No worries, I’m not talking about “real” torches. What a boring post that’d be. I’ve never touched one of those things in my life. But I do think it would be cool to light one up at the same time others are gunning for the candles and flashlights during a thunderstorm and subsequent power outage. I’d just like to see the expressions on everyone’s faces when I enter the room looking like I’m about to hunt Frankenstein’s monster. I’m just going to do that sometime.
Oh and to any of my old boyfriends who are on Facebook and might see this blog entry, you’re safe too. What happened in ex-boyfriend land stays in ex-boyfriend land. So you can sigh a big relief.
Okay, enough of that. This is all about the pretend boyfriends I never had but dreamed about because they were larger than life on the big and small screens. The celebrity torches I've carried over my thirty-bluhbluhbluh years of life. There are too many to fit into one blog post, (I’m boy crazy like that) and since I don’t have time to compete with the Dead Sea Scrolls, I will keep it as brief as possible and post about the ones that stand out in my memory. Wow, for someone who makes Kiwis, I don’t talk about the Kiwis I’ve made very much. I sort of thought this would be a “mom” blog. Oh screw it. I can talk about whatever I want. There are a million mini-Kiwi stories to tell, so be patient….they’re coming just not before my man blog.
It all began in ’77 with Grizzly Adams. Ooooh yeah. I luvs a grizzly man. I went through a big beard and mustache stage when I was a little girl. It has to be because my dad had the whole Wolfman Jack thing going on in the 70’s. (He also had the whole rust colored pleather jacket thing going on, but THAT my friends, is for another time.) Anyway, Grizzly was the man. He could live off the land, help lost hikers and raise a wittle bear cub all while eluding bounty hunters. Awesome. While my friends had posters of Shaun Cassidy plastered all over their walls, I was smitten with the Bear Whisperer.
That same year, George Lucas released Star Wars. Oh no doubt I was crushing on Luke Skywalker, but what stood out to me more was the fact that I got really upset any time someone with a mustache bit the bullet (or space ship missile whatever they may be called. I’m a little nerdy, but not THAT nerdy.) Toward the end, when the good guys were trying to destroy the Death Star, a roly poly mustached good guy got blown to bits by a TIE Fighter. I was devastated. So devastated that I could have cared less about the skinny, clean shaven guy who bit it next. Nope. Didn’t care.
A year later, my infatuation with Barry Gibb began. Yep, my first Aussie crush. Damn he had the best feathered hair I had ever seen. Walking around in that gem of a movie (and by gem I mean giant turd) Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with those silky tight pants and that little forest of hair popping out of his unbuttoned shirt. Oh my. He was so pretty and dreamy. But to this day, I still don’t know which Bee Gee has the falsetto? I always thought it was Barry, but that was just a guess. Is it him?
I have to take a step back, a couple of years anyway, and admit I had a little crush on King Kong. Not in any kind of pervy animal love thing kind of way, but in a, I wish King Kong was my pet kind of way. His eyes looked like my dog Muffin’s eyes. And I wanted to take him home and hug him and pet him and love him and name him George. Oh and YES, it was THAT King Kong. The one everyone trashes. Not me man. I likey and Jeff Bridges was all hairy faced. So lot’s of cool bonus points.
I eventually graduated from my mustache and beard phase and went right into my “muscle shirts with British flags on them while bandanas circle the necks of long haired rockers named Def Leppard” phase. All of em. I loved em all. Well, actually that’s a lie. It’s no secret that Phil Collen was the homely one of the bunch. I’ve seen pictures. I know…that wasn’t very nice, Phil is probably a lovely guy with a great personality. Anyway, my Def Leppard phase went something like this: I thought for sure one day while I was walking around outside, their giant tour bus would stop to pick me up and let me live with them for a while. And my first “real” boyfriend would be Rick Savage. Oh yeah. I mean c’mon, a 12 year old with the start of a fantastic mullet vs. 18 year old horny groupies who have no curfew. It could happen. It happened to Rachel Ward and Richard Chamberlin. He waited for her, Rick would wait for me. But the tour bus never came. I had to endure 6th grade without an older British boyfriend. Sigh.
By the time I was a Freshman in high school, I was over the Def Leppards and moved on to the Bon Jovis. Oh ho ho yeah. That frost tipped hair coupled with the snake patterned spandex pants threw me into a teen girl tizzy. That man, Jon, was the best part about MTV in those days. Even though I never got picked up by the British rockers, it didn’t convince me that the Americans would neglect me. No way, they for sure were going to move me in and be all charmed by my 15 year old self. It didn’t happen but at least I had my Hit Parader Bon Jovi posters all over my bedroom walls to console me on my lonely nights.
Just as video killed the radio star, grunge killed my love for the hairspray rockers. It was all over for them. I jumped the train to Seattle where my love of flannel flourished. (I wasn’t being trendy, I LOVED flannel. I just chose not to wear it until 1992. That’s all.) Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, that one dude on bass, that other dude on rhythm guitar. Purr purr purr. I finally gave up the tour bus dream though. Thank goodness. I was tired of getting my hopes dashed.
But life goes on and as I gave up the musician crushes in real life, I gave them up in pretend life. NO MORE ROCKERS! Time for a nice boy from the land down under to show me a good time. Right on readers, you guessed it. We just entered Russell Crowe territory. You may think, damn we are still in the 90’s, how on earth can we already be at Russell Crowe? I’ll tell you how: Romper Stomper. It was made in ’92 but I saw it on video in ’93. Never heard of Russell Crowe. Plays a menace to society in that film and man does he play it well. I felt a little body tremor (not telling you where) watching that movie although I despised the character. Which was weird to me. Damn. Who WAS that dude? He can act. So I rented a teeny little film called Proof next and was like, “Holy shit. WHO THE FUCK IS THIS GUY?!? I'd watch him on C-Span. Wow. I like him. He’s got it. He needs to hop on a boat, (well I suppose a plane would be faster, boat just came off my tongue first), and get his ass to America. We will love him!” And he did. And we loved him. And Sharon Stone gets all the credit for some strange reason. Oh no Ms. Stone. You DID NOT discover Russell Crowe thank you very much. (At least not for me.) I had him pegged to be the colossal talent he is with no help from you hobag! (I’m immature…I know. Poor Sharon.) If Sharon got him cast in America first or if his mad acting skills did it on their own (ding ding ding) it doesn’t matter. He made it here and he went straight to the top (in America and on my list!) Damn I use a lot of parentheses.
I challenge any reader to tell me one actor in the history of movies who was manlier than Russell Crowe in Gladiator. I’m telling you, it’s impossible. And I won’t believe you anyway. So there is no winning this argument. The movie was great on its own merits, but damn, I looked like Robert Hays at the end of Airplane by the time the movie finished I was sweating so badly. And the air conditioner worked just fine. It was all Russell’s fault. Sorry Spartacus, you were cool and masculine and all, but there’s a new Gladiator in town and he just made you look like Liberace in an armored tunic.
People Magazine has never had the guts to put Russell on the Sexiest Man Alive cover. The pages could never hold that much soul and spark and badassmotherfuckerness so they don’t even try. Good! The last thing I need is those eyes staring at me from the magazine rack at the grocery checkout. I need to concentrate on my purchases and my unruly children.
I married my husband in 1999. (On my birthday no less…best birthday ever, well except husband had bronchitis and we didn’t honeymoon. What the hell is wrong with us?) Russell has been the one celebrity freebie throughout my 12 years of marriage. I’m loyal like that. Oh many others have come and gone, like Daniel Craig and Clive Owen. But I would feel like I was cheating if somebody were to bump Russell to number 2. I think my husband at this point would be pissed as well. He’s used to having Russell in his life and he's gotta stay loyal to the Kiwis or Kiwi/Aussie combos. Awww. What a nice husband. I think I will hug him and pet him and love him and name him George.
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