Nerd Man of the Month: Nathan Fillion

This past week, People Magazine -- also known as The Big Book of Pictures -- named Matt Damon its annual Sexiest Man Alive. Far more important, however, was the ranking on page 144 wherein they included Nathan Fillion in their "Domestic Bliss" section, which was nestled between their Men in Sexy Places section and their Sexy and Shirtless section, neither of which I looked through seven or eight times.

There are two significant facts you should know about Nathan's inclusion in the "Domestic Bliss" section. One, he gave the best quote in the whole magazine: "There are black widow spiders in my backyard, coyotes walking down the streets, killer bees, rattlesnakes -- there's so much around L.A. that'll kill you!" And second, his glamor shot was one of the worst Photoshopped images I've ever seen. Don't the editors of People Magazine know the cardinal rule? You don't Photoshop Nathan Fillion's face. In fact, I'm fairly certain that was one of the original Ten Commandments: When thine Canadian Nathan Fillion appears unto you, thou shalt not ruin his prettiness with thine Erase tool.* Right?

In order to defray the sadness of the poorly Photoshopped Nathan, The Park Bench is naming him its November Nerd Man of the Month. We have bestowed this honor upon him for other significant reasons as well including the fact that:

He can fly a space ship. How cool is that?


Okay, he might not actually know how to fly a space ship, but I bet he knows people who can.

Also, he's a terrific, under-appreciated actor who shines in anything he does, from his days as Captain Mal in "Firefly" to his appearances in "Lost" and "Buffy" to his role as a sweet, confused and sympathetic ob/gyn in "Waitress" to his role as a sweet, confused and sympathetic ob/gyn in "Desperate Housewives" (I'm sensing a pattern here) to his hilarious yet heroic turn (he battled a deranged deer!!) as Bill Pardy in "SLiTHER."


And most important of all, the man's damn funny. Just check out his three faces of soap opera acting:



For all this and yes, for his ability to wear tight pants, we bestow our shallow Park Bench love on Nathan Fillion and welcome him to the Nerd Man pantheon.

*The rule was amended years later to read: Thou shalt not Photoshop Nathan Fillion unless it's to make it look like he was your date at the senior prom. As the Pope said at the time, "That's just common sense."

Nerd Man of the Month: James Gunn

When you cower at the thought of giant alien slugs trying to pry their way into Nathan Fillion's orifices or when you've had three bottles of Boone's Farm and spend the entire night watching and re-watching Sarah Michelle Gellar in Scooby-Doo or when you accidentally wet yourself in fear while watching Dawn of the Dead, who do you blame? I actually can't answer that for you, but I can tell you who you should be blaming. That'd be James Gunn, writer, director, occasional actor and recipient of the prized Nerd Man of the Month honor for July.

If you're married to my husband like I am, then you've probably seen a lot of James Gunn's work because, seriously, we have quite the extensive collection (sans Scooby Doo). We've got Gunn's masterwork, Slither, a very funny, very scary film and very gross film featuring the aforementioned slugs and the aforementioned Nathan Fillion. We've got Dawn of the Dead, a recent classic addition to the zombie hall of fame. (Which is located right next door to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It's weird, I know.) We've had Tromeo and Juliet, described on imdb as "a modern punk adaptation of Shakespeare's classic," which, uh, doesn't really do it justice. I think we may have lost that one. On purpose. Don't tell my husband. And we've got Lollilove, starring James and written and directed by his wife, Jenna Fischer of The Office. Gunn is hilarious as one half of a self-centered Hollywood couple who decide to help homeless people by giving them lollipops. It's one of the meanest, funniest movies I've seen in ages and is highly recommended.

Gunn earns July's top nerdy honor, too, because of his wickedly funny blog, which I've mentioned in previous posts. If you ever wanted to know what it's like to interview a prostitute in Amsterdam or get a bug trapped in your ear or how many times you can reasonably use the word "motherfucker" and all its derivations in a sentence, James is your man. Also, he's good to dogs and his brother is Sean Gunn from the late, lamented Gilmore Girls. So for all the people who find my blog by googling "Sean Gunn's chest," now you know who Sean Gunn's chest's brother is, too.

Now let's all go watch Slither. Fillion wrassles a slug-possessed deer!