Accidental Impression of The Duke

I was reading "Killing Yourself to Live,¹" which has been easy for the first one-hundred fifty pages but the part at Lenore's apartment (while emotionally taxing) is just boring. Sad joke at the end of the chapter is great though.
Immediately afterwords, Chuck Klosterman begins a rant on Rod Stewart which includes the revelation that the Rod Stewart box set Storytellers is 4 CDs in the essential 600 disc CK road trip collection.² The rant ends with the conclusion "Rod Stewart may be a blond clown, but everything he says is true." Which I just had to say out loud, and I did, but I was laughing so I ended up impersonating John Wayne as good or better than Kurt Russell does in Deathproof.³
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¹Which means that this blog entry is (a) of no consequence, (b) a joke, or (c) (a) or (b) but adheres to a standard of at least 85% veracity.
²yes, 600 essential CDs. So far there's Kid A, OK Computer, Hunky Dory, Drive-by Trucker's Southern Rock Opera, The soundtrack to Girl, Interupted, Highway to Hell, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and possibly Thriller, Shania Twain's Come On Over, Boston's Boston, and The Eagles greatest hits from 1971-1975 but that may have been a joke.
³Didn't you just crack up seeing Kurt Russell do the Duke? I nearly split a gut. My mom doesn't like Deathproof, or many other movies I like, but that's neither here nor there. She was upset that Kurt Russell is the bad guy. (I'm sorry.) Does this make John Wayne the bad guy? Is he just the bad guy to non-white, non-males?
I mean Kurt Russell is unemployed. My grandpa would not like him. (Stuntman Mike, not Kurt Russell, sorry.) Where is the connection? Is it the scar? Did KR say "OMG! I do the coolest Duke impression. You guys gotta see this!" and then Quentin Tarantino said, "zOMG! We should totally film this shit?"
I think it's a possibility.
Seriously though, was the Duke laughing while people were filming him?
Is there something to the fact that an honest impression of the Duke can only be created while laughing?
Who is the clown here?