it begins

So people tell me I should do this 'blog thing'. I resist. I have nothing to say. I am not particularly funny, or insightful, or connected or brilliant. Then I read some other peoples' blogs and I find out: neither are they. So.

Here I am.

Today's idea: my response to a post on The Daily Beast supposedly listing interesting, funny, compelling, 'geeky' (she said it, not me) dreamy boys to counter the dull, 'shellacked' 'Sexiest Men Alive' from People magazine. This is apparently a Valentine's Day feature, which actually strikes me as rather perverse; last time I checked if you're spending Valentine's Day thinking about Clive Owen and you are not Mrs. Clive Owen, then you are dangerously close to Rupert Pupkin/sending-yourself-roses-at-work territory and you should be sharing your thoughts with a mental health professional, not a bunch of bored loners cruising the internet on a Saturday morning. But that's just me.

Anyway. This chick makes a big point of how dull and obvious the standard lists are, how who cares about Patrick Dempsey and Matthew McConaughey blah blah blah--and then she starts her wildly inventive list of hotties with...the aforementioned Clive Owen. Yeah, that's way out of the box there, sister. Crazy talk! Who are you!? Clive Owen?!?

Girl: Get. In. Line. Behind half the female population on the planet. Most of the male population. My mother.

Next up: Ryan Gosling and Kyle Chandler. Now, I loves me my Ryan Gosling--I think he's an explosively good actor; if you put Half-Nelson next to Lars and the Real Girl we're talking Ryan is the Real Deal. But...unexpected? Geeky? And Kyle Chandler? Also: delicious, fine actor, but he is so perfectly, classically handsome he was cast in King Kong as a square-jawed, 30's matinee idol. This is not an iconoclastic choice.

She throws in some curveballs--the Flight of the Conchords guys, some CEO I've never heard of--but by and large this was not an interesting, thought-provoking list. This is the list of someone whose fantasies include Hawaiian vacations and walking on the beach at sunset. This the list of someone who thinks she discovered The Office because she liked the American version before it won any awards. This is a tampon commercial.

So: Here are my interesting crushable guy choices. It's hardly definitive, not even that well thought out; just the people I could think of today, in no particular order. Maybe if I keep the blog going I will make this a regular feature: Fantasy Crush of the Day or something. That's just the kind of self-involved crap bloggers indulge in all the time, isn't it?

1. Eddie Izzard. With or without the skirt, this guy is sex on a stick. Handsome face, cute accent, sure sure; what he's really got is the fastest, wittiest, craziest mind on the planet. He can go from wildly intellectual, hilarious surveys of World History--in French--to wacky little scenarios about giraffes communicating with each other without making any sound. Proof that the most important sex organ is the brain.

2. Jon Stewart. This is my idea of an obvious choice. Who the fuck doesn't like Jon Stewart? Humorless right wing tools and morons. He's not only witty but impassioned, wildly intelligent and--seemingly--a really nice guy. The dreamy poster boy for smarty pants, Upper West Side, lefty girls. Like me.

3. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Such a good actor, so subtle, so smart. But also has this underhanded, sneaky sexiness. Something about how his eyes smile when he does, how you feel like you can see him thinking, how he looks like he's really enjoying food when he eats, something about how unaffected he seems. How imperfect he knows he is. Seems like a guy who'd spend the whole day in bed with you, reading, snacking, making out. Delish.

4. Dennis Leary. Again, hi-fucking-larious. Fast thinking, fast talking, with a sharpened edge of outrage that is nicely tempered by a dash of well earned self-loathing. Doesn't suffer fools, but also seems to really enjoy other, smart, funny people (see: he and Jon Stewart together) and has been married to the same woman for years. Awesome.

5. Keith Olbermann. Talk about outrage. While sometimes he can just go on, his sense of justice has been so utterly warranted and necessary that he seems like some kind of national freaking hero. Saying what needs to be said, speaking truth to power, calling a spade a spade (or a criminal a criminal: i.e., Dick Cheney), you gotta love him for his consistency and passion and sheer brains. Not humorless either, he can laugh at himself and has that guys' guy love of sports that brings him down to earth. Plus, as David Letterman has pointed out, he has an enormous head. And you know what that means.

6. Michael Chabon. Great writer. Phenomenal writer. Genius writer. Inventive beyond belief, with a use of language that is just stunning and a humanity that is peerless. He's also tall and charming and funny. And he loves his wife and kids. Damn.

7. Jon Meacham. Writer, journalist, editor, awesome talk show guest. Voracious intellect wrapped in a delightfully self-deprecating, witty, Southern Gentleman package. (That slight touch of Tennessee in his accent is the ribbon on this smartly wrapped package.) He seems slightly out of time, like he would've fit perfectly in 50's New York, having cocktails at lunch and pounding out his pieces for Newsweek on a typewriter. Great, crinkly eyes too. And fantastic hair.

8. Craig Ferguson. A comic/actor/talk-show host who wrote a novel? A good novel that displayed a whacked-out, delightful intellect? Sign me up. His rambling, half-silly, half-genius 'monologues' are the funniest, most inventive on TV, while his willingness--nay desire--to dress up and look like an idiot for a laugh (Michael Caine in Space? Aquaman?) just makes him seem like the epitome of a good sport. And the fact that he effortlessly tosses around 'maybe I'm gay' jokes just shows how comfy he is in his own sexuality. His past as a drunk humanizes him beyond belief. And he just seems like a nice guy. Sadly, just got married. Well, sadly for me.

9. Hooman Majd. I actually don't know much about this bloke--just that he's an Iranian-American writer/intellectual of some note, an engrossing talk show guest, and has a lovely accent and speaking voice. He just seems Old Worldy and gentlemanly and sophisticated. Plus, he's just plain handsome and has very elegant hands. Good enough for me.

10. Neil deGrasse Tyson. The go-to astrophysicist for every talk show, he's the director of the Hayden Planetarium, a writer and raconteur and generally witty science guy. If the solar system needed a host, Tyson would be it. He makes the cold expanses of space seem interesting and warm. He seems interesting and warm. He seems like he'd make a great husband. I have no idea why. But scientists, man, are just plain cool.

Okay kids. That's all she wrote for today. Let's see if I manage to open this thing again. Didn't work the last time I tried, but hey, never hurt to keep trying. Unless you're, you know, Hitler.