Pensees From Hell

DAY TWO

Atlanta International Airport

CONCOURSE D
GATE D08 3 JUL 10 1108 AM

The Popeye's helped. Some greasy chicken, some ice tea. Something to remind me of a brighter world just outside beyond the glass. The worst part about this is that this will not be a work of fiction. This is real.

Looking up from the keyboard and out to the tarmac, I see in the glass the grim bearded face of the seriously fucked. My kid and I have entered the world of the modern Lost Dutchman – the Stand By on Buddy Pass.

It seemed like a good idea three months ago. My neighbor works for Delta, she can get us a spot on the cheap with her buddy pass. The prices on Buddy Pass were incredibly cheap, just like me, and I jumped on it. It actually worked well for my wife. She saved $500 on her trip to Panama. Me? Not so good.

I had promised my kid and my Minnesota folks we would be there on the 30th of August for a week of fishing and berry picking and hanging out and seeing the fireworks on Sunday the Fourth. That was the plan. I didn’t realize at the time my neighbor’s Buddy Pass Priority was 99, which might be slightly better than Osama Bin Laden. If the 9/11 Terrorists had flown Stand By we would be living in a different world today.

As I write I hear the announcer boarding the plane to Minneapolis. There a five seats available. We are number 35 on the priority list. Its going to be like this for the indefinite future. My Minnesota folks do not think highly of me at this moment. Neither does my kid. Neither do I. We just keep hitting the terminals they send us to, until something hits.


GATE D12 12:34PM
My kid and I have been stuck in limbo between the Atlanta Hub, which I’m told is the world’s biggest airport, and the Minneapolis Airport which is big enough. I’m writing this live from Concourse D, Gate 12. This turns out to be a nice gate to be in exile on. There’s a Starbucks, and they have these little booths where you can sit and type stuff. You can stare out the window. Out there. I used to live in Atlanta, long, long ago. There was a world out there. A world beyond the The Glass. I remember standing on a sidewalk in the sun. I could walk over here, if I wanted to. I could walk over there. I could cross the street. Sit under a tree. I used to live in that world beyond the glass. I remember there were trees and green grass once, long ago. Domestic animals. My pet cat Ronnie. My wife. Home cooked food. My garden. I wonder how my garden is turning out this year. I remember sunshine, clouds and rain. I remember work and having a job. So long ago. Somewhere out there on the other side of The Glass.

GATE D18 1:43PM
I’ve been thinking about iambic pentameter which has intrigued me since my attempt at sonnet writing a few weeks ago with “Tink”. I have misunderstood Iambic Pentameter. Perhaps you have also. I had been thinking it was 10 syllables to a line of alternating stressed sounds. The mystery was Shakespeare, the Sonnet God, whose lines often fell short or over ran the ten syllable border. Then I realized, the word “Pentameter” is deceptive. Its not ten syllables. Its four stressed beats, two measures to a line. For instance:

DUMB Daddy DUMB Daddy DUMB Daddy DUMB

That’s four beats.

You’re CHEAP you’re CHEAP with STINK-ee FEET

Hear the beat?

The way to do it is to imagine three little girls jumping rope. Two of the girls are turning the rope and the third is jumping. The genius of little girls is that they jump rope in iambic pentameter without knowing it’s what they’re doing. They do it perfectly, because that’s the beat that brings the rope around.

JOHN and MAR-ee SITting in a TREE
K-i-S-s-I -n-G



GATE E11 3:35PM
Or imagine one little girl playing hopscotch on a sidewalk hopping her way through the little chalked squares:

STAND by SCUM you’re STAND by SCUM

You’re DUMB You’re DUMB you’re STAND by SCUM

Oh God. . . .

Get me the fuck out of this place . . . please God . . .


GATE A22 5:25PM

Holy God damn dang!!

This time we made it from the blue list to the green list. The blue list is the list of the hopeful in limbo. The green list is the list of the chosen people. As the hours get later most people have gotten their planes and the competition is thinning out. Our chances go up incrementally. We were right on the wire. We were on the blue, position number five out of a list five “blues”. The available seats were four seats. But that means if someone doesn’t show up at the last minute we move over the goal line and we win! Yay for our team.

I was at the check counter hanging over it breathlessly, as the guy went through the names, calling them out on the PA. People came through. They all came through. My son and I did not. We were the last. The last and only.

“Sorry guys.”

Suddenly a cabin attendant poked her head through the corridor entrance. “We have two seats empty!”

Everybody knew me and my kid were waiting. We were getting a little famous. By now.

The check guy jerked his thumb like a cop waving me through. “You guys – grab your bags – go!” People were heading for the desk, wanna bes, legitimates. We happy two, the last of the Blues ran down the corridor and made it so close – we actually touched it! We touched the plane ! The Ferryman's boat over the river Styx - when another attendant blocked the door, with a kind of shit eating grin. “Sorry, boys. They were in the restrooms. Its full up.”

“We can travel in the rest rooms! We don’t care!”

No.

So we picked up our bags and trudged back up.


GATE A18 5:50PM
Now imagine this. Suppose one of the little jump rope girls is called home to her mother, say, to eat lunch, and their nice old neighbor Mr. Shakespeare comes out to turn the rope and call the chants till she gets back. He picks up the end of the rope (“Art thou ready?” The little girl at the other end nods yes) and The Great Man begins turning and calling the chant:

“That TIME (hop) of YEAR (hop) thou MAYST (hop) in ME (hop) be HOLD (hop!)
When YEL -low (hop) LEAVES (hop) or FEW (hop) or NONE (hop) do HANG (hop!)

(that’s four measures, and altered stresses if I’m getting the hang of this right. I think I am. Ashley and Lisabet knows scanning better than I do at this point, but I'm getting there.)

Da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM. Kids jumped ropes in his day. Who says this isn’t how he actually composed sonnets? It’s a sweet thought to imagine The Bard there with paper and a dip pen handy calling out the chants for his kids.)


GATE C19 6:45 PM
The pile of Blue People is getting shorter. There was a time in my life where I believed everything has a meaning, everything happens for a purpose. I’ve outgrown that idea, but I miss it like an old friend. Its very empowering to believe such things. It gives you patience. I envy people who haven’t lost their spiritual innocence. If you believe that you’re in Stand By Hell to learn some profound lesson, although that is a form of spiritual vanity, it gives you endurance. It goes back to Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search For Meaning”. Frankl was a psychiatrist and a Jew unfortunate enough to be caught in the holocaust and sent to a death camp. As a psychiatrist, he observed the dying prisoners around him as a kind of hellish lab environment and found that the ones who perished quickly were the ones who saw the event as pure malevolent chaos. The ones who survived were the ones who found meaning in their situation and tried to live for the sake of others.

Am I thinking of Nazi death camps now?

I wonder why you never see books like this for sale in Airports.


GATE C25 7:55PM
Okay, let's talk about meter some more.

“Art thou ready, maidens in thy spring?”

“Yes, Mr. Shakespeare!”

In ME (hop) thou SEEest (hop) the GLOWing (hop) of such FIRE (hop!)
That ON (hop) the ASHES (hop) of his YOUTH (hop) doth LIE (hop)

Thou KNOWest (hop) such SWINE (hop) as THOU, they must exPIRE (hop)
STAND-by (hop) SCUM (hop) thou KNOWest (hop) art DOOMed (hop) to DIE (hop)


GATE A15 8:45PM
I miss the typing booths at C25. Also here they have Seattle’s Best”, which is okay, but I’m used to Starbucks when I write. J K Rowling wrote most of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” at a series of Starbucks. True fact.

One of the people with real tickets for Minneapolis has a carry on bag with an embroidery of a loon. I love loon’s. You hear their wailing call on placid lakes at night as the sun starts to set. Up in Ely the sun doesn’t set all the way even at ten at night. True fact.

Now, a loon floating on, say Eagle Lake #3 outside of Ely, will look up and see the same stars as I see. Overhead the loon and I will see the starry bands of the milky way galaxy, the same stars the Ojibwa Indians used to look up at when they lived in those forests during the easy summer months. The loon and Ojibwa Indians did not know what stars were, although different tribes probably had similar traditional legends as to where they came from. Like Huckleberry Finn and Jim floating down the Mississippi river at night and speculating that “the moon most probably laid them”. Indians would have interesting ideas about god but the loon would not. It would not occur to the loon to worry about where it came from, and if you could speak Loon would probably tell you it came from an egg.



GATE C5 9:45PM
A loon does not have the mental equipment to comprehend God. Why do we suppose that we do? It is like Einstein’s cat trying to understand relativity. At the same time the loon and the cat have no interest that we know of in trying to understand God. Does that automatically make us divine beings? Only because we ask?


GATE D11 10:35PM
When crawfish on the lake bottom of Eagle Lake #3 look up at the surface do they have any idea there is a world beyond the mud and rocks of the lake floor? Or fish? Fish have curiosity. Especially predatory fish like sharks. They have intelligence, but have not been given the tools to understand the world beyond their own. So when a shark is hooked and hauled into a boat by poachers and has its fins brutally chopped off to be sold for soup and then thrown alive into the water, what must it think? Is it being punished for some sin? Is it in Shark Hell?

GATE D8 11:25 PM
So when we speculate on the existence of life in the Universe, what are we speculating on? Microbial life? Surely microbial life exists, because we see such an abundance in such a variety of biosphere's on earth. But what we're really talking about when we say intelligent life is technological life. A porpoise is intelligent, but lives underwater where metalurgy and technology are not possible. So the elements that go into technicalogical life are quite complex. Even the physical environment has to capable of allowing controlled fire.

Therefore what are flying saucers?

What if flying saucers were not space ships?
What if they were time machines?
The reported physical appearance of aliens look like Star Trek aliens, that is, they look like descendents of arboreal primates. They look like us with funny heads. They don't look like they came from an alien biosphere, the way a shrimp or an angler fish does. This is much more consistent with time travelers.

GATE D11 11:50PM

WE’RE ON!!!!!

I'm Not Sure I Do

Regret things, I mean. When I first looked at this topic, I really strained to think of things I regret doing. Of course, there are dumb things I regret saying- those things that make you cringe years later even though the other person didn't even seem bothered by them, and probably wasn't. Like oh fook, did I just insult their favourite jacket because I said I hated purple but I didn't mean to say it about the jacket oh my God are they looking at me like they hate me, are they, they probably hate me, crap.

Or when I email a submission to someone, or email my editors, or email an agent, and afterwards think HOMG I SAID THIS THING. What was I thinking? They probably hate llamas, and now I've gone and written an email about llamas to them! HOMG!

So I regret things that nobody cares about except for me, because I'm a mental.

But other than that, there isn't much. Particularly in my writing life. The thing about writing is- you can't regret getting that rejection. You can't regret not being good enough or not being right for that particular thing- regret only sneaks in when you've got some modicum of control over something, and writers generally have no control over that whatsoever.

However, I find that I can and do regret one thing, in writing. Not starting earlier.

Like Kathleen, I regret the things I didn't dare do. I regret not seizing opportunities when they came along. I regret not sending to Black Lace earlier, and only having a year of being published by them. I regret novellas I didn't send for calls that scared me; I regret letting one rejection put me off from trying again. I regret the things I didn't say because I was too scared to, and even though the things I say and the cheek I dare to have sometimes gets me into trouble, it also helped win me a contract I've longed for, for five years.

I know someone famous said all of this much more succinctly - something like you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, blah blah - but it's the truth. You will never be a writer if you don't take the chance. You can't regret the possible no they'll give you. But believe me, you will always, always regret not sending in the first place.

Regrets? I've had a Few

By Kathleen Bradean


Happiness is a conscious choice, I’ve come to believe. I try to be content with most of my life, and to work on the areas that I can’t be content with. Regrets are good only if they help me to move forward, because in our linear time continuum, going back isn’t an option.

The only thing I truly regret is fear.

From Dune by Frank Herbert:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear... And when it is gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”


I regret not taking writing classes in college. Why I didn’t is another tale, but let’s just say I didn’t feel free to do anything for joy’s sake. If I had spent ten minutes logically thinking through the realistic consequences, I would have seen that they were nothing. Instead, I let my imagination take over and make it a huge obstacle. I wish I would have had the guts to risk the worst that I could imagine.

For years, fear kept me from writing. Sure, I was still telling myself stories, but I wasn’t writing them down. Any writer can tell you there’s a huge difference between a concept and a written story. That’s why there are so many unfinished novels lurking on hard drives around the world. An idea seems great, but slogging through one typed character at a time to give form to a nebulous cloud of images and ‘wouldn’t-it-be-cool’ fragmented thoughts is damned hard work. Still, it’s work I wish now I’d done, because the craft of writing is in that physical act of transferring concept to written word. I think of the years that I could have been working on and polishing my craft that I let slip away, and you can bet I regret every moment of it.

I regret being the first person to say no to my stories. Instead of letting editors reject my stories, I decided my stories weren’t good enough and didn’t submit them. At least a rejection shows that I took that leap of faith in myself.

What's the worst that could have happened? The writing police would come to my door and confiscate my computer? Someone would have said my writing sucked? The sun would have turned black? And would any of that stopped me from writing? No. Only I had the power to stop myself, because I let fear win. But that was then. This is now.

I must not fear.

That’s a good litany.

Never Look Back

By Lisabet Sarai

Our topic this week at the Grip is regrets. As I sat down to work on my post, I realized that I didn't have much to say on this subject. I know that it will sound implausible, possibly even arrogant, but when I consider my nearly six decades of life, I find that I really don't regret anything.

Have I never done anything I was sorry for later? Of course I have. I've hurt people's feelings. I have occasionally twisted the truth. I've been sexually unfaithful (though I didn't lie about it afterward). I have, perhaps, failed to give friends or lovers what they really needed. I feel guilty about some of these errors. But I don't feel regret.

As I understand the term, to regret something means that you wish that it hadn't happened—that you could take back your actions or decisions and start over again. The implication of regret is that you wish things had turned out differently. I don't feel that way. I'm amazingly happy with the way my life has played itself out so far. I can imagine different paths I might have taken, but I'm not at all sure that these alternative lives would have been more rewarding or satisfying. Most of my dreams have come true, in one way or another. Meanwhile, my life has been filled with delicious surprises, bonuses I never expected.

The infidelity to which I refer above is as good an example as any. When I was in grad school, I was involved in a committed relationship with a fine young man whom I loved very much. I'll call him A. Our sex life was fabulous, too—I learned a great deal from A about both love and lust. Nevertheless, when A was away for a few days on business, I had a one night stand with our housemate (whom I'll call B). I blamed it on loneliness, hormones, and the fact that B had been flirting with me for weeks, but I suppose that these are all excuses. I chose to have sex with B; there's no two ways about it.

I confessed my indiscretion to A when he returned. He told me he forgave me, but ultimately my action destroyed our relationship. It was very painful for everyone concerned (except B, who acted like a real dork).

I'm sorry to have caused A sorrow. However, I don't regret the incident, because it led, indirectly, to my relationship with the man I call my master (here denoted as C). I knew C at the time, but I would never have connected emotionally and sexually with him if I had still been coupled with A. I would never have experienced the epiphanies of which I've written in earlier blogs. And it's very likely I would never have started writing and publishing erotica.

Looked at in this light, if I hadn't cheated on my boyfriend, Lisabet Sarai wouldn't exist. So how can I regret that action, as sordid and embarrassing as it seems now?

The one serious area where I might harbor regrets is in regard to my relationship with C. Although we were close, I really didn't understand what he wanted and needed. I believed, incorrectly, that he didn't care about me the way I did about him. I do sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if we had stayed together—if he had asked me to marry him, for instance. Instead, he allowed me to drift away into the arms of my future husband (D), too shy and insecure to assert a claim on me despite his dominance.

Sometimes C and I rehash those issues in our emails. The lure of what might have been can be incredibly powerful.

Still, if I'd stayed with C, I would not have met and married D. I would not have enjoyed nearly thirty years of his excellent company. I might not have a career I loved as much as I do my present work; D was a significant influence in guiding my professional decisions. I might not have traveled the world the way I have. Certainly it's unlikely that I would have had the fascinating and fulfilling experience of living overseas.

So as much as I might fantasize about life with C, how can I regret my choices?

I know some people who are consumed by regret. Guilt, anger and sorrow about past actions and choices eat away at their peace of mind. I feel sad when I see how they torture themselves. Perhaps their lives have not turned out as well as mine. On the other hand, perhaps some of their dissatisfaction comes from perception and their preoccupation with the past—supposedly lost chances and wrong choices.

The fact of the matter is that regret is fruitless. You cannot change the past, no matter how much you think you might like to do so. Furthermore, you can't be sure that the results would have made you happier, if you had done things differently, the way you imagine.

Don't look back. The past is gone. The future is unknown. All we have is the present. Why waste it by obsessing about what might have been? I'd rather appreciate what I can today, and hope for even better things tomorrow.

The Dead, the Bad and the Ugly

1. The Dead: When I was fifteen, everyone around me liked to scrawl the names of their favourite crushes on their hands, bookbags, coursework folders, lunchboxes. Every available surface heaved with felt-tipped ‘Tom Cruise’s and ‘George Michael’s and ‘bloke from the Levi’s ad’s (what was his name again?), all with hearts instead of dots above the letter i. But I had a love that dared not write its name in fat cartoon-style lettering. I had a love who was not buff, not fit, not cool, not even alive. Furthermore, he was a composer. Of classical music. Breathing a word of this would have been enough to have me flung into the nettles on the next cross-country amble (or ‘run’ as the teachers liked to call it).

So I adored my Franz in secret, listening to Hungarian Rhapsodies in the privacy of my room whilst gazing upon his record cover image and imagining I was the Lady of the Camellias or Lola Montez or any of the billions of adoring women he appeared to have cut a swathe through, even after taking Holy Orders. What a guy. Brilliant, charismatic, complex, sexy, philosophical and a bit naughty. Even six feet under, he seems like a better bet than the conventional crushes fostered by the cross-country mafia now. And I have a feeling he might turn up in a story sometime.

2. The Bad: According to a conversation I was following on Twitter the other week, every girl fancies a bit of Darth Vader, so perhaps my early love for the heavy-breathing, heavily-cloaked baddie is not as unconventional as I thought. However, at the time, I think I may have slightly alarmed my parents with the vehemence of my passion for him. “Darth Vader is the best,” I would solemnly proclaim, “because he is a Dark Lord of the Sith.” Even at nine, I thought this was a sexy title to have. Come on! It is! Don’t deny it! And I was delighted when the prequel trilogy bore out my often-argued theory – that Lord V was just an angry little boy who missed his mummy inside all the metallic black get-up (though I’m sure my nine-year-old self would have been fatally disappointed by this). Darth was the precursor of a host of other villain crushes through the years but he remains the original and the baddest.

3. The Ugly: Finally, a big thumbs-up to men who are not cheesy-toothpaste-grinning barrels of muscle. No floppy haired boyband types here, please. I like a big nose, bags under the eyes, crooked teeth, milk bottle specs. Possibly not all at the same time, but I need a bit of character on my crush’s face, or I just can’t be bothered to look. I’ll take Serge Gainsbourg over Brad Pitt any day of the week. Sorry, Brad! My story Thames Link in the Sex in the City: London anthology explores the appeal of the ugly man.

“Despite the fact that he was not my type at all – too short, too fleshy, not enough cheekbones – I began to think about him while masturbating. He pushed me into a darkened railway arch and ripped my skirt in his haste to fuck me. He tied me to a bed and told me that from now on I belonged to him. He plunged his hand into my knickers and fingered me on the train, right in front of all the other passengers, telling me that he had known this was what I needed all along. When I imagined his voice, it was not deep and manly, but a little bit nasal and whiny. For some reason, this made him seem all the hotter – the idea that I could be taken like that by somebody so ordinary. Only a slut would fantasise about an ugly man who stares at her on the train. Only a slut, whore, bitch…yes, yes, yes.”

Shaun is hot because he is not hot. This is a theme that recurs in my writing from time to time, so it obviously intrigues me.

Thanks for listening to my blethering, and a big thanks to Charlotte Stein for inviting me, and to all the Oh Get a Grippers for the fantastically entertaining job that they do here. Justine xx.

It's just a little crush ...

I'm embarrassed to admit ...

My first unconventional crush was on David Bowie.

Yep, that's right, I fell for the spiked hair, the slightly off voice, and the clothing of his character in Labyrinth.

What the hell was I thinking!

It helps that I love his characters name – Jareth. Oh man, I love that name.

And I still have a thing for the spiky hair. LOL He does still have his moments too. He pulled off Tesla very well in The Prestige.

But the crush that I have going now, and the one I want to focus on is for the pair of actors Michael Shanks and Ben Browder. At this moment, most of you might be going "Who?"

Here's their IMDB pages for a quick reference: Ben Browder ~ Michael Shanks

Go ahead, I can wait …

Back with me now?

Good …

I first fell for Ben Browder thanks to hubby's love of Farscape. I saw him in those black leather-like pants, and I was hooked. All I can say is Oh My God!

Then we started watching Stargate SG-1 and I found Michael Shanks. Yeah … hot stuff there! (The best moment though was his bit part on Andromeda where he wore a sexy pair of black leathers. Seeing a pattern?)

When Ben Browder joined the Stargate SG-1 cast, and I got to see both guys together each week, I reached crush heaven!

True, they aren't classic gods of the film, but damn! They are hot, especially when Michael Shanks' character wore his wire-rim glasses and started in on the geek speak, with a faint quirky smile. Ben Browder's character was a perfect foil for him, with his down to earth ways, and easy smile and charm.

Hubby has teased me since day one about my fantasies of these two guys. Given what I write, I have no problem what so ever coming up with some interesting scenarios. *wiggles eyebrows* Oh la la!

(Both Browder and Shanks above are in pictures from a Stargate photo shoot).

(Not sure if this is a mock image or not, but hey, I like to think this is legit and truly happen at one of the Stargate cons. Although, I am not sure why Ben would have planted one on Michael, but who cares. It made my day! )

Sadly, both guys are married, although they are both on my "allowed celebrity list". You know the one I am talking about ... the one you work out with your sig other, each person getting 5, or whatever celebs that if they ever ran into them and the opportunity for a hot night (or day) of crazy, sweaty, monkey sex comes around, they there is no question you would jump on it with no regrets and no recriminations afterwards. Yep - top two on my list!

Then you add in Claudia Black, who first stared in Farscape with Browder, and beat him to joining the Stargate cast, and you have a very sexy threesome that feature in my imagination. (IMDB page for her - although you might remember her from Pitch Black).

Black has a different quality to her voice, kind of deep and husky, and while she's not classically beautiful, she had a powerful presence.

Yeah … that's my current crush list. : ) Fairly unconventional, but hey, that's just the odd kind of girl that I am. I go for geeky, sexy men and strong, sexy women.

As for the others on my "Allowed list" ...

Well, there's Peter Wingfield (Methos from Highlander) and Peter Woodward (Galen from Babylon 5: Crusade). But I guess that's a whole 'nother blog post.

Man-Crush

by Ashley Lister

A couple of months ago a student asked me if I had a man-crush on anyone.

ME: “A what?”

STUDENT: “A man-crush.”

ME: “What the fuh- I mean what on earth, is a man crush?”

STUDENT: “It’s when you’re a man, and you have a crush on another man.”

ME: “You mean, am I gay?”

STUDENT: (rolling her eyes) “No. We all know the answer to that one. We’ve seen you wearing a pink shirt. Having a man-crush doesn’t mean you’re gay.”

But, apparently, wearing a pink shirt does! I kept that thought to myself. Instead, I asked her to explain the term man-crush for me. I’ve paraphrased her response here.

A man-crush is ostensibly a nonsexual interest in companionship exhibited by one male for another. Usually the object of a man-crush is a celebrity. And the companionship sought is seldom more explicit than sharing a pint and a leisurely conversation. Invariably, the object of a man-crush is someone whom the subject admires and wishes to emulate.

Personally, I thought this was the same as having a friend or a buddy, but I’m clearly out of touch. So, I tried to think if there was anyone who could be an object for my personal man-crush. Sad to say, in the first instance, I could only come up with fictional characters from TV shows.

The first one was Captain Mal Reynolds from the TV show Firefly (and the movie Serenity). For anyone who’s never seen this series and the movie that followed: you’re missing some of the best scripts to ever grace the large or small screen.


Written by Joss Whedon, and with a superb cast, Firefly/Serenity was a combination of western and science-fiction that was beautiful to watch and endlessly entertaining. Mal was probably one of the most likeable rogues Whedon ever created: a man with a strong sense of justice and physical capability, balanced by sufficient stupidity and bad luck to make him sympathetic.

Talking with a preacher called Book during a meal, Mal shows his tolerant attitude toward religion:

BOOK: “Mind if I say grace?”

MAL: “Only if you say out loud.”


Talking with a disturbed young girl called River, Mal shows his characteristic pragmatism:

RIVER: “I know you have questions.”

MAL: “That would be why I just asked them.”


And, after being offered a unique transaction from the ship’s onboard muscle, Mal wryly observes:

MAL: “Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.”

Mal was played by the actor Nathan Fillion (who also played Captain Hammer in Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog). And, whilst he was my first choice of man-crush, I realised that another of Joss Whedon’s creations would probably usurp him as the true object of my man-crush.

Spike, from Buffy and Angel, was one of the most original villains/anti-heroes to appear on TV.


Spike was introduced as the baddest of bad-ass vampires. Devoted to his beloved Drucilla in the first seasons, Spike looked like Billy Idol with fangs. Not only was he ultra-violent, resourceful and evil, he also had a witty line in dialogue:

BUFFY: What are you doing here? (Spike begins to answer) Five words or less.

SPIKE: (Counting on his fingers) Out. For. A. Walk. Bitch.


Spike eventually became one of the show’s heroes, without really giving up his evil ways. He also made some of the pithiest quotes about love.

SPIKE: You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood -- blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.

Perhaps the most compelling factor for my man-crush on Spike came during the last episode of Angel. The world is about to end. Spike, along with the rest of the heroic crew, has been given a night off to enjoy the world for one final evening. He’s a man who has lived for more than a century and shown that his pleasures include kinky sex, excess alcohol and mayhem, mischief and murder. Knowing this could be his last night on earth, he goes to an open mike poetry event and plucks up the courage to read his own verses.

But Mal and Spike are both fictional characters, neither of them really able to accompany me to the pub and be the object of my man-crush. So, if I had to pick a real person, I guess it would be the writer who put those words in their mouth: Joss Whedon.

I won’t bother giving a biography of Whedon on here. There’s enough stuff written about him on fan-sites and imdb for those who are interested. It’s enough to say he’s written some of the most entertaining and intelligent TV shows to hit the airwaves and the characters he creates are consistently enjoyable. He also produces some of the most powerful dialogue that can shift an audience from laughter through to tears.

One of my favourite lines from Buffy, a quote I’ve seen used as the signature line from a respected contemporary poet, came at the end of season five: “The hardest thing in this world…is to live in it.”

Anyone capable of crafting that sort of dialogue, is worthy of being the object of my man-crush.