Is Contra Costa’s Sexiest Man Alive the Mayor of Claycord?

Move over George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and the perenially shirtless Matthew McConaughey. There could very well be a new guy, right here in our East Bay suburbs, who could push any of you off the cover of People magazine’s next Sexiest Man Alive issue.

Yes, I’m seriously beginning to wonder if a certain local blogger qualifies for this nationwide distinction. And, come on, some of you Ladies out there—and you Gents, who are so inclined—haven’t you also been wondering something along these lines?

Here’s my take on all this:

I was home sick Monday with a cold. To divert my attention from my sore throat and sniffles, I decided to watch something on TV starring a favorite Hollywood heartthrob. Curled up on the couch in my old sweatpants (I probably should say black lace teddy), I began to surf all those cable channels I rarely get a chance to visit. There was the above-mentioned George Clooney in an ER re-run, an episode I had seen before. I could have popped in one of my Russell Crowe DVDs—Crowe in tough-but-tender Gladiator and LA Confidential mode—but I was feeling too head-clogged to raise myself up from the couch to go searching through my special DVD stash. So, I searched Turner Classic Movies for a favorite old movie starring Gable, Bogart, or Brando.

Still, no luck.

So I picked up my laptop and began surfing local news websites and blogs in case there was anything worth blogging about.

And what do I come across? The Contra Costa Times profile of the Mayor of Claycord and the description of him as the mysterious, elusive author of the popular Claycord.com, which gets 3,000 hits a day. And then there was his online chat with Times readers.

I know this might sound loopy, but I thought, wow, a new local heartthrob was born.

Yes, I realize that a guy who apparently spends a lot of his day listening to a police scanner and gets all hot and bothered about “new crosswalks in Pleasant Hill” and other guys getting “tasered by police in Concord” might be a dweeb or a bit twisted. But, for now, I'm more than willing to put aside those initial impressions, and look at other qualities the Mayor possesses that give him People cover boy potential. Specifically, let's consider these qualities in terms of evolutionary biology and what women are hard-wired to crave in a man.

--First, when it comes to principles of natural selection and mating, women crave a man who has power. Look at even dweebie-looking guys who have attained power in their respective professions—rich guys, rock stars, and celebrities. Look how they end up getting hot-looking younger women to marry them and even bear their offspring. Donald Trump, Howard Stern, Mick Jagger, to name just a few. These men have power in terms of fame, talent, influence, and money.

(And, by the way, Mayor, I’m in no way suggesting you are dweebie-looking, I’m just trying to make a larger point about how a man's display of power can tantalize the female of the species).

--Okay, I’m not sure about the money part with regard to the Mayor. I did hear some rumor that he's a trust fund brat, or he cashed in on Google stock way back when. But even if he isn't Donald Trump rich, and even if he is just an "ordinary" citizen like the rest of us, he definitely has power in terms of fame, talent, and influence--certainly in the East Bay suburbs. Remember, also, there was that effort to draft him to run for president of the United States.

He gets all these visitors to his site and people commenting on his blog. He's even got Concord Mayor Laura Hoffmeister apparently spending an entire three-day weekend reading his blog, looking for clues to his true identity. And you know, unlike the Mayor of Claycord, I have never personally met or chatted with Mayor Hoffmeister. But, if I could coax her to a bar and feed her a couple Cosmopolitans, I bet she would spill her guts about her fascination for--and maybe even crush on--the Mayor of Claycord.

--And speaking of Hoffmeister's facination with the Mayor's true identity, this brings us to another key component of the Mayor's appeal. He is the Man of Mystery. More than Jane Eyre's Byronic man-with-a-deep-dark-secret Edward Rochester, the Mayor carries with him that deeply guarded sense of anonymity that women want to unlock and be privy to.

--He's married. Or so he claims with his occasional references to Mrs. Mayor, and to the Times’ reference to his two kids. Hmm. I hate to accuse the Mayor of fudging on his marital status, but there's this part of me that wonders whether he is one of those guys you hear about: These are the cute guys at the office who are really single but who wear wedding rings because they figure it’s a turn-on for some of their female coworkers. These men know there are women who tend to go for married, unavailable men, either because of their own lack of self-esteem, or because they get turned on by the excitement of a forbidden affair, and, like the faux married guy they hook up with, these women aren't really looking for a long-term commitment.

--He's friends with cops, especially members of the Concord SWAT team, as shown by this story he posted back in September of his hunky SWAT friends in SWAT training. Speaking for myself, ever since seeing Keanu Reeves costumed in that SWAT team outfit when he played a cop in the 1994 action blockbuster Speed, I get weak in the knees whenever I see a cop in a SWAT team outfit. Personally, I've never seen the Mayor in a SWAT team outfit, but the thought of that image is pretty, uh, exciting.

-- The Mayor has his bad boy side, which definitely came out when he poked fun at Ruth Carver, the Walnut Creek mom who was trying to move several schools from the Mt. Diablo Unified School District into the Walnut Creek and Acalanes school districts.

--Ultimately, the Mayor has his sensitive, humble, and socially responsible side as well, shown, for example, by his expressions of concern about Katie Grace Groebner, the young girl who suffers from a rare disorder and needs a heart-and-lung transplant. Or his statements to the Times that he’s not a “big wig. … I’m just a regular guy.” And his proclamations in the same interview about how he started Claycord.com “because I love the community, and was never in it for the money. I started it just to keep the community informed, and didn't see dollar signs.”

--And, finally,the Mayor has a sense of humor, a quality in a man that us gals should never discount. In fact, I believe a shared sense of humor is the key to finding one's soul mate. The Mayor's playful sense of humor has shown up when he runs videos like “Stupid Kids Do Stupid Things at Sunvalley." Or when he talks about trying not to take any of this Claycord.com blogging business too seriously.

--And, really, finally, he'd be tech savvy enough to figure out a way to Photoshop his own mystery sillhouette onto the above People magazine cover. Women like men who are good with those technical things.