<Kafka>

PHOTO: http://www.mantex.co.uk/graphics/ka...

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: <ripped bare the very soul of modernity, exposing it to be irrational, capricious, stultifying, cruel, soulless, and, quite frankly, insane>

FUN FACT: <There are no fun facts about Kafka. AND IT'S NOT FUNNY!>

HOBBIES: <chemistry, law, and empathizing with cockroaches in a not-at-all "comforting" kind of way>

VIDEO: filmed excerpt- From Part I of the <Trial> with the GREAT, great, great Tim Roth-

"I feel... restless and vicious..."

(that's how I feel when I play chess)

<Al Pacino>

PHOTO: http://www.sinemablog.com/wp-conten...

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: <popularized having a normal conversation and THEN SUDDENLY FLIPPING HIS LID AND SCREAMING LIKE A MANIAC FOR NO REASON>

FUN FACT: <In 1961 Pacino was arrested for driving around with a concealed weapon in his car> (extra points for liking firearms)

HOBBIES: <Keeping a whole pile of Hoes in line: Debra Winger, Lyndall Hobbs, Tuesday Weld, Diane Keaton, Jill Clayburgh, Marthe Keller, and Kathleen Quinlan. And that's just the ones people know about!!!> (extra points)

VIDEO: Thrill as Al FLIPS HIS LID in Glengarry Glen Ross--

(warning- EXTREMELY FOUL LANGUAGE)

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: ????

FUN FACT: Thinks human sacrifice is cool

HOBBIES: CHESS, DARKNESS, SEX, VIOLENCE AND KINDNESS

VIDEO: A RANDY NEWMAN SONG

<Marcel "The Champ" Duchamp>

PHOTO: (couldn't resist)- http://regressoaofuturo4.blogs.sapo...

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: <Keeping his hoe in line-- refusing to give up chess even after she glued his pieces to his board> (extra points)

FUN FACT: <While studying art at the prestigious Académie Julian, Duchamp skipped almost all his classes, preferring to hit the local pub, hustle pool, and make drinking money by selling humorous pornographic cartoons he drew>

HOBBIES: <Chess- yes, you heard right- chess I tells you!!>

"Mr. Duchamp, why chess"?
<Duchamp>: "Why not chess?"

Why not indeed, why not indeed...

Here, in one of the finest moments of his ART career (yes, I said ART), in the 1933 <Chess Olympiad> our hero successfully defends against a dangerous passed pawn and earns a draw against the great IM and perennial <Czech Champion> Karel Opacensky--- in the very tricky <Mikenas Carl> variation of the sodding English (an opening which is every bit as irritating to the opponent as the French)--

Opocensky vs Duchamp, 1933

VIDEO: A very short Duchamp film with music by <John Cage>-- WARNING- do not view this film while under the influence of hallucinogens,

AND YES <DOM DANIEL> NUTMEG TEA COUNTS!!!

He didn't start that bloody war. Kennedy did. Johnson tried to create the <Great society> that Franklin D. Roosevelt had talked about. Unfortunately, he didn't succeed, partly because of Vietnam, partly because the American rightwing hated his guts.

The Democrats might try to make a fresh start - whether it'll be Hillary or Obama - and God bless them.

<James Brown>

PHOTO: No! YOU the man!

http://www.freestylegrooves.com/pic...

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: <totally re-defined Black music, the "Black image in America", Black "shaky legged dancing", and garnered more nicknames than any performer in history: Soul Brother Number One, Sex Machine, Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Minister of The New New Super Heavy Funk, Mr. Please Please Please, The Boss, and, of course, <<<the Godfather>>> of Soul>.

FUN FACT: His social activism and "messin' round ways" inspired <Reverend Al Sharpton> to "become a man":

<Sharpton>: "I learned manhood from James Brown. I always say that James Brown taught me how to be a man."

HOBBIES: <theft, possession of unlawful firearms, assaulting a police officer. high-speed car chases with the police, illicit drug use, assaulting an electric company employee with a steak knife, and multiple counts of alleged "domestic violence"> (SUPER EXTRA POINTS for firearms and "keepin' he hoes in line")

VIDEO: "It's a man's, man's man's world"

YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT BABY!!

CHECK OUT THIS SOUL!!! Sexiest man alive, at this point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgVL...

<Graham Chapman>

PHOTO: http://www.born-today.com/Today/pix...

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: <popularized being FLAMING GAY in an era when you "weren't supposed to do that">

FUN FACT: <Writer <<<Douglas Adams>>> reports that he witnessed Chapman "getting the bar tender's attention" by whacking his <extremely naughty bit> on the bar, in full view of the rest of the punters>

HOBBIES: <Medicine (he was a licensed Doctor) and getting roaring drunk with WHO drummer Keith Moon (can't be bad!)>

VIDEO: One of Graham's very finest moments, nominated by <Stonehenge>

I thought that was Beckham:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...

Not that I personally look at pics like that. Come on. I'm not like <Technical Draw> who listen to songs about transvestites by a group called <The Kinks>.

<The Godfather>

PHOTO: http://img12.photobucket.com/albums...

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: <Introduced the concept of "family values" to prostitution, gambling, labor racketeering, extortion, and murder-- no DRUGS though!! Stupid Soluzzo...>

FUN FACT: <Coppola's ultra-realistic film was so convincing that Marlon Brando was actually hauled in by the FBI Anti-Racketeering Squad for questioning. Brando, in the middle of a codeine binge, was too disoriented to understand what was happening. He was so embarrassed by the incident that it escaped mention in his "official" biography>

HOBBIES: <Having a masculine child, drinking more wine, thinking Sonny was a bad Don, understanding Tataglia was "just a pimp- he never could have out-fought Santino", respecting his wife and enjoying a large firearms collection> (the last two "cancel each other out" in terms of Extra Points, or the Godfather might have made it to NUMBER ONE on the list)

VIDEO:

Montage Homage--

"Look how they massacred my cat..."

<Dom Daniel>

PHOTO: http://www.tobias-daniel.de/Bilder/...

Will wonders never cease! You just put the name "dom daniel" in the Yahoo "image search box" and a bleeding CHURCH pops up. Who knew? Though I can't say I'm surprised.

Architecture buffs will recognize this as the <sublime Cathedral at Aachen> that Charlemagne had built.

A fitting edifice to represent <our Dom>, I believe-- if I'm not mistaken, the dwarf <Einhard>, Charlemagne's friend and biographer, was Irish... coincidence??

CONTRIBUTION TO COOLNESS: <Despite my many, many suggestions to Dom as to how he could <<<DO>>> this or that, or MAKE MONEY doing this or that, or BE A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST in any of a number of fields, he has steadfastly insisted that HE IS ALREADY DOING IT!!!

In layman's terms, <our Dom> is "living" in lieu of "actually doing something." Which begs a plethora of questions, all of which are much more less interesting than <Dom> himself, or, as I like to think of him, <Dom "qua" Dom>.

All this from a fellow who keeps insisting he doesn't really "exist.">

FUN FACT: <Contrary to popular opinion, Dom was never called a "miserable git" by <<<mack>>>. We didn't realize till this instant that it was <The Slid> all along... <mack> could never have out-fought Santino...>

FUN FACT TWO: <Dom is actually being stalked online by a deranged user called <<<chessnet>>> who appears every so often to curse at him and denounce his character.>

HOBBIES: <Dom enjoys long walks on the beach, pretty girls and Nazi War Memorabilia. Needless to say, his <<<facebook>>> profile is quite a hit. In addition, Dom loves to calculate, employing his considerable mathematical gifts to make sense of topics far too arcane for anyone to understand except dead people. Well OK and maybe Stephen Hawking. In addition, Dom frequently amuses himself and others by pretending he is a character in a science fiction story instead of a regular member of CG.com. Finally, Dom "enjoyed trading dirty limericks with Jessica Fischer Queen" until he was forced to stop-- but make no mistake, Dom is not a lecher. Far from it. Rather, he is a "voyager," by which I mean he paddles canoes deep into the Canadian Shield in order to bring back beaver pelts. He trades for them with the local Iroquois in exchange for shiny baubles-- mainly, those gold and silver chessmen you get when you buy a "magnetic chess set" at the Kwiki mart (as I did recently in Daegu)>

VIDEO: Well for the love of Mike... You just type "dom daniel" in to the <YouTube> search box and looky looky looky!!

Believe it or not, this video is called <"Beefy Dom: Dom Daniel Gaunt on the Wing.">

It appears to be a few Irish (or Australian? are they still considered separate countries?) geezers enjoying some champagne in their local.

OK imagine the "main guy" who is speaking-- presumably, "Dom Daniel Gaunt"-- is actually <our Dom> (and who's to say he isn't)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QVR...

FINALLY!

Ok, here he is, <THE <<<<COOLEST>>>> MAN OF THE 20th CENTURY> as chosen by our loyal <CG.com> readers.

Remember, the votes were all tabulated according to the <Sonny Barger> system for calculating "tie breaks" in chess tournaments, so there is no margin for error here.

Number One Coolest, by far, and was there ever any doubt:

<Bob Dylan>

Bob is so COOL that I can't possibly do him justice.

Just two things: my favorite Bob anecdote and my favorite Bob song.

1. Bob's girlfriend <Suze Rittola> complained that all he ever did was not pay rent and crash at her gaff every night and watch TV without saying a word to her or "doing" anything much at all. (HUGE extra points here for "keeping his hoes in line")

2. My favorite: Bob didn't write this- but he DID create this particular arrangement.

In Montreal I used to listen to this 300 times in a row and just weep.

Anyone who says Bob "can't sing" or "can't carry a tune" should listen to this song 300 times in a row.

By force, if necessary.

<Moonshiner>:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_zF...

All of your nominees and votes were counted. I used the <Sonny Barger> chess algorithm to determine the final rankings:

From 37th place to 1st place.

<Bob Dylan> won, <domdaniel> came second.

37 biographies are here, pages 340-342 of my forum, so all voters can find their faves as they wish.

Enjoy if you like, and please remind me never to do this again.

Second only to his Bobness, however, I can live with.

Sorry, but <Eyal> ocnvince me to switch to THIS method for tabulating the results:

<Sonneborn-Berger is a method to determine a tournament result if two players have an equal number of wins. It takes the opponents' wins into account.

Example: Each player has played two games against each other player. 1 indicates a win, 0 a loss.

-------- -------- ----------------- ------------ | 1st | 2nd | won games | Sonneborn- | | round | round | | Berger | |--------- --------| | | | A B C D | A B C D | wins | opponent | wins | -- -------- -------- ------ --------- -------------| | A | - 1 1 1 | - 0 1 0 | 4 | B C C D | 4+3+3+1 = 11 | | B | 0 - 1 1 | 1 - 0 1 | 4 | A C D D | 4+3+1+1 = 9 | | C | 0 0 - 1 | 0 1 - 1 | 3 | B D D | 4+1+1 = 6 | | D | 0 0 0 - | 1 0 0 - | 1 | A | 4 = 4 | -- -------- -------- ------ --------- ------------

The original was in rhyme, obviously.