I Heart Men, Just Not In THAT Way

Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

In a society growing more and more comfortable with man-on-man love, I figure there’s no better time than now to tell you about some of my man crushes.

We as men all have man crushes, some more than others. I’ll save you the time and omit the athletes on my man crush list, because that would probably make this post just a bit longer than the New Testament. So instead I’ll focus on the guys who made my list for various other reasons.

Here’s a fair warning: You’re not going to agree with all of these, but I don’t give a damn. I love them nevertheless. So, here they are, in no particular order.

Bill Simmons

Simmons, aka “The Sports Guy,” is ESPN’s most popular columnist both in ESPN The Magazine and on the website. His great sports mind and hilarious wit make him a popular read for anyone who enjoys blatant sarcasm, knee slapping analogies, and overall good writing. I have a man crush on ol’ Billy boy because I envy his lifestyle. He gets to write about sports, which means he gets to go to basically any game he wants, and the tab is always picked up by ESPN. He’s in the center of the sports journalism world, but he doesn’t have to get all dolled up and go on SportsCenter every night, so if he were so inclined, at least 90% of his work could be done from home whilst wearing Bert & Ernie pajamas. Although he admits to getting a lot of work done at home, the Bert & Ernie pj’s are purely speculation on my part. I’m worried about his future involvement with ESPN.com, however. In recent years, he has been somewhat at odds with management regarding some of the things he writes, and was recently quoted as saying: “I still love writing my column and only re-signed last year because I really did believe that we had hashed out all the behind the scenes bullshit and come to some sort of agreement on creative lines, media criticism rules, the promotion of the column and everything else on ESPN.com. Within a few months, all of those things changed and certain promises were not kept. It’s as simple as that.” Seriously, if ESPN.com knew what was good for them, they would bend over backwards to keep the columnist whom I suspect brings in more traffic than any other two writers combined.

Kanye West

Yeah, I know. You probably don’t like him. I simply love the guy. In the past couple of years, whenever his name is brought up, all people relate it to are his ego and attitude. People are too busy concerning themselves with what Kanye said at an awards show rather than remembering what he has done for the hip hop game in the last seven or eight years. He was doing smaller things in the late 1990s, but since he signed on with Roc-A-Fella in 2000, he has made more hits than I have time to list. If you really want to look it over, here is his production discography. Really, it’s impressive. Aside from the fact that he has laid out more hits than Russell Crowe, the man is constantly reinventing himself and his musical style. The icing on the cake for me was seeing him at the Glow In The Dark Tour a couple of weeks ago in Minneapolis. Like I said in my post last week, that show changed everything for me musically, and I have no one but Kanye to thank.

John Mayer

Sure, Mayer may not be the manliest of men, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t many things I wouldn’t mind being; rich, handsome, intelligent, a musical powerhouse, and awfully good with the ladies. In addition to rumors that Mayer has been around the block more than a few times with girls we’ve never heard of, he has also dated a pretty impressive list of Hollywood hotties including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, and most recently, Jennifer Aniston. His latest CD “Continuum” is, in my opinion, one of the best albums of the last five years and was the third album in a row of his to achieve platinum status. He is a four-time Grammy award winner and has countless other musical achievements. I’ll say that my man crush on Mayer is borderline unhealthy, but don’t worry, I am not about to go sifting through his garbage … yet.

Matt Damon

In a world full of celebs gone mad, Damon has somehow managed to remain at the forefront of the film industry all the meanwhile not going so nuts to the point of shaving his head and tongue kissing Madonna on MTV. Aside from being one of the coolest guys around, he’s a smart dude, and his filmography has quite a few flicks worth mentioning, including Good Will Hunting which he co-wrote as well as starred in, Rounders, Saving Private Ryan, Ocean’s 11-13, The Good Shepard, The Departed, the Bourne Trilogy, and many more.  B-Weezy and I have had several discussions about who we think is cooler between Damon and Brad Pitt.  Both are on the same coolness level, but Damon gets the nod because he seems more down to Earth.  Not to take anything away from Brad though, he’s definitely an honorable mention on my man crush list.

Will Smith

Where to start with this one?  I don’t know which I like him better for, his 1990s pop rap, his success on the hit show The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or his colossal movie career.  No one in my memory bank has dominated those three facets of entertainment quite like Will has for over two decades.   In addition to his impressive career, Smith reportedly got a 34 on his ACT was was admitted to MIT, although he never attended.  Instead he just went on to a movie career which has seen seven straight $100 million films, a feat matched only by Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.  His latest attempt to reenter the music world was one that wasn’t too impressive, but he is going to have to do a hell of a lot more than release a stinker of an album for me to stop loving the guy.  Next week when Hancock opens in theaters, I am going to make an effort to go see it as soon as I get a chance, so I’ll let you know how that goes. Until then, I am fully content watching Bad Boys II and reruns of The Fresh Prince.

Diddy

Simply put, Diddy is my boy.  He is the definition of the American dream.  He single handedly created Bad Boy Records and made it what it is today by being an astute judge of talent and character, as well as being one hell of a businessman.  Through the years, he has worked with countless Grammy award winning artists, including Notorious BIG, 112, Mariah Carey, Usher, TLC, Boyz II Men, Aretha Franklin, and more.  His most recent endeavors have seen him in the spotlight on MTV’s Making The Band where Diddy and associates travel coast to coast in search of talent to put together the next big thing in R&B.  The last two groups put together – Day26 and Danity Kane – have both done excellent in their young careers and the latter of the two has gone platinum several times with their two albums.  Diddy’s estimated net worth is creeping up on the $500 million mark, making him one of the wealthiest people in the entertainment industry today.  He continues to be the gold standard for making hits and his reputation for demanding nothing less than perfection has served him well over the years.  As if that weren’t enough, the guy just plain cracks me up.

Well there is my short list of men I have healthy man crushes on.  I’m not saying I would give up women for these guys, but I would follow them to the gates of hell in most cases.

Sorry I haven’t been writing a lot lately, but as I’ve said before, I am working a lot lately and I am sewing up some loose ends and getting ready to move, so that leaves me with almost no time to sit down and put a series of thoughts together.  On top of that, the weather here has been IMMACULATE for about a month straight, so I can’t bring myself to plop down in front of a computer when it’s 80 degrees and sunny out everyday.

When I do move next week, I might be without internet for a short while during the transition.  Don’t worry though, I’ll find a way to make it work, even if that means lugging my desktop into Starbucks and hooking everything up … You’re worth it.

One love,

10

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Tags: Bill Simmons, Diddy, John Mayer, Kanye West, man crush, Matt Damon, Will Smith

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