It’s A Johns And Davids World
It’s an odd trend in entertainment and pop culture, but strangely, there are a lot of creative, imaginative and unassailably cool creators named John and David.
Think about it.
Think of all the popular and/or pop culturally influential Johns.
John Lennon.
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten).
John Belushi.
John Cusack.
Johnny Depp.
John Steinbeck.
John Hiatt.
John Waters.
Johnny Carson.
John Mayer.
John Grisham.
John Fogerty.
John Legend.
John Mellencamp.
Etc.
Etc.
And then there are the many Davids:
David Letterman.
Dave Chappelle.
Dave Barry.
David Mamet.
David Lynch.
David Fincher.
David Byrne.
David Sedaris.
David Cross.
“American Idol” once featured a showdown of two Davids: Cook and Archuleta; one of the most popular stars around the world is the cheesy David Hasselhoff; and some of the most widely e-mailed videos on YouTube are by street magician David Blaine, who is no relation to non-street magician David Copperfield.
Etc.
Etc.
Interesting.
Of course, you could argue that it’s the law of averages, and that John and David are such common names that there are bound to be a lot of popular and influential entertainers with those names.
OK, but then where are all the Jims? How about the Bobs? Joes? Sure, there are some, but nowhere near as many as there are Johns and Davids.
For sake of argument, there aren’t many Seans either, but then again, Sean isn’t exactly a common name, outside Dublin. Of course, Sean is actually a Celtic offshoot of John, so I guess you can count the Seans under the Johns.
That, of course, brings up one Sean who is also a John, Sean John, aka P. Diddy, Diddy, Puff Daddy, Diddydiddybobiddybananafannafofiddydiddy, etc., who I guess you could put in the cool category, although his star has considerably dimmed, I think. But then again, I don’t really consider ostentatious consumption and demonstration of wealth to be an arbiter of cool. In all honesty, I thought Sean John was at his coolest during two periods in his life: 1) when he was just hitting the scene with Biggie Smalls, and 2) in the movie “Made,” with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. I think those were the twin apexes of Diddy’s coolness. But I digress.
At any rate, I think there needs to be a greater Sean representation. But until I become a best-selling author and popular filmmaker (ha!), it’s all in the hands of Sean John and Sean Lennon.
We, the Sean Nation, are counting on you, guys.
Until then, it’s a world of Daves and Johns, and the rest of us are just living in it, being entertained by them.
