Star Trek--What is a "Kirk?"

While the original Kirk was still something of a tail-chaser, the Kirk of the Star Trek remake was a pure, unadulterated frat boy. More specifically, he was an unlikeable, cliched, meat headed douche who was neither funny, nor charming, nor interesting, nor even a leader, for my count. Watching the movie, I kept thinking, if I knew this guy in real life, I would absolutely hate him. He would not be funny in real life. He would be terrible. Because of this, I am hereby creating a character archetype, called a "Kirk," that applies to a certain type of person. The question becomes: what is a Kirk?

A Kirk wears over-saturated cologne before going anywhere. Library? Cologne. Gym? Cologne. Theatre? Three helpings of cologne. He tells you exactly how many drinks he had the night before, and of which top shelf brands he guzzled from (listen for phrases like "I downed two bottles of the Goose," or "We were VIP last night--everything was free.") . At a pub or night spot, a Kirk wears a button-down with psuedo-gothic designs stitched on the back, gives every girl with a boyfriend a twice-over in the chesticle region, and likely gets into a shoving match with someone wearing a cast. We've seen people like this before. He's the guy from the "Jaega' Bombs" youtube video. He's the guy with the barbed wire tattoo on his bicep and the Chinese tattoo across his back that means "Bravery," even though he's never experienced conflict in his life. A Kirk wears dog tags without having served in the military. A Kirk balances aviator sunglasses on the back of his neck, and if his hair is long enough, will meticulously gel each strand of hair into "bad ass" spikes. He not only goes tanning religiously, but sends no look text messages on his Blackberry the entire time he's inside. In short, a Kirk is the guy that all of us regular guys can't believe is a real person, yet somehow is, and we are supposed to root for him in this movie. Yes, he is supposed to be our hero. Some people are tricked by this. Because of the way the camera zooms in on his face, because of the heroic music, because of the manufactured twinkle in his eye and the recognizable Federation uniform, some people in the audience love this Kirk. "He's hilarious!" they might say. "He's cute!" shouts a random teenager hanging out of a car. O.K.--no he's not. You meet this guy on the street, at a diner, at a bus stop, at the theatre, you will be vomiting your guts out. He's a cross between Iceman doing the "air bite" in the Top Gun locker room and Keanu Reeves shaking rain out of his hair and loading a shotgun at the beginning of Point Break. Keep in mind, Kirks are everywhere in this world. Next time you're outside, and an overly tanned, muscular twenty something runs by with jogging shorts, gelled hair, an ipod shuffle velcroed around his bicep, and a Korean tattoo on his left deltoid that means "sacrifice," just know one thing: Captain Kirk is all too real.

From now on, keep a lookout for the Kirks of the world. Keep a scorecard. How many did you see in one week? What were they wearing? What were they doing? Can we fit them all into a large island zoo, or are there too many? These are questions...important questions that need answering.