I Have A Crush on You

I originally posted this last year...and immediately pulled it offline. Like a decent wine (and where is my pal Morewines to advise on varitel when I need her?), this piece had to sit in storage for a year and mature. I think it's ready now.

A group of friends and I had an exchange recently where we discussed the breadth of our childhood to adult celebrity crushes. I think crushes are a perfectly normal rite of lifelong passage. They hardly infringe on your real life relationships and they give you someone dishy to fantasize about when sandwiched between the smelly MTA worker and the anxious tourist on the subway.

The first time I witnessed a perfectly normal adult under the influence of a celebrity crush was the mother a of childhood friend whom we would visit with after school. She was deeply under the sway of the singer Tom Jones, then at his vulgar zenith, clad in impossibly tight pants, a mat of glistening chest hair and a gold medallion the size of a salad plate. This normally pedestrian mother of three would stand in front of the TV watching Mr Jones ply his trade, with her knees on the precipice of buckling, guttural animal sounds emitting from her throat and furtive hands clutching at her chest. It was like watching a Grand Mal seizure. Fascinating.

I don't think I've ever had a crush that produced the same effect that I witnessed in Mrs. Gallenkamp, but I have had a few profound crushes in my life. I consider my list of celebrity crushes very elite indeed--these fellows are special to me.

Of course, by taking on the burden of a crush, you also assume the mantle of disillusion which is the eventual denouement. You know it's coming and like real life relationships, sometimes it's painful and sometimes it's long overdue. And since I cracked open this dungeon door, I'm going to ante up my list of celebrity crushes.

In chronological order:

1. Pete Duel - An actor from a late 1960s TV show called "Alias Smith & Jones". Mr Duel set the standard for my perfect man genre--dark hair, dark eyes, dark eyebrows with a certain swarthiness that suggested he was capable of slitting your throat in a dark alley if provoked. Irresistible. I'd probably still be mooning over him had he not decided to commit suicide. Pity my poor mother who had to break the news to a shattered 8 year old--it was on New Years Day 1971 and I remember it in perfect detail. Still.

2. Bobby Sherman (above)- Another actor turned singer. Dark but not as swarthy, a little more wholesome in the way public people were in the 1970s. In retrospect, I think my thrall was ignited because of a friend's ardent interest in him and I was competitive, even back then. Interest waned quickly when his TV show was cancelled. Fickle, fickle youth.

3. The Irish guy from The Bay City Rollers - In the mid 70s, my best friend MaryCatherineFullofGrace and I got swept up in Rollermania, a fact that should have us both in therapy now. Here's how the game worked: once you selected the band member to focus your special adoration on, you then engaged in verbal warfare for dominance over all the other girls also crushing on your guy. It certainly honed my verbal cat fighting skills for adulthood. Alas, the object of my affection (dark, swarthy, probably drug addled) left the band less than a year after he joined due to exhaustion (read: rehab). While I tried to continue on the fumes of the overall Rollermania fever, the magic was gone. But the story has a silver lining. Through the network of fanmania, I made a few new friends, some that I am still friends with today, 30 years later.

4. Elvis Stojko - After a long crush dry spell, I caught Elvis fever around the time of the '96 Olympics. As far as ice skaters go, he was a bit of a rebel and in my view, muy macho in his tight black skating pants. Dark haired and dark eyed with a facial scar or two, he was danger in bad footwear and I was hooked. In the end, it couldn't last. He's shorter than me and I don't wear flat shoes for any man. And he's from Canada, which is a very lovely country with very nice people and all, but seriously, people, without an H&M, I couldn't live there.

5. Liev Schrieber - A modern day Laurence Harvey, this rakish, dark, intense animal of a man is a genuinely superior stage actor. Swarthy, yes, but it was that voice that undid my sensibilities. Who doesn't think about waking up next to that and hearing him emote in his richly textured tenor, "Woman, get me a cup of coffee." Lord. Alas, this very short lived adoration came to an abrupt halt after he hooked up with Naomi Watts. Bitch got him.

6. Taylor Hicks - This affection for the young man as the artist is the one most baffling to people who know me. I am at an utter loss to explain it, but I gotta confess the Silver Fox turns me on like a teenage boy trapped in a warm bread truck. And well, why not crush on him and his dark, dangerous eyes too? We have a lot in common. We both learned to dance watching "Soul Train" (and we both sort of dance the same way--so, Don Cornelius, you got a lot of 'splaining to do). We both love orange southern food and blues/soul/funk music. And he's stated a preference for tall, funny, older blondes. So what's the deal breaker here? Well, could be the 14 year age difference. And his gorgeous girlfriend. And perhaps my only impression of the man when meeting him was awkward, like he was staving off a bad case of intestinal distress. But as the optimist that I am, I promise you that given half the chance, I'd make a man out of that big boy from 'Bama. So the offer is on the table. Come on pal--I'm like the drunk cheerleader at a frat party. I am THE sure thing!

So I've bared my soul, certainly at the risk of ridicule and now it's your turn. Who are your celebrity crushes?