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Sunday, November 18, 2012

Matchbox Twenty – “She’s So Mean”



  Note: I’m not sure what kind of statement they were trying to make with the Mean Girl in this video, since she has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, so I’m just going to take it that she’s a jacked-up Tea Party Girl who is bitter about Romney not winning the election. And here we go…

  We start off with the band setting up shop and starting to perform the song. Why they are doing this in what looks like the lobby of a bank that only caters to snooty billionaires is not clear, but I’m sure somebody had a good reason. Rob starts singing the song, and all of the band members start playing their assigned instruments, and it initially appears that life as we know it will continue in a pleasant and safe manner.

  Then the camera shifts to some woman marching down a set of stairs like nothing important can happen until she arrives. (Is she a Kardashian?) Then we realize that she appears to be wearing a bra made out of glow-sticks, and we instantly dislike her because there’s really no reason to be sporting neon accessories that glow unless you happen to be a sign standing outside a Las Vegas casino. We’ll call her Prunella, because people who strut with excessive attitude should not have pretty names.

  Prunella sashays toward the band, working her hips like a combine thrashing wheat, and then she proceeds to knock over Rob’s microphone stand. In most places, this would get you kicked out of the nightclub by an ugly bouncer who is clearly using steroids. But it’s obvious that Prunella doesn’t care about things like proper behavior and reality, which is our first sign that she’s a card-carrying member of the Tea Party.

  Then Prunella marches over to one of the band members and unplugs his electric guitar. This symbolizes an attempt to jack with the guitar player’s right to vote in a presidential election, by cutting off his access to the voting box. She then steals the guitar and pretends to play it, sort of like George Bush Junior stealing Florida and then pretending to be President. She follows this up by smashing the guitar into a handy nearby marble column. (Symbolic of George ruining the economy.)

  I should point out that Rob keeps singing through all of this, rather than coming to the aid of his bullied band-mate. This would symbolize the Democrats who just look the other way rather than get in the face of a Republican on an illogical rampage. Or maybe Rob just really likes to hear himself sing and isn’t going to stop unless there’s a power failure.

  Prunella marches over to an area where something is covered by a tarp, and she rips it off. (Okay, I’ll give her that move. Nobody should be trying to hide things during an election.) She reveals all kinds of crap piled up, including a jar of some liquid that she first sniffs and then chugs. (Making it very easy for me to reference Tea Partiers “drinking the Kool-Aid”. If you’re going to be that blatant with your imagery, I’m going to call it.)

  Sadly, the moonshine doesn’t give Prunella the cramps, so she continues her rampage. She next finds a stack of vinyl records. (Note to the youth out there: Vinyl records are how we used to listen to music before you could download everything on the Internet. Note to Matchbox: Why the hell would you bring a stack of those things to an impromptu concert in a bank lobby?) Prunella proceeds to hurl the outdated records at the various band members, just like Republicans like to hurl outdated facts at everyone as if they had any relevancy anymore.

  Rob and the band members merely dodge the projectiles and keep playing. You know these folks can afford a decent security squad, so I’m guessing that one of the band members is sleeping with Twisted Sister and the rest of the guys are just trying to be nice, like we all do when one of our posse hooks up with an obvious nutcase. You nod and smile and drink your beer and wait for Crazy Girl to make the inevitable screw-up and get banished from the inner circle.

  Then hateful Prunella discovers some firecrackers next to the moonshine, and of course she sets them off while she and her neon bra laugh maniacally. (The blame for this particular mess is squarely on Rob, as the leader of the band. Don’t be bringing pyrotechnics up into the place where you’re going to perform music. That’s just ate up with the dumb-ass.)

  The band keeps singing and playing.

  Prunella, irked that she’s not getting an angry response like she normally gets when acting a fool, manages to find a bicycle and starts riding it all over hell. This would be symbolic of Republicans insisting on modes of transportation and social values from the 1800’s. It would also indicate that Matchbox Twenty really needs to reconsider the things that they drag to a concert.

  Prunella rides for a while (something tells me that the girl is used to riding for a long time, the tramp) before she leaps off the bicycle and allows it to slam into the drummer’s drums. When that doesn’t do enough initial damage, Prunella then kicks over the drums that didn’t bow to her will with the first missile. The drummer then stomps away in a huff, instead of the obvious choice, which would be to kick Prunella’s ass. This would be symbolic of the Democrats who think that you should just keep playing nice until the Republicans regrow a soul. This will probably not happen without court-ordered incarceration.

  Next up, Prunella decides that she would like to jack with the electricity in the building. She moseys over to a fuse box that just happens to be right there (seriously, did nobody up in this grill take any measures to counter a psychopathic slut that might show up during the shindig?), and then she proceeds to start ripping and pulling until showers of sparks are cascading down on the band members.

  And of course they just keep playing, like death by electrocution is just something you have to deal with once you sign a record contract. Prunella, apparently inspired by the potentiality of eliminating non-Republican voters, struts over to an un-manned soundboard (why is that thing even there if no one is working it?) and pours somebody’s abandoned coffee into the works, generating additional explosive pulses of unregulated electricity. (And this would be symbolic of Dr. Frankenstein raising the dead, a perfect analogy for Karl Rove and the Tea Party.)

  Naturally, because we are our own worst enemies when it comes to leaving paraphernalia lying around that scorned lovers can pick up and use against us, Prunella then finds a box of matches. As expected by now, Prunie does not just let the matches be while she instead works on a nice needlepoint pillow for her grammy. No, she lights one of the sticks up and hurls it onto the drummer’s drums. (Wait a minute, didn’t she already take those things out, like the Republicans destroyed their sense of decency when they jumped in bed with the Tea Party?)

  I guess proper video editing doesn’t matter, because the drums are magically back, and they have been conveniently coated with something that makes them burn like all get out. To his credit, the drummer keeps banging on the drum all day, creating a very nice cinematic moment of musicality and potential fiery death. And Rob keeps banging on the mike all day, because nothing will stop him from expressing his vocal abilities as long as he has an audience, even if that audience consists of a single sociopath with a need to wreak havoc whilst wearing day-glo support garments.

  Speaking of, Prunella has more tricks up her demented sleeve, and she now proceeds to locate a fire extinguisher. (More of the “is anybody checking ID’s at the door?” business.) Prune starts spraying the retardant foam all over the band members, Rob included, while simultaneously assuming poses that she feels would get her bonus points at a Victoria’s Secret cover shoot. Then she abruptly throws down her weapons of destruction and slatternly waltzes back up the staircase where she first descended from hell.

  Rob then laughs with far more enthusiasm than one should after being terrorized by someone with focus issues, so it’s fairly obvious that he’s the one who’s been sleeping with the enemy.

  It also explains why it’s been a while since the Robster released a solo album. It’s hard to be artistically inspired when you’re in a relationship with someone who watches Fox News


Click Here to Watch this Video on YouTube…


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