I Love Television™

I pop a boner for vampires—we hold this truth to be
self-evident. As you already know, I spend an inordinate amount of time
in this column fetishizing all sorts of monsters, but vampires are, for
my money, the most boner-ific. The reasons for their immense
boner-osity are as follows: (1) They are often swarthy Europeans. (2)
They turn into bats. (3) They have bizarre hypno-powers used to
convince chicks to sleep with them. (4) They stay up late. (5) They can
only be killed by a stake through the heart, whereas I can be killed
any number of ways, including stepping on a rusty nail or eating
Totino’s pizzas and ice cream for lunch every day.

On the other hand, vampires also have their downsides—or
“boner-killers” if you prefer—and they are as follows: (1) They
have weird teeth. (2) They drink blood, instead of more delicious
bodily fluids. (3) Some—like the vampires of
Twilight—have sparkly skin, which is gay in a bad way. As
in the super unsexy “rainbow flag/teddy bear dressed in leather” kind
of gay. (4) They sleep in coffins. Again, gay. (5) They are often
annoyingly pale. Is it going to kill them to visit a tanning bed now
and then? Hmmm… maybe it would.

OOOH! But I almost forgot the most boner-tastic thing about
vampires! Because they never age, they can smooch teenagers and never,
ever be put on any sexual predator list. If they were, can you imagine
the kind of awkward conversations we’d find ourselves in? “Hi, my name
is Angel, and state law requires me to inform you that I’m moving into
your neighborhood, and I’m a sexual predator. Oh. And a vampire.
Soooooo… can I borrow your lawn mower?”

Anyway! I’m super excited because there’s a new show debuting this
week called The Vampire Diaries (The CW, Thurs Sept 10, 8 pm),
and it’s already giving me such a boner, I may have to get jaw surgery.
(Because… you know… my boner keeps bumping into my jaw, and… aw,
forget it.)

Based on the squealingly good young adult book series of the same
name, The Vampire Diaries tells the story of high school gal
Elena Gilbert who falls for swarthy European classmate Stefan
Salvatore, who occasionally grows fangs and flaps around like a bat.
Their romance is complicated by the following facts: (1) She has blood.
(2) He likes to suck blood. (3) Stefan’s brother Damon—also
swarthy, also European, also a vampire—is a real dick who gets a
boner for Elena as well.

And while The Vampire Diaries may be wildly similar in tone
to a kajillion other vampire projects, there are critical differences,
which are as follows: (1) No bad gay sparkly skin. (2) It’s written and
produced by Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson’s Crack)
which means the dialogue is funny and goes snappity, snap, snap! (3)
It’s on TV—which means I don’t have to wait two years to get my
Twilight tweetarded tingles. (4) I’ll have to get eye surgery
every week. (Because… you know…my boner will keep sticking in my
eye, and… AWW FORGET IT!!!)