Robert Downey, Jr!
You Don't Know Him Without You Have: Been alive in the past 5 years. It's been impossible to go see a movie in the past half-decade without seeing Robert Downey, Jr., in that movie. He's been Iron Man, and Iron Man 2, and Sherlock Holmes, and A Bunch Of Things I Didn't Want To See, and probably he's been on 30 Rock or hosted Saturday Night Live or something, too. And I think he helped pass Health Care Reform. Or he was against it. Or he ran Goldman Sachs.
Simply put, if it happened between 2005 and now, Robert Downey Jr not only had something to do with it, but he was also critically acclaimed for whatever it was he had to do with it.
That alone might have gotten him chosen for the coveted 62nd Hunk of the Week when I nixed Sweetie's first choice.
Sweetie's first choice was me, but I told her that she couldn't pick me as a Hunk of the Week. Sweetie was trying, I think, to be nice and romantic because it was our 10th Anniversary this week, and I made our 10th Anniversary very special for Sweetie -- I even (I don't mean to brag here)(well, I do mean to brag, a little) I even got her a carpet steamer, although technically that was a gift for both of us, because I waived my usual present in honor of our anniversary: I told Sweetie that instead of a contribution to the Piano Tuning Fund, I wanted "one-half of a carpet steamer."
I wanted that because I knew that Sweetie would then want the other half of a carpet steamer. I knew that because I knew that Sweetie actually wanted a whole carpet steamer, as Sweetie is frequently thrown into despair by the state of our carpeting, which used to be colors like "blue" and "white," and now is colors like "ground-in-chocolate-chip-cookie" and "something the cat threw up." So for our anniversary, I said that I wanted Sweetie to get me one-half of a carpet steamer.
And, bowled over by the sheer romance of that, Sweetie then tried to pay me back by naming me the Hunk of the Week, but I had to decline the honor, mostly out of respect for the post of Hunk of the Week, and partly out of respect for the fact that I'm not really able to suck in my stomach enough in photos anymore to qualify as a Hunk of the Week.
So I told Sweetie to pick a different Hunk, and said that if she didn't, I would choose the Hunk. She then blurted out "Robert Downey, Jr,"
which I assumed was mainly because we'd just seen Iron Man 2 last night -- part of AnniversaryGanza -- but also a little because Robert Downey, Jr., is in everything. (I think he's actually the model for Booberry now, too.)
Thing That Makes You Go Hmmm About Him: You maybe think I'm kidding about him having been in everything in the past 5 years, but he's been in 16 movies in that time, and has another 6 or so scheduled to come out in the next 3 years, all of which isn't the thing that makes me go Hmmm about him.
Nor is the thing that makes me go Hmmm about him all that stuff about how for a while there he was always being arrested or was on drugs or in jail or dead or something. That's just America, nowadays; we've gotten away from the old ways of getting famous (being talented, working hard, sleeping with Orson Welles) and have now new ways of getting famous (having lots of babies, getting in legal/drug trouble and cleaning up, sleeping with anyone famous and then retaining Gloria Allred) and I'm okay with that, even though it means that I'll never myself be rich and famous because I can't have babies and I don't like Gloria Allred. That's our society now, and we're stuck with it for better or worse (worse.)
No, what makes me go Hmmm about Robert Downey Jr. is that on his IMDB page it notes that he was born at 1:10 p.m.
If I assume that the day someone is born is important -- because exactly one year later it marks their first birthday, and so on -- if I assume that, I'm still left wondering why is the exact minute of someone's birth important? Why isn't just the rough time of day that someone is born what's noted? Do we really need to know that Robert Downey Jr. was born not "in the afternoon" or "sometime that day" or even "around one-ish," but exactly at 1:10 p.m.?
If you're going to go that exact, why not have the seconds in there? It's ridiculously specific for no reason whatsoever.
I don't even recall the time the Babies! were born. I recall it was "sometime on the day they were born," and I'm lucky to remember that, because for two years, I'd routinely give people the wrong day -- for some reason I remembered their birthday as September 6, not September 5, their actual birthday. (Now, when you ask me, I recite "9-5-06" as quickly as I can, having memorized it that way to avoid screwing up in the future and giving them complexes.)
I have a theory, though, about why Robert Downey Jr.'s exact time of birth is noted, and it's this: Celebrities are sick of us regular people, and so they're going to distance themselves from us in any way they can.
They're doing this in response to articles like "Celebrities: They're Just Like Us!" in those gossip magazines Sweetie reads all the time: I think celebrities are aghast at the thought that we think they're just like us, and even more aghast at the fact that nowadays, "Stars" as used in things like "Dancing With The Stars" includes such obvious non-stars as "Erin Andrews" and "That Guy Who Went Into Space Who's Not Neil Armstrong" and "Kate Gosselin." Celebrities have looked at articles saying they're like us, and have looked at TV shows like Dancing With The Stars and have decided: Enough! We're NOT like you, and now they're setting out to prove it in any way they can.
They already live in gated communities, in California, where no regular people live, but that's not enough, so they're taking other steps.
They're taking other steps like starting up TV shows in which celebrities make fun of regular people ("The Marriage Ref") and they're arranging to have real celebrities call fake celebrities and remind the fake ones of their fake status (as Ellen did for that kid who sang Lady GaGa's song the other day), and they're no longer hooking up with regular people like they used to -- leading to huge catfights among people like Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson as they fight over the only single guy in Hollywood (Gerard Butler), and then they're doing even more subtle things, like, say,
promoting the fact that they were born at exactly 1:10 p.m. Right, Robert Downey, Jr.?
That helps separate him from us through this simple mechanism: By promoting the time of birth, people like me and you and Sweetie can no longer say we share a birthday with a celebrity. When we say, as I do every year, "Hey, I share a birthday with Gilligan!", celebrities, in the future, will say "Um, excuse me, common person who nobody cares about, but you don't share my birthday. I was born at 1:10 p.m. Were you born at 1:10 p.m.? I didn't think so. Now please shut up and get me my coffee."
Thanks to me, you'll know it's coming: The Day Celebrities Turn On Us. Because I cracked the code. Take that, Robert Downey Jr.!
Reason I Assumed Sweetie Liked Him: Like I said, Sweetie and I capped off our AnniversaryPalooza with a trip to see Iron Man 2 on the Imax, and then ordering pizza and deep-fried foods (Classically romantic -- that's us.) So I figured that when I told her to pick a real Hunk of the Week, she just went with "the movie star I saw most recently."
The Actual Reason Sweetie Likes Him: I thought that, that is, until I asked "Why him?" and Sweetie said, without hesitation, "He has a surprisingly good body."
Without hesitation.
Point I'd Like To Make About Sweetie's Actual Reason For Liking Him:
Simply put, if it happened between 2005 and now, Robert Downey Jr not only had something to do with it, but he was also critically acclaimed for whatever it was he had to do with it.
That alone might have gotten him chosen for the coveted 62nd Hunk of the Week when I nixed Sweetie's first choice.
Sweetie's first choice was me, but I told her that she couldn't pick me as a Hunk of the Week. Sweetie was trying, I think, to be nice and romantic because it was our 10th Anniversary this week, and I made our 10th Anniversary very special for Sweetie -- I even (I don't mean to brag here)(well, I do mean to brag, a little) I even got her a carpet steamer, although technically that was a gift for both of us, because I waived my usual present in honor of our anniversary: I told Sweetie that instead of a contribution to the Piano Tuning Fund, I wanted "one-half of a carpet steamer."
I wanted that because I knew that Sweetie would then want the other half of a carpet steamer. I knew that because I knew that Sweetie actually wanted a whole carpet steamer, as Sweetie is frequently thrown into despair by the state of our carpeting, which used to be colors like "blue" and "white," and now is colors like "ground-in-chocolate-chip-cookie" and "something the cat threw up." So for our anniversary, I said that I wanted Sweetie to get me one-half of a carpet steamer.
And, bowled over by the sheer romance of that, Sweetie then tried to pay me back by naming me the Hunk of the Week, but I had to decline the honor, mostly out of respect for the post of Hunk of the Week, and partly out of respect for the fact that I'm not really able to suck in my stomach enough in photos anymore to qualify as a Hunk of the Week.
So I told Sweetie to pick a different Hunk, and said that if she didn't, I would choose the Hunk. She then blurted out "Robert Downey, Jr,"
which I assumed was mainly because we'd just seen Iron Man 2 last night -- part of AnniversaryGanza -- but also a little because Robert Downey, Jr., is in everything. (I think he's actually the model for Booberry now, too.)
Thing That Makes You Go Hmmm About Him: You maybe think I'm kidding about him having been in everything in the past 5 years, but he's been in 16 movies in that time, and has another 6 or so scheduled to come out in the next 3 years, all of which isn't the thing that makes me go Hmmm about him.
Nor is the thing that makes me go Hmmm about him all that stuff about how for a while there he was always being arrested or was on drugs or in jail or dead or something. That's just America, nowadays; we've gotten away from the old ways of getting famous (being talented, working hard, sleeping with Orson Welles) and have now new ways of getting famous (having lots of babies, getting in legal/drug trouble and cleaning up, sleeping with anyone famous and then retaining Gloria Allred) and I'm okay with that, even though it means that I'll never myself be rich and famous because I can't have babies and I don't like Gloria Allred. That's our society now, and we're stuck with it for better or worse (worse.)
No, what makes me go Hmmm about Robert Downey Jr. is that on his IMDB page it notes that he was born at 1:10 p.m.
If I assume that the day someone is born is important -- because exactly one year later it marks their first birthday, and so on -- if I assume that, I'm still left wondering why is the exact minute of someone's birth important? Why isn't just the rough time of day that someone is born what's noted? Do we really need to know that Robert Downey Jr. was born not "in the afternoon" or "sometime that day" or even "around one-ish," but exactly at 1:10 p.m.?
If you're going to go that exact, why not have the seconds in there? It's ridiculously specific for no reason whatsoever.
I don't even recall the time the Babies! were born. I recall it was "sometime on the day they were born," and I'm lucky to remember that, because for two years, I'd routinely give people the wrong day -- for some reason I remembered their birthday as September 6, not September 5, their actual birthday. (Now, when you ask me, I recite "9-5-06" as quickly as I can, having memorized it that way to avoid screwing up in the future and giving them complexes.)
I have a theory, though, about why Robert Downey Jr.'s exact time of birth is noted, and it's this: Celebrities are sick of us regular people, and so they're going to distance themselves from us in any way they can.
They're doing this in response to articles like "Celebrities: They're Just Like Us!" in those gossip magazines Sweetie reads all the time: I think celebrities are aghast at the thought that we think they're just like us, and even more aghast at the fact that nowadays, "Stars" as used in things like "Dancing With The Stars" includes such obvious non-stars as "Erin Andrews" and "That Guy Who Went Into Space Who's Not Neil Armstrong" and "Kate Gosselin." Celebrities have looked at articles saying they're like us, and have looked at TV shows like Dancing With The Stars and have decided: Enough! We're NOT like you, and now they're setting out to prove it in any way they can.
They already live in gated communities, in California, where no regular people live, but that's not enough, so they're taking other steps.
They're taking other steps like starting up TV shows in which celebrities make fun of regular people ("The Marriage Ref") and they're arranging to have real celebrities call fake celebrities and remind the fake ones of their fake status (as Ellen did for that kid who sang Lady GaGa's song the other day), and they're no longer hooking up with regular people like they used to -- leading to huge catfights among people like Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson as they fight over the only single guy in Hollywood (Gerard Butler), and then they're doing even more subtle things, like, say,
promoting the fact that they were born at exactly 1:10 p.m. Right, Robert Downey, Jr.?
That helps separate him from us through this simple mechanism: By promoting the time of birth, people like me and you and Sweetie can no longer say we share a birthday with a celebrity. When we say, as I do every year, "Hey, I share a birthday with Gilligan!", celebrities, in the future, will say "Um, excuse me, common person who nobody cares about, but you don't share my birthday. I was born at 1:10 p.m. Were you born at 1:10 p.m.? I didn't think so. Now please shut up and get me my coffee."
Thanks to me, you'll know it's coming: The Day Celebrities Turn On Us. Because I cracked the code. Take that, Robert Downey Jr.!
Reason I Assumed Sweetie Liked Him: Like I said, Sweetie and I capped off our AnniversaryPalooza with a trip to see Iron Man 2 on the Imax, and then ordering pizza and deep-fried foods (Classically romantic -- that's us.) So I figured that when I told her to pick a real Hunk of the Week, she just went with "the movie star I saw most recently."
The Actual Reason Sweetie Likes Him: I thought that, that is, until I asked "Why him?" and Sweetie said, without hesitation, "He has a surprisingly good body."
Without hesitation.
Point I'd Like To Make About Sweetie's Actual Reason For Liking Him:
Consider this: When I said "Why?" about Robert Downey, Jr., Sweetie said: "He has a surprisingly good body." And nothing else.
I then told Sweetie to write that down, as I was going to take Mr F and Mr Bunches on our Saturday Adventure before I posted this, so I didn't want to forget it.
She wrote me a note and left it next to the 'puter, and now I'm home and doing this and the note says this: "Has a surprisingly good body and is funny."
Nice, isn't it? Sweetie is trying to cover for herself in a note, claiming after the fact that she also likes his sense of humor. A sense of humor that is amply on display below:
I'm sure that when Sweetie looked at that picture, she was only looking to see if Robert Downey, Jr., had just said something really funny, and not to see if that blanket was about to slip off.
1 comment:
You are saying Robert Downey Jn is not famous because he's talented? I beg to differ.
Anyway, very funny post, keep it going.
PS. It hasn't seemed like that he's been in everything to me, but like you said, many of those films haven't interested me.
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