"You wanna start something, tough guy?"
I'm Not from Jersey. My Hair Isn't Enough
Quirky Doesn't Even Begin to Describe It
I'm In Need of Some Bad Medicine
Fiction: Very Slightly Off Balance
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
I Can't Guarantee You Won't Be Arrested
The Key to Living in New Jersey
Poetry Corner: Something's Fishy
Stuff That You Didn't Even Want to Know
Stuff That Doesn't Suck Like a Hoover
Jersey Boys
or "How Bon Jovi Changed My Life"
I
have always loved Bon Jovi. From my first brush with their tight jeans
and teased out hair, at the tender age of 10, when the music teacher let
us watch the "Living on a Prayer" video at school, Bon Jovi
has been the soundtrack of my tortured adolescent, Ohioan life. I can
still remember that fateful day, sitting in the basement of Sugarcreek
Elementary school in Bellbrook, Ohio, next to the dreamy Mike Zucker and
hoping that his fingers might reach across the desk and just touch mine
splayed out on the desk as we watched Jon Bon Jovi take flight over the
crowd. I decided that it would be our song, even if he knows nothing about
it. And later on, when I was a mere lass of about 12, reading my very
first issue of YM magazine one day when I was home sick in bed, entrenched
with my massive collection of stuffed animals, learning about how Jon's
father, a barber, cares for his lovely, long, locks while on tour, I was
hopelessly infatuated.
Interestingly, in all my years of devoted Bon Jovi fan-dom. I have only bought one Bon Jovi album, New Jersey (Coincidence that I eventually moved to the state, I think not). And I bought this rock rhapsody on cassette tape which means that I can't listen to the darn thing anymore because the tape player in my car is busted and I can't find my Walkman anymore. I haven't bought a replacement CD, because like I said, I am cheap. But I was addicted to Top 40 radio, at the time hoping that either, "Bed of Roses" or "These Days" will magically waft across the radio waves and into my heart.
As
we all know by now, Jon is not only a musician, but a thespian as well.
I happened to catch one of his first forays into acting in a pretty bad
TV movie on MTV with Demi Moore. I don't remember the title, but I remember
Jon's character looked sullen the entire time while his voice-over narrated
the plot. Demi was his wife and spent the entire movie drunk. It goes
without saying that I saw Moonlight and Valentino. It was a sneak preview
at Memorial Auditorium, MemAud to the students, at Ohio University, so
it was free. And after the intense pleasure of watching him paint a house
and seduce a young widower, the promoters gave everybody in attendance
a poster. Jon's scruffy mug wasn't featured on the poster, but his name
was, which was good enough for me. So I hung it in my dorm room. I have
not had the pleasure of watching U-571 yet, but from the commercials,
I'm guessing that Jon gets wet at some point, which makes it a good movie
in my book.
Don't think that Jon is the only object of my affections. The rest of the band is pretty easy on the eyes, if you go for that middle-aged thing., which I guess I do. I read the spread of Ritchie Sambora's and Heather Locklear's fabulous new house in InStyle (I can't believe that I'm admitting to reading that horrific, celeb ass-kissing magazine). And I remember reading an article in Notorious, an issue before Puff Daddy took it over and made it crappy, where Tico Torres and his then-wife, model Eva Herzigova discuss their sex life. It was information that I really didn't want to know, especially after looking at the pictures of Tico half naked and greased-up. If I wanted to see a sweaty shirtless Cuban, I could just go out my front door, but I digress. I don't know too much about the Bon Jovi keyboardist, other than the fact that he has really curly hair. I just haven't read a gosh darned thing about him.
Just the other night, I caught the boys from Jersey on VH1 Storytellers, a full hour of Bon Jovi in all their glory. The weird thing is that all of the sudden, Jon has a very broad Wisconsin or Chicago accent. I don't get that, but if he wants to sound like he's from the Mid-west, that's fine with me.
I'm not going to say that I moved to New Jersey to be closer to Bon Jovi
(even though I know what town Jon lives in. One of these days I'm going
to drive down there and cruise around, hoping that I'll just happen to
run into him. Or Kevin Smith, since they both live in Red Bank) but it
made the transition a bit easier.