Thus far my Lady Crushes have been divided between 2 pretty specific categories: musicians and actresses. But what about a lady that's both a musician and an actress?
Bam!
That just happened.
I know, she seems like purpose-built Hipster Bait, but I don't care. She still manages to win me over. Even when she's kind of a miserable cow (I resisted using another C Word there…) like she was in (500) Days of Summer, she still does no wrong by me. Plus, I saw She & Him in concert last year, and damn if they didn't win me over as well.
And that's all I really have to say. Sorry, I know you've come to expect a certain level of quality (or at least quantity) in these Crush posts, but today I shall leave with you neither.
I will however take this opportunity to point out that I'm sure the winner of the First Annual Blog Contest of Awesomeness has received his prize by now, and it saddens me to think that he would not alleviate the suspense for his fellow readers by revealing what the prize turned out to be. Perhaps a grass-roots, good old fashioned flaming in the comments section by his peers will bring him out of hiding.
I consider myself a child of the nineties. But still, a lot of my early childhood was still carved out in the eighties. I went through all the embarrassing fads and horrible music. I was too young to understand why the C4 Corvette was a shell of the vehicle's former glory. And above all else, I loved a good mindless action movie.
My tastes were pretty simple: wall-to-wall action, keep the tacked-on romantic subplot to a minimum (girls still had cooties), and blow a lot of shit up. Basically, I had the movie-going appetite at 10 that Randy has today.
Of course, unlike Randy, I eventually grew out of it. Well, sort of. I still enjoy a good action romp, only now I understand the difference between a good movie and a bad one. I like a little character development, I appreciate if the plot makes sense, and I don't mind if things don't blow up as much if it makes the movie a little more feasible. That's why when I go back and watch Commando, or Time Cop, or Die Hard 2, I kind of bury my face in my hands and wonder how I could have ever considered these to be 'good movies'.
I still enjoy them, don't get me wrong, but at least now I understand that as movies they're really quite terrible. Terrible is not always a bad thing - entertainment has it's value - but at least I know to file a movie under 'guilty pleasure' rather than announcing it as the 'best movie ever', which I'm sure 12-year-old Travis did a few too many times for some down right embarrassing titles. Basically, I've come to realize that the best movies aren't always your favourite and your favourite movies aren't always the best.
So when I go back and see a movie that I originally only liked because it was a good action flick, yet it actually holds up as a good movie? Well, that warms the cockles of my heart. It makes me feel like maybe I didn't have such shitty taste as a child. And it helps to cement Lady Crushes in stone.
That's right, this long, drawn out, and altogether tedious intro actually has something to do with Lady Crushes. In this case Natalie Portman, and in this instance because of a little movie called The Professional (or Léon, for all you hipster movie snobs out there…)
I remember thoroughly enjoying this flick as a preteen, but I mean, why wouldn't I? A hitman, a killer opening sequence, an over-the-top villain and a big explosion at the end? That was pretty much the stuff that I would have masturbated to, had my testicles descended by that point in my life.
(sorry)
But, watching it a few years later, once my tastes had become more discerning, it's actually a good flick. And at the heart of it is a pretty stellar performance from a 13-year-old Natalie Portman. She followed it up with a solid turn in Heat (another movie I was able to pleasantly discover as being actually quite good) and eventually became one of the few bright spots in what could only be considered a huge Star Wars Fan's biggest disappointment ever, The Phantom Menace.
Throw in a sense of humour and genuine smarts, and combine them with her flawless good looks, and well, she might be more than just a Lady Crush, she might actually be the perfect* woman.
So far it has seemed like my Crushes (of both the man and lady variety) have had an underlying theme to them: sense of humour. With the exception of Tony Jaa & Hakeem Olajuwon, I would argue that every single one of my Man Crushes was known for having a good sense of humour or at the very least, a willingness to poke a little fun at themselves. The same can be said for most of the names on this Lady Crush list as well.
So, then, how could we possibly be cracking the prestigious Top 10 of this list with a name that is not very well known for possessing a sense of humour at all? And, not only that, but as deserving as I feel she is of it, why am I going to have such a difficult time justifying this high of a ranking? You see, unlike the other female musicians on his list, whose shroud of mystery could often be used in place of any actual justification, I have long been a big enough Brody Dalle fan to have learned a fair bit about her over the years.
And a lot of it hasn't been very pretty.
For starters, she left home at 13, lied about her age to Tim Armstrong when the two of them first got together (telling him that she was 18 when in fact she was 16 - he was 30…) After their rocky marriage and even messier divorce came the whole Josh Homme situation (he wasn't exactly single when they started seeing each other). On top of that, she's done practically every drug known to man (heroin being her weapon of choice) and at the peak of her punk rock days, she felt a sick need to keep up with and be considered one of the guys (her pre-show warm up included an entire bottle of vodka and smoking a pack of cigarettes) which would often lead her to being blackout drunk, and doing (even by her own admission) some pretty stupid things.
Not exactly the type of person one should have a Lady Crush on then, right? Well, luckily I can save some face with the knowledge that almost all of this was prior to 2004, and in the subsequent years, becoming a mother and disbanding The Distillers has lead to a much more tame and gentle Brody Dalle.
But tame and gentle are not what this crush is about at all. In fact, seeing that this crush was formed during the peak of her 'bad girl' days, there must have been something pretty great so that not only did I look past her unsavoury behaviour, but I even managed to form a mighty crush in spite of it all. Which means it could only be one thing right? The one thing that is inherent to all my Man and Lady Crushes: Brody must be absolutely hilarious.
But she's not.
Even though that seems to be the key ingredient in winning me over, and the only thing that could make me turn a blind eye to such unpleasant behaviour, it's just not the case. While she may not be completely humourless, she's not exactly cracking a whole lot of jokes either. But, what else could it be? What did Tony Jaa and Hakeem Olajuwon have that made them rise above the rest, despite lacking any outwardly apparent sense of humour?
Well the answer is simple: they were both completely badass. Tony Jaa as a martial artist and Hakeem as an absolute basketball freak. The Distillers were (and still are) one of my favourite bands ever, and it stands to reason that the driving force behind them had to be absolutely, undeniably, 100% badass as well. And Brody was certainly that. Sure, it may have lead to a few of the aforementioned missteps along the way, but I would still argue that it's much more difficult to make these lists on the sole basis of being a badass than it is to make it for having a good sense of humour. Too many people 'try too hard', and as such the ones that really are true badasses are few and far between. So, for all the Brody's out there, know that your badassedness alone will always earn you a place in my mighty man heart.
Saturday Night Live isn't funny. It hasn't been for a long, long time. So me listing head writer for SNL as justification for Tina Fey's spot on this list is akin to the New Jersey Nets bragging that they drafted Yinka Dare as justification that they are a well managed team (I know it's in poor taste to speak ill of the dead, but seriously, I remember in high school being intrigued by the fact that he had never recorded a single assist in his first two and a half seasons in the league, and also running to school, genuinely excited to discuss the big news with my friends the morning after he finally did…)
That said: Head Writer at Saturday Night Live. It's still nothing to sneeze at.
Besides, it became moot once 30 Rock took off, and established itself as arguably the funniest show on television. And, while I'm not one of the people making that argument, it's still easily in the Top 5. Add Mean Girls to the writing credits, and the body of work starts to look pretty impressive.
But this list isn't just about who can write successful television shows or movies. Obviously Ms. Fey needs a few more merits to justify having been placed so high on this list, right? Well, once again, I don't really have them. She just seems cool. Self-Deprecating humour always wins me over, and Ms. Fey is definitely one that's willing to have the joke be at her expense. But, like a few of the names on this list already, I'm pretty much just going with my gut on this one.
Basically, it boils down to this: I would like to think that if Tina Fey had gone to my high school in 1997, she would have found Yinka Dare just as funny as me, and on that glorious morning in February, when he became the NBA's record holder for most consecutive minutes played without a decisive pass (0 assists, 73 turnovers) she would have been gathered at my locker ready to mock a rich man's incompetence.
Of course, as thrilled as I was the day Mr. Dare finally chalked up his first assist, I probably would have been more happy to actually have a girl hanging out at my locker in high school. But that's besides the point…
