Pink – “Try”

  We start off out in the desert somewhere, with Pink crawling along, most of her hair and body covered in different colors. (Think: serious incident at a paint factory.)Then we cut inside a building somewhere, with Pink still rainbow-splattered, and she’s joined by a shirtless man. No introductions are made, but they must know each other fairly well since the guy starts getting intimate with her neck. Or maybe it’s in Pink’s contract that the staff must greet her in in this way.

   Then Shirtless holds her from behind as they move into a dance that you’ve probably never seen before. (Or maybe you have. I’m in Texas, where most communities prohibit the viewing of “art” unless it celebrates oil, cattle, free guns for everyone, the deportation of Democrats, and Jesus. Generally in that order.)

  The choreography starts off slowly, with the couple struggling slightly as they bang into the walls of the house before they seem to get their footing and start strutting about. Shirtless does some interesting body flips with Pink, and then they suddenly race into another room, one that is unfinished but has more room for them to flop about without breaking anything. And flop they do, with the moves becoming increasingly complex, allowing Pink to show us that she has yet another talent that we don’t possess as she hits her marks with precision.

  Meanwhile, we keep getting glimpses of Painted Desert Pink, as she tromps around in the dusty sand and appears to be searching for someone or something. (Like an agent or producer who will quit questioning her artistic decisions and just let her do whatever instead of being annoying.) Pink does pause during her quest to sing here and there, because this is a music video after all, and the dramatic gestures she makes look really great with all that chalky paint.

  Back to the house, where Shirtless is hurling Pink through the air with anger and grace, and she’s hurling herself back with equal doses of each. (Okay, maybe a little bit more on the anger side, because this is Pink and she’s never calm about anything, but only she can make anger look this sexy.) It’s clear that the dance is about their relationship and it appears that there have definitely been some mountains high enough and valleys low enough and both of them better have life insurance.

  We check in with Painted Desert Pink as she sings another round of the chorus, but she still hasn’t found what she’s looking for, despite the fact that she’s being followed around by a production crew and surely somebody up in that mess can point her in the right direction.

  Back to the unfinished house/relationship, where Pink and Shirtless have reached a point in their dancing dialogue that requires Shirtless to throw her on a mattress and then drag her back off of it. This may or may not be an activity that is familiar to Pink, but she certainly performs her part with gusto.

  Quick shot of Pink finally spying someone across the desert plains. Oh? Is it Shirtless? Or just the pizza delivery guy?

  House again, where Pink does a nifty roll into the kitchen, where she and Shirtless continue their love-hate ballet that reaches a high point when Shirtless uses his foot to literally help Pink’s crotch reach a high point in the room. This sounds terribly tawdry, and it slightly is, but it’s mostly about how erotic and fluid and emotional this extremely physical pas de deux really is. I keep trying to find the funny in it all, but I’m mostly mesmerized by the poetic muscularity. I may have to turn in my snark card until this one is over.

  Or maybe not. Shirtless just let his guard down and Pink managed to grab him around the neck and hurl him onto a table, leaving a splash of blue paint on his chest as she storms out of the room. This is the exact same maneuver that I have wanted to pull with so many co-workers in conference rooms over the years. Then the next scene has them making out of the floor, which is not in my bucket list of what I want to do with co-workers, so maybe I need to take the focus off of me for a bit.

  So we can focus on the desert again, where Shirtless has magically appeared, and we see him hoisting Pink over his shoulders and then dropping her to the ground. (At least I think it’s Shirtless, since we’re seeing him from behind. It’s a man and he doesn’t have a shirt, those are my only reference points.) I’m more clear on the Pink identification, since she and her barely-covered crotch fall toward the camera.

  Back to the house, where they are continuing their dance in what might be a living room, with more of the “I yearn to make love to you but at the same time I want to kill you” motif. It’s obvious that every surface in the house is fair game when it comes to possible places to dance with joy and hatred. (And smear chalky paint all over each other so that it looks like a small Mardi Gras parade that turned ugly.)

  And it’s worth repeating that the strenuous dance moves the two of them are walloping out at an incredible rate are amazing. I’m thinking there are some seriously-trained dancers out there that would have an issue pulling off some of this footwork. (Not that I’m a certified ballet instructor or anything. I just think I am when I’ve had too much to drink, and that’s a whole other video from this one. One that nobody should ever watch.)

  Desert again, where Shirtless is now balancing an upside-down Pink on his shoulders, with her managing to do the splits in mid-air. I’m really not sure what the symbolism or message might be here, but it’s another moment when you realize that Pink has so much more fun in her life than the rest of us. And at least he doesn’t throw her to the ground this time, which has certainly got to be a bonus plan if you’re Pink or her physical therapist.

  House once more, not sure of the room, where we have the most physically awesome move by Pink. She manages to flip Shirtless over her head. Say what you say? Yep, girl done yanked a big ole man over her head. If she doesn’t deserve to be President of the United States for that, I don’t know what it’s going to take.

  Okay, maybe there was just a tad bit too much fan worship in that last paragraph. Especially since the two of them then proceed to head butt each other repeatedly. I’ve always wanted strong passion in my life. I just don’t want that passion to include a body cast and hospital bills.

  Then we start jumping rapidly back and forth between the house and the desert, with Pink and Shirtless leaping and bounding about in the dwelling, giving the foundation a workout, and just Pink in the desert, where she and her coats of many colors are singing defiantly. (I don’t know where Shirtless went in the desert bit. Perhaps he was hired by the CIA to covertly dance his way into North Korea and shut down their nuclear weapons program. You never know.)

  Hold up, now the couple has decided to start throwing chairs at one another in the house, which was probably not on the dance program that the patrons received when they arrived at the theater, and it’s certainly not something my lover should do to me if he wishes to remain in the house or our relationship. Interestingly enough, we cut to the desert where those same chairs are flying through the air. The seating implements crash to the ground and crumple, which is no big loss since they were kind of tacky to begin with and no one is going to mourn their passage.

  But it seems that we now have a faceoff in the desert, with Pink glaring at Shirtless (I guess the CIA gig didn’t work out) and Shirtless glaring at Pink across a wide expanse of sand. Then they start running toward each other, in a dramatic, drawn-out segment where you think they are finally going to get together, apologize for trying to kill each other through the magic of dance, and live happily ever after.

  But instead, as they reach the meet point, they both leap through the air with a snarl and hurtle toward each other with arms thrown high, chests heaving, and a potential impact that will leave both of them with ruptured organs and disability checks. Then the video cuts off.

  Hmm.

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