It's All the Same; Only the Names Will Change

First and foremost, I'd like to thank all the guest bloggers who've offered their services in my time of need, AKA the month of September. If you still haven't submitted you still have time. If you still want to submit and just haven't contacted me yet, you can do that, too.

My first guest post comes to you courtesy of the always interesting, MCF, Enjoy!

I don't know anyone who enjoys tuning in to his or her favorite program, only to find it has been interrupted for a special news bulletin, preempted by another program, or that some sporting event ran into overtime.

It seems especially frequent in the Summer that the Sunday TV listings
won't match what's actually on by the middle of the week. I've lost count of
how many times I thought I was taping The Inside only to later find half of So You Think You Can Dance and a Bernie Mac Show. Many of Janet's regular readers may now be wondering, "This is not my regularly scheduled blog. This is not my beautiful hostess. MCF? How did he get here??" Guest-blogging was a task I approached with caution. You normally read the wit and wisdom of a teacher whose slogan includes the phrase, "I find most people to be disappointing".

I've spent YEARS of my life disappointing teachers. Nevertheless, I decided to take a stab at writing a guest post.Once I decided to write something, my next challenge was determining what that something would be. I could write about New Jersey, but would my thoughts on Kevin Smith or Bon Jovi do either the state or this site justice? It's interesting that a director and a musician are the first things that come to mind, especially when the musician is no stranger to acting as well. The only film I've seen Jon Bon Jovi in was the powerful
Pay It Forward, but he seems to have a few more acting credits under his belt as well, including a starring role in the upcoming National Lampoon's The Trouble With Frank. With David Faustino working again, I know that's going to be good.

Of course, Bon Jovi isn't the first singer to make the transition to Hollywood. Maybe Elvis started the trend, although the snippets of his movies I've seen over the years always seemed to be him singing the song for which the film itself was named. Hoboken's own Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack made their share of movies. As the original Danny Ocean, Old Blue-Eyes starred alongside legends like The Joker and
Mr. Roper. While the origins of such career shifts can be traced as far back as the '40s, I first noticed it much later, in the 1992 film Singles. Both the movie and the soundtrack prominently featured nearly every grunge band I was into at the time. I thrilled to see Eddie Vedder and the rest of my favorites in Pearl Jam spoof themselves as a struggling group known as "Citizen Dick", and
Alice in Chains performs an amazing rendition of their song "Would".

Singles FEATURED musicians, many if not all of whom portrayed themselves. I recently watched the film Constantine, and though I didn't realize it until I was listening to the commentary,
Gavin Rossdale had a somewhat prominent role as one of the villains of the piece. He looked really familiar the whole time, but I didn't place him as Bush's lead singer. I was certain he was some character actor I'd seen in another film, but since he only has four or five films to his credit, that's not the case. I can't think of many modern singers who've made a lot of movies. Hook is the only one of Phil Collins'
films that I've seen. And I'd be remiss not to mention Courtney
Love, who stretched her abilities to play an anorexic and promiscuous drug
addict leeching off her husband in The People Vs. Larry Flynt.

Probably the two biggest stars to make the leap from stage to screen are Mark Wahlberg and Will Smith. They've earned the right to not be called "Marky Mark" and the "Fresh Prince" with their work on the big screen, especially Smith. A few weeks ago I watched the vastly underrated Jersey Girl,
in which Ben Affleck's character makes the tragic mistake of underestimating just how big a star Will Smith will become, at a time when his movie career is just starting out. Somehow, I've brought things full circle to Kevin Smith after all. Incidentally, the movie also includes Jennifer Lopez, yet another multitalented star. I'm sure there are probably other actors and actresses who traded music careers for acting careers. Sinatra sings, then acts. Rossdale sings, then acts. It's the same story with different names. As for me, I'm going to rest now and dream about movies they won't make of me when I'm dead.

I'd like to thank Janet for this opportunity to guest post on her site, and I'd like to thank any readers who read this far. Peace.