Carey to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch. Veeck was also a baseball man, winning championships as the owner of the Indians and White Sox, integrating the American League with the signing of Larry Doby, and becoming a “Champion of the Little People” by sending Eddie Gaedel to bat. Veeck as in Wreck is his autobiography, and it’s one of my favorite books in any genre.

2) The Breaks of the Game, David Halberstam
The best sports books are those that are only about sports on the surface, and Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game is a masterpiece. It’s ostensibly about the 1979 Portland Trail Blazers, a nearly perfect team derailed by big egos, salary disputes and a freak medical condition afflicting its star player. However, the book is really about the problems of selling a black sport to a predominantly white audience and how the infusion of major money affects everything that happens on and off the court.

3) Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
This is another sports book that is only kind of about sports. This time, the focus is on Texas high school football, but the heart of the book is how high school football weaves itself into the fabric of society. While Bissinger chronicles one year in the life of a small-town football team, his book also delves into subjects such as race, class, gender roles and relationships between parents and their children.

4) Ball Four, Jim Bouton
Bouton didn’t write the first tell-all about the life of a baseball player, but he definitely wrote the best. The book is Bouton’s diary of his 1977 comeback with the expansion Seattle Pilots (which would only last one year in Seattle before becoming the Milwaukee Brewers). The book was controversial from the start for breaking the code that what happens in the locker room stays in the locker room, and Bouton was virtually blacklisted from the game following its publication.

5) The Bad Guys Won, Jeff Pearlman
When I was nine years old, the New York Mets won the World Series, and I jumped on the bandwagon. Over the years, I heard that the championship team was nothing more than a collection of really talented scoundrels—the stars were Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry—but I didn’t know just how bad those Mets were until reading Pearlman’s account of the 1986 season. The book also serves as a primer on how to build a World Series team and on how to dismantle that team right after the champagne stops flowing.

Top 5 Buildings

2008-07-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) China Central Television Headquarters, Beijing
This building should be considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world. You can read about it yourself here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/arts/design/16rem.html?scp=4&sq=cctv%20headquarters&st=cse

2) Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow
Best known for its colorful onion domes, the cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to celebrate the capture of Khanate of Kazan. Upon its completion, Ivan asked the architect if he could recreate the structure. When the architect said yes, Ivan had his eyes cut out.

3) Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland
While the home of the Baltimore Orioles isn’t my favorite baseball stadium—I’ve never actually seen a game there—it was the first of the modern throwback ballparks, which include truly beautiful baseball stadiums in Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati.

4) Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia
The headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest office building. Its distinctive shape improves functionality—each of the Pentagon’s five buildings is connected through a series of concentric rings, which allows quick navigation from one side of the structure to the other.

5) Rockefeller Center, New York City
OK, Rockefeller Center isn’t technically one building. But the 19 buildings spread between 48th and 51st Streets have housed NBC, Radio City Music Hall, Simon & Schuster, the Associated Press, Exxon and Lehman Brothers, among many, many others.

Top Lady

Top 5 Buildings

1) The Chrysler Building, New York City
The Empire State Building gets all the glory for dominating the skyline, but the Chrysler Building is the city’s true Art Deco masterpiece. The streamlined eagle-shaped gargoyles also embody the spirit of aggressive, unapologetic capitalism in a way it took Ayn Rand 900 pages to express.

2) St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City
For those who are not aware that, for much of the past Millennia, the Roman Catholic church was just as much a political and monetary power as a religion, I present The Vatican. One of the few man-made places on Earth that genuinely inspires awe.

3) Smurfit-Stone Building, Chicago
The entire Chicago skyline is actually my favorite in the world, and the Smurfit-Stone building manages to stand out without shouldering its way forward like its more famous, gigantic neighbor to the south (if for no other reason than its role in Adventures in Babysitting). The diamond shape was designed (by a man) to resemble a sailboat on the lake, by the way—despite whatever urban legends you may have heard.

4) Capitol Records Tower, Los Angeles
Aside from the fact that it actually looks like a stack of 45s on a spindle, the architecture of the Capital Records building encapsulates the laid-back glamour of ’50s Hollywood. Even though L.A. is a little less laid-back these days, this round, future-modernistic building looks more California than a tower of glass and steel ever could.

5) The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
I think more people know about this building in Europe than in the United States; and I know more people actually like it over there than here. Regardless, it took a lot of guts for Mr. Wexner and Ohio State to look at the plans for this building and say “go ahead” in the '80s, before Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas made it cool for college campuses to have randomly bizarre buildings. It’s a grid-gone-mad playland based on skewing everything 12 ¼ degrees off square; and it’s a nice counterpoint to that horseshoe-shaped building down the road—proving that there is something to see between No. 1 and No. 4 on this list.

Top 5 R.E.M. Songs

2008-07-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Country Feedback
It’s possibly the simplest song musically the band has ever written—it’s just four chords, a distorted pedal steel guitar and some percussion. With Michael Stipe’s repeated “It’s crazy what you could have had” line at the end, it’s also one of the best songs to listen to after a bad breakup.

2) Disturbance at the Heron House
Before Seattle, there was tiny Athens, Ga. This song is about a photograph of the Athens scene, a photograph where Michael Stipe looked around and noticed how many people in the frame weren’t actually from Athens. Yes, Matthew Sweet, he’s talking about you.

3) Stand
One of my favorite concert memories is seeing R.E.M. in 1999, hearing the opening keyboard line to “Stand” and seeing everyone in the amphitheater turning to the person next to them, smiling and screaming “Oh my god.” This was the song that propelled the band to the stratosphere, and it’s really catchy and danceable to boot.

4) Radio Free Europe
This is the song that started it all.

5) (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville
Reckoning is my least favorite R.E.M. album (not counting anything without Bill Berry), but this countrified gem is both a departure from the band’s early jangle and also the best song that Mike Mills has ever written.

Top Lady

1) I Believe
This has long been my favorite R.E.M. song; aside from the nice banjo at the beginning and running, falling melody, the lyrics are just top-notch. Michael Stipe is at the height of his wordplay, giving familiar phrases a twist, while sprinkling hints of images and scenes throughout the song (“when I was young/a rattlesnake”) that don’t really form a narrative or message—just a spirited vibe and the motto “Change is what I believe in.” In 27 years, I don’t know if there’s a better lyric than “Golden words make practice/Practice makes perfect/Perfect is a fault/Fault lines change.” I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if the Obama campaign took this song along for the ride.

2) You Are the Everything
How do they do it? How do they write a truly beautiful song that encapsulates a moment of being in the “late spring” of life, lying down in the back seat of a car and looking up at the stars and having a feeling of oneness with the universe (“They’re there for you/ For you alone”) that feels completely sincere? How do they pull off lines such as “She is so young and old” and have them work perfectly? I don’t know.

3) Nightswimming
The great thing about having three songwriters is that you get a beautiful piano sonata by the same group that wrote “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” That’s Bill Berry playing the piano, by the way, in case you needed more of a reason to regret his leaving the band.

4) Driver 8
Another great example of a Peter Buck jangle meets loosely connected Michael Stipe lyrics to make a song that perfectly evokes the South, travel, rural life, and the weariness of the road.

5) Half a World Away
On a different day, this might not be on my list, but this melancholy, swooping song (which would fit in fine on Automatic for the People) again embodies the things that make R.E.M. great: inward-looking lyrics that have a great poetic flow (just the pairing of “blackbirds/backwards/ forward to fall” will get stuck in my head for hours) and a melody that’s not necessarily catchy, but somehow stays with you for a long time.

Top 5 Professional Wrestlers from the '80s

2008-07-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Rowdy Roddy Piper
So, I basically have had to organize my list in the order by which I could actually think of '80s wrestlers, and the first thing that came into my mind was something about a guy in a kilt. So, although Hulk Hogan is probably the most famous, Piper made the most lasting image in my 10-year old mind (which was, admittedly, pretty crowded with Rainbow Brite at the time).

2) Andre the Giant
Have you seen the Biography of Andre the Giant? Like all giants, all he ever wanted was to be loved. And to drink a lot. Aside from being in The Princess Bride (did I mention the 10-year-old me?), he also has immortality via those Obey Giant stickers that were everywhere a few years ago. And, I guess, he wrestled pretty well.

3) Jerry “The King” Lawler
Jerry Lawler is most famous for wrestling with Andy Kaufmann in 1982 and supposedly getting into a fight with him on Letterman. After Kaufmann’s death (or, “death”) he came forward and admitted it was a hoax—but I’m sure that that was the only fixed match in all of professional wrestling.

4) Mr. T
He pities you.

5) The Fabulous Moolah
I first heard about The Fabulous Moolah when she died two years ago. Her career stretched well before and after the ‘80s, but she did rock some very ‘80s leotards and tights throughout her lifetime. I really don’t know if she actually was the longest continually competing athlete in any sport, ever (as the WWF claimed her to be), but in every photo of her in the ring she always seems to be having fun. Since she won her last match at the age of 76, I’m going to guess she had a lot of it.

Top Guy

1) Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka
You have got to love the fictitious backstory: Snuka was supposed to have developed his renowned leaping ability by jumping off of palm trees in his native Hawaii, and then later canoed to the mainland to begin his wrestling career. He was famous for his “I Love You” hand-gesture salute to fans before diving off the top rope to finish off his opponent. He also wrestled a steel cage match against Don “the Rock” Muraco, which ended with Snuka diving off the top of the cage, that was possibly the second best fight of the decade (see below).

2) Andre the Giant
Wrestling’s first true giant also was arguably the best performer ever to enter the squared-circle. His WrestleMania III match against Hulk Hogan—where Hogan body slammed the unbeatable giant—is considered wrestling’s finest. Andre’s performance in The Princess Bride showed that the gentle giant could be a lovable actor in addition to an overwhelmingly good wrestler.

3) The Road Warriors
There was nothing so terrifying for an opposing tag team than to wait in the ring while the opening notes of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” played over the sound system, waiting for Hawk and Animal to run out and the annihilation to ensue. Their matches typically lasted about 30 seconds, they were by far the best tag team of the decade, and Animal’s son is now an All-American linebacker at Ohio State.

4) Ric Flair
The “Nature Boy” might be the best professional wrestler who ever lived. He was a 16-time world champion, he worked the microphone like no one else before or since, and he redefined the nature and role of the heal as the leader of the Four Horsemen. Like many other professional wrestlers, he also was a real athlete—winning a high school wrestling championship and going to the University of Minnesota on a football scholarship

5) “Rowdy” Roddy Piper
No one rocked a kilt like “Rowdy” Roddy. His Piper’s Pit segment was almost always entertaining, and he had more famous feuds (Hulk Hogan, “Superfly” Snuka, Mr. T) than anybody else. He even headlined the first WrestleMania. Piper also ventured outside of wrestling, becoming a bonafide B-movie star with roles in They Live and Hell Comes to Frogtown.

Top 5 American Musicals

2008-07-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) The Producers
I’m a big Mel Brooks fan, which puts me in the same category as any other American man who was ever a teenager. The Producers features a musical—the truly inspired Springtime for Hitler, no less—within the musical that is intended to defraud investors but ends up being a huge hit.

2) Wonderful Town
I’ve never seen Wonderful Town, but I have heard the wonderful ode to the Buckeye State, “Why, oh why, oh why oh, why did I ever leave Ohio?” That’s enough to make this list.

3) The Wizard of Oz
Tornadoes, flying monkeys, witches, lions—what’s not to like about The Wizard of Oz? “If I Only Had a Brain” could be the best song in any musical, and the ending that demystifies the wonderful wizard is truly inspired and inspiring. As a side note, the myth about the musical perfectly synching with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is totally bogus.

4) Grease
C’mon, you know it’s fun. And admit it, you know all the words to the songs.

5) Hairspray
John Waters is overrated, but Hairspray is a bit overlooked. The musical about an overweight teenager who wins a spot on, then tries to racially integrate, a local dance show is certainly more entertaining than The Phantom of the Opera. The R&B soundtrack that drives the musical also is more enjoyable than the boringly overwrought Andrew Lloyd Webber’s work.

Top Lady

1) Singin’ in the Rain
From the “Moses Supposes” number to “Good Mornin’” to “Make ‘em Laugh” to the perfect, perfect title song scene, it just doesn’t get any better than this. And even if there was no singing or dancing, Lena’s shriek of “Whattayou think I am, dumb or somethin’?” would make this movie.

2) Camelot
If Singin’ in the Rain is timeless, there is nothing more of its own time (1960) than Camelot. The fact that it came to represent the too-short first term of JFK adds another layer to the already timeless story; and even the happiest songs have a few minor keys that consistently foreshadow or reflect the ultimate tragic end.

3) West Side Story
Leonard Bernstein is the great American composer; and this is one of his masterworks. And what could be more American than an immigrant vs. native gang war, violence on the streets of New York, and a love that defies all those barriers? Plus, it’s so ingrained in our culture, all you have to do is crouch at the knees and start snapping your fingers, and at least one person around you will start going “Boy, Boy, Crazy Boy….”

4) The Music Man
Lots of musicals have great stories, but few of them actually have great characters. Prof. Harold Hill is a great American swindler who, in pretending to clean up a squeaky clean town by instituting a boys’ band, cleans himself up…by actually instituting a boy’s band. Besides, when is anyone ever going to write a nice song about Gary, Indiana again?

5) A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line declared itself “The Greatest Musical. Ever.” in its own ads when it opened, and it comes pretty darn close. No other show is so equally demanding of vocal, dancing, and acting skill in its performers; it’s a showcase of talent, an exacting look at the back rooms of show business, and a celebration of the myriad types of people who make up the American stage. The finale number, “One,” with the case in white costumes on a staircase, has become the iconic image for musical theater.

Top 5 Superheroes

2008-07-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Spider-Man
Spider-Man is the David Eckstein of superheroes—he’s not real big or imposing, but clever, fast, and strong. Spider-Man seems to do a lot of soul searching, but he’s pretty clear on his mission—fight petty crime and take on the occasional supervillain. The fact that he daylights as a science geek/photojournalist/pizza delivery guy makes him the most appealing—unlike Batman, he doesn’t come from money, and actually has a rent to pay.

2) Wonder Woman
Like Superman, Wonder Woman is not human. However, most of her crimefighting ability comes from her tools and weapons, like the Magic Lasso, rather than supernatural ability. I like that she doesn’t fly—but she does pilot an invisible jet (seriously, what’s the point of it being invisible? You can see her inside). Unlike her male counterparts, Wonder Woman’s not very complicated (she doesn’t seem to fall in love that much, or crave a father figure), but that’s what makes her so appealing—she’s just good, strong, and wears an awesome outfit.

3) Batman
It took some guts for Bob Kane to create the most intimidating and least reassuring superhero of all time. Batman doesn’t say too much, other than “I’m Batman,” so you’re never quite sure what he’s doing—we know he beats up bad guys, but you hesitate to describe him as a good guy, too. But, of course, this ambiguity (moral and otherwise) makes him one of the most exciting superheroes, and (I’ll go so far as to say) literary characters in American culture. Plus, he definitely has the coolest car.

4) She-Ra
I don’t remember too much about what She-Ra’s actual powers were, except that she was He-Man’s sister, a “Princess of Power” and had some serious weaponry. I’m sure she fought Skeletor in some capacity. Anyway, she was brave, she was a princess, and she had her own horse—for a 6-year-old girl, that’s really all you want in a superhero.

p.s. As the Top Guy likes to point out, Skeletor was a skeleton…with muscles.

5) Danger Mouse
In the early '80s, a lot of cable channels were starting up before they actually had a lot of original programming to show. For Nickelodeon, this meant the import of a lot of weird Japanese and European cartoons, including Danger Mouse. I think Danger Mouse was supposed to be a combination of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Lord Nelson, and I believe he saved Parliament and Big Ben several times, which certainly qualifies him as a superhero. Also, his sidekick was a hamster.

Top Guy

1) The Tick
Actually, the Tick is a spoof on superheroes. The cartoon version was one of the funniest, most well-written shows on television in the ’90s. I can’t say how many Saturday mornings I spent watching the Tick, along with his trusty sidekick, Arthur, and fellow superheroes such as Sewer Urchin and American Maid protect Earth from supervillains such as the Terror, Chairface Chippendale and Joseph Stalin.

2) Spider-Man
What can Spider-Man do? Anything a spider can. But his powers aren’t limitless—seriously, how many times does he come this close to dying—which makes him so much cooler than the super-invincible, super-boring Superman.

3) Batman
He’s the only superhero without any super powers. Everything he achieves is through guts, determination and the coolest gadgets ever. In the Joker, he also has the coolest arch-nemesis of any superhero.

4) Wolverine
The X-Men are awesome, and Wolverine is the biggest badass of them all. He makes the list despite sharing a name and color scheme with Michigan’s football team.

5) Iron Man
He’s so cool, Black Sabbath wrote a song about him. Can he walk at all? Or if he moves, will he fall?

Top 5 Presidents Not on Money

2008-07-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt is good enough to have his head carved into a mountain, but he’s not good enough to get a coin?!? As president, he spearheaded the deal for the Panama Canal, established the National Parks Service and the Food and Drug Administration, broke up monopolies such as Standard Oil, and won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the end of the Russo-Japanese War.

2) James Monroe
Before becoming president, Monroe helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the nation. As president, he authored the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that “…the American continents…by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Power” and became the predominant American foreign policy for the next 100 years.

3) James Madison
Granted, Madison’s career was pretty much over by the time he was elected president. But if Alexander Hamilton gets the $10 for being the first secretary of the Treasury, and Ben Franklin gets the $100 for being a founding father, then shouldn’t the man largely credited with writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights find a home on some currency.

4) William Howard Taft
He’s known as the fattest person ever to reside in the White House, but he should be remembered as the only man to ever serve as both the president and the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

5) William Clinton
If conservatives can call for every coin, airport and road to bear Ronald Reagan’s name, then liberals should be calling for the same for the 42nd president. To think, it’s only been eight years since America was a peaceful, prosperous nation held in high regard by other countries.

Top Lady

1) Theodore Roosevelt
T.R. was hands down the 2nd greatest president of the 20th century (after his cousin Franklin). He was a war hero, mastermind of the Panama Canal, author of 35 books, conservationist, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and advocate of women’s suffrage and equal pay. Although Roosevelt could be accused of ushering in the age of American Imperialism, today’s leaders would do well to remember that he spoke softly (not brashly) with that big stick.

2) Woodrow Wilson
Probably the most intelligent president we’ve ever had. Wilson held out on World War I as long as he could, and then was critical in creating the Treaty of Versailles while also creating the League of Nations (for which, like Roosevelt, he also won a Nobel Prize). Wilson seems to have a reputation for being kind of a weakling, but his embrace of diplomacy and resistance to unnecessary arms-building in the face of the first global conflict should be recognized.

3) Harry S Truman
Truman served as vice president for only three months before FDR’s death pushed him into the heart of World War II, and many of the decisions he made, including using the nuclear bomb, were essentially the fulfillment of what FDR would have done. (Truman kept all of FDR’s cabinet intact.) Truman also authorized the Berlin Airlift, kept Joe McCarthy under control (for a little while) and got some wheels turning regarding Civil Rights. Also, he was from Missouri, and said things such as “The buck stops here.”

4) James Madison
He wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Doesn’t he deserve more than a lot of streets, a mermaid, and a million 8-year old girls named after him?

5) Jimmy Carter
Carter is a better ex-President than he was an actual member of the Executive branch, but much of his failure in getting things done came from poor relations with Congress. Now, gas is $4.49 a gallon. We don’t have peace in the Middle East. We don’t have a good plan for renewable energy or any kind of energy independence. Carter tried to tackle these in 1977. If he had been successful, can you imagine the kind of country we would be?

Top 5 Types of Pie

2008-07-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) Pecan Pie
Yes, my number 1 is not a fruit pie. As my family will attest, I’m not too fond of pie, but I do like pecans covered in sugar sitting over a syrupy base. Besides, unlike apples, pecans only grow in the U.S., and, unlike apple pie, the best recipes call for a shot of bourbon.

2) Cherry Pie
When I think of pie, I think diners, truck stops, and coffee shops. And when I think of those things, I think of loners, drifters, and runaways—all people craving a little bit of home (but not too much home). And it always seems to be cherry pie which Enid or Madge serves to these guys with their cup of drip automatic coffee.

3) Punkin’ Pie
I once saw a woman on TV who wins the Pillsbury Pie Bake-off every year with her pumpkin pies, which she makes from her own home-grown pumpkins. Pumpkin pie is, for some reason, sacred to us. Just watch—next Thanksgiving, casually mention that you hate pumpkin pie, and then sit back and let the pariah treatment start.

4) Apple Pie
I think a lot of people like the idea of apple pie more than the actual thing. It’s a pain to make and pretty easy to screw up. That said, things that take a lot of time and skill are usually made with care, which is why we like it, and why you can buy a scented candle that smells like apple pie. Or you can get the Hot Pocket-shaped one from McDonalds.

5) Denny’s French Silk Pie
A friend of mine wrote a song about this pie. I don’t know if he really liked it that much, but I do know that I love the pretend fanciness of calling a pie “French Silk,” since it’s basically chocolate pudding scooped out into a premade crust. Mmmmm…..tastes like freedom.

Top Guy

1) Apple Pie
Apple pie is as American as baseball and Elvis Presley. If you don’t like apple pie, you’re probably on the terrorist watch list.

2) Buckeye Pie
I swear this isn’t on the list only because I’m from Ohio. Instead, it makes the cut because it’s basically a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup in pie form.

3) Oreo Pie
See above. Only substitute Oreos for peanut butter and chocolate.

4) Strawberry Pie
There are few joys in life greater than chomping down on fresh strawberries and cream on a warm summer’s day.

5) Blueberry Pie
You could easily substitute any other berry here, but this makes the cut because blueberries are my favorite berries.

Top 5 Things Not to Name Your Kid

2008-07-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Cory
This tops the list because I was almost named Cory. Mom’s selling point to my two older brothers: “You can call him Corky.” All of the potential victims from the multi-state killing spree that would have ensued should be grateful that another name was chosen.

2) Beemer
My brother wasn’t so lucky. He ended up with the middle name of Beemer, which also was my grandfather’s middle name. Growing up, we would play games of B-E-E-M-E-R instead of H-O-R-S-E. The lesson: Never name your child something that he/she will never forgive you for naming them.

3) Cheyenne
If you want your daughter to end up in a trailer park or in a porno, this is the name for you.

4) Elliot
I’ll let John Cusack’s character from The Sure Thing handle this one: Elliot? You’re gonna name the kid Elliot? No, you can’t name the kid Elliot. Elliot is a fat kid with glasses who eats paste. You’re not gonna name the kid Elliot. You gotta give him a real name. Give him a name. Like Nick. Yeah, Nick. Nick’s a real name. Nick’s your buddy. Nick’s the kind of guy you can trust, the kind of guy you can drink a beer with, the kind of guy who doesn’t mind if you puke in his car, Nick.”

5) Anything Anything III
If you’re a Junior, and you pass your name on to your son, you’ve just obligated him to name his first-born boy Anything Anything IV. Don’t do this to your future grandchild.

Top Lady

1) Cheyenne, Dakota, or any other Tribe of Which You Are Not Actually a Member
I know it drives Native Americans crazy enough when white folks decide to get in touch with their native roots by putting up dreamcatchers or retreating to a spa in New Mexico to communicate with the Great Spirit. But introducing your blonde, blue-eyed kid as “Dakota” just begs the question: have you ever heard the wolf cry to the Blue Corn Moon?

2) Tressel Hayes
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2830476

3) The Same First Name as Dad, but Not the Same Middle Name
Thus creating all the fun and wacky confusion of having two “John Smiths” without the convenience of “Junior.” Plus, it eliminates the potential for the royal-sounding III, IV, and V suffixes. (or, the hick-sounding Trip, Ivy, and Vee nicknames)

4) Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte, or Aidan

5) Combination of Parents’ Names
Yes, no one else will have a kid named Linley, Joniffer, Kevlyn, Markery, or Marbert. But, aside from imagining that name on a business card 30 years from now, what happens when Jakily and Sophichael get married and have kids? You’ve got a grandkid named Jasopilchel. That’s what.

Top 5 Country Love Songs

2008-07-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

1) I Fall to Pieces, Patsy Cline
Aside from showcasing THE great female country voice, this song manages to be painfully emotional without getting pathetic. Plus, we’ve all been there—we don’t have to wonder how Patsy’s going to be just his friend.

2) I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash
It’s easy to say “I love you” in a song, but (though he would screw up many, many times after he wrote it) John knew that actions speak louder than words.

3) Always on My Mind, Willie Nelson
And then there’s that bad boyfriend who always screws up…and says he’s sorry. And damn if you don’t go running back every time…

4) Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash (written by June Carter)
As Heart would express less elegantly years later: Love Hurts. The peppy Nashville sound and mariachi trumpets on the most famous recording undercut some pretty emo lyrics, making for an unforgettable song.

5) I’m the Man Who Loves You, Wilco
Is Wilco still an alt-country band? Ah, who cares. Much like “There She Goes” by The La’s, there’s not a gal who hears this song who doesn’t wish it was written about her.

Top Guy

1) I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash
It's a beautiful love song, but it tops the list for the innovative click-clack rhythm (achieved through the use of a dollar bill underneath the guitar strings), the unusual chord progression and the the use of five key changes through the song.

2) I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes, Carter Family
This song could make the list on its own merits, but it ranks this high because a radio performance of the song actually led to love. Sara Carter sang the song when the trio had a radio residency in Texas, and her true love, Coy Bayes (who was Sara’s husband A.P. Carter’s cousin, and who was kept away from Sara by the extended family), heard it, drove to Texas and reunited with his love. It’s complicated, but it’s really sweet.

3) Hey, Good Lookin’, Hank Williams
Looking back over Williams’s catalog, I was surprised to see that he didn’t write that many love songs. Most of the songs he wrote about his beloved Audrey were broken-hearted laments such as “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Half as Much” and the saddest song ever written, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Still, a country-music list wouldn’t be complete without Williams, and “Hey, Good Lookin’” is sweet slice of folksy fun.

4) Far Away Eyes, Rolling Stones
Even though the Stones are considered a blues-rock band, they always could write a country song that would make Hank Williams proud. “Far Away Eyes” is a bit of a joke, but it does give hope to all those guys down on their luck who can’t harmonize. They might not get the model, but they can find love with the bleary, worse-for-wear-and-tear girl with…well you know what kind of eyes she’s got.

5) Right In Time, Lucinda Williams
This song is secretly dirty. It seems like an ode to a good man. But it’s really about a good man who’s an even better lover, a man who can match Williams move for move. My favorite part of the song is the knowing “Ohhhhhhh baby” wails before each chorus.

Top 5 People Who Should Be in the Baseball Hall of Fame...But Aren't!

2008-07-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Pete Rose
I can’t write about this rationally. So I’ll just argue that if a drunken womanizer (Babe Ruth) and a drunken racist (Ty Cobb) are hall worthy, then the all-time hits leader should get the call despite his many troubles.

2) Marvin Miller
As the first head of the player’s union, Miller ended the reserve clause, created free agency and arbitration, and ushered in baseball’s modern era. Of course, he upset so many people in the establishment that he’ll probably never get a call from the hall.

3) Dr. James Andrews
It could be argued that few have contributed as much to the game of baseball as Andrews. He never swung a bat in the majors, never pitched a no-hitter or (as far as I know) even attended a major league game. But he did invent ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery, in which a ligament in the elbow is replaced by a tendon from somewhere else in the body. It’s better known as Tommy John surgery—John was the first professional pitcher to successfully undergo the surgery—and it has saved the careers of literally hundreds of pitchers.

4) Eddie Gaedel
He’s the only player in the history of baseball to have a perfect on-base percentage. In 1951, Gaedel drew a walk in his first and only at bat for the St. Louis Browns. Sure, the 3-foot-7-inch midget was just a publicity stunt by Browns owner Bill Veeck, but his walk-to-at-bat ratio puts Kevin “The Greek God of Walks” Youkilis to shame.

5) Mark McGwire
McGwire had the unfortunate distinction of being the first big-time slugger from the steroids era to come up for a hall vote. He didn’t even come close to being elected despite hitting 583 home runs and being named to the All-Century Team in 1999. Put him in (and Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, etc.), make a mention of the steroids suspicions on the plaque and get over it.

Top Lady

1) Willie McGee
OK, it’s probably not realistic, but what kind of St. Louisan would I be if I didn’t put Willie at the top of the list? Now that Ozzie is in, he’s our next best prospect until Pujols retires or McGwire comes out of his cave.

2) Bill James
Bill James is baseball’s Galileo; and seeing as baseball owners are willing to shift their thinking at about the same speed as the Catholic Church, he probably won’t get in until after he dies, or until after everyone who thinks sabermetrics is a crock dies. But he will. Also, can someone explain sabermetrics to me again?

3) Keith Hernandez
Aside from having great seasons with the Mets and the Cardinals, Keith gave us one of the best two-episode Seinfelds of all time. Who does this guy think he is? He’s Keith Hernandez.

4) Horace Wilson
I don’t know much about Horace Wilson, except that he was an American professor who introduced baseball to Japan in the 1870’s. 138 years later, the fruits of his labor include Hideo Nomo, Suzuki Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, So Taguchi, the Nippon Ham Fighters, and Mr. Baseball.

5) Bob Uecker
OK, I have no idea who else should be in the Hall of Fame who isn’t right now, so I’m just going to throw out Bob Uecker, because he played on the ’64 World Series Cardinals team, and then went on to be on Mr. Belvedere and in Major League. Also, he calls himself Mr. Baseball.

p.s. I just spent the last hour looking at baseball nicknames on Wikipedia. Awesome.

Top 5 Constitutional Amendments

2008-07-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

[Click on the image above for more information]

Top Guy

1) First Amendment
As a journalist and a musician, the first amendment has a special place in my heart.

2) Twenty-First Amendment
This amendment repealed the eighteenth amendment, which outlawed “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” Lift your glasses and rejoice.

3) Fifteenth Amendment
The thirteenth amendment ended slavery, but this is the amendment that gave former slaves suffrage. It was basically a way for legislators to say sorry for that whole slavery, three-fifths of a person thing.

4) Ninth Amendment
A case could be made for the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments, but the ninth trumps them all. The basic premise is that, while certain rights have been spelled out in the first 10 amendments, those rights “shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

5) Third Amendment
The forgotten amendment in the first 10 protects against the unwanted quartering of soldiers. Sure, it has little or no use today, but it’s still nice to know that the only G.I. Joe in my house will be fighting the forces of Cobra.

Top Lady

1) 13th Amendment: Abolition of slavery
Really, it was only after 1865 that all Americans could sing that Lee Greenwood song about knowing you’re free.

2) 1st Amendment: Freedom of Speech
Granting all Americans the right to hold KKK rallies, burn the flag, record albums that glorify violence, and generally sound like idiots…especially via blog.

3) Equal Rights Amendment (not yet ratified)
In the 1970’s my mom made 1/3 less pay than the man next to her doing the exact same job. Almost 40 years later, aside from a long, expensive class action suit, there’s still nothing women can do to challenge that.

4) 20th Amendment: Women's Suffrage
50 years after African-American men are granted the right to vote, Susan B. Anthony and others win the campaign for women’s suffrage. 88 years later, a female has a shot at the presidency, and young men shout “Iron my shirt!” at her.

5) 21st: Repeal of Prohibition
I’m gonna need to utilize this Amendment after writing this list....

Top 5 Fictional Characters from Novels

2008-07-09T18:01:00.000-07:00

Top Guy

1) Rob Gordon, High Fidelity
This list couldn’t be complete without the king of Top 5 lists. Rob is a miserable, broke record store owner whose girlfriend just left him for a complete douchebag and who’s on a quest to figure out what has gone wrong with his life. Sure, that’s the basic premise of about 10 million books, but Rob gets the nod because he’s smart, funny and has impeccable taste in music.

2) Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee has still only written one book in her career, but she hit perfection on her first swing. Has there ever been another character as heroic and genuinely good as Atticus?

3) Maurice Bendrix, The End of the Affair
If you ever need lessons on how to be a vindictive, vengeful ex-lover, there are few better places to turn to than Maurice. Plus, he gets to write one of the best lines ever: “This is a diary of hate.”

4) Lennie, Of Mice and Men
So sweet. So simple. So doomed.

5) Yossarian, Catch-22
Smart enough not to die, but not smart enough to get himself out of the war, Yossarian is the perfect archetype for anyone stuck in a bad situation (whether it be a bad job, a bad relationship or a bad war) without having a way out. This entry reminds me that I should read Catch-22 again.

Top Lady

1) Humbert Humbert, Lolita
Though Dolores Haze herself is actually quite strong when you read between the lines, I can’t think of any other narrative voice that’s as successful at seducing the reader into sympathizing with and being charmed by such a revolting character.

2) Emma Bovary, Madame Bovary
Probably the most relevant 19th century character to contemporary society: Madame Bovary is the ultimate Desperate Housewife who gets what’s coming to her in the end.

3) Kurtz, Heart of Darkness
I put Kurtz ahead of Hannibal Lecter, Tom Ripley, and Dracula in downright creepiness. He has hardly any dialogue, and the novel’s description of a frail, white-haired old man doesn’t match up with Brando in Apocalypse Now, but “Exterminate the Brutes!” still sends shivers down my spine.

4) Ignatius J. Reilly, A Confederacy of Dunces
Anyone with too much education considers Ignatius to be hilarious; anyone who has ever “filed” anything by throwing it into a wastebasket considers him a genius.

5) Clarissa Dalloway, Mrs. Dalloway
Through the city of London could itself be the primary character of the book, Mrs. Dalloway acts as the bridge between the Victorian era and the Modern. She’s also one of the few major literary characters who seems genuinely nice—after all, she’s the one who said she’d buy the flowers.

Top 5 Ice Cream Flavors

2008-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

Top Lady

Pistachio
Not too easy to find in the average 31 Flavors these days, but pistachio ice cream has a nice, muted flavor that I really like after eating something rich.

Chocolate
Straight up chocolate ice cream is pretty much a fountain of youth, in my opinion. What flavor would you rather lick off your wrist when it starts dripping down?

Melon
For the hottest of hot days. Melon as a fruit always seems cool when you eat it (like grapes), so in ice cream or sorbet form, it really does the trick.

Chocolate Chip
I felt I needed a variation of vanilla, because at its heart ice cream really should be a simple pleasure, without half a pantry’s worth of graham crackers, dried fruit, cookies, or cake batter dumped in there. The chocolate chips are just enough to keep it from being too….vanilla.

Riso
Ok, I’m cheating here, because I’m referring to a specific gelato in Rome that is made from rice. But I love rice pudding, and this is its creamy, nutty, chewy equivalent on a cone. With a little house-made whipped cream, it’s molto delicioso.

Top Guy

1) Salty Caramel
Instead of extolling the virtues of the greatest ice cream flavor ever, I’ll tell a story. One Saturday years ago, God stopped by Jeni Britton’s ice cream shop to taste her salty caramel concoction. The next week, he stopped again, telling Jeni that her signature flavor was better than anything he had ever created.

2) Strawberry
Of the simple, base flavors—vanilla, chocolate, strawberry—this comes out on top. It’s at its best when scooped with chunks of real strawberries. It gets bonus points for being the best ice cream for a shake.

3) Bunny Tracks
This could easily have been moose tracks or any other animal-track ice cream because each has the same basic combination of chocolate chips, little peanut butter cups and nuts. Bunny Tracks wins out, though, because bunnies are much cuter animals than moose.

4) Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Who hasn’t gorged themselves sick eating cookie dough? Combine that with ice cream and chocolate, and your taste buds will thank you.

5) Chocolate
This is my two-year-old nephew’s favorite flavor, although he has never actually tasted it. Still, I think he’s on to something…

Top Five Films That Shouldn't Have Won Best Picture...But Did!

2008-07-02T18:47:00.000-07:00

Top Guy:
1) Forrest Gump (1994)
I’ll throw this out there right from the start: I hate Forrest Gump. It’s trite. It’s as stupid as its central character. And its underlying theme—that walking the straight and narrow will bring you fame and fortune while flaunting authority will bring you an early death by AIDS—makes me want to vomit.

Even defenders of Forrest have to admit that it wasn’t 1994’s best picture. Pulp Fiction had the buzz going into the Oscars, and it saved John Travolta’s career while establishing Quentin Tarantino as a legitimate director and Samuel L. Jackson as a legitimate badass. The Oscar, however, should have gone to The Shawshank Redemption, which is simply one of the best films ever made. (It gets extra props for being filmed in Ohio.)

2) How Green Was My Valley (1941)
I admittedly know nothing about this movie. I’ve never seen it. I barely even knew it existed. So why is it on the list? The movie that’s generally considered the greatest ever made, Citizen Kane, was up for the award.

3) Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Does anyone else have a problem with a film based around an old white woman bossing around her black driver in the American South? Does anyone else have a problem that this crap-tastic snoozer beat out Field of Dreams, Born on the Fourth of July, Dead Poets Society and My Left Foot?

4) Shakespeare in Love (1998)
There were many good things in the ’90s. Peace. Grunge. Economic prosperity. Michael Jordan. But the Oscars penchant for handing out Best Picture awards to period pieces featuring love stories wasn’t one of them. This capped off a three-year period in which The English Patient and Titanic also took home the top prize.

Anyone who can argue that Shakespeare in Love—which also took home the Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay Oscars—was better than Life is Beautiful, Elizabeth and Saving Private Ryan is a better debater than me.

5) Rocky (1976)
I have no quarrel with Rocky as a picture or as an icon. Along with Hoosiers and the original The Longest Yard, it’s arguably the best sports movie ever made.

In any other year, Rocky might have been the best picture. But it was a distant fourth in 1976 after All the President’s Men, Network and Taxi Driver, which should have won Martin Scorsese his first Oscar 30 years before The Departed.

Top Lady:
1941 Winner: How Green Was My Valley
Shoulda Won: Citizen Kane
It’s easy to look at the winners of the ‘40s and ‘50s and claim that Hollywood still had a lot to learn from the French about appreciating good movies. But you really have to wonder…who sat through Citizen Kane and then thought “Well, I guess it was pretty good, but Best Picture? ….Nah!”

1944 Winner: Going My Way
Shoulda Won: Double Indemnity
See above. Hey—I’m all for Bing Crosby/Bob Hope sing-a-longs, but against the greatest film noir flick of all time?

1956 Winner: Around the World in 80 Days
Shoulda Won: The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments was the Lord of the Rings of its era—without the aid of CGI. Instead, they gave it to the Shrek of its era.

1985 Winner: Out of Africa
Shoulda Won: The Color Purple
Two great books (seriously, I recommend them both). But Out of Africa is 3 hours of two beautiful white people who somehow make Africa boring. Can you think of another film in the past 25 years that gave such great roles to African-American actresses as The Color Purple? Add this to the list of snubs that made Halle Berry’s Oscar a too little, too late gesture.

1994 Winner: Forrest. Forrest Gump
Shoulda Won: The Shawshank Redemption
The three hours of Boomer self-love that is Forrest Gump rubbed everyone born after 1970 the wrong way. Too bad most of the Academy was born waaaaaay before then. The one Stephen King movie I can actually watch has writing and acting more impressive than a reanimated Lyndon Johnson any day.

Top Lady Rebuttal:

I originally had Driving Miss Daisy on my list, too. But the performances are so good, I let it slide. Besides, it's not an epic, historical epic, fantasy epic, colonial epic, war epic, or about Los Angeles, so it's kind of a break from the usual pattern.

Top Guy Rebuttal:

Seeing as how we agreed on 40 percent of the films, I don't have much of a rebuttal. You're right, Out of Africa was dreadfully boring--although there was a scene where Meryl Streep gets charged by a lion. If you want to make the case for The Ten Commandments, maybe you shouldn't compare it to The Lord of the Rings, which didn't deserve the Best Picture Oscar but won it because the Academy wanted to give the trilogy some props.

Top 5 War

Top 5 Inventors

Top 5 Months

Top 5 Clash songs

Top 5 Paul Newman movies

Top 5 World Series Teams

Top 5 Food Shows

Top 5 Photographers

Top 5 Matador Records Releases

Top 5 Films Featuring Steve Buscemi

Top 5 Comic Strips

Top 5 Beers

Top 5 Documentaries

Top 5 Olympic Events

Top 5 Seinfeld Episodes

Top 5 Books About Sports

Top 5 Buildings

Top 5 R.E.M. Songs

Top 5 Professional Wrestlers from the '80s

Top 5 American Musicals

Top 5 Superheroes

Top 5 Presidents Not on Money

Top 5 Types of Pie

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