Author Archives:

Boyfriend of the Week: Jason Segel’s TV Characters

[*Note: for the time being, this column will go over to a monthly format while I spend some time Arkansasing with my actual boyfriend, Brent.]

I think it’s pretty normal to have romantic fantasies about a type of person you wouldn’t realistically want to get romantic with. You’ll hear a lot about women who have burglar fantasies, but they don’t actually want a guy to break into their home. John Mayer thought it would be fun to go out with Jennifer Love Hewitt, and vice versa, before cruel reality descended In the same way, I have a thing Jason Segel’s needy, obsessive television characters while also recognizing that I would want to murder all of them if they were my boyfriends in ordinary life. More »

Boyfriend of the Week: Judge Belvin Perry Jr. of the Casey Anthony Trial

The black judge who is wry to the edge of his own boredom has become a real cliché of courtroom dramas and movies, but what do you do when a real life judge out-wrys every fake judge who has ever crossed both small and silver screens? Naturally you become a little taken with him. And then you make His Honor the Boyfriend of the Week.

It’s all in the way that Judge Perry rests his finger on his right temple. This is not the “hold on, I’m thinking” or the “fuck, it’s hard to be smart” finger-on-temple that you see so often in author photos. The judge’s finger actually supports some of the weight of his head, which threatens to tip with exhaustion whenever someone tries to hand him a steaming pile of bullshit. Sometimes that finger comes downward and makes a V with his thumb in order to brace his chin, as if he’s forcing his jaw shut because he just wants to tell everybody in that courtroom, “Enough with the circus, you animals.” More »

Boyfriend of the Week: Blake Shelton

Blake Shelton almost wasn’t a TV boyfriend.

But before I get to the sad part, we need to backtrack to the beginning because things started out pretty great. I first saw Blake sitting in that hilarious rotating chair on The Voice, and I liked how he wouldn’t turn around even if people really, really wanted him to turn around. The other judges would be staring over at him because a contestant was singing one of his songs, or one of his wife’s songs, and a joke would just dance in his eyes as he hunched over in concentration, chin on his interlocked hands. More »

Boyfriend Of The Week: Detective Stephen Holder From ‘The Killing’

You know how guys will say a girl can really fill out a shirt? I’m into Detective Stephen Holder because of the way he doesn’t fill out his gray sweatshirt. It hangs on him, simultaneously conveying the weight of his druggie past and the boyishness of his heart, and you can just picture his chest concaving beneath it. That sweatshirt reminds me of 6th grade, when the coolest thing you could possibly wear was a size XL hoodie tourist sweatshirt from Catalina that you bought during your week away from home at outdoor ed. Why was it so cool to be in something that didn’t fit you? Because it said you didn’t care, even though you did. More »

Boyfriend of the Week: Khal Drogo From ‘Game of Thrones’

Okay, so maybe Drogo didn’t make the best first impression. Initially I recognized him from Baywatch and the seminal televisual film Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding, and frankly, I am not a beach person. Also, I did not really love the double ponytail holders in the beard. In the hair, I could live with it. That is some serious length to contend with, and a warrior-king needs to keep his locks in check so he can focus on the fight. Even the girls back in 8th grade knew this when they met up to beat each other’s asses at the park: you gotta get that hair out of the face. But the fact is, the beard was never flying anywhere. I think one ponytail holder would have sufficed. More »

Boyfriend Of The Week: J.P. from ‘The Bachelorette’

This week’s column is going to be a little different because instead of picking my Boyfriend Of The Week as I would in the natural world, I’ve instead decided to pretend as if I’m the Bachelorette and HAVE to pick a boyfriend from her stable. Notice that I said “boyfriend” and not “fiancé” because I’m not a psycho who thinks it’s a good idea to search for a husband among a group of guys who abuse the word “journey” and climax to the thought of former high school classmates watching them on ABC.

So the challenge becomes: who would I choose to date if I was contractually locked into the show? Well, not that the guy who won’t take off his mask and West, whose first wife was found face down in a bathtub, don’t sound like whole bunch of fun, but I think that I would have to go with J.P. from Roslyn, New York. More »

Boyfriend of the Week: James Spader

When James Spader came on my TV during last week’s The Office finale, I was like, “Who changed the channel over to porn?”

“But he looks terrible,” Brent said.

“I know,” I said.

“But you understand he’s looking terrible, right?”

“I know,” I said. “He’s the celebrity that you’re going to have to let me sleep with if someday I get the chance. He’s the one.” More »

Boyfriend of the Week: Simon Cowell

Don’t worry, you didn’t miss a sneak preview episode of The X Factor or a stealthy appearance on American Idol. Simon Cowell is my Boyfriend Of The Week because I miss him. Because his absence on the TV has left a hole in my heart that’s as black and as true as his sense of humor.
More »

Boyfriend Of The Week: Nick Offerman

Last October People magazine put out a supplementary issue called “Stars At Home!” (exclamation point theirs— also, my mom mails me her People issues when she finishes reading them, so it’s not like I picked up the magazine because the cover promised a look at Audrina Patridge’s bedroom, just so we’re straight here) and a photograph inside froze me in my celebrity home inspection tracks.

It was of Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman— an action shot. He is in his L.A. wood shop sanding the bottom of a canoe that he has built. A finished, gleaming canoe hangs upside down above his head, the different tones of the wood like Hershey syrup running through a chocolate milk river. Nick slightly squints down at the hand that is doing the sanding, full of determination. He will get the bottom of that canoe smoother than a baby’s ass, after that baby’s ass has been extensively dermabrasioned. His other hand rests gently on the curve of the boat, cupping it like a tree’s breast. More »

What We're Reading:

Boyfriend Of The Week: Jason Hoppy

Each Wednesday, intrepid pop culture crushmaster Andrea Seigel spotlights a different one of her fake TV boyfriends.

When Brent and I first moved in together, I brought a lot of things into his life. These things include my habit of making him stare into my hair part to tell me if it’s getting wider, as well as weekly depressive breakdowns in the grocery store over the fact that we’ll just be back there again next week.
More »

Boyfriend of the Week: Raylan Givens

Each Wednesday, intrepid pop culture crushmaster Andrea Seigel spotlights a different one of her fake TV boyfriends.

Tonight when I told Brent that Raylan Givens from Justified was going to be my boyfriend-of-the-week, he got really belligerent and demanded, “What did Raylan clean?!” because Brent had spent the whole day cleaning the apartment on some kind of a sudden manic spree. He’d woken up, gone jogging for the first time in months, come home, had his car professionally washed and sprayed with “new car” smell, all before I woke up. Then he began vacuuming corners with the hose, laundering bath mats, hand washing the dog’s bowls, and mounting pictures that have been sitting on the floor since we moved here in September. “What did he clean, huh?” More »

Boyfriend of the Week: Rob Mariano

Welcome to our newest column, Boyfriend of the Week. Each Wednesday, intrepid pop culture crushmaster Andrea Seigel will spotlight a different one of her fake TV boyfriends.

I have a real-life boyfriend named Brent. But I also have this habit of yelling, “That’s my boyfriend!” at guys who aren’t technically my boyfriend, guys on TV. (Sometimes in the movies too, although in that case, it’s more like a hushed, “That’s my boyfriend.”)

Brent doesn’t really love this. The smart part of him understands that he’s my world and I’m just expressing admiration for and attachment to other guys that I don’t know. The petty, jealous part of him says things like, “Describe me as a far-reaching visionary in your column. I like how that looks when it’s written down.”

Visionary or not, there can only be one “Boyfriend of the Week,” and that week this boyfriend is Rob Mariano, aka Boston Rob, who’s in the middle of competing on Survivor again. More »