Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 536 of Sneaky Dragon – the podcast that, frankly, just doesn’t give a damn!
This week: predictably; moral groundhogs; Kotter pin-up; too much talking; waste of wisdom; haw-haw-hawg; under the covers; aunt infestation; childhood crushes; rich relatives; thoughts on The Batman; jokers wild; the just stink league; well-deserved broken nose; tainted comedy; generalized Bat signals; marathon movie; hero to heel; thoughts on Jockey; complaints about The Curse; a study in porno; wordlers and murdlers; boob problems; eventual death; magical people thinking; missed opportunities; Dork Shadows – Tell Her No; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; back on top; death hills; Parsons projection; comedy jail; the musical continuum; apt golf claps; the conversational continuum; pyramid power; and, finally, unmasked.
Question of the Week (from Jonathon “Wonathon” Bampton): What’s the funniest/most striking celebrity name that is actually their birth name?
Sub-question of the Week: To which fictional character can you really relate?
Thanks for listening.
If you are interested in the problems with cryptocurrency and NFTs, you may enjoy this video essay:
Jonathon Bampton also provided us with a little slice of MOR schlock heaven with Andrew Gold’s “Never Let Her Slip Away”:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Just finished the podcast and I’m responding to Jonathon’s request about my name being “nominative determinism.” FIRST I had to look up “nominative determinism” so I could respond, because that’s a real ten dollar word. I assume Jonathan is curious about the “Dragan” in my name being a fitting example since I am writing into Sneaky “Dragon.” It is in fact, my real name and has been traced back to the borders of Germany and Poland where the Draganski family adopted a German infant named Gottfried. According to my Father’s geneaology, the Draganski’s were Polish fishermen on the border back when the border lines blurred and moved about quite a bit. This led to many German/Polish marriages and social interaction back then, so it wasn’t uncommon that a Polish family would raise a German infant left to them. He adopted the name Draganski so that is as far back my Father can go with his genealogy. Unfortunately since we’ll never know Gottfried’s last name, so we can only go back to about the mid 19th century. The name has lasted this long and will go on with my son Alec, as well as several of my cousin’s sons. We’ve been sure to pass on the story to them so they can pass it on to future generations. In full disclosure, I actually started listening to David and Ian’s podcast “Full Marx” first being a diehard Marx Brothers fan. I was Draganski then in my truest form and not Drago, the long lost Polish Marx Brother. Only then I then took on a few episodes of the flagship podcast “Sneaky Dragon”, still using my true name, Draganski. To be honest Jonathan, I’ve been asked this question many times and it is in fact my real name. It wasn’t until about the mid 90’s that I actually found a piece of clip art showing a dragon on skis that I realized I didn’t have to design a logo for myself, even if it was painfully obvious and cliché.
Hi Ed,
Thanks so much for your family history. Genuinely fascinating. My surname is comparatively humdrum. There are three towns called ‘Bamptons’ in England and my name comes from one of them. I love the ‘Bam’ bit of my name to death, but to have a ‘p’ following an ‘m’ leads to a lot of trouble. Draganski is a kickarse name.
I’ve only been to the Bampton in Oxfordshire, but one of the other two features in WITHNAIL AND I. A tearooms or a phonebook scene? (next seen it).
In normal circumstances I hope I wouldn’t be another of those people quizzing you on your name, I was merely struck by the coincidence of this podcast name and your family handle.
Plus I was eager to show off my recent learning of the word “nominative determinism”.
It came up in Dirty Harry Minute when comedian Alice Fraser said, “well, if the character is called Dirty enough, then surely he might behave like a wrong ‘un at some point….”
Anyways, thanks Ed
Well Jonathon, I have you to thank for increasing my vocabulary with some new words and what they mean. I don’t mind being the object of discussion due to my name, I’ve been asked about it many times but not in the reference of your curiosity. I’m glad you asked, I’m flattered and it was an intelligent and fun inquiry. Never pass the opportunity to be most intelligent one in the room Jonathan, you own it brother.
That’s very interesting, Ed. And perhaps it might inspire a future question of the week: do you have an interesting story about your name?
The first funny celebrity baby names I remember hearing about were Moon Unit Zappa and her brother, Dweezil Zappa. Due to our surname, my brothers and I were occasionally the “butt” of schoolyard jokes. So I thought it was selfish of Frank Zappa to burden his kids with such weird names. But no one else in the entertainment industry has those names, so I guess he was onto something.
Yes, I saw the Paw Patrol sketch on SNL. I liked that it satirized political attack ads as well as the series. I especially liked when Oscar Isaac’s politician character said Marshall the fire dog’s “jokes never miss!” Thanks! Of course, he couldn’t possibly be implying they were in any way silly or lame! As a teenager I wrote (and recorded) a Greek mythology parody of Weekend Update instead of an essay for my English class, so it was flattering to see them returning the favour and parodying a show I write for.
A fictional character I identified with was Lucy from Peanuts. There was a story arc where Linus was patting birds on the heads. Other characters kept telling Lucy and it was driving her crazy. When I was in high school, my twin brother became a born-again Christian and began to evangelize at school. My classmates would come up to me and say things like, “Your brother told me I was going to hell.” He and his Christian Club friends once got into trouble for sliding religious tracts through the vents of everyone’s lockers. When I opened my locker, one fell out onto me. I never thought I had much in common with Lucy, but when I saw those strips in a Peanuts collection, I sympathized with her for the first time.
Louise!! I was going to mention Dweezil and Moon Unit! Arrrghhh, I have to start over.
Non-fungible title card?!
It’s funny that Ian picked Jon Hamm as someone with a striking birth name, because his Mad Men co-star’s birth name is my pick — that being January Jones.
I’m going to have to catch up next time guys, I owe you some stuff about Texas and Galveston as well as this week’s answers. I’m writing checks this week I’ll never cash….Kirk out.
Hello, Gentlemen.
You were pondering this when you read my letter last week: it’s pronounced moe-BEEL, Alabama. The more Mobilian you are, the more E’s you put in the second syllable. Also, Dave, you said that you discovered Austen and Dickens in the same undergraduate course. You will be happy to learn that after _Persuasion_, we are reading _Our Mutual Friend_. For the last third of the semester, my students will be working on a collaborative project, a reader’s guide to _Our Mutual Friend_ from an ecological perspective. They will be publishing this online and presenting their ideas at a conference in May.
By the way, I’m commenting on the website rather than emailing this week because there were more emails last week, so I thought that I would redress the balance. So, my new rule of thumb: if there are fewer than three emails in a given week, I will comment via email the following week. Does that seem fair? I’m happy to be guided by you–though not in all matters.
Question of the week: most striking celebrity name. The best I can come up with at the moment is Paul Hollywood–simply because his name accords so well with his easygoing narcissism.
Sub-question of the week: rather than relating to fictional characters, I prefer to think of empathizing with them. It’s an important distinction, because to me the power of fiction is that it allows us to empathize with imaginary people who are quite different from us. So, my answers are all women, despite the fact that I am not a woman, and I think that you will notice a trend: Elinor Dashwood, Elizabeth Bennet, Fanny Price, Emma Woodhouse, and Anne Eliot. Also, Dorothea Brooke. (You may wonder why I left out Catherine Moreland. I have my reasons.)
Backwards Dragon has reached January of 2021! More updates soon…
Be well, all you sneakers.
John
PS: Here’s a little poem for you in honor of St. Patrick’s Day:
Ich am of Irlonde,
And of the holy londe
Of Irlonde.
Goode sire, pray ich thee,
For of Sainte charitee,
Com and dance with me
In Irlonde.
For a celebrity name that’s actually a real name, I give you the fabulous… Randy Rainbow! https://www.youtube.com/c/RandyRainbowOfficial
Hi guys! I am just popping in to say hello and to make sure you know that I am still enjoying the show! I am a person who is quite fond of some routines, and my routine of when I typically reply to the week’s questions has been getting waylaid with meetings. This which of course throws me off balance and leaves me feeling a little guilty for not responding.
The CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer has an unusual sounding name to me. I can only imagine lots of teasing in school about being a big, bad wolf…
I relate with too many fictional characters. There have been times in my life where I have felt like every Austen heroine, but I most question whether I am an Elinor Dashwood wishing to lighten up a little and be a Marianne… or am I a Marianne wanting to be more dependable and in control of emotions like Elinor… or am I really just Colonel Brandon wishing that everyone who speaks well of me would remember to speak to me??? I took the 16 Personalities quiz once… it said I shared the same personality as Elizabeth Bennet. I also think that Victoria Winters may have a similar Myers Briggs to mine, but then again, I tend to look for ways that people are similar and not different.
The girls at work and I went to see Murder on the Orient Express a few weeks back. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the other people in the theater. Nothing ruins a movie faster than a group of librarians whispering to each other about how a dress and undergarments aren’t historically accurate, commenting on how characters were changed or multiples merged into new ones, or poo-poo-ing the extremely un-1920s dancing, can we say twerk?
One final thing… you know how I joked a few months back about someone not returning Exorsisters? It kinda happened, but it was actually the first volume of Sparks! I had to purchase another copy because you can’t have the second one without the first. So here’s to hoping that your revenue off each book sold is more than 25 cents because I
attended an author lecture once where he said he only got 25 cents per hardback and 10 cents per paperback sold. I hope your publishing deal is much better than that. And there is one happy child who loved Sparks! so much that he or she kept it for eternity. <3
Have a great week!