Mariah Carey – “Always Be My Baby”

  We start out with Mariah riding on a tire swing near a river or a lake, whooshing back and forth from the bank to the more serious depths of the water while moonlight caresses both her body and her cute little country-girl outfit. She’s acting like she’s having the best time out here on her own and wanting nothing more than to straddle a giant piece of rubber, but you know full well there’s an army of stylists just out of view, ready to rush in and comfort her with beauty products the very second that the director hollers “Cut!”

  We zoom in for some close-ups of Mariah’s face, just so we can make sure it’s really her braving the wilderness as well as admire her latest hairstyle. She seems to be a little pensive about something, and we’re probably supposed to wonder what she might be thinking about, but all I’m really thinking about is the size of that ring on her finger. Girl, why you gonna wear that while you’re airborne over some pond? That ring could end up in the belly of a catfish and eventually on the dinner table of someone named Bubba.

  Quick shot of what appears to be a young boy sitting on a bed in one of those cabins they have at those camps where distracted parents send their kids for the summer. He doesn’t introduce himself so it’s not immediately clear what his purpose might be.

  Back to Mariah, who is now really invested in giving that tire swing a workout. She’s basically laid full out on the tire, using both her pointed toes and her hair to get some serious swinging going on. (That sound you hear is the gasp of one of her personal assistants who will probably lose her job if Mariah’s hair actually touches the filthy country water.)

  This is followed by another shot of the boy in the cabin, or maybe it’s another boy, because his shirt looks a little different. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the cabin boys, since it’s very dark, just like it always is in slasher movies when bit-players are getting killed before the lead actor figures out what’s going on and tries to save the head cheerleader because she has second-billing and that’s what he’s supposed to do.

  More of Mariah and her pointy toes swinging, mixed with tight shots of her head posing seductively next to one of the ropes. She even reaches down at one point and runs her hand through the water, causing the panic-stricken personal assistant to dial 9-1-1 and request a Hazmat Unit. But Mariah just smiles and carries on with the back and forth, so I guess she’ll be just fine after having poked a manicured nail into water that wasn’t double-filtered by her staff in Italy.

  Cabins again, and it appears that we are seeing two different  people, a boy and a girl, both of them tossing restlessly in their separate cabins, unable to sleep because of unmet needs. (This sequence is mixed with more shots of Mariah and her ring endlessly swaying to and fro as she waits for someone to hand her the latest Hot 100 list from Billboard.) The boy (we’ll call him Bucky) puts on a cute little hat, which we’ll assume gives him superpowers of some kind, and he hops out a window of his cabin.

  We get a shot of the girl (we’ll call her Bambi) as she sits there in her non-feminine soccer shirt and waits for her life to get better. This happens roughly three seconds later, when Bucky appears at her window, helping her leap to freedom, and they both scamper off to do whatever it is that unsupervised children do at camps late at night when all the counselors are busy playing slap and tickle in the woods.

  Mariah chooses this moment in the plot to reposition herself in front of a nice campfire. I guess she’s standing too close to the flames, because the heat forces her to unbutton her blouse to a risky degree, meaning she really shouldn’t do any jumping jacks at the moment or someone will get a black eye. Happily, Mariah’s hotness does not stop the fleeing children from achieving their goal of running through the night forest with complete abandon.

  Bucky and Bambi run past another location where some adults (are these the counselors that aren’t paying attention to the kids?) are sitting around another campfire and smiling in a way that might indicate alcohol-consumption. B and B don’t want any part of that, so they keep running, because when you’re young and haven’t been beaten down by a meaningless job for thirty years, you still have lots of energy.

  This kicks off a montage, with Mariah and her easy-access shirt harmonizing together at the one campfire, the adults getting festive and possibly intimate at the other campfire, and Bucky and Bambi running hither and yon as they work the sugar snacks out of their system. (Side note: Mariah really likes to raise her hands over her head. Was she one of those over-eager people who loved answering questions from the teacher in junior high?)

  Eventually, Bed and Breakfast make their way to the shore of whatever body of water caused the nearby Camp Abandon-Kids-for-the-Summer to be built. (Presumably it’s the same water where Mariah was previously swinging in her own personal cove, but who knows. Mariah might be in another state and they just left things up to the video editor.) Bucky and Bambi appear to be very excited about arriving at their destination, but first we cut back to Mariah for a while, so she can do more things with that tire swing.

  Brief shot of the moon for no apparent reason. Are werewolves about to be involved in some way?

  Oh wait, now Bucky and Bambi have found their own tire swings, and they attack these conveniently side-by-side swings with a vengeance, more of that youthful exuberance that comes from not having to pay monthly bills for eternity. Cut to Mariah on her own swing, with her standing up on the tire and wailing some especially-high notes that may or may not have something to do with the way she is clenching one of the swing ropes between her legs as she whizzes past us in a frenzied manner.

  More shots of the adults (supposedly) at that one campfire where nothing is really happening other than an overall sense that an orgy is not out of the question. People seem to be bouncing to some music that we can’t hear, that’s about the only certainty. Otherwise, this could be a gathering of Jesuit Priests and their confused groupies or a meeting of Naturist Streetwalkers and their favorite customers. It’s completely up in the air.

  And Mariah’s not explaining anything, because she’s back on that swing, currently focused on dipping various body parts in the swamp and achieving maximum velocity so that her pimped-out rubber ride can do a 360 around the old oak tree that just wishes all these people would go away and quit tying things to its limbs.

  Okay, new development, as both Bucky and Bambi leap from their swings and plunge into the fetid water that is so troubling Mariah’s Personal Assistant #423, who will most likely be replaced within minutes of this video ending. As Mariah continues to whiz through the air like a Grammy-winning piñata on overdrive, B and B swim toward one another underwater and share a kiss while bubbles and bubbling hormones float around them.

  Meanwhile, I still have no idea about the purpose of the people at the second campfire. Are they from Child Protective Services, conducting an investigation? Are they Mariah’s team of lawyers? Are they waiting for raves to become popular in this part of the country?  Is there a sale at Macy’s and they really, really want to be first in line?

  Mariah just smiles and swings. You’ll have to wait for her next album to get the 4-1-1…

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Smash Mouth – “All Star”

  Okay, we start out with the stars of that Mystery Men movie from back in the day holding some type of audition for a new superhero. This opening bit may or may not be from the actual movie. (I’ve never actually seen the thing, because it features a certain actor that is just not my favorite. His name rhymes with Gwen Filler, for those keeping score.) Anyway, we have this audition thing, and a string of superhero wannabes are proving that they don’t get out of the house all that much and they are obviously reading the wrong comic books. It’s sad, and there’s clearly not enough alcohol being served.

  Suddenly, lead singer Steve comes trouncing along, picks up the pathetic person auditioning before him, and hurls said loser into a nearby county. The Mystery Men judging team mugs for the camera and nods approvingly, so apparently Steve has been hired, probably based on his shot-putting skills and the ability to pull off the narrowest beard known to mankind. The song proper kicks off, and we cut to Steve feeling very festive and singing the song whilst walking down a long street that is probably the entrance to Ben Stiller’s trailer on the set.

  Steve comes across a couple of youngsters, the girl dressed as a referee and the boy wearing a leather jacket with fringe, indicating that they have been home-schooled. The boy disdainfully gives Steve that “shape of an L on her forehead” hand-signal, as if anybody sporting Village People couture has the right to pull a Helen Keller smack-down on somebody else. Steve doesn’t care and just keeps marching on, because the little urchin doesn’t even have facial hair, let alone facial hair that has been sculpted with minimalism and style.

  Steve suddenly jumps on the roof of a swanky stretch-limo, and proceeds to do some type of jig. (This is what I always want to do when encountering vehicles that are too long to parallel park.) Meanwhile, the rest of the band is performing in the nearby yard of a house, so the neighborhood association hasn’t done due diligence when it comes to zoning laws.

  Steve’s transcendent dancing is interrupted by two screaming women who have been transported in from Jersey, with their hairstyles and questionable clothing choices intact. They seem to be hollering something about their house being on fire, and that their beloved pooch, probably named Tony Soprano, is trapped in an upper room of the Bonfire Abode. (The one girl refuses to let go of her oversize martini, despite the trauma, so we’d probably be best friends in other circumstances.)

  Steve races through the house and the flames, still wearing his sunglasses and not getting the least bit singed by the inferno, and delivers four-legged Tony to the big-haired women. They each have small orgasms of appreciation, but then they quickly get over Steve because he hasn’t killed anybody for mafia reasons yet and any further relationship simply couldn’t work out.

  No matter, Steve wanders out into the street again, where he finds two not-natural redheads posing near and on a souped-up something-mobile. Their movements indicate that they are either doing a dance or need to get sprayed for crabs. This is apparently all the invitation that Steve needs, so he hops in the driver’s seat of the sex-cycle and away they go, with Red and Red II pawing on Steve and straddling everything they can.

  Before Steve and Hormone I and Hormone II get to wherever, we cut to the band playing in an underground parking lot, because all the cool kids are doing that these days, mixed in with snippets of some folks hopping into that stretch-limo that previously served as a dance floor. Oh wait, some other people are piling into a vintage car featuring a blue-and-white theme (don’t ask me for further details, I can only confirm that it has tires, not a car geek), and both vehicles packed with strangers go racing… somewhere. There’s a brief car chase of some kind, with the vintage car featuring William H. Macy looking anguished like he did in Fargo. Does this mean there’s a wood chipper coming up?

  We now have an official montage, involving the band playing in that parking lot, the car chase with the ugly limo and the Mystery Mobile driven by William, and shots of Steve still tooling along in that wide-ass futuristic motorcycle that has enough room for the Red Twins to spread their legs as wide as they need to spread them. (Wait, do their outfits have cherries on them? That’s a lawsuit right there, with false advertising and such.)

  Out of nowhere, we have a big car crash sequence, where the Mystery Mobile slams into an ancient mobile home that some fool has left in the middle of a tunnel on I-95. There are fiery explosions and stuff, but the more interesting result of this mishap is that it triggers a man in an old-school red sweat suit to start doing the robot. Or maybe he’s popping and locking. I can’t get past the glare of his outfit to focus on whatever he might be trying to accomplish.

  Jump to another scene where some of the Smash Mouth people (not Steve) are sitting in the stretch limo (oh, that’s who was in there) and minding their own business, when suddenly the Mystery Mobile pulls up alongside. This doesn’t look good, especially if you haven’t had time to hide the weed under the seat. (Hold up, didn’t the Mystery Mobile explode just a bit ago, when it slammed into the white trash mobile home with parking violations?  I guess it doesn’t matter, we lost our grasp on reality when Steve danced on top of a fancy car and the owner didn’t come after him with a lug wrench.)

  I guess the Mystery Men don’t know how to remain calm and have a polite conversation to discuss issues, because they all jump out of the Mobile and start terrorizing the limo with bowling balls and bad costume decisions. They scream and holler a bit, then they hop back in their hoopty and take off, without proving anything. Steve drives up in his awesome blossom tricycle (hey, why are the Not-Cherry Girls standing on the other side of the limo, like they just sashayed back from a mani-pedi?), and the Smash Mouth folks run to the Blossom Bike and away they go, leaving Cherries and Jubilee to find their own way home.

  Next we have the Blossom Bike rolling up to a school bus on its side in the middle of a street, with what might be a blow-up doll trapped under the side of the heavy vehicle. (There are two cheerleaders standing slightly off to the side, waving their pom poms and cheering on whatever is about to happen. I’m guessing they were home-schooled as well, because the proper reaction would be to assist the injured and not screech lame-ass cheers about athletic victory.)

  But instead of immediately rescuing Blow-Up Girl, we pause for a bit so Steve and the other Mouths can sing and play. (After all, this is a music video, and people in peril can hang on just a bit whilst you market your skills.) Then Steve finally gets around to marching over and lifting the school bus off the ground all by himself. (The Romanian judge immediately signals the Olympic judging committee that steroids are involved and Steve should not win the gold medal. But that happens all the time with bitter representatives from former-Communist countries, so we shouldn’t care.)

  Blow-Up Girl turns out to be more than just something you fill with air and then violate, because she is able to rise from the pavement on her own, wearing a sash that says “Miss All Star” and waving at her fans, without nary a scratch. (Perhaps it was the layer of protective silicon that saved her.) To celebrate the fact that another supermodel has survived unscathed, the remaining cheerleaders who were hiding in the now-upright bus all lean out the windows and lead the crowd in a festive cheer. It’s almost Hallmark-worthy.

  Zip over to the band now performing in some place where they have lots of trophies (for the minimalist beard?) and plenty of room for the band members to leap about like the enchilada plate was quite spicy, indeed. Since the wearisome task of trying to keep an actual plot alive is no longer upon them, they really cut loose. Which means that they get to knock over things and generally behave in a manner that would have normally gotten them a back-handed slap from their mothers.

  As the song ends, the camera pulls back, letting us know that they were apparently performing in the garage of a modest house. (Really? A garage that big simply doesn’t happen unless you sign your checks Donald “Asshat” Trump.) The final shot is of the Mystery Men standing in the driveway and clapping. Well, we only see the backs of these people. They could be anybody. But as long as the Blow-Up Doll survived her wretched, mascara-smearing imprisonment, I think I can sleep peacefully tonight…

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No Doubt – “Spiderwebs”

  We start out in a super-deluxe restaurant, with folks in high-end couture and 47 different forks in a place setting. There may have just been a wedding, because we have a couple dressed as bride and groom, but you never know what the club kids might be wearing for kicks these days. There are Japanese subtitles that might explain what is going on, but I grew up in Oklahoma and the only foreign language offered at my high school was Proper English.

  Then we suddenly have Gwen front and center, wearing another one of her mid-90’s ensembles that walked a very fine line between “that is SO cute” and “was there a loss of oxygen at a critical point in her childhood?”.  She kicks off some odd dance moves that involve squatting and waving her arms, a bit of choreography that seems vaguely Russian-inspired, but I doubt that was the particular theme that Gwen had in mind. After a quick montage of people that we don’t know, Gwen finally stands up and does some leg kicks to show off her interesting plaid pants and combat boots.

  Then I realize that the cinematographer is using a fish-eye lens that distorts things, with Gwen and company purposely doing quirky moves that might look fun on film when your vision is jacked. Okay, got it. Late to the party, didn’t take the right drugs, but I can drink vodka really fast and catch up. There’s another montage of the Japanese people, but we still don’t learn anything about what they might be doing or why that one bitter woman thought her hairstyle choice was appropriate.

  At 27 seconds in, Gwen thrusts her plaid crotch at the fish-eye, creating a distorted and startling image that is now on the hard drives of horny teenage males across the planet. (Crotch-thrusting crosses all cultural barriers, yes?) I’m not sure we can top this golden moment, but we’ll see.

  Gwen finally starts singing, probably because her legs are tired, and we get a long shot of the goings on so we can see that No Doubt is actually performing for this high-end crowd and not just uninvited guests looking for free alcohol. It’s still not clear why the people at this function would put the band on their evening’s agenda, but the audience/dinner guests aren’t calling security, so I guess it’s all good.

  We jump into the hyperactive chorus, and Gwen seems to be especially angry about something, but before we can ask her what’s up, we go back to the fish-eye lens thing so the guitarists can shove their distorted instruments at us. It’s not as much fun as the nether-shoving, but it’s passable entertainment until they serve the second course. There’s a brief shot of the bride and groom again, and they both look terrified. It’s not clear if one of them has a secret (like a surprise pregnancy or maybe some same-sex inclinations) or if they won’t be able to sleep after seeing Gwen’s Glen coming at them.

  Speaking of, Gwen does that move a couple more times, so we can understand that it was definitely on purpose and not something awkward that happened due to an aggressive gas bubble. Cut to the bride hurling her bouquet over her shoulder, way past her friends and relatives (is she a shot-putter for Team Japan?) and right into Gwen’s hands as she is straddling a stone statue. (No explanation for the straddling, she’s just doing it.) Gwen then cuts her finger on a rose thorn. Is this a tribute to Poison? Are they the second act, served along with the sorbets?

  Oh, I guess Gwen didn’t take kindly to the unrequested puncturing, because the video goes to black and white, and suddenly we have a wicked-ass wind blowing all over the place. Windows are breaking and toupees are flying. Then we see that telephones are flying around in the air. Lots of them. Say what?

  Back to the chorus, with Gwen and company ratcheting things up while the party patrons run for their lives from the offspring of Alexander Bell. It’s kind of like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, only not at all. To their credit, No Doubt keeps playing, despite the fact that their audience is now heading for the hills, or at least to the parking valet. More Japanese subtitles are popping up, probably saying things like “Emergency exits are located over the wing” and “Please remember to tip your server”. Or maybe not.

  Then we roll into a mess where the band members have apparently been sucked up into the windstorm. (This is what you get for not unplugging and running like hell when the mayhem started. Yes, you should be dedicated to your art. No, you shouldn’t be a dumbass when your art can get you killed.) They swirl through the air for a bit, then I realize that what I thought was an artsy symbol for a tornado is actually a big-ass phone cord. What is the obsession with these people about phones from the devil?

  Oh, wait. The song is about some guy calling Gwen all the time and tormenting her with poetry. Apparently I need to drink even more vodka to catch up. (Did I mention that I was from Oklahoma? I saw cows every day. Can you hear me now?)

  We get another montage of the band still playing and not being sucked into a vortex, so we have some timeline issues, then we get a shot of someone stomping on a piece of wedding cake as they haul ass down the ornate stairs outside the foo-foo restaurant. This is probably a critical piece of information that we will have to decipher later. Then we have more images of people running and screaming from the mobile phones and/or the possibility that Gwen will straddle something else.

  Okay, now there’s something about the band members being entangled in a spider web of phone cords, the first bit of symbolism that doesn’t have to be explained to me with hand puppets, and then we’re back to Gwen jacking around with the fish-eye lens. She does a bit with her arms that calls to mind Joan Crawford discovering satanic wire hangers where they shouldn’t be, and then we have a sequence with her stomping like the enchiladas are putting up a fight. Gwen sure has a lot of energy, yes she do.

  More scenes of the band members being violated by the phone cords. It’s time to go wireless, people.

  And more shots of the band playing, with an intense determination, still not aware (or at least ignoring) the fact that Mother Nature or AT&T or some other conglomerate is not happy with how things are going down in this restaurant and they have decided to smite the participants. (In defiance, Gwen thrusts her squeeze box a few more times so Daddy can never sleep at night.)

  Then Gwen decides to fight back, first executing a graceful karate move that sends some of the telephony instruments flying to Jesus, then she hops on a convenient stone column thingy that allows her to snarl and wave her hands menacingly. Somehow, through the magic of music videos that are slightly unclear but still mesmerizing, she and her band-mates and some guy with demonic hair (where did he come from?) manages to destroy the communications pestilence that has taken over the land, or at least a trendy bistro.

  The video ends with Gwen and the Doubts walking down an alleyway, still alive and fully capable of fulfilling their record contract, because that’s what you should always do after saving the world or performing at a venue with subtitles. ..

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Vince Vance and the Valiants – “All I Want For Christmas Is You”

  We start out by zooming in on one of those holiday snow-globe things, with the bits of white whirling around a house that is really cute, which means it’s probably located in a subdivision that we can’t afford. Then we transition to a real house, with the camera plunging through one of the windows where the individual panes have all been artfully primed with fake snow by a set designer that clearly has never been in an actual snowstorm where the temperatures are negative and the howling wind can freeze and snap your nose hairs off in less than a second.

  But it’s all good once we get inside, with a lovely Christmas tree decorated in a vaguely Martha-Stewart way, and we get our first glimpse of the woman singing the song. (I should probably advise you that you shouldn’t get used to her current outfit, because she changes it at least 47 times throughout the video, a clear sign that she has focus issues.) But right now she’s all dressed in white, which is probably a lie, and she’s happily emoting as she fondles the fireplace mantle and performs some minimalist choreography as she sashays her way over to the window that doesn’t look like one you would find in a real place where they get snow.

  Cut to somewhere else, with somebody jacking around with some calendars on a desk. Then we get another angle on the goings on, and we can see Vince Vance is sitting at that desk and squirming about in an overly-caffeinated way. It’s very easy to distinguish Vince from the other set props. He’s the one with the alarming hairdo that kinder people might call “beehive” but I’m gonna have to stick with the facts and say “suppository stapled to head”.

  Then we zip to another place, one where Vince is apparently some type of perfume salesman. At least I think he is. (It’s hard to pay attention with all the distractions on the set, like the odd jacket Vince is wearing that seems to have been attacked by metal house numbers.) There are two women on the other side of the display case who are piling up boxes of merchandise on top of the counter with feverish intensity, oohing and ahhing over each little box as if each of them has been personally touched by Jesus.

  Vince turns to the camera and acts as if he’s been overwhelmed by this display of rampant consumerism, but I’m thinking Vince should be more concerned about his hairdo and his savagely-accessorized jacket, either of which could cause a citation to be issued by the city Code Compliance division.

  Then we cut back to Happy Singing Lady (Let’s call her Phoebe. Some say it’s Lisa Layne, who does the actual vocals on the song, and some say it’s another singer/actress. I’m not Facebook friends with any of these people, so I’m officially claiming ignorance and going with a pseudonym in case judicial issues arise.) Phoebe is in the midst of singing to a tree ornament, which is a good call if you don’t want your audience to talk back and critique your performance. She does this for a bit, then plops the ornament on the tree, so we can see that it contains some type of hologram of Vince.

  Wait, is Phoebe in love with the Suppository Man? (Which reminds me of Phoebe Snow and “The Poetry Man”, a mid-70’s song about angst and rhyming couplets, but we’ll just have to assume that there’s no connection because that would take the oddness to a level that none of us are prepared to contemplate.) Phoebe launches herself away from the Christmas tree, allowing us to gander upon her new outfit which looks like something Shirley Temple would have worn on The Good Ship Lollypop. Then Phoebe collapses on a couch that someone has handily placed nearby.

  Cut to a shot of Vince also collapsing, in his House of Perfumes, apparently because the bill he is writing up for the Jesus-touched eau de toilette ladies has numbers beyond his computational skills. As he sprawls on the ground, four people lean in to study both his drama-queen antics and the possibility that his hair could be used to reinforce the foundation of the store. (If you pause at 1:18, you can see that these four are: the lead singer of Wang Chung, Jane Wiedlin from The Go-Go’s, a Santa with a crappy beard made out of Cool Whip, and Laura from “General Hospital”, during the “Luke and Laura” period when her choice of stylist was more important than the plot. Just kidding. Sort of.)

  Back to Phoebe, who has changed clothes again and is now perched on a staircase that leads to… probably Venice Beach, because they don’t have real snow there, either. Brief shot of Vince doing something in that odd office of his, then we have a scene where Phoebe (yet another outfit) is receiving gifts from a deliveryman with an identity crisis. She quickly shoos him away so she can go sing to the tree again, an important thing to do when your current sweater matches the color of said tree.

  Then we wander into a series of scenes that I don’t really get, which I suppose shouldn’t really surprise me, but I try to keep the faith and support artists in their choices even if it scares me. This has something to do with Vince and his hair picking out women’s apparel that was only attractive for about 30 seconds in 1992 between the presidencies of The First Bush and Clinton. These outfits (in name only) are then delivered by the psychotic deliveryman to yet-another-sweater Phoebe, who sings to one of the packages until Vince appears in the wrapping paper, using sign language to express his devotion to the fair Phoebe.

  This is the part where I should probably start drinking.

  Now we have a bit where a saxophonist is displaying his prowess whilst standing next to one of those Salvation Army bucket-collection people. I’ll refrain from saying anything about the Salvation Army (people don’t like to hear that they are anti-gay, which understandably bugs me) or anything about the saxophonist (because I mistakenly did NOT recognize Clarence Clemmons in a Lady Gaga video a while back, which led to a comment chain that would make you think that I am Hitler’s offspring). We’ll just let these folks do what they need to do and wait for Phoebe to put on another fetching blouse.

  And, eventually, there Phoebe is, advertising a spangly top matched with white trousers, sitting the wrong way at a piano and fighting to keep her suddenly-voluminous hair from taking over the scene. This kicks off a montage of Vince doing… I don’t know. Something about picking out fur coats (you shouldn’t, shout-out to PETA), spazzing out in his office full of presents for Phoebe (you shouldn’t, because it just doesn’t read well on the screen), and not letting landscape workers take care of that hair with a weed-eater (you should, end of story).

  Now we’re back to Phoebe, but we can’t see her couture at the moment because she’s staring out one of the window panes with the fake snow sprayed in a pattern that does not happen in nature. Then we have a short bit with presents being shoved under a tree (do these people really think that Phoebe needs more clothes?), followed by more shots of Vince…. well, not sure what he’s doing, but it appears to involve him channeling Martin Short and giving a show to young children who don’t really know who Vince or Martin might be, but they are well-behaved enough to smile politely and wait for someone to arrive with a tray of milk and cookies.

  Next up is another shot of the hopefully-medicated deliveryman starting to offer Phoebe yet another festive present, but then lurching out of the way so Vince can waltz in and offer himself up as the latest gift. (If you study the architecture above the door, you can clearly see that they had to raise the door opening, and the entire first floor of the house, an additional three feet so all of Vince’s hair could arrive at the same time. I’m sure the actual owners of the house were a bit pissy about that until someone cut them a check.)

  Phoebe and Vince embrace, with both of them being careful to avoid lacerations to the face from Vince’s dramatic and lethal hair, and then they both focus on the snow-white puppy dog that Vince has thoughtfully brought along for his muse and her fluid wardrobe. They both quickly retire to the couch, because everyone knows that Vince can’t be expected to stand very long before the weight of his hair causes a hernia. And that’s where we wrap things up, with Vince and Phoebe bonding over a docile pooch who is a clear professional and knows better than to lick himself unless it’s in the script.

  But it’s a given that Fido is secretly eyeing Vince’s coif. He knows there’s got to be some kind of doggie treat shoved up in that mess. He just has to wait another 17 seconds for Phoebe to wander away for another costume change, and then the game is on, and Vince better start running…

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Oasis – “Wonderwall”

  We start out with a clown and… I’m already not a fan of this video. There’s just something fundamentally wrong with clowns, can’t quite put my finger on it. But I’ll try to be nice. So this clown is walking to the middle of a mostly vacant warehouse, where he discovers an old-school record player just sitting on the floor. No one asks him to, but the clown decides to start the record and then he disappears and leaves a mess for somebody else to clean up.

  Why does that remind me of the George Bush administration? Hmm.

  Next up is a guitar player sitting where the record player used to be, and he’s strumming the opening of the song. This is much more pleasant than the damn clown. Until we get a brief shot of some evil-looking saws swinging on a metal rod. That can’t mean anything good. But then we have a nice showgirl posing beside some harmless acoustic guitars, so we head back to the happy place once again. I’m not sure why the video editor is throwing all these images at us, but maybe he’s preparing us for the eventual close-up of Liam Gallagher and his startling eyebrows.

  And there it is, with Liam staring into the mirror of a giant compact and crooning the first lyrics of the song. Then we cut to a montage of the various band members alternately sitting on a long bench and possibly preparing to perform in this empty warehouse. It’s really not clear what they are doing, other than moving around a lot and screwing around with instruments and random ladders. To make it even more confusing, everything is in black and white. This could be a nod to nostalgia or an indication of a budget issue.

  Then we’re back to a close-up of Liam, and he’s sporting some John Lennon sunglasses that are reflecting what might be dual Ferris wheels. (I understand that Liam has a fancy for recreational drugs, at least at one point in his life, so it might be a good guideline to just let some of these images roll by without comment. If I wasn’t there for the trip, I’m not going to understand the souvenir photos, sayin’.) We pull back from Liam so we can see that the rest of the band is behind him, still wandering around without any apparent focus or itinerary. (Again, shades of the Bush Administration.)

  This is followed by a montage of shots involving the playing of a bass violin, the damn clown not going away like he should, something that might be a mechanical cowboy, more of the band members sitting on a bench like they really have to wait for a bus like the common people, and some mess where Liam is rotating around what might be a giant dartboard or a leftover still from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Oh, and the clown appears to be having a torrid love affair with a ventriloquist dummy that looks like Stockard Channing if someone threw her in a dryer.

  Did I mention drug usage? Thought so.

  We jump around for a bit more, then we’re back to Liam and his John Lennon glasses sitting in a chair with his crotch thrust forward. He’s using one of his index fingers to point at his crotch, in case you were unclear about what such a thing might be. And another montage kicks off. (Actually, the whole video is a montage of randomness, but I’m trying to give this some story structure since the writers, if there were any, didn’t bother to do so.)

  This new rush of whimsy involves more of those swinging death-saws, the band playing, the showgirl, a spinning record album with some type of twisted Brady Bunch tribute, the clown still not leaving, and people fiddling with that mechanical cowboy. (Closer inspection of said cowboy reveals that he might be a slot machine, and pulling on his business lever makes coins shoot out of him in a rather homoerotic way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just didn’t see it coming or I might have put on a more sexy outfit.)

  Odd scene with college professors making music with those slasher-film saws, then we cut back to the band members on that bench, with the camera panning along their various faces. Why are none of these people smiling? Did Liam and Noel get into it again, what with their history of loving then hating then loving each other within a five-minute span? I guess it doesn’t matter. I think all explanations clearly went out the window when that bastard clown stuck his hand up Stockard’s backside.

  Another John Lennon close-up, with the added attraction of Liam possibly being electrocuted.  He manages to survive this rude event, much to the relief of his agent, and he again shoves his crotch at us for our viewing pleasure. (So thoughtful of him.) We jump around a bit more, then we start messing with more of that Brady Bunch shenanigans with the various band members appearing in little squares. (None of them have hair of golden like their mother, just in case you were wondering. It’s black and white, love, there’s not a golden anything.)

  Brief bit where the band decides to play a game of darts, because the death-saws and the orifice-invading clown and the eyebrows are not dangerous enough.

  Somebody brings out a megaphone, probably not the wisest decision, and the band members start using it to torment each other, because you’re really not a family unless someone is doing something completely annoying. Happily, they quickly get rid of that thing and go back to another montage, this one involving more Brady Bunch, bass violin, showgirl (who is really starting to get on my nerves with her lack of purpose), the cowboy (who is still oddly hot despite his lack of a pulse), crotch, professors, bench-sitting, and some actual playing of instruments.

  Then Liam finally hops out of his John Lennon chair and goes off to do something else, so we start to wind the video down, especially since we’ve gotten to that part of the song where nobody is actually singing. There’s another montage, but it’s more of the same, with random images that are somewhat interesting but really serve the purpose of stretching out the video to accommodate the really long instrumental bit which sounds great on the radio but causes a video director to clench and take stomach-acid pills.

  The final shot is of the blasted clown returning to turn off the record player. Which is NOT like the George Bush administration, because they never came back to fix anything that they broke.

  Cheers.

Click Here to Watch this Video on YouTube.

The Wallflowers – “One Headlight”

  Note: There are times when you have a really great song that is paired with a video that is so bland and uninspiring that I can’t find anything to make the funny happen. This is one of those times, so I’m just going to make stuff up as I go along. And here we go…

  We get a brief shot of the band warming up on a stage somewhere, then we shift to what is possibly a giant star-spangled flag that is being dragged over the opening of a big-ass well. This makes me think of The Ring, that heart-warming movie where bad things happened in or around a well and people died. It also reminds me that people in that movie who happened to watch a certain video met untimely deaths in startling ways that were not covered by their insurance policies.

  So, of course, I begin wondering if watching this video is going to ignite a similar curse wherein I get killed by simply pushing an unknown satanic button on my DVD remote control. I really don’t want that to happen, as I haven’t made the proper arrangements for sudden death on my couch, and I haven’t finished the latest Stephen King novel. Then I realize that I have paused this video at the 8 second mark, and I probably should watch a bit more before I get too invested in my psychotic break.

  So I push play again, and hope that the offspring of Bob Dylan can help me get to a better place.

  Speaking of, there’s Jakob, now standing in front of that star-spangled flag. He’s wearing a hat that I don’t particularly care for, and he’s sporting a goatee that looks a bit wimpy. This does not bode well. But then we switch to more shots of the other band members doing things with their instruments, and they don’t seem to be concerned about cursed videos or falling into a well, so I’ll just keep watching.

  We eventually get to a section where Jakob appears in a tight close-up so that we can better inspect the controversial goatee (still not sure about that decision) and admire the more-favorable things that a stylist has done with his hair. I try not to notice the odd lights behind him that could easily represent evil spirits that are pissed off about something that happened 60 years ago. Probably near a well.

  More shots of the other band members strumming and drumming, with all of them wearing Johnny-Cash-black outfits and pretending no to notice the odd flashes of light behind them that might indicate someone is being electrocuted. We also seem to have some fog blowing across the stage. Perhaps this happens at some of your more progressive concerts, but I usually associate fog with the sudden arrival of headless horsemen or strange beasties strangling innocent maidens on the Scottish moors.

  Suddenly, we are transported to what might be the seedier regions of Moscow or Vienna, where we have a woman strutting about in a mysterious way that only lets us see her shadow on the walls of this questionable environment. But before we can ask why this bit is important, we jump back to Jakob and the band and their black outfits performing on the stage where people might be dying behind them.

  Quick revisit to the Moscow Woman, or at least her shadow, where it might just be the camera angle but Olga appears to be quite pregnant. Does Jakob need to adjust the number of dependents on his income tax returns?

  I guess we won’t find out any time soon, because we head back to the band performing, and no one seems to be waving about any paternity test results. Instead, they all seem to be cast members in a French film where everyone is dissatisfied with life and the brie has gone moldy. And we still have lots of unexplained power surges.

  Oh wait, now it looks like we have Jakob wandering around Moscow as well. He sings for a while, because that’s his basic job and we expect him to do that, but there’s also some mess about a mysterious car driving sneaking along the streets. (And more of those gold stars. Did somebody do really, really well on their spelling test?)

  Hold up, was that Stevie Ray Vaughn at about 2:34 into the video? Probably not.

  More shots of the band performing, and I’m starting to get a little bit irritated that none of them seem to be bothered with all that unexplained lightning and fog behind them. This is where people mess up in horror movies. If something is jacked-up with the weather patterns in your immediate area, you need to run like hell or find a weapon.

  The band continues to ignore the atmospheric disturbances for a very long time. And someone keeps waving that star-spangled flag. In the music video industry, this is known as “just throw in repetitions of the same shots until the video is as long as the song”. In the music video review industry, this is known as “who the hell was responsible for editing this video?”.

  Next up is an extended sequence of Jakob singing in front of the star flag, interspersed with more lightning and less plot. (His hair still looks good, props for that.) Then we have another close-up of the goatee, some more shadows in Moscow, and a non-explanation about who might be pregnant and why they find it necessary to wander the streets of an unnamed town when it’s very clear that they should get their ass back home until the baby is due.

  Sadly, none of our probing questions are answered, as the rest of the video makes it clear that the editor and/or director have run out of ideas. We have more of the band ignoring Mother Nature, more of the band wearing matching black outfits, more of the unresolved paternity suit, more of that damn star-flag that seems to serve no other purpose than match the cover art on the CD, and a shot of someone’s foot tapping to the beat.

  Then we have a final lightning burst behind the band and the video ends.

  I stare at my PC and the blinking option to replay the video. Dare I risk it? What would Naomi Watts do in The Ring? What would the Japanese woman in the original film do? Most importantly, what part of any of this is covered in my insurance policy?

Click Here to Watch this Video on YouTube…

The Mavericks – “Dance the Night Away”

  We start off by staring at four security monitors stacked in what looks like a really crappy office somewhere. The monitors seem to be showing empty grocery store aisles, but they could just as easily be showing deserted high-school hallways two minutes after the final bell has rang. Cut to one of those aisles (yep, we’re in a grocery store) where some employee is unenthusiastically shoving along a broom, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else in the entire world. This is how I feel when I’m performing my own work duties, so we instantly become best friends forever, at least virtually.

  Back to the crappy office, where a security guard is napping and not realizing that we appear to have four people staring directly at the four security cameras. This is a somewhat creepy image that makes me think of people screaming and running from other people waving bloody implements. Then we cut to a stocker who is fiddling with some produce that doesn’t really look like it needs to be fiddled with. He looks as bored as his little co-worker with the broom. This is clearly not a very soul-enriching place to work.

  Then the music starts on the soundtrack (almost forgot we were actually watching a music video and not an art film about boredom and psychological damage) and we have a really tight close-up of somebody playing a guitar, followed by another gander at the security monitors that helps us realize the four creepy people staring back are not waving death machetes but are instead playing instruments.  This reassures me somewhat, but I’m never fully satisfied in life, so we’ll see how it goes.

  Quick shot of three brightly-dressed women prancing through the dairy aisle. They also appear to be doing something with instruments, but you don’t really notice because their clothes are so vibrant and the one woman’s afro is so big that it might throw the moon out of alignment. We get glimpses of the other “real” band members mucking about in the aisles, but they are nowhere near as interesting as the tres amigas and their fruit-flavored ensemble. (Although the one guy pushing his drums in a shopping cart does get a few bonus points for effort.)

  The security guard finally realizes something is amiss (the booze must be wearing off) and he decides to investigate. This will probably take him a while (he’s the old and creaky version of a security guard, the kind where you wonder what people were thinking when they hired him, because he sure ain’t gonna catch nothin’ that runs), so we zip around the store to see what folks are up to now that impromptu entertainment has arrived.

  Broom Boy is now dancing with his previously-hated stick-mate, and they seem to be having a swell time. Produce Boy has picked up a buddy and both of them are happily piling up the fruit as fast as they can. (Yes, you can interpret that last line in a number of ways.) And the trio of women (they need a name, let’s call them the Chaquita Cha-Cha’s) are blowing away on their horns with an intensity that might need to be pharmaceutically regulated at some point.

  Oh, and the band members continue to wander about as well, playing their instruments and/or singing, whatever they are contractually obliged to do. But they just can’t compete with the Cha-Cha’s, nor with the other crazy folks that suddenly come running out of wherever they were hiding when this place used to be boring and dull and didn’t have a floor show. We’re going to see a lot of them as the video progresses, so let’s do a meet and greet, shall we?

  One older woman (who might be a man, and somewhat looks like Phyllis Diller if someone threw her in a washing machine and then picked the wrong cycle) is jitter-bugging about in a startling floral-print dress that looks like it was made from the material on abandoned couches that you see on street corners in the wrong parts of town. She has the kind of look where you know better than to engage her in actual conversation or you will never escape, so if you turn into an aisle and happen to see her, you quickly pretend that you’ve forgotten something on the previous aisle and then you flee the store.

  We have Tumbelina, who insists on doing backflips in the frozen-foods section. She goes by so fast that I don’t really have time to carefully analyze her outfit (it’s just a blur that seems vaguely circus-based) so we’ll just have to assume she’s wearing something stretchy and leave it at that. We also have someone who looks like they would probably greatly enjoy break-dancing if that was still popular and the aisles were wide enough. He likes to shove his face at the camera so we can better review his facial jewelry and extraordinary amounts of hair.

  We check back in on the security guard, who is once again planted in front of his monitors and not really doing anything effective. (See, I told you he didn’t look like the type who could run and make people stop doing things that they shouldn’t.) But he’s probably safer in his little wood-paneled half-office, where he’s less likely to get smashed by the drum-cart or felled by Tumbelina. We can bring him a snack later.

  Oh, we have some new arrivals, in the form of an older couple who may have missed a few vitamin regimens over the past few decades or so. He’s dressed like a Navy admiral or maybe a cruise-ship captain, something with a military theme, and she’s dressed like Nancy Reagan if Nancy Reagan didn’t have people who dressed her. They have a Charlie McCarthy-type ventriloquist doll in the rug-rat seat of their shopping cart, so I know that I will never be friends with them. (Those things scare me. I can sleep peacefully in a haunted house or zip-line in Jamaica but I do not want to be anywhere near a wooden doll with a floppy jaw. Ugh.)

  Side note: The band members are still playing as they stand in or wander about various locations in the store, but they just don’t have the attention-getting qualities of the crazed customers as they pinball about and fail to think in complete sentences. Except for the drummer guy. He does seem to have a bit of flair as well as a fondness for bottles of peroxide.

  Speaking of hair coloring, there’s an additional customer who is furtively snatching things from the shelves in a manner that hints at past criminal activity. I can’t quite put my finger on what avenue of illegality he might have stumbled down (possibly something to do with narcotics or livestock) but I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to do something unsavory with my Granny Smith apples if I happen to leave them unattended.

  Meanwhile, the security guard is now fiddling with the settings on his ancient monitors, like the “brightness” knob being off-kilter a bit might cause the sudden appearance of musical troubadours in retail establishments. Poor guy. Not only is his tool not the sharpest, it’s nowhere even near the shed.

  Then the guard surprises me by lumbering to his feet and chasing after one of the evil-doers, which moves him up a wee notch in the rankings of people who might actually have a purpose in life. But then we see that he’s trying to capture Tumbelina, and his merit scores plummet again. She’s not even making any noise like the rest of the people. Granted, she is repeatedly doing something with her body that Jesus wouldn’t recommend, but she’s so light on her feet that you don’t really notice her unless she happens to land on you.

  But at least the security guard has now introduced the last new element in our story, by initiating a feeble and ill-fated chase sequence. From this point forward, it’s really all much of the same.  Whoops, I may have just lied, because now we have someone dressed like Carmen Miranda sashaying past the carrot display. (That always happens to me. I think the show is over and here comes another drag queen, tardy but fabulous.)

  Oh, and there’s the guy in a purple silk blouse who likes to stand near the bacon and do those spinning high-jumps where he has one leg sticking straight out in front of him. I’m also a huge fan of bacon, but I don’t recall ever having gotten athletic about it. It just goes to show that there many different ways to say “I love you”, and sometimes they include precision choreography.

  We also have a younger couple dancing near the butter, churning up a nice two-step. Well, I think it’s the two-step. And I think it’s a couple. It’s very hard for me to focus because I’m trying to figure out if the guy has a ponytail or just an odd accessory on his cowboy hat. Nothing against ponytails, mind you. Sometimes they can be quite fetching, and they can come in really handy when you’re little and your annoying sister refuses to get off the Big Wheel so you can ride it for a while.

  Seriously, though, I do believe that the last pair of floppy shoes has stepped out of the clown car. Now it’s just a cavalcade of cameos as our new friends cavort among the baked goods and frozen yogurt. The born-again stock boys are still happily arranging the tangerines. The Chiquita’s and their flashy wind section have traversed every aisle. Thurston and Lovey Howell are doing some type of waltz near the cleaning supplies, either inspired by a display of fluffy cotton mops that remind Thurston of a younger Lovey or they have been overcome by the fumes from a spilled bottle of ammonia.

  I’m not really sure what happened to Tumbelina. There may have been an unfortunate encounter with a surprise wall or a poorly-covered mineshaft. Phyllis Diller is still there, alternately doing unexplained leg kicks and coming at the camera like a hummingbird on steroids. (She’s now lugging around a cake carrier, because at her age you never know when someone might pass on and you need to get a covered dish to somebody’s house, pronto.) And Carmen Miranda is accounted for as well, with that tropical salad bar piled on her head, a mess that could shift dangerously at any moment and Carmen could end up ass over designer heels on the floor. (Clean up on aisle 5!)

  Twirling purple-shirt guy continues to rhapsodize about bacon by using his feet, the two-stepping couple manages to continue dominating their sector of the mart despite a brief attempt by another couple with lesser billing but more vibrant hair to steal the show, the security guard just keeps running because he doesn’t know any better, and there’s a small bit where a woman who might possibly be Sandra Bernhard’s younger sister pauses to glare at the camera as if totally appalled that the stock-boys behind her are doing a line dance. (If this causes her concern, she clearly should stay away from any gay-pride parades or venues where people might be singing next to asparagus.)

  We wind things down with a rapid-fire montage of all the colorful characters, letting us know that everyone essentially survived the spontaneous musicality (well, except for Tumbelina, she might be appearing on the back of a milk carton the next time you have brunch), and only limited amounts of therapy may be necessary…

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Marc Anthony - “I Need To Know”

  We start out with what might be Enya playing a violin (apparently she showed up at the wrong recording studio), then we have a bit with Marc and what we’ll assume is Baby Girl talking and flirting in some place where the electricity isn’t working (well, at least not the kind that powers the lights), and finally we’re on a stage while Marc starts performing the song. We’ll be here a bit, so you can get comfortable.

  Because it’s very important to the story, we get close-up shots of Marc’s backup dancers, a bevy of lovelies wearing what can only be described as feline-inspired minimalist couture. (They even appear to have tails, so apparently somebody finds that sexy.) We get random shots of people gyrating in the audience, with belly buttons here and arched backs there. But we’re really supposed to be paying attention to Baby Girl, who likes to wave her hands in the air to a different song.

  As mentioned, this section goes on for a bit, so the Cat Girls do their best to keep us entertained, performing some low-challenge choreography that basically consists of them taking two tiny steps and then assuming another sultry pose. (Oh, and they like to touch Marc, a lot, constantly racing up to caress one of his body parts and then dashing back to the chorus line.)

  Baby Girl, for her part, continues to dance to that other song, but at least she appears to be having a good time, so we’ll just let her keep doing that. Based on the way the rest of the audience keeps writhing about and pawing at each other, I’m guessing we’re not at a Christian fundamentalist board meeting. Then again, maybe we are, I don’t really keep tabs on what those people might be up to these days.

  Oh wait, now we’re some place that might be an apartment, where Marc is standing near a window, wailing away, while Baby Girl is wallering around on a bed. The sheets must feel really good to her, because she’s inspired to touch herself and make pouty faces. Then she parades around in the sheet for a little bit, so she might have misplaced her clothing. Sadly, she can’t ask Marc for some tips on where her panties might be, because he won’t quit singing the song long enough for her to get a word in.

  Then we’re back at the concert for more of that business, what with the Cat Girls parading around in their catnip outfits, Marc crooning seductively into a microphone while still managing to allow his shirt to flap open so we can see his flat belly, and Baby Girl doing the lambada with lots of men in the audience who are not Marc, so she might be a little bit of a tramp.

  Back to the apartment. Marc is still invested in singing the song and not paying attention to Baby Girl, so she starts to look a little blue, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have changed her Facebook status to “in a relationship”. But before she can attend a couple’s therapy session, we cut to a murky stairwell somewhere, with Baby Girl and… I’m not sure who he is, might be Marc, might not. They are too busy canoodling with each other for me to get a real good look.

  Then we have another extended concert sequence, but we already know what’s happening over here, and it’s more of the same, what with the Cat Girls and the overheated audience. They throw in some snippets of other things that we’ve already seen as well, like Marc singing to the window instead of his maybe girlfriend, and Baby Girl pretending that having sex on a staircase is not uncomfortable at all.

  We wind things down with Baby Girl climbing up what might be a fire escape or just a really interesting entrance to a nightclub in a place where it rains a lot. Marc is nearby, still singing and not helping Baby Girl climb like a real gentleman would do. He’s making hand gestures like his heart is broken over Baby Girl leaving him all alone, but she’s looking at him like, dude, what are you talking about? Quit singing and get your ass up the stairs.

  But he doesn’t, choosing instead to stand there in the rain because the really dramatic finale of the song is coming up, and he knows that he looks good all wet and yearning. Baby Girl just sighs and goes inside to see if there’s anything decent on TV.


Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.

U2 - “Mysterious Ways”

Okay, somebody, somewhere took a whole bunch of drugs and slapped this puppy together. That can be the only explanation, and it forces me to do the time-stamp thing and not tell an actual story. Here we go…

0:02 First indication that we’re on a head trip, with shimmery campfire images of the band members waiting for the S’mores to be done.

0:11 Three women are stunned by what they have just seen.

0:15 First appearance of energetic belly dancer. Get used to her, that tramp is all over this thing.

0:21 Panoramic view of old buildings that might be important in some way, I just don’t know what that might be. Somebody’s doing laundry, that’s the only definite.

0:25 Bono gets artsy with an image of the moon. The moon does not seem pleased.

0:30 Brief confirmation of drug usage. I knew it.

0:35 Blurred people and a porta-potty. Something like that.

0:41 I think this is Bono, with an amazing amount of hair and a flamboyant shirt, but he won’t stay still long enough to make sure, insisting on doing an interpretative dance about bull-fighting and tequila.

0:49 Belly dancer girl, jackin’ those hips like there’s a prize.

1:00 Possibly The Edge and Larry, or maybe Yoko Ono and Troy Aikman, being stalked by someone with a kaleidoscope.

1:06 Trick photography allows Bono to clone himself, a life-long dream.

1:16 More interesting cinematography, with Bono relaxing on a rooftop and street-market patrons wondering why crazy foreigners have to take pictures of everything.

1:22 A possible prison break, details unclear.

1:28 Bono is very sad about the political climate in Wisconsin.

1:33 Larry really, really needs some sexual release.

1:43 Who invited the Republicans?

1:57 Interesting use of split-screen. We learn nothing, but it’s neat.

2:03 Belly dancer girl, reminding us that she’s the real star of this show and won’t stop dancing until we admit it.

2:13 Bono’s hair has apparently been nailed to a pretty floor.

2:27 Return to campfire. S’mores still not done.

2:40 The Edge experiences unfortunate loss of his head.

2:45 More split-screen crap, starting to get annoying.

2:52 Possible appearance by the Grim Reaper, wearing a non-regulation outfit.

3:05 Red-shirted Bono, who has been doing that odd dance the whole time, ups the ante by unbuttoning said shirt to a provocative level. Unclear what he hopes to achieve by doing this.

3:07 Damn Republicans are multiplying.

3:16 Escapee breaks back into prison, not emotionally satisfied by outside world.

3:20 Earthquake or really drunk camera man? You decide.

3:30 Bono hits the most interpretive part of his interpretive dance, kicking it up a notch and channeling very angry spirits with severe issues. Whatever has possession of him is apparently very important, and we spend the rest of the video watching Bono transform into everything from a clumsy snake-handler to a deranged Aztec priestess to what might possibly be a suppository. Video ends. Head-scratching does not…


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Savage Garden - “Truly Madly Deeply”

Note: Not a whole lot happening with this one, but it takes place in Paris, so at least we have pretty things to look at during the slow bits. Here we go…

We start out with brief shots of a fancy statue, lead singer Darren, some woman hopping off a train and running away like she’s done something naughty, and an impatient man checking his watch while looking darkly handsome. Then we’re back to Darren walking down a street and bursting into song, because that’s something that just happens in Paris, it can’t be helped.

While Darren warbles, we get more shots of Running Woman and Impatient Man, and it becomes clear that he’s waiting for her to get her ass to wherever he is. Apparently Running Woman (let’s call her Claire) is not the best at directions or remaining focused, because she just keeps stampeding around and looking frazzled. Impatient Man (let’s call him Biff) not only doesn’t like to be kept waiting, he also doesn’t care for nearby couples at cafes who perform public displays of affection, because he keeps glaring at them.

Darren just keeps walking and singing while pretty leaves fall from the trees and old buildings get older.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is basically the whole video. Claire runs and runs and runs and Biff waits and waits and waits. This is the part where you forget about the boring couple and just start looking at all the pretty sights of Paris. Conveniently, Claire manages to run past quite a few of the more popular destinations, so we have a nice mini-tour without having to sit on a crowded bus where other people smell bad and keep blocking your view out the window.

Oh, and Darren is also serving as Julie the Cruise Director, wandering by some famous places as well. (If he would just stand still for a minute, surely Claire will come running along and he can give her some directions, or at least hand her a bottle of water for the next leg of the marathon.)

Eventually, Biff gets fed up and leaves the café, which is not a good move. Claire obviously has issues finding a stationary target, so she’s really going to fall apart finding a moving one. Biff climbs some pretty stairs that look ominously like those mean steps in The Exorcist where people died, so who knows where this is going. If a priest walks up, we’re in trouble.

Claire runs. Darren sings. Biff makes it harder for Claire to find him. The citizens of Paris ignore all of this, because tourists are constantly doing stupid things in their town and they’re over it.

Claire finally stops to ask for directions, something I would have done three days ago, but Claire is young and pretty and logic isn’t important to her yet. Then she goes running up those Exorcist stairs, so perhaps she’s getting warmer, managing to at least get in the right part of town.

Oh, maybe those stairs proved to be a breaking point for Claire, because she stops halfway up them and just sits, letting the camera twirl around her, capturing her messy but cute hairdo. While she catches her breath, we get another montage of Darren marching along in his couture and Biff not staying in one place, making things harder for Claire and the attention span of the viewing audience.

At one point, Claire climbs up the hill in Montmartre so we can get some nice views of the city and she can plot her next move in the quest for Waldo. Darren, apparently thirsty, goes into a Bohemian little bistro where the rest of his band is conveniently playing, allowing him to continue with the singing. And who knows what Biff is doing, we stopped caring.

Claire comes down off the hill, pausing to stare at the famous carousel, an apt symbol of her going in circles and not getting anything done while music plays. Then she heads off to wander through more of the city, not running now, because that was clearly getting her nowhere. (Darren keeps singing in the bistro, not bothering to order anything, so you know the staff hated him for taking up one of their limited tables and jacking with their tips.)

Finally, after glumly strolling past tons of historic places where Biff isn’t, Claire turns a corner and there’s her man, slumped up against an ancient wall, looking like a strung-out junkie with disappointment issues, probably not the vision the producers were going for, but these things happen with poor set-design planning. They happily embrace one another while Darren hits some especially high notes in the song.

We end the video with Clair and Biff meandering through the few parts of the city that we haven’t already visited, Darren either leaving or getting kicked out of the bistro, and the people of Paris quietly waiting for another city to become more popular so they can finally eat their croissants in peace….


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Foo Fighters - “Learn To Fly”

Note: Dave Grohl and the rest of the band play multiple characters, as well as themselves, throughout the video…

We start out on a basically-empty airplane, with Jack Black and Kyle Glass as maintenance people who are doing who knows what in the food-service area of the plane. Apparently they are up to no good, because they slightly freak out when one of the flight attendants (Dave Grohl, swishing away) arrives, and they scurry about so that Jack can hide a small bag of something in the coffee machine. The flighty flight attendant doesn’t notice a thing, other than the fact that there are men around he can overly-touch for no apparent reason.

The song kicks off as we cut to the cockpit, where Dave and the gang are playing pilots, and cracking up about something in that “wow, these people are kind of nerdy” way. (Geeky men in a cockpit is just one of those things you don’t try to understand.) Then the passengers start arriving and the special effects folks go to town, working their magic so that Dave can play about 10 different personalities, some of them a little extreme. Let’s just say that plus-size people are not going to appreciate part of this.

We spend some time with the passengers getting all settled, and Dave does his best bit as a girl with braces who has a crush on… Dave. Happily for all, they are playing some Foo Fighters concert footage for all the actors to peruse, which is a good thing, because they’re going to be here all day so the video crew can capture all the different angles they need to make the split-screen Daves work in the video. Ain’t nobody gettin’ out of here anytime soon, so get comfortable and find something to read during the slow bits.

Okay, maybe Dave’s best bit, after all, is the fey flight attendant, because he’s having far too much fun doing the instructional “there are exits to the front, middle and back” routine. (Loved the hands-on-hips move, and the mess with the inflatable life preserver.) The plane takes off as we watch a clueless person not notice the bag of “world domination erotic sleeping powder” in the filter as he kicks off the coffee machine. One would normally wonder how you could not realize that the filter was already full, but we’ll blame it on the altitude and the free-flowing vodka at the craft services table.

Montage of the band playing on the plane monitors so we don’t forget that they have an album out. Get yours now! (And take the risk of this being the only song you like on the entire album, that eternal pitfall with music purchases. It happens, move on with your life.)

Cut to Teen-Girl Dave and her pigtails asking Dave for his autograph, which he happily provides while s/he strokes her hair and has a subtle orgasm. Teen-Girl then heads to the cockpit, where she flirts with the folks in there as well, so she might be something of a slut, despite the child-like pink ribbons she’s sporting. We watch as the flight crew schleps around the tainted coffee, which the passengers greedily suck down because there’s nothing else to do when crammed together in a giant tube.

Short bit where Flight-Attendant-Man Dave wanders into the cockpit with the love-potion coffee, and Captain Dave flirts with F.A.M Dave while the co-pilot fiddles with stick-shifts and such. It’s like soft porn on Castro Street, and everyone seems to be having a really swell time.

Back out in the plane proper, folks are getting a bit randy. (Well, the folks who drank the coffee are. The folks who didn’t are staring at the others and wondering if they’re on the right flight.) Meanwhile, Captain Dave and his Co-Tripper are a little messed up, and think it would be just keen to start rocking the plane from side to side. So all hell breaks loose, as passengers both horny and questioning are tossed across the aisles and things get spilled. It’s like Congress is in session.

Flight-Attendant Dave has a dramatic flame-out moment in the middle of the plane before he drops to the floor and throws his legs over his head. (Seriously, and I’m not even going to go there.) Real Dave and his buddies have had enough of the unexplained horniness and poor navigation, so they dash up to the cockpit to knock some heads together, where they find the crew all slumbering, courtesy of the aphrodisiac sleeping powder, and not actually flying the plane. Uh oh.

So, naturally, Dave and the gang are forced to “learn to fly” the plane, which they manage to do after only briefly glancing at a brochure they find lying nearby. They sweat and flip switches for a bit, but eventually we’re back on the ground and everybody lives to attend the Foo Fighters concert later that night.

We end with F.B.I. Dave arresting Jack and Kyle for Illicit Tampering With Heated Beverages While Wearing Ugly Jumpsuits, or some such, and they get hauled away while the original dorky pilots give them a thumbs up from the cockpit, and we get further confirmation that Dave Grohl has very interesting teeth. (Somewhere off-camera we can hear the Airplane movie producers saying “hey, this all looks really familiar…”)


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Goo Goo Dolls - “Iris”

We start out with the lead singer up in some tower, rolling around in a chair so he can spy on folks and buildings with old-timey telescopes. (Already with the creepy, yes?) Cut to the band playing a gig in the middle of a traffic tunnel. (This is a very popular thing to do, based on how often it happens in music videos. I personally don’t get it, but I’m sure it’s enjoyable if you like that sort of thing.)

Back to the tower, where John the Possibly Crazy Scientist is still fiddling with his telescopes and peering downwards at who knows what. (He actually seems to be spending far more time rolling around in his little chair than actually peering into eyeholes, so he might not quite understand how this spying thing works.)

Both of the Johns start singing, which entertains us for a little bit, but this is the really slow part of the song so we hope things pick up shortly. Surely this isn’t how the entire video is going to go, with Tower Man twiddling and the band just standing there and blocking traffic. We need a meteor or zombies or a dramatic disregard for fashion. There’s going to be more to the story, right?

Well, maybe not. I mean, we do get to see a little more of the tower room, enough to realize that I really wouldn’t want to live there, not really fond of the décor. And the camera angle in the traffic tunnel widens a bit so that we can see actual cars driving through, slowly, as the occupants try to figure out why the hell there’s a band performing on the median. But the basic action is still the same: peering and playing.

Oh wait, maybe we’re finally getting something here. The scientist opens a door or some such, and leans over the side of the building, gazing downward. Is he planning to jump? That would be understandable, if his only other option is to go back inside with those damn telescopes. But no, he heads back into his Victorian laboratory, jacks around with an odd metal globe, and then snatches up some binoculars and begins to study something else he shouldn’t be looking at.

Then he’s back outside, back inside, back outside, rinse and repeat, all the while screwing with the telescopes and walking in a manner that allows his silk bathrobe to twirl prettily but still retain a bit of manly flair. He also leans against the window glass a few times, for variety, but this does not excite me in any way.

And the band? Still playing. In that tunnel. Not doing anything else.

Sigh. Come on guys, give me something to work with, here.

Hold up, new scene. Some folks are standing on the sidewalk of a street, looking up, even though the one lady should actually be looking in a mirror and realizing she needs to change her horrid outfit. Are they watching the indecisive scientist make up his mind about getting airborne? Maybe. But it’s raining where they’re standing, and the sun was shining back up in the Peeping Tom Penthouse. Was the film editor drunk, or is the tower so high that it’s in a different weather pattern?

The wet and ugly people go away for a while, so we can watch more of the band playing in the tunnel. They’re actually moving around a little bit now, trying to generate some excitement, but it’s far too little, too late. I am SO not clapping when they are done. And please don’t come back out for an encore, or I might have to join the scientist on his wishy-washy ledge. I can certainly help him come to a final decision.

Speaking of The Guy Who Can’t Make Up His Mind, we cut back to him as he’s sitting in his vintage office chair in the middle of the room, leaning his head back and spinning around while the camera also spins around, blurring things. This might be a tribute to the movie Vertigo. This might be drugs. No one is explaining anything.

Then the professional Looky Loo starts rolling all over the room in his chair, going faster and faster as the music amps up. Maybe he got a note from one of the producers that we have GOT to pick things up or we’re going to lose the Tokyo fans, because they like action and artful death. Then he goes back out on the ledge, and pauses. Really? Just flip a coin dude.

Cut to ugly, wet couple on the sidewalk, still looking up. I guess they don’t have real jobs like the rest of us. Maybe they used to be air traffic controllers.

And we’re back to a slow part of the song, which doesn’t bode well for Tokyo. The band members stand around while someone else apparently plays this bit, and we get wistful slo-mo images of the chair wheels turning in the tower. It’s like somebody tried filming a Sylvia Plath poem, but then went to get a burger and just left the camera running.

Whew, the music started jamming again just before it was time for Ophelia to float by in a river, and folks get lively once more. Of course, they’re still doing the same boring things they were previously, but at least they are moving. Suddenly, we get a brief glimpse of lead singer John marching rather quickly down the tunnel, away from the band. (Is he quitting? I would have at this point. Actually, I wouldn’t have been in the tunnel to begin with so I guess my opinion doesn’t matter.)

Nope, must have been a pee break, because John’s soon back with the band. (Or maybe he ran into his publicist at a hot dog stand and harsh words sent him scurrying back to play nice.) They jam for a bit more as the video winds down, then John takes off again as the song and the images start to fade.

Last shot is of the antique chair in the tower room, and it’s empty. Oh? Did the oddly-dressed man actually go through with it? Hmm. Maybe those air traffic controllers can catch him. That one girl looked pretty sturdy…


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