June 19

Here's to honorary doppelganger Elaine "Spanky" Macfarlane. In the 60's, one of her bandmates said she looked like Spanky from the Little Rascals; just like that, the band became "Spanky and Our Gang". I guess they're doppelgangers times two, because their songs and performances tend to get lumped in with the Mamas and the Papas.
But let's be clear: "Lazy Day" belongs to them. "Sunday Morning" and "Give a Damn"- the Gang. And their biggest hit, "Sunday Will Never Be the Same":

Before their third album, the band guitarist died, and the band essentially dissolved by decade's end, although they would reunite several times. In fact, the band got back together a few years ago, to record an americana-style album.
Here's a performance from the Smothers Brothers show. It's not one of their chart climbers, but it's just too much fun.

June 10

Has anyone ever pointed out that Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards have the same birthdays? Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's just the kind of thing I watch out for with this blog.
See, one of the underlying questions of this blog is, do people that share the same birthdays share any characteristics? That's the basis of horoscopes, right? Let me tell you, if someone had told me that my future babymomma shared a birthday with Hitler, I might have paid attention...
But that hasn't been proven yet, despite thousands of years of observation. Not everybody born on Elvis' birthday is gifted to sing or dance or seduce a generation... So maybe the Spitzer-Edwards alignment is a Feynman Point in this blog; all I'm saying is, Mrs Bobby Jindal better keep her man on a tight leash...

This was from a Valentine's Day episode, but it's SNL's version of Eliot Spitzer with greeting cards for special occasions...

May 25

Happy Birthday, Sir Ian McKellen; your Shakespearean pedigree has elevated two of the geekiest cults into the pop culture stratosphere. You make everything sound sophisticated and haughty.

Observe these tributes:

May 14

I showcase a larger proportion of singers and actors than I like in this column; it's easier to find videos, easier to give you something else to look at beside my bumbling testimonials and second-hand research. The people that are really shaping our world to come - the doctors, scientists, and philosophers that our children will study about - these are the kind of people I want to recognize and imbue, in some small way, some distinction in our pop culture-saturated attention spans.
A great example is Professor Frederik Kruger, world expert in particle discharge and DC current systems. Since the early 60's, he's invented several high voltage containment systems and components that have become global standards. His laboratory in Delft, Holland is considered the centre of knowledge in direct current research. He wrote the textbook on particle discharge, literally.
That's not all Professor Krueger writes about, however. He's published several studies of a fellow local boy done good, 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer, and the painter's use of pre-photographic technology in his art. He also identified several presumed Vermeers as forgeries, particularly by the expert forger Han Van Meegeren.
Krueger became an expert on Van Meegeren himself, writing several novels and biographies about Van Meegeren's work, his frustration as a legitimate artist, and his abilities to fool the critics and the Nazis. (You can read some of Kruger's research at this Van Meegeren website.)
When he's not playing with high voltage or identifying great art forgeries, Krueger plays out with his band, the Siperkov Ensemble, who keep alive the traditional sounds of Romany (Gypsy) music.

Of course, he's written a book about Romany music, too.

But who am I kidding? If I say it's Fred Krueger's birthday, you're probably expecting something like this:


I'm sorry, Professor...

March 24

Today's for one of the ultimate That Guys: partly for his prolific career, partly for his performances in some great cult films, and partly because his name's William Smith. This guy has played more bad bikers, vampires, gunslingers, and assassins than any actor I know. He was the last Marlboro Man on TV. He's Conan's father, for crying out loud!
And he's not just an actor. He served in the Air Force during the Korean War, spoke five languages, taught Russian at UCLA... Was a world-class arm-wrestling champion and competitive bodybuilder that set a world record by reverse curling his own body weight... He's got a 31-1 amateur boxing record and he used to have security clearance with the CIA and NSA (until he married a French actress.) He's even fought California wildfires as a volunteer fireman.
As far as acting goes, he's been a hero, and even a lead, in such 60's TV shows as Zero One, Laredo, and Wildside. But he's most utilized as a villain: some key roles include Falconetti in both series of "Rich Man Poor Man", the Russian Commander in "Red Dawn", Jude Bohner in "Gunsmoke", and Pharoah in "Legend of the Roller Blade Seven". Hey, when you approach 300 film and TV appearances, they can't all be winners. I still think that he's the next guy deserving a Tarantino career resurrection. A Tarantino film with William Smith above the title on the movie poster? Think of the opening weekend numbers!
Anyway, here's the climactic fist fight in "Any Which Way You Can", between Smith and Clint Eastwood. The setup is, they're two of the best bare-knuckle brawlers in the world. After spending the entire movie becoming friends and fending off the pressure to fight (from mobsters, promoters, etc,) they start to wonder who'd actually win. One thing leads to another, and...