Sunday 22 January 2012

People I Love

<This should be a post entitled Being Awesome; Part 4 but I'm colossally hungover, due to awesomeness so here's the post I would have posted on Tuesday>

I few months back I wrote a list of people I hate. That was a lot of fun because frankly there are few things more cathartic than metaphorically throwing rocks at bastards, well other than actually throwing rocks at bastards but that’s not as consequence free. However I’ve always been against unnecessarily increasing the amount of bile in the world so I thought I’d redress the balance by running through a few of my heroes.

Neil Patrick Harris
Only image I could find
where he's not wearing
a suit.
I’m pretty sure that it’s illegal to write an internet article about awesome people without including NPH. This choice might seem like a tired cliché/meme to some of you, but hey the reason Starbucks is so successful is because they make good coffee, the reason NPH is so beloved is due to his consistently high levels of awesome. Now on this Sceptred Isle I call home Doogie Howser was never broadcast so I didn’t have a clue who NPH was when I first saw Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies, or Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle as it was called in the States… we don’t have White Castle here. As with most of the American “culture” that has passed me by I was of course aware of Doogie due to the multitude of references to it in the shows I do watch. Anyhow it was a while into the film before they referenced the show so for the first portion I was at a loss as to who this maniac was, other than he played the character of white guy in Undercover Brother… which I liked… really… yeah well fuck you to. So I was just enjoying the insanely accomplished performance of an out of control rockstar style minor celebrity, then I learnt he was a former child star and hadn’t overdosed yet and I was twice as impressed The reasons for thinking this man is awesome are numerous, he plays the best character in How I Met Your Mother, he was Doctor Horrible, he’s a committed family man dedicated to his two children in a way that’s just spiffy, he sings, he dances, he does magic and in every single interview I’ve seen him in he exudes an easy charm that puts him real high on my list of people I want to go drinking with.

Nathan Fillion
This is just how he dresses.
The Fillion played Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly. I could in all honesty end this part of the article there because if you don’t think that’s a good enough reason for him to be on this list then I don’t want you here you’re banned. Get the fuck out. If you’re still here and you don’t agree with me you are currently stealing my words with your eyes, you thieving prick. In addition to being the leading man in the finest show ever cancelled, Fillion is also Rick Castle in Castle the finest addition to the detective show genre since Diagnosis Murder, and I don’t say that lightly. He was also Captain Hammer. Again however it’s not the roles he’s played that win this man my allegiance it’s the fact that he’s chosen to play roles that carry with them a certain amount of risk. It’s also the fact that in everyone of the varied roles I’ve seen him bring to life on the big and small screen it’s clear that this man is having a fucking blast in his chosen profession. He is living the dream and he is humble and grateful. For that I will always love him… and he was Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

Felicia Day
I'm not going to go into massive
detail about the exact way my
Felicia Day shrine is built... but
after I've kidnapped her I'm sure
it'll make her love me.
This is kind of turning into a love letter to the cast of Doctor Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog isn’t it. The reason that the lovely Miss Day makes this list is not due to any particularly notable performance, she’s been in Buffy and turned up in minor roles in a whole bunch of other bits and pieces. She’s a quintessential ‘that girl’ actress. You know the ones when your watching something and every second she’s on screen all you’re thinking is “What the cunting hell do I know her from?” until the finally it hits you remember she was the murderer in a episode of CSI or something. Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a fine way to earn a crust, but there has to be something more to elevate her on to this list. There is. I’m a geek and Felicia Day is our queen. She has her own show it’s called The Guild, it’s not on TV it’s entirely broadcast online for free and it’s all about a group of online gamers. Felicia writes, stars and directs proving that she’s not just some poser trying to cash in on geek culture but someone who actually loves it and knows it. She’s turned what she’s passionate about into a marketable product. I think it’s also important to note at this point that The Guild is funny as balls. It’s made me shoot liquid out of my nose on three separate occasions… and on one of those I wasn’t even drinking anything. She’s a writer first and as such the best lines tend to go to other characters… namely Vork who is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time. Felicia makes this list because she’s managed to turn being a geek into a livelihood and she did it in an incredibly positive way. Anyway I promise that I’m done with the cast of the Doctor Horrible.

Joss Whedon
This man has made more people cry
than rape flashbacks... too much?
I didn’t say anything about the crew though. Joss Whedon is the creative genius behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Doctor Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog and is at the helm of The Avengers movie being released later this year. That’s a resume that demands a little respect I think we can all agree. Buffy is one of the all time greatest TV shows ever, I seriously love Buffy… well I love Buffy’s friends Buffy’s a bit whiny really. Firefly is a show I love so hard it’s kind of painful, there were only fourteen episodes so I watch it as a set and every time I reach the final episode it cuts like a knife that I don’t have anymore to watch. What I love about Joss, other than his work, is that he’s a fighter. When he saw Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the film) for the first time he cried because they’d ruined his film. Did he lay down and take it, no he made a series. When Angel got cancelled did he lay down and take it no he kept it going as a comic book. When the writer’s strike was happening he made Doctor Horrible and put it online for free, just for something to fill the time. When they cancelled Firefly he got a film made of it. On a side note if I ever meet the guy from Fox who keeps cancelling Joss’s stuff I’m going to have invent new words for the pain I’ll inflict upon him, he is definitely a massive wanker. Now Joss is working with Marvel a group of people who appreciate his work, who like his comics and more importantly realise that their fan-base will turn on them if the decide to cancel on him.

Professor Brian Cox.
More successful, better looking,
smarter and probably richer than
you... he's also much nicer as well
Most well known for his role as a keyboard player for seminal nineties bad D-Ream, Brian Cox also dabbles in Science. For those who don’t know Brian Cox is the greatest scientist in the world when it comes to staring wistfully into the night sky. He also a real, proper scientist, he probably has his own lab-coat and everything. Unlike many Science presenters throughout the years Cox actually works at CERN, where they fiddle with the nature of reality to see what will happen, and is very much this generations Carl Sagan. What makes Cox so brilliant to me is what makes all the best science communicators good, he can take something you see every day be it the light of the sun, the sky at night or simply the matter that makes up our universe and make you see it anew. He sees the world, and encourages you to see it with him, with a wide-eyed wonder that rather than being born from child like naivety is born from a fantastic understanding of just how lucky we are to be part of such an extraordinary and fantastic cosmos. His ability to explain the world around us on a deeper and more meaningful level that in no way diminishes its beauty but in fact increases it is truly a wonder of the universe. He also managed to explain one of the things about physics that has baffled me for most of my life in A Night with the Stars, so that’s pretty awesome.

Lady Gaga.
Most normal image I could find
Yes, really. First of all I believe that the Gaga may be a musical genius, even if she’s not my particular genus of caffeine heavy plant life I can recognise what she does as the very heights of her chosen art. In addition to this her antics are funnier than watching Nick Clegg fall into a pit of rusty razor blades. First off she’s managed to become the biggest recording artist in the world right now and yet if she fancies it she can still pop to shops without being hassled by using the simple disguise of not dressing like a lunatic, seriously if I asked you to describe her you’d start with blonde and then have to focus on her clothing choices. Secondly there is the speech she gave at a rally to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Which you can watch here. Go and watch that. If she isn’t a hero of yours as well then you are probably a homophobe and therefore a faggot. In addition I’d like to say that her ladyship has used her position in the media spotlight to at least spread a positive message, while Beyonce is all “All men are tossers” and Britney is trying to show the world a new definition of “fucking mental”, the Gaga is all about being true to yourself and not worrying what others say about you even if you’ve got a lobster on your face.

John Cheese
This is his profile picture
over at cracked.com... not
sure if he's the clown or
the other person.
I know what you’re thinking, who the shit-balls is John Cheese? Well I shall tell you. John is one of the writers over at cracked.com. Cracked.com is just about the funniest thing on the entire internet and recovering alcoholic John Cheese is their funniest writer. Even if you don’t know of Cracked.com specifically you’ve probably read one of their articles at some point there the ones that run “9 Greatest Last Words”, “6 Animals That Are Smarter Than You” or “7 Most Inventive Uses of Racial Slurs In Children’s Fiction”. Now when I say that John’s a recovering alcoholic I don’t mean that as a joke, I mean that in the he used to drink so much it’s a miracle he’s alive and that his children aren’t in federal custody. John’s written several humorous list style articles about addiction and his early life which is laughably miserable. I say laughable because I’ve never read a single thing he’s written that hasn’t made me laugh, a lot, his YouTube videos from when he was first getting sober are some of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. What elevated him from the position of funniest man on the internet to godhood though was the hero move he pulled off when he proposed to his girlfriend, he’d spent years previously saying that marriage wasn’t for him then he wrote an article enumerating the signs that you should probably get married, at the end of it he proposed… in an article he was paid to write. The final line of the article in case you didn’t follow the link, either because you’re a hateful person, a dumbass or I dunno religious reasons, the final couple of lines read.

“… Oh. Well, I guess when I put it that way, I’m actually kind of surprised we aren’t already married by now. I can be kind of a dumbass from time to time.
Emily Clark, will you marry me?
Update:She said yes. Which is a relief because it means I don’t have to fist-fight her now.”

That right there is a series of sentences that prove this man is a legend.

Wil Wheaton
These image searches are kind of a
hit or miss thing, but I've genuinely
never found an image as rocking as
this
Think what you like of Wesley Crusher, because frankly that character was a fucking tool, but the actor who portrayed him is an awesome chap. Wil Wheaton has crept into the collective consciousness of the internet over the last few years through a series of incredibly smart choices. First off Wil Wheaton is a good friend of Gabe and Tycho over at Penny Arcade, who only didn’t make this list because gushing about them twice in such rapid succession is kind of sad, which would have been enough to get him on this list. However there is more. First of let’s address the Crusher issue. Yes the character sucked but when you were a kid would you have turned down a role on Star Trek? Of course not you can’t hold it against him anymore than you can hold Phantom Menace against Liam Neeson. Right so lets run through the stuff that makes this guy awesome, his performance as evil Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory is fantastic and proves the man has a great sense of humour and his performance in The Guild is equally awesome, he brews his own beer, he allows the Bloggess to use an image of him collating paper to annoy those who try to get her to do their free advertising. Wheaton has spent the last few years, writing, blogging and championing a metric fuck-ton of good causes. I recommend adding him to your twitter feed... I mean after you add me to your twitter feed that is... @eddiezdi.

Simon Pegg
Comic book artist, zombie hunter,
action-hero, Star Fleet engineer
and friend of Steven Spielberg.
To say I've followed Simon Pegg's career with interest would be the understatement of the century, admittedly it's only just over eleven years into this century so it's not that major a claim. I remember seeing Pegg doing stand-up on TV during the first couple of years of his career as a professional mirth-maker. He then moved on to work on one of the greatest sketch-shows of all time, Big Train. After that though he made Spaced. Spaced was the first ever show that actually spoke to me, I first saw it while I was at University. At that point a comedy show about a group of young adults who clearly had no idea how the world worked was perfect for me. Throw in the exactly right combination of misadventure, geekiness and drugs and this shambolic tale of idiots building a slapdash family unit is easily my favourite show ever made. However I've singled out Pegg over all the others involved in this show because of three over things, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Paul. Those three films are all in my top twenty, one of them is in my top three. In addition to that Pegg has a habit of doing the jobs that you know he's wanted to do since childhood. If you believe that the first time he ever put on a Star Trek uniform was for the film then I don't think you know the man. I've also met him on two occasions and he was a thoroughly lovely man, he appreciates his fans in the way that only a geek can, he knows what's it like to queue up for six hours to meet your hero because he's done it himself and that's why I love the man.

Stephen Fry
Pictured: England.
If you're reading this and you are from the UK I don't really need to explain to you what it is about Stephen Fry that makes him a hero, a legend and a national treasure. I could write an entire article in praise of this man's wit, wisdom, near photographic memory or just the warmth he displays when communicating with those of lesser intelligence, i.e. everyone, but none of that is the reason why he's my personal hero. The reason for that is that Mr Fry suffers from depression and is open about the subject. He made a documentary about it a few years back and it helped drag the subject out into the light of day. You see depression is a filthy, horrible disease that thrives on darkness and every time someone is made even the tiny bit more willing to discuss it with anyone then it helps to fight it. Fry has been tireless in his support of various charities and groups that aim to help people to fight against mental illness. It is very difficult to talk about depression it takes a lot of strength to break through that wall but Fry realised that by doing so that he could help others and that why he made this list of awesome folk.

1 comment:

  1. I was quite excited about your intention to "run through" some of your heroes. Then I realised what you meant.

    And Doogie Bowser was broadcast over here. I distinctly remember watching it as a child. That said, you are a few years younger than me. Might have been before your time.

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