5 Sweet Rock Star Movie Appearances

Okay, I’ll admit that musicians aren’t necessarily the best actors (hell, a lot of actors aren’t always the best actors), but that doesn’t change the fact that it can be a lot of fun when they surprise us in movies.  Lars Ulrich did this recently when he appeared in Get Him to the Greek and that’s what motivated me to come up with this list.  Unfortunately, Ulrich didn’t make the cut, and neither did Jared Leto (for all you Leto-lovers out there), who was an actor before he started wearing too much eyeliner and holding a guitar while yelling.

Keep in mind that this isn’t technically a list of “cameos” because some of them have actual roles, but you’re not allowed to complain because the title uses the word “appearances.”  They’re ranked by a mixture of surprise factor, performance, film quality, and which movies my dog likes the most (mostly that last one).

5. Flea in The Big Lebowski

Youtube being what it is, I wasn’t able to find any good videos of Flea’s scenes, but if you pause this video at 48 seconds you’ll be able to check him out.  See that little guy on the far right?  He might not look like much, but that’s 5’6″ of pure musical talent.  Yes, the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers has about 28 total seconds of screen time, but it’s just enough for us to hear him say “Ya, odervise ve kill de girl” in a horrendous German accent and shortly thereafter get nailed in the stomach with a bowling ball.  It’s not much, but let’s be honest, 28 seconds is a lot more attention than bassists normally get.

4. Billy Idol in The Wedding Singer

I find that the less popular the movie, the easier it is to find clips from said movie on Youtube.  So let’s just say there was plenty to choose from when it came to The Wedding Singer.  But at least it means you actually get to watch the appearance!  Actually, as far as cameos go, this is a pretty good one, especially for a rock star.  Billy Idol does a pretty good job in his role as Billy Idol — the smooth talking, down-to-earth celebrity with overactive eyebrows, especially considering he had to do that whole scene with a champagne bottle glued to his hand.  Ah, the sacrifices some make for art.  Enjoy the clip, but try not to look directly at Adam Sandler’s Jericurl mullet.  You might go blind.

3. David Bowie in The Prestige

It was pretty obvious that David Bowie was going to make this list.  As far as rock stars go, he’s been in the most films and is, to be honest, probably the most talented actor of the bunch.  The tough part was trying to decide which appearance is his personal best.  Between films like Labrynth, The Last Temptation of Christ,  Zoolander, The Prestige, and SpongeBob’s Atlantis SquarePantis, it was a really tough decision.  But I had to go with The Prestige.  Why?  Well, for one, I haven’t seen a lot of the other movies, but mostly it was the terrible Russian accent coming from the hole underneath that awesome ‘stache.  And I fall in love all over again every time he says “Hold out other hand.”  *swoon*

2. Bruce Springsteen in High Fidelity

At this point you might be thinking to yourself, “Why is a John Cusack movie ranked so high on this list?”  Well partly because of this, but also because of the above cameo.  You’d expect some surprise visits from musicians in a movie almost entirely about one dude’s obsession with music, but Bruce Springsteen literally comes out of nowhere.  In fact, he’s a figment of John Cusack’s imagination, which makes it even more literal.  The performance itself is a little rough (you can tell that someone had to tell him to “slow down” and to “try not to mumble” and “stop noodling” between takes), but star factor is enough to give The Boss a silver medal in this competition.

1. Meatloaf in Fight Club

If there’s one way you can tell I didn’t rank these appearances in order of musical ability, it’s that Meatloaf has highest spot on the list (though I’m not sure he’d make the list at all if we were using that system).  Musical abilities aside, Fight Club allowed Meatloaf to step away from his everyday life of being a fat guy with giant man-tits in order to play a fat guy with giant man-tits and no testicles.  Seriously though, Meatloaf does a fantastic job and has, by far, the largest role of any rock star had in a must-see film.  On top of that, he even has a decent performance.  I guess that would earn him the top spot on this list.

His name is Robert Paulson…His name is Robert Paulson…His name is Robert Paulson…

8 Reasons Men REALLY Have Sex

If you happened to check out COED’s sister site CollegeCandy recently, you may have noticed a post entitled The 200+ Reasons Women Have Sex…and the 3 Reasons Men Do. The article’s author, a lovely young woman named Brittany, states quite succinctly that men only have sex for three reasons – the first being that we’re men (pretty obvious); the second being that, by nature, we’re braggarts (fair enough); and finally that we think with our penises (using a not-quite-fully-developed toy dog analogy).  After all, if anyone knows what it’s really like to be a dude and deeply understands our thought processes and motivations, it’s someone who has never owned a pair of testicles.  Apparently vaginas can read minds!

Seriously though, here are the real reasons guys have sex.  From a guy.  Who owns a penis.  And uses it.

1. We’re Virgins

For guys, being a virgin is one of the more socially stigmatizing and demoralizing things you could ever do to yourself.  Though it’s not a huge deal for the first fifteen or so years of your life, once you start hitting that second half of high school when all your friends are getting laid and you aren’t, you start wondering what’s wrong with you — and so do your friends.  For a lot of young men, having sex (with a girl) is seen as one of the first steps in growing up.  I won’t get into the moral and sociological implications of this phenomenon, but getting rid of that V-card is seen as something you want to do as soon as possible.  I know some guys (including myself) who didn’t particularly want to have sex when they were first presented with the opportunity, but went ahead with it anyway to get it over with.  Sure the experience was pretty terrible and lasted about 20 seconds, but at least I had done it and could move on with my life.

2. You’re Hot

I’ll admit that guys think about sex a lot (though not nearly as much as girls think we do), but what gets us started thinking about it is your giant rack and booty shorts.  Seriously, if you leave that apple pie out on the window sill I’m going to want to taste it.  Sure, sex is sex and we’ll take what we can get, but sex with a hot girl makes the experience so much more enjoyable.  It also lets us brag about you to our friends.  That’s why if you’re a hot and give us even the slightest indication you might be interested, we’ll do whatever we can to try to take you home with us.  No, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we think you’re hot if we sleep with you (they aren’t mutually exclusive), but being hot certainly makes us want to.

3. We’re Bored

Girls and guys are a lot different.  When girls are bored they go shopping or watch The Notebook or get a pedicure or talk about how handsome Brad Pitt is.  When guys are bored, we’ll do something with our dicks.  If we’re alone, we’ll jerk off.  If we’re with our girlfriend, we’ll try to convince her to let us bang her.  If we’re in class, maybe we’ll just fantasize about the TA.  Sex is just something for us to do and spices up the day a little bit.  It’s fun, it feels good, and it passes the time.  So if you’re a girl and a guy tells you he’s bored, he probably wants to bang you.  Keep that in mind.

4. You’re Better Than Our Hand

This one kind of falls in line with the previous entry, but is one I think even girls would understand.  Ladies, when you’re all horned up, would you rather play with whatever penis substitute you have lying around, or would you prefer the real thing?  It’s the same thing with dudes.  Yanking it is something that most of us do literally every single day.  After a while, it gets pretty boring.  We’re used to getting our rocks off daily, but sometimes we like to mix it up a bit by sleeping with a real live girl.  It makes us feel good about ourselves and it’s a lot more fun.

5. We’re Drunk

Oh, alcohol.  You make life so much more exciting.  Booze can lubricate a social situation like nobody’s business.  Maybe it helps you get the courage to talk to that girl you’ve been sharing eye contact with the entire party, maybe it helps you feel invincible enough to attempt to jump into your pool from the roof, and maybe it helps you stick your tongue down the throat of a platonic female friend or a complete stranger.  Why does being drunk make us want to sleep with everyone?  Who really knows, but the Mythbusters tell us that beer goggles actually exist, so let’s learn to embrace them.  Sure we might regret it in the morning, but drunk sex is just too much fun to ignore.

6. We’re Lonely

What?  Guys have feelings too?  While men might not be as insane as women, we certainly have emotions every once in a while.  Being lonely and depressed is one of them that can come out of nowhere, and having sex can actually be really helpful when it comes to putting us in a better move.  For dudes, sex isn’t always about immediate physical pleasure; it can really help balance out our emotions.  Think about it, isn’t sex the most intimate and private thing you can do with someone?  Being that close to a person and sharing that intimate experience can really help us cope with loneliness and get us out of whatever funk we’re in because it makes us feel like someone cares about us.  Even if we know that’s not necessarily true (see: Prostitutes), sex allows us to trick ourselves into feeling better.

7. We’re Stressed

Ever had a bad day at work that leaves you angry and freaking out about whatever project you’re working on?  Everyone has stressful days, and it’s important for guys to blow of some of that steam and relieve some stress before we lash out at something.  When we get upset we don’t vent to our best friend, we keep it bottled up inside us and eventually end up doing something dumb.  So ladies, if you notice your man is feeling a little wound up, break out the lingerie and treat him to an orgasm he’s never experienced before.  Seriously, he’ll appreciate it and you won’t have to deal with a hole in the wall and/or driving him to the hospital with a broken wrist.

8. We Like You

What?  Really?  Could it be that guys have sex with girls because they actually like them?  I thought sex based on love and affection was only something girls did.  After all, men are supposed to be simpletons who put their dicks in whatever lets them, we don’t actually have feelings, right?  Look, when it comes down to it, guys experience all of the same feelings girls do about people they’re romantically involved with.  For a lot of us, when it comes to that special person, sex really isn’t just sex.  It’s a way to express how we feel about one another.  Sure we sometimes have sex with people we don’t have feelings for, but that doesn’t make sex completely meaningless when it comes to people we do care about.  Yeah, it’s lame and not very macho, but sometimes we have to sacrifice some manliness for chicks we really dig.

So Brittany, I hope you’ve learned from this that men can just as easily be complicated when it comes to our emotions and actions as women.  Maybe not 200+ reasons complicated (that’s getting kind of ridiculous), but we’re not as one-dimensional as you think we are.  Feel free to call me if you have any further questions on this subject.

Seriously.  Call me.

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