Five Freebie Lays

Men.

I love 'em. I think about 'em all the time. One or another of you is in my head on an almost constant basis, and...shock!...sometimes you're fully clothed! Most of the time, actually.

I've referenced my 'Five Freebie Lays' a few times in my posts. For those of you who missed them, these are the 5 fantasy boyfriends you get to have sex with if they come to your door and ask. AND your significant other has to let you, AND has to take care of the kids or pets.

Sergei told us a while back what his 'type' was, or wasn't.

And I guess I have to be equally vague. Physical type is downright impossible for me to pinpoint. Generally, there's something to be said for the midline...not too terribly fat, not too terribly skinny. I want someone who looks like they'd eat my cooking, and then seduce me with neck nibbles, wine, and foreign tongues spoken in my ear. I don't like the typical movie hunks, they're too pretty and, really, who wants to compete with that? I'd rather my guys look normal, or, as Sergei says, like hockey players. He's right, too, I like a man who can get sweaty and passionate about something.

What really, seriously puts a man on my list is this:

Talent.

I don't care what talent, really. It does have to do with passion, as I mentioned, sticking with something and perfecting it, finding a new way to communicate or touch someone. Especially with words. I've been a reader since I was 3 or 4 years old, I've lived entire lives through books, I've had adventures in song lyrics, I've laughed and cried and felt washes of anger and frustration and utter joy when I hear someone weave tapestries of stories, their words rising and splashing back like a waterfall on smooth blacks rocks, looking into your eyes, making you feel like you were there. That gets me every time. And if they have a seriously sexy voice, well, so much the better for me!

There are a few rules to the Five Freebie Lays:
1) It has to be a celebrity
2) It can't be anyone you know in real life (if you know a lot of celebrities)
3) No dead people
4) They must 'play for the other team' (so, as much as I love David Sedaris and Tim Curry, there's no chance of ever being more than 'girlfriends')
5) They don't need to be static. My rule is, 4 standard picks and one 'floater', which changes at my whim. With one exception...during college football season, the floater is ALWAYS Kirk Herbstreit from ESPN's College Gameday. Always.

Without any further ado, to-do, or voodoo, I now present to you:

Mona's Five Freebie Lays
(in no particular order)



1) Elvis Costello
I got my first mix tape of Elvis Costello when I was but a wee lass in the late 70s. I was listening to Top 40 at the time, and the minute I heard "Watching the Detectives", I knew my life was changing musically. Elvis paints cutting, sarcastic, yet poignant pictures in his songs. He is constantly reinventing himself, and even though I haven't always agreed with his choices, I'm always impressed at the effort he puts into it. His voice is not one of a smooth serenader. He sounds more like the boyfriend who played in a garage band and had to scream over the whirring of his dad's table saw. It's rough, but at the same time, can be oh-so-soft and gentle. Plus, being the Anglophile that I am, I absolutely adore his British accent. Yeah, it doesn't come out in the songs much, but I've heard him speak, so eloquent and charming ("I love to hear him speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound" - Shkspr). Yeah. He's been my boyfriend for the longest time. I didn't realize it until recently, but he took me out of girlhood.



2) Colin Firth
Actually running second in my 'longest boyfriend' timetable (okay, perhaps there IS method to this madness). Colin first appeared to me in a small British film called, "A Month in the Country", which is now darn-near impossible to find. He caught my attention then, so focused and damaged, and that charming, sexy British accent. I rented other things he did, other movies, and really grew to like his easy style. Most females recognize him as 'Mr. Darcy' from "Pride and Prejudice". I mean, who can forget seeing Mr. Darcy emerging soaking wet from that pool? Oh. My. God! Yeah, that clinches it for most of us. And now, of course, he's part of the Bridget Jones movie line, playing Mark Darcy. Darcy = Darcy. That was by design, apparently.



3) Brendan Shanahan
I do love hockey! I miss it so much this year, it's painful. There's something about the speed of it, the sheer brilliance of balance and coordination, and the incredible luck of millimeters of air space, that makes this sport just so bloody fun to watch. I love that the guys get so sweaty. I love a good bash against the boards. And I get awesomely testosterone-y when they fight, hitting at each other with padded fists, pulling the hockey sweaters off their opponents, fighting for the win. Shanny is the best. He's played with the Detroit Red Wings for almost 10 years, and his grace and speed have brought them the cup numerous times. My favorite sports video is of one particular Stanley Cup win, the Wings take turns skating the ice with the cup raised on high. Shanny is in disbelief, and so so so high with the victory, he kisses the cup, again and again, his superstitious playoff beard bobbing about the silver chalice. Oh, please end the arguing. Please play next year!




4) Dave Matthews
The eyes. The voice. The lusty eyes and the lusty voice. He's not for everyone, and is sometimes dismissed as being just a musician for frat boys. I really, truly, don't see it that way. He's a storyteller. He has a passionate way of layering music and lyrics and subject and substance that is just sexy sexy sex. He's played with everyone, sang with everyone, he's a liberal leaning modern hippy who grew up in South Africa, who saw some hideous shit happen and writes about it so we understand, who wants to give us the America we deserve. Plus, okay, I just want to jump his bones. The eyes, the voice...daaaaaamn.




5) Mike Doughty (Floater, gets 2 pictures)
"Super Bon Bon". Yep. That got me. Soul Coughing. The first time I heard that song, I was in my car at the bank drive-thru. I remember cranking up the song and saying something out loud like (grin), "Who the hell is this?! Must get...must get." Mike has this voice, like a skinned knee, like something with sharp edges, not too sharp, though, that sticks in your head, begging to have you take a look. After Soul Coughing disbanded, after Mike kicked all his bad habits, he went solo. He is a poet, he's ee cummings and Walt Whitman and Edgar Allen Poe and Bukowski, rolled up in a wonton and dipped in sharp wasabi sauce. His voice is seductive, and the forms he sculpts with his words are solid, twisted, internal, intelligent. He's sweet sweet candy to my aural fixation.

And that's it. This was tough. I'm looking now at the post-it note I sweated over for the past week, names scratched off and added in diagonals wherever there was room. I dropped off a non-floater boyfriend, as he was starting to piss me off in the news. And I'll do that from time to time. And my floaters will come, and my floaters will go, and they'll always be wonderful and important.

Here endeth Mona's Five Freebie Lays.