Saturday, September 1, 2012

Owl City, Carly Rae Jepsen – “Good Time”



  We start out with Carly Rae leaning on the front of one of those really tiny “economical” cars which means the damn thing is not much bigger than a breadbox with wheels. (This will probably play well in crowded European cities, where everything is tiny and everyone drinks too much coffee.) She’s looking slightly bored, so it’s good that suddenly some of her female friends come running up from somewhere, acting all excited and wearing youthful fashion elements that I don’t really understand. (WHY do you need to wear knee-high yellow rubber boots in the city? Are you expecting to deal with plumbing issues in the near future? Are you even trained for that?)

  Anyway, they all hop in the miniscule motoring device, looking incredibly cute in the way that fresh-faced people in their early twenties look before they have to deal with credit card payments and actually going to work every day, and Carly maneuvers the car out into the street and down the road. Interestingly enough, there’s another car leaving from somewhere else at the same time, this one a classy vintage car that I certainly couldn’t afford in my early twenties, so I’m thinking a trust fund must be involved in some way.

  This vintage car contains what I presume to be the members of Owl City. I’m not really sure, since I haven’t met them and they refuse to follow me on Twitter. The guy driving the car does seem to be the same one who had the crazy-ass bedroom in the “Fireflies” video, so I think it’s all good. He starts belting out the song, which further confirms him as someone of importance, or at least someone who is both musical and can operate a stick shift. They drive along in the countryside, with the other occupants obeying commands like “hands up in the air” and “be sure to smile for the camera like this is the best time you will ever have in your life”.

  We briefly check back in with Carly and Plumber Girls, and they seem fine, with Carly warming up her vocals with a few runs, do we head back to the vintage car, where lead singer Adam is continuing to warble and the passenger to his right is very happy about her modified fishing hat. Since none of this is really important in the overall scheme of things, we roll into a montage of the two cars traveling the highways of America, because freedom’s just another word for being able to drive away from some mess you might have created in the place you just left.

  Eventually we pull up to… I’m not sure what it is. Based on my youth in Oklahoma, the place appears to be some type of rustic camp with crude cabins and a severe lack of five-star amenities. The occupants pile out of the two cars and don’t seem to be the least bit disturbed that a concierge is not standing nearby. In fact, Carly finally launches into some actually vocals, instead of the cooing she has done on the soundtrack up to this point. Everybody hugs each other and no one seems to have a tragic story to tell about an unexpected pregnancy or a sudden devaluation of their stock portfolios.

  While the song leaps into the happy-ass chorus, Carly manages to find a frozen-drink dispenser hanging out of one of the cabins. There are no visible labels indicating alcohol content, but with the way everybody races to get them some slushy goodness, I’m guessing that spontaneous clothing-removal and blackout periods are in the near future. But as we all know, as long as you keep singing while obtaining refreshments, nothing seriously bad can happen.

  Then everybody is stomping away down some forest trail, with lots of people carrying things that they didn’t put a lot of thought into before shoving said mess into a designer overnight bag. (What do you need a Frisbee for? There are trees everywhere. That bitch is not going more than a few feet and there is going to be disappointment.) No matter, folks are still very happy (thank you, mystical frozen-drink contraption) and they march along, paying absolutely no attention to all those low-budget slasher movies where people who go camping in an unprepared manner  soon get attacked by angry masked-men with Mommy issues.

  There’s a brief bit where Carly seems to be singing to a small branch that she managed to find somewhere along the way. It’s really sweet, but you can’t help but wonder why she feels the need to impress campfire kindling. But her little girlfriends don’t care, trudging along and nodding their heads like her Twig Whispering is a fine thing, indeed.

  Cut to Adam, because it’s his part of the song to sing, and although I’m sure he has something really important to share, we can’t really concentrate on him because suddenly some nymph goes running by waving a protest sign in the shape of a butterfly. What the hell? (The nymph is also sporting one of those beaded headbands that instantly disqualify you from being taken seriously in any way, so girl has some really serious issues.) Then Nymphie runs off into the forest, presumably to practice magic spells or rethink her wardrobe.

  Then we get a nice collage of completely unrelated events, like some girls discovering a lake and deciding that they can’t live unless they rip off their clothes, join hands, and then go racing into the water like they haven’t seen a million horror movies strongly advising against such activity. There’s also something about making jewelry out of flowers, Carly happily twirling around in what might be a batch of mist or the results of a biochemical mishap, and Adam wandering down a special path that might have inspired a bit of horniness, based on the brief shot of nipple poppage.

  Next thing you know, it’s night time, which means that everybody has to set up tents and wonder about the various sleeping arrangements that might ensue, depending on energy levels and the continued availability of slushy drinks that make you happy to have a body. (Interestingly enough, there are still people splashing around in the moon-drenched lake despite our warnings, so we’ll just have to quit worrying about them and let them deal with possible serial killers in a wetsuit.)

  Oh wait, we just jumped back to daylight hours for another round of Carly and Adam romping through the woodlands and looking cute, so there might have been some misunderstanding in the editing room. No matter, with a song this perky, things like continuity and storyline are really not all that important. Then we’re back to the nighttime campfire, where a low-key rave is going on, an event that has inspired Adam to change into a shirt that reminds me of Soviet military for some reason, and inspires everyone else to try and raise the roof with their hands even though there isn’t one.

  As everyone bounces and sings and tries to avoid falling into the fire pit, we wrap things up with another montage of just how happy people can be in the great outdoors when there is perky music and an endless supply of people with perfectly-straight teeth and designer clothing. (Somebody apparently passed out some animal masks at some point, but based on the way that people are wearing them on top of their heads instead of on their faces indicates that the mask idea was only fun for about two seconds, then it became necessary to breathe and stuff.)

  The final shots are of Carly and Adam looking tired but happy as they revel in the joys of writing songs that allow you to invite hundreds of your friends on camping trips, jump up and down repeatedly near an open fire, wear whimsical clothing and footwear that really won’t be of much use if you truly had to survive in the wild, and gorge yourself on roasted marshmallows because you’re still young and you can eat anything without any biological impact. Life is good, yes?


Click Here to Watch this Video on YouTube.


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