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The ThinkTank Panel (of One) proudly presents the 30 Most influential People of the last 30 years. These are the people who have shaped and molded the ThinkTank Panel (of One) into what it is today; Arrogant, Neurotic, Ostensibly Ostentatious, and Prohibitively Expensive. Today we have a tie at #23.  Teddy Riley and Dr. Dre In the late 80s and early 90s a definitive and historically noted musical phenomena took place. That movement was New Jack Swing. The New Jack Swing movement was lead by one man. That man was Teddy Riley. At age 14 Teddy began writing beats for the wellspring of rappers exploding in Harlem NY in the early 80s. As time went on Teddy Riley produced track for most of the ThinkTank Panel (of One)’s favorite artists; everyone from Heavy D to MC Hammer. Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” was all Teddy Riley. When the legendary Quincy Jones wasn’t available to produce Michael Jackson’s Dangerous Album (probably because he was too busy producing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air with #26 on the countdown) who stepped in at Quincy’s recommendation and delivered the 32 million selling album? Teddy Riley did. Oh and then there are the three groups in which Teddy Riley was actually a performer; Guy, Wrecks N’ Effects, and of course Backstreet. Then there are the protégés Teddy has spawned. The likes of Parrell and Timbaland learned their craft, apprenticing under the master at his personal studio in Virginia (which has since burned to the ground).  Meanwhile in what seems like an alternate Universe (Los Angeles), the Dr. was operating. From NWA through the glory and gory at Death Row, and on to the Aftermath, Andre Young, better known as Dr. Dre, has been operating. To list all of Dre’s discography would require a novel. To pick and choose the highlights would be like describing Michael Jordan by talking about his shoes. If you’re reading this blog, you know who Dre is and what he does. Basically Teddy Riley was the Hip , and Dr. Dre was the Hop in what became the culture of Hip-Hop the ThinkTank Panel (of One) claims to have been raised in. And as fate would have it, Teddy and Dre collaborated once. In 1996, on Backstreet’s Magnum Opus, “No Diggity.” No doubt, best song ever! New Jack and Gangsta. East and West. Love and Hate. Fire and Ice Cube.
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The ThinkTank Panel (of One) proudly presents the 30 Most influential People of the last 30 years. These are the people who have shaped and molded the ThinkTank Panel (of One) into what it is today; Arrogant, Neurotic, Ostensibly Ostentatious, and Prohibitively Expensive. Today we look at #25.
Chris Warren
Who?????? Most people don't know #25 on the countdown. He played for some truely awful teams in a city that is 1200 miles away from any other NFL franchise. But Chris Warren was one hell of a running back. As a kick returner he single handedly won 2 games on a team that won only 2 games all season. He once set a ProBowl rushing record that only lasted 2 plays. Most football fans will recognized the name Larry Johsnon, yet Larry's hey day was roughly half as long as Chris Warren's. More than statistics or touchdowns, Chris Warren personified a style. A style unseen amougst his peers in the 90's, or in the game today. He wasn't low and shifty like Emmitt Smith or Marshall Faul. He wasn't a battering ram like Jerome Bettis and Eddie George. He wasn't an excape artist like Barry Sanders . He wasn't even ultra fast like Chris Johnson is today. He didn't hit the hole with reckless abandon like Rickey Watters or Adrien Peterson. He wasn't a pateint runner who then exploded downfield like Ladainian Tomlinson or Shaun Alexander. Chris Warren had a style all his own. In a word: Smooth. Chris Warren glided up and down the field. His stride was effortless, yet with every step you sensed how hard he played the game. He ran up-right, just like Michael Johnson in the 400 meters. He shed would-be tacklers with a violent yet casual stiff arm or a subtle change in vector. He never stutter stepped, juked or wasted any movement shifting gears. Even when when he fielded a kick off and reversed field at the 40 yard line and ran east/west from one sideline to the other before turning up field and taking in to the house for a score against the Colts , Chris Warren did so in one fluid motion. While some runnings backs play like a bulldozer, and other play like a Ferrari, Chris Warren played football like a Cadillac . Alas, Chris Warren wasn't so smooth at other aspects of his life. But the night that the ThinkTank Panel (of One) met him at the Hawks vs. Cops Charity basketball game in 1992 he was smooth as silk. The ThinkTank Panel (of One) can still vividly recall this sequence. Chris Warren blocks the lady cop's shot to a chorus of boos from the police partisan crowd. Unfazed, he races down court for the night's only dunk on the other end to oohs and awes from the now suddenly forgiving crowd. Chris Warren then comes back down the the floor on defense and steals the ball which he calmly tosses with a no look pass, not down court to his cherry pick Hawks teammates, but to the lady cop whose shot he just blocked standing under the basket who scores from point blank range to thunderous applause. Smooth. The ThinkTank Panel (of One) proudly presents the 30 Most influential People of the last 30 years. These are the people who have shaped and molded the ThinkTank Panel (of One) into what it is today; Arrogant, Neurotic, Ostensibly Ostentatious, and Prohibitively Expensive. Today we look at #26.  Will Smith The ThinkTank Panel (of One) is not referring to the Academy award nominated actor/Grammy award winning rapper, because technically that would be Mr. Willard Christopher Smith Jr. No, the 26th spot on the countdown is particularly reserved for the character the afore mentioned actor/rapper portrayed on NBC’s “the Fresh Prince of Bell Air.” No one on the ThinkTank Panel (of One) has ever met Willard, and know nothing about him personally, but Will Smith has spent more time in the ThinkTank Panel (of One) living than the ThinkTank Panel (of One)’s own coffee table. There are 3 individuals in the 30 most influential people of the last 30 years countdown that the ThinkTank Panel (of One) has modeled their typical patterns of behavior around through sincere but admittedly unrecognizably bad imitation. Will Smith is the first. So what exactly did Master William possess as a personality trait that the ThinkTank Panel (of One) found so essential and irresistible? The short answer, derived after years of intense scientific study, and human resource management surveys is quite simply: people skills. Will Smith was not the super smooth Casanova that precipitated his self proclaimed alias of Prince (as in "charming"). Indeed Will’s schemes almost never worked out. He always got caught. He was constantly in trouble, or had people mad at him, such as the police, Coach Smiley, Uncle Phil, or especially Carlton (side note: Alfonso Ribiero would be #31 on this countdown thanks to this and this). Yet he was always able to maintain working relationships with people. Will treated people to a free show with every social interaction. Every conversation was a private performance by the Fresh Prince. Sometimes it was a show of compassion, sometimes it was an exhibition of ridicule, but Will always gave people a performance worth the price of admission. The ingenious microcosm of human nature the ThinkTank Panel (of One) gleams from Will Smith is that people appreciate being treated as a private audience, even if they resent the sentiment of the performance. This has proved to be a difficult lesson for the ThinkTank Panel (of One) to put into practice. And so, if you listen carefully, you will recognize the phony lines and facial expressions made famous by the Fresh Prince, mutilated by disastrous imitation in the ThinkTank Panel (of One)’s various attempts at communication.  Warner Bros. has blocked the embedding of Fresh Prince Videos, so click on this picture to go to best Youtube clips ever!! The ThinkTank Panel (of One) proudly presents the 30 Most influential People of the last 30 years. These are the people who have shaped and molded the ThinkTank Panel (of One) into what it is today; Arrogant, Neurotic, Ostensibly Ostentatious, and Prohibitively Expensive. Today we look at #27.  Shawn Kemp In the humble opinion of the ThinkTank Panel (of One) Shawn Kemp was the best in-game dunker of all time! The power, the speed, the flight; The lightning strike!! Each night the ThinkTank Panel (of One) went to sleep dreaming of attacking the rim with such precision and ferocity. The Reign Man held a special place in the ThinkTank Panel (of One)’s dreams each night. This was assured by the Shawnic Boom Poster hanging above the ThinkTank Panel (of One)’s bunk bed. It was the sight of the Reign Man and Gary Payton walking out of the locker room together to start the second half of a game the ThinkTank Panel (of One) attended against the Utah Jazz, that carried the ThinkTank Panel (of One) through many challenges and trying times. That image of single minded dedication to the game at hand, in a word: Professional. This is the vision the ThinkTank Panel (of One) aspired to one day become (Aside from the 7 illegitimate children). To this day, the ThinkTank Panel (of One) constantly emulates Shawn Kemp's post Lister Blister celebratory gestures to commemorate everything from ice cream sundaies to presidential elections, and is still moved to tears at the poetic transcendence of the allegory and imagery upon hearing Michael Cage compare Shawn Kemp to a Hurricane………………  And was there anything flyer than the Reebok Kamikazi?? The ThinkTank Panel (of One) proudly presents the 30 Most influential People of the last 30 years. These are the people who have shaped and molded the ThinkTank Panel (of One) into what it is today; Arrogant, Neurotic, Ostensibly Ostentatious, and Prohibitively Expensive. Today we look at #28.  Chris Kinman
With his fine Irish last name, red hair and short stature, Chris Kinman was a sort of leprechaun pimp daddy. The ThinkTank Panel (of One) has never met another individual with more raw charisma or unabashed gumption. Chris Kinman is the only kindergartner to talk his class out of an ice cream party simply by announcing aloud “Yuck , I hate ice cream!” Chris Kinman made wearing Apex sneakers cool, a feat the 2 time defending SuperBowl Champion Dallas Cowboys could not pull off. As Chris once told the ThinkTank Panel (of One) matter-of-factly : “I can tell people to do stuff and they will do it.” This is a man who pushed the fully clothed ThinkTank Panel (of One) into Brad Willcuts’ swimming pool, and the ThinkTank Panel (of One) had to fight the strong urge to thank him for it (it was a hot day). For years the ThinkTank Panel (of One) marveled at Chris Kinman and his unparalleled powers of persuasion. Then one day after school the ThinkTank Panel (of One) over heard Chris Kinman complaining loudly, and lamenting “Why does everything have to suck?” In that brief moment of inspired clarity the ThinkTank Panel (of One) realized that even the power to command the very will of others does not guarantee happiness or contentment. Furthermore, if the charismatic blarney filled pimp dad himself could be miserable, it stood to reason the little old ThinkTank Panel (of One) without so much as 2 shakes of a Shillelagh could be happy. From that moment on the ThinkTank Panel (of One) resolved not to waste energy trying to compete with other’s talents and abilities but to take pride and contentment and find satisfaction in one’s own abilities. A lesson the Leprechaun Pimp is sure to have learned for himself soon after teaching it to the ThinkTank Panel (of One) and is now sharing with the rest of the world. The ThinkTank Panel (of One) proudly presents the 30 Most influential People of the last 30 years. These are the people who have shaped and molded the ThinkTank Panel (of One) into what it is today; Arrogant, Neurotic, Ostensibly Ostentatious, and Prohibitively Expensive. Today we look at #29:Stephen Q. Urkle  Stephen Q. Urkle Steve Urkle was the quintessential nerd. Yet through sheer force of personality ( and eventually the help of the cool gene transformation chamber) he became so much more. Originally conceived as a plot device for a single episode of Family Matters, our neighborhood annoyance parlayed his bespecled and suspendered shtick , a la the Fonz, into TGIF superstar status. Above all Steve Urkle was true to himself. Steve was an individual through and through. When all others would have done “the Robot” at a roof top dance party, Steve did “the Urkel,” and it was a hit. For some reason the ThinkTank Panel (of One) always related well to Steve’s ongoing unrequited love for Laura Winslow. And that explains why the ThinkTank Panel of (One is) is going to ignore the hypocracy of the the previous paragraph's gushing over “to thine own self be true” when the ThinkTank Panel of One now says that Steve Urkel's transformation into Ste'fon Ur-kel was the sentinel moment of the ThinkTank Panel (of One)’s adolescence. The duality of personality gave the ThinkTank Panel( of One) hope for change, and highlighted the resilience and ingenuity that made the original Steve Urkel so endearing.  The ThinkTank Panel (of One) proudly presents the 30 Most influential People of the last 30 years. These are the people who have shaped and molded the ThinkTank Panel (of One) into what it is today; Arrogant, Neurotic, Ostensibly Ostentatious, and Prohibitively Expensive. Today we look at #30.  Michael Jordan The inspiration for the world’s most iconic brand of athletic shoes. G.O.A.T. The Greatest Of All Time; Meaning the greatest basketball player to ever take the court. At various times throughout the last 30 years the ThinkTank Panel (of One) has acclaimed Michael Jordan near god-like status, going so far as to perform ceremonial rituals involving the placement of basketballs at a shrine erected of posters, sneakers and trading cards. Though the ThinkTanlk Panel (of One) spent hours imitating the every movement of Michael Jordan on the basketball court, (a practice termed by the adoring fans clamoring to witness it as “Do Jordans”), the true impact of Air Jordan on the ThinkTank Panel (of One) is the importance of determination. While many have dismissed Jordan’s Hall of Fame induction speech as arrogant and ungracious, in it, Jordan provides a clear glimpse of just what made him the greatest of all time: manipulation of his own mind to maintain a relentless drive to compete, win, and dominate. This may mean intentionally misconstruing other’s comments or actions to perceive insults, or highlighting differences between himself and those he admires to facilitate conflict. Some call it ruthless. The ThinkTank Panel (of One) calls it fearless. As Jordan says, “Fear is an Illusion.” |
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