Just last weekend I went to see the movie Made, which is the latest Jon Favreau/Vince Vaughn vehicle. If you recall, the two gentlemen first scored extravagantly in the hipster film Swingers which was undoubtedly the best thing to come out of the late Nineties swing craze. Made isn’t a sequel to that hit, but once again it does feature Favreau playing the quiet, likable type and Vaughn reprising an obnoxious, loud-mouthed goon who thinks the best way to solving anything is through a lot of idiotic smooth-talking that more often than not gets him in hot water. It was a good film. Not as good as Swingers, but certainly one of the better things I have seen this year.

Probably the most notable thing about the film is that it features P. Diddy in a starring role that actually lasts longer than 30 seconds. It probably doesn’t last longer than ten minutes all told, but that’s fine. Watching “Sean Combs” (I wonder if Favreau, who created the flick, forced him to use his real name) as slow talkin’ pimp daddy Ruiz was a bit unsettling. You never got the feeling that Combs was acting. His on the nod line readings sprinkled with plenty of “muthafuckas” was surreal to be sure, but it also looked like he was right at home. Surrounded by plenty of chicks, riding around in stretch limos, and playin’ it off like a big time playa, Ruiz looked just like P. Diddy. Or was P. Diddy Ruiz?

In another part of the film, the infamous Dustin Diamond makes a cameo. Diamond was famous for playing the role of Screech on TV’s Saved By The Bell. I wonder what it’s like to be Diamond, who was obviously tossed into the whole project just to be laughed at. Hot babes, too surrounded him, in his one scene. But to add insult to injury, Vaughn scoffs at a bouncer outside the club where he and Favreau are trying to get in to see Combs: “Yer gonna let SCREECH in there?!” Yes, they were gonna let Screech in there, babes and all. It’s good to see that Dustin has crawled out from under the shadows of Slater and Kapowski and all those others and really landed some good roles as…Screech.

But there is more to this story. I was told a few years back by an acquaintance that lives out in California that he once saw Screech and his band play. He said he couldn’t remember the name of the group, but there indeed was Screech and his band rocking out, while Mr. Diamond screamed “WEED!” over and over into the microphone. Ah, the thrills of having been a once-famous child actor, now relegated to chanting about pot to a Hollywood audience. The irony of it all.

The rock stars all wanna be actors, though. Everyone from Bowie to Tom Waits to John Doe and …ugh…Glenn Frey have all tried on the role of silver screen (or at least TV screen) wannabe. Sometimes it works. David Byrne’s oddball role in True Stories still holds up (and it also makes for one great feature-length Talking Heads video). Johnathan Richman’s cameos in a few of the Farrelly Brothers flicks are always welcome. And even Lou Reed’s surreal appearance in Blue in the Face was particularly engaging. Much more so than his role as a faceless record producer in Paul Simon’s bomb One Trick Pony. And let’s not forget that Simon also played a part in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Some say, like Combs, Simon wasn’t acting for that bit. I wonder if he was acting during all those times he appeared on Sesame Street.

Lately, there’s been a focus on Mr. Neil Diamond. He pretty much was the center of the recent comedy flick Saving Silverman, as well as its big joke. Diamond always seemed to fancy himself a bit of a drama freak in his tunes, and, well, who could forget his forgettable performance in The Jazz Singer? He certainly took the movie a lot farther than Al Jolson did decades before. In fact, he took it so far that it went straight into the gutter. Dig that “America”, though.

Oh, and I almost forgot. The other week I was flipping through the TV channels and landed on some TV Land show which was featuring David Cassidy pre-Partridge Family! Can’t remember the name of the show, but it was some doctor-type drama. In it, David was diagnosed as a diabetic, but before that happened, he kept running off to the bathroom and then coming back for a little more soda. His guardian in the show, some father figure who wasn’t his father, said something to the effect of “Wow, you sure drink a lot of that soda”, to which Keith Partridge replied “Yeah…the kid’s a root beer head.” ROOT BEER HEAD! Man, I didn’t know that stuff was so potent. I’m gonna have to stock up on that shit and stop drinking so much Olde English 800. Toss the St. Ides into the trash, baby. Gimme some A&W so I can get high and become a root beer head, too!

Oh well, what can I say? Those were some crazy times, when people were insisting that taking an aspirin with your Coke would get you all sorts of crazy high. I knew there was a story I had to tell in all this movie talk. And there it was: David Cassidy was a root beer head! And no one ever went back and found this out after the kid got huge! I would say that such a shocking find could have very well damaged Cassidy’s career, but he seemed to do that on his own. Or someone else did. I can’t recall. I just hope Danny Bonaduce doesn’t find out about this and turns to a life of root beer, becoming a depraved actor! He’s too good for that. And I’m at the end of my tale. Till next time, kids.

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