While touring the Minnesota State Fair, we stumbled upon a collection of handmade scarecrows.

The scarecrows had all been made by crafty Minnesotans and submitted to some sort of best-scarecrow contest.

Among them, we spotted a scarecrow that (while we have no confirmation) looked a lot like Che.

It had combat fatigue pants, a scruffy beard and a beret. The only thing missing was the star on the hat!

We appreciated the hand-knitting that had gone into the creation of this scarecrow.

In fact, the knitted face of this scarecrow-Che reminded us of our very own knitted Che doll.

And, we are happy to report, this scarecrow-Che was a ribbon winner!

And while we did indeed have a moose sighting, we didn’t spot our ol’ friend Che.

The closest we came was this row of Alaska Airlines airplanes all lined up at the airport.

These guys are definitely not Che, but perhaps they are his Inuit cousins?

Ours recommended we start watching the TV show “Weeds.”

The series, which airs on the cable channel Showtime, is about a suburban mother of two whose husband suddenly drops dead of a heart attack.

Left to figure out the family’s finances on her own, and realizing her options are limited, she begins selling marijuana.

A bit far-fetched, perhaps, but it turns out our hair stylist didn’t steer us wrong. We’ve been enjoying the series so far.

And we liked it even more when Che showed up in the form of a badge sewed on to one of the character’s backpacks.

This spotting occurred in Weeds Season 2, Episode 10.

That’s exactly what happened to us. So imagine our surprise when we spotted Che in the pages of a magazine dated one year ago. This Che Spotting had been sitting under our noses all this time and we’d missed it because we hadn’t made the time to crack open our very own magazine!

And this Che wasn’t in a travel magazine, but in Minnesota Monthly, a regional mag touting all the best and the brightest from right here in our own back yards.

The Che in question is part of a framed piece of art hanging in the background of a portrait of Joe Duffy, a man featured in the magazine for his Minneapolis-based advertising and design firm, Duffy & Partners.

Also featured in the framed piece of art alongside Che are Ghandi and what looks to be Nelson Mandela.

This comic-book-turned movie features a bunch of special ops guys who are left for dead after their mission in Bolivia goes awry.

Oddly enough, these left-for-dead men (who we never saw handling any personal luggage), kept appearing in fresh outfits. And one of those outfits, worn by the character Cougar, included a Che t-shirt. We’re betting Cougar doesn’t wear a Che tee in any of the comic books … but we could be wrong.

It seemed fitting that Óscar Jaenada, the actor who plays Cougar, should appear in a Che shirt. With his long hair, moustache and goatee, he resembles the rugged revolutionary.

And in fact, Jaenada had a role in the long-winded bio-epic of Che that starred Benicio del Toro. He played Darío, one of Che’s Bolivian guerrillas, in Che: Part 2.

But back to The Losers. While we noticed Cougar’s Che tee, others are taking notice of this character’s signature head wear, which is not a Che-style beret, but a Brazilian tarp hat instead.

These hats, it turns out, are made from recycled canvas tarpaulins that are hand-sewn by villagers in Brazil.

Of that, we think, Che would approve. We can just imagine him picking one up on his South American travels.

Now, we’ve spotted him on the reality show, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” in which celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, is trying to get Americans to put down their french fries and pick up carrot sticks in the name of better health.

In episode 106, Jamie was wearing what we think was a Che t-shirt.

His hoodie was zipped up, half hiding Che’s full face, but we’re pretty sure we recognized the famous (or infamous) mug.

Is it any surprise that Che should make an appearance on a show titled Food Revolution? With a title like that, it seems that it was bound to happen sooner or later.

But hey — if Che can assist in getting the next generation to prefer apples to Twix, then maybe we’ll really be making some progress in the fight against obesity.

The first of those TV spottings happened just last month. We spotted Che on the detective show “Castle”.

This second TV spotting occurred this past week. The new one-hour drama, Parenthood, has only aired three shows, and truthfully, we haven’t decided whether it’s something worthy of checking out each Tuesday night.

It happened to be on, however, playing in the background as we busied about our lives doing laundry and picking up the house, and what do you know — suddenly Che appeared!

One of the show’s teen-aged characters was sporting a Che t-shirt. If we hadn’t looked up at just that moment, we would have missed this spotting entirely!

Wanna check out this Che for yourself? You can watch Parenthood’s Episode 103, called The Deep End of the Pool, online!

I’m not usually one to watch a lot of cop shows. I’m just not attracted to the whole Law & Order and CSI drama line. But I like the TV show Castle. It’s mysteries are somewhat predictable, and the main character, Rick Castle, is quite full of himself, but when I’m ready to zone out at the end of a long day, an episode of Castle holds my attention.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I settled to watch an hour of Castle and had a Che Spotting.

Episode 215 was titled “Suicide Squeeze.” In it, a well-known Cuban baseball player is found dead on a neighborhood baseball diamond, his head smashed in by a baseball bat.

Once the story gets underway, Castle and Beckett learn that the dead man (who had defected from Cuba only a few years back) had recently returned to the island on a goodwill tour. After that trip, said everyone who knew him, he was not the same. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives end up at the Cuban Consulate.

It was there, behind the consulate’s desk, that a large mural depicted Fidel, and off to the side and down near the bottom, Che.

The True Story of Che Guevara
2007
Directed by Maria Wye Berry

The opening lines of this documentary are: “A hero to some.  A monster to others.  He hoped to start a third World War…”

Obviously, this film isn’t a fluffy Che lovefest.

The intro then continues: “The man they hoped the world would forget has become a legend.”  Indeed he has.

This History Channel documentary called The True Story of Che Guevara gives the impression that it is just that. The narrator speaks with a tone of integrity and authority. The production standards are high; great footage and photos are interspersed with interviews.

The line-up of interviews seems pretty balanced. However, it should be noted none of the interviewees currently lives in Cuba. Some interesting appearances included Nikita Khrushchev’s son, Sergi, and several Americans who fought with the rebels in the Sierra Maestra.

Where some films display a clear pro-Che bias, going so far as to regard Che as the mastermind of the Cuban revolution, this one considers how politics and war shaped Che and his beliefs. Whole minutes are spent describing the political climate of the time, Fidel Castro’s rise to power, and post-revolution Cuba without mentioning Che’s name.

Many of the factual assertions in this film come from John Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. After years researching the man, he doesn’t appear starstruck by the icon. Instead, he sums up his opinion of Che in two words: a paradox.

While he empathized with Che’s social indignation and passion, Che’s cold logic, rhetoric, and actions were terrifying, he said. Anderson also made a point to distinguish between guerilla warfare and terrorism. Other memorable quotes from Anderson include “[Che's] face has come to be the quintessential icon of youthful defiance of the status quo,” and “Che tried, but failed to change the world.”

We were excited to see the title of this film.  After all, it echoes the whole point of this site — spotting Che where you’d never imagine him and sharing it with the world!

But unfortunately, this documentary is a pretty standard biographical review of Che’s life from childhood to death.

The film is mostly in black and white, consisting of grainy footage, including home movies of Che’s childhood.

All the interviews seemed to be clips from conversations filmed for other projects, though, which makes the movie feel like a compilation film.  One notable appearance, however, was by Che’s father, Ernesto Sr.

Excerpts from Che’s essays, books and his letters home make up much of the narration.  In one of his letters home, pre-revolutionary Ernesto discusses his inner struggle between socialist and traveler.  Later, in a letter to his family before leaving to spread his idealism abroad, Che states he is split between Cuba, family, and the act of freeing nations while fighting against social injustice.

This documentary comes to us from Cuba, which lends a little different mix of footage. But interestingly, this Cuban portrayal of this Cuban Revolutionary hero is not significantly different from documentaries produced anywhere else in the world.