Chuck Klosterman On Film And Television (17 page)

1:52 P.M.:
Lindsey Buckingham is trapped in a fish tank and killing his doppelganger with mind bullets. Part of me is tempted to suggest that this low-fi technology and guileless chutzpah is cool and/or Advanced and/or better than videos of the modern age, but I just can’t do it. This is pretty idiotic. No wonder Stevie Nicks had to do all that blow. I’m sure she saw this video in 1982 and thought to herself,
I used to share my shawl with that guy?

2:05 P.M.:
There may be better guitar riffs than the opening of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” but there can’t be more than five. The singer’s hat sure is stupid, though. I wish Stewart Copeland would punch him in the throat.

2:09 P.M.:
I’m watching film footage of Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic,” and it’s one of those montages where we see old scenes of traffic and frigid homeless people and crazy dudes in wheelchairs, and this is supposed to replicate the experience of traveling across Manhattan in 1968. However, I remain certain that this song must be a metaphor for a stubborn woman Hendrix was trying to sleep with, because there is no way Jimi Hendrix would ever be bothered by gridlock. I can’t fathom a scenario where Jimi would have needed to be
on time,
unless he was late for a taping of
The Dick Cavett Show.

2:25 P.M.:
One of my all-time favorite video tropes is the “Spontaneous Sex Party in the Classroom” conceit, best personified by Van Halen in “Hot for Teacher” but also exemplified by what I’m watching right now, which is “Sexy + 17” by the Stray Cats. Sadly, the girls in this video don’t look seventeen. This is more like the last few seasons of
Happy Days,
where a thirty-six-year-old Fonzie would snap his fingers and be groped by two high-school cheerleaders, both of whom were roughly thirty-three.

2:29 P.M.:
Speaking of Van Halen, “Sexy + 17” is followed by “(Oh) Pretty Woman,” which is a narrative about a semi-hot woman being sexually tortured by two dwarves, only to be rescued by a cowboy (Eddie Van Halen), a jungle savage (Alex Van Halen), a Samurai warrior (Michael Anthony), and Napoleon Bonaparte (David Lee Roth). This was released in 1982, so I guess this was Van Halen’s Village People period.

2:35 P.M.:
Things are really getting excellent: Poison’s “Fallen Angel” is illustrating the cautionary tale of a small-town girl who moves to Los Angeles and immediately becomes a whore. The moral of our story? Never go anywhere and never try anything. Stay home and buy more Poison records.

2:55 P.M.:
Blue Öyster Cult (“Godzilla”) and Led Zeppelin (“Whole Lotta Love”) just had a heavyweight heavy-off, and (much to my surprise) the rubber radioactive monster pounds the mudshark out of the German war blimp.

3:05 P.M.:
I am informed by VH1 Classic that “We … are … the ’80s,” and this is proven by Lionel Richie’s willingness to dance on the ceiling. I think this video came out at roughly the same point when Lionel hosted the American Music Awards and kept inexplicably repeating the word
outrageous,
the most overt (and least successful) attempt in pop history to create a national catchphrase. This video ends with Rodney Dangerfield bugging his eyes out and saying, “I shouldn’t have eaten that upside-down cake!” Now that’s a catchphrase.

3:20 P.M.:
With the exception of a waifish brunette wearing a negligee and placing her foot in a basin of water, R.E.M.’s video for “The One I Love” is remarkably similar to the opening credits of the old PBS science show
3-2-1 Contact.
I’m calling a copyright attorney.

4:02 P.M.:
Driven by hot-blooded lust, Gloria Estefan is crawling into my lap and insisting the rhythm is going to get me (tonight). We’ll just see about that, Gloria. You pipe down!

4:08 P.M.:
When one really thinks about it, the message of Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” is rather brilliant, inasmuch as the song examines the disconnect between the actions of a lover and how those deeds are interpreted. However, this disconnect is significantly downplayed by the video, inasmuch as it appears to glamorize riverboat gambling.

4:18 P.M.:
“Raspberry Beret,” the best Prince song ever recorded, is followed by the Bangles’ “Manic Monday,” the best Prince song ever recorded by somebody else. Prince supposedly gave “Manic Monday” to Susanna Hoffs in the hope that she would sleep with him. If I were Prince, that’s all I would ever do—I’d write airtight singles for every female musician I ever met. As far as I can tell, the reason you write great songs is to become a rock star, and the reason you become a rock star is to have sex with beautiful, famous women. Why not cut out the middleman? Prince is a genius.

4:48 P.M.:
Here is what I am learning from “Our House” by Madness: never invite ska musicians into your home, because they’re all too fucking happy. “Our House” and Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” were my favorite songs in fifth grade. Man, I am so glad I got into Mötley Crüe.

5:11 P.M.:
Ian Astbury wears sunglasses while singing “Whiskey Bar” with two surviving members of the Doors. Time to get nervous.

5:23 P.M.:
In 1984, .38 Special released a record called
Tour de Force.
Do you think they were serious about this? I mean, do you think they were sitting in the studio, working on tunes like “If I’d Been the One,” and they eventually just looked each other in the eyes and said, “This is it. This is our tour de force.” I’m sure this must have happened, because why else would you make a video where a bunch of wild horses run through a prairie fire?

5:49 P.M.:
I’m quite enjoying Michael Sembello’s “Maniac.” However, I’m a tad baffled: How did
Flashdance
ever get produced theatrically? The movie itself isn’t necessarily bad (it’s kind of good, sort of). But how did anyone pitching the script ever get past the segment of the description where he’d have to say, “Okay, now here’s the key—this girl is also a professional welder.” Because I’m sure every studio executive responded by saying, “She’s what? A professional wrestler?” And then the guy pitching the script would have to go, “No no no, I said
welder,
” and they’d have a twenty-minute conversation about how to strike an arc and why watching a woman do this would be sexy. Which it is, but that doesn’t make it any easier to explain.

6:00 P.M.:
The
Metal Mania
hour opens with “Summertime Girls” by Y&T, which makes me wish my apartment was an ’84 Caprice Classic. Beautiful women are wearing black leather outfits on the sands of Malibu, and that can’t be comfortable. Luckily, they remove them in order to don black lingerie, which is evidently what they wear when they play beach volleyball. I can totally relate to this.

6:07 P.M.:
Go ahead and call me sentimental if you must, but I will always prefer the Def Leppard videos where the drummer still has both his arms.

6:12 P.M.:
Memory is a strange thing. Example: I completely recalled that the Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane” video was about the band being locked inside a steel cage while hundreds of sex-starved women tried to sexually attack them. However, I had somehow blocked out the fact that this video also involved leopards.

6:25 P.M.:
If I have a persecution complex (and I do), it undoubtedly came from watching Twisted Sister videos, namely “I Wanna Rock.” If left to my own devices, I would have never realized how much society was actively trying to stop me from listening to Twisted Sister.

6:42 P.M.:
I’m watching “Girls, Girls, Girls” right now. One of the strip clubs Mötley Crüe mentions in this song is the Body Shop on the Sunset Strip, and every time I’m in L.A. I end up walking right past it. Part of me has always wanted to go in there, mostly because of this song. But I never do, mostly because of this song.

6:55 P.M.:
King Kobra. Kool.

7:01 P.M.:
By some act of God, today’s episode of
Headline Act
is about KISS. Paul Stanley gives me advice on how to live my life before playing “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Gene Simmons explains that the KISS Army is a volunteer army. True dat.

7:32 P.M.:
An interesting aside has just occurred to me: VH1 Classic shows no commercials (just promos for VH1). It’s been a long time since I’ve watched this much television without someone trying to sell me something. However, I suppose VH1
is
selling me something; they’re selling nostalgia, which means they’re selling my own memories back to me, which means they are selling me to me. I am both the commodity and the consumer. So what’s the margin on that?

7:40 P.M.:
Whitney Houston tells me she gets so emotional, baby, and I believe her. This video came out years before she went fucknuts, but she already seems pretty bizarre and skeletal. Fourteen minutes later, Aretha Franklin sings “Freeway of Love.” She is half as bizarre and forty times less skeletal.

8:06 P.M.:
Okay, here’s something I failed to anticipate: it turns out VH1 Classic operates on some kind of “block system,” because they just played Tom Petty’s “So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star” (again), and now they’re playing the same Roger Waters shit I saw at 12:05. I am now going to have to spend the next eight hours rewatching the exact same videos I just spent the previous eight hours watching, in the exact same sequence. If I were a member of al Qaeda, this would be enough to make me talk.

8:28 P.M.:
This is all so idiotically meta. Because this is VH1 Classic, all these videos are things I saw in the distant past. They make me think of junior high. But because I just finished watching these same exact clips eight hours ago, my window for nostalgia is much smaller. I am now nostalgic for things that just happened. So the second time I see Fine Young Cannibals’ “Good Thing,” it makes me nostalgic for 12:30, which was when I had General Tso’s chicken for lunch. Yeah, those were GTs.

8:57 P.M.:
Let me be honest about something: I am not the first person who came up with the idea of watching rock videos and writing about the experience. In 1992, a brilliant guy named Hugh Gallagher locked himself in a hotel room and watched MTV for seven straight days (this is back when MTV still played videos). I recall him writing that a Black Crowes antiheroin video made him want to do heroin. That’s nothing. He should have watched this Free video twice!

9:10 P.M.:
There is no way Derek Wittenburg can handle Clyde Drexler off the dribble, and Thurl Bailey cannot match up with Akeem Olajuwon on the block. I am certain Houston will win the 1983 NCAA championship. Oh, fuck … this is ESPN Classic. Sorry.

9:16 P.M.:
The first time I saw Triumph’s video for “Somebody’s Out There,” I failed to notice that it inexplicably involved a woman looking into a microscope. Maybe all this repetition will pay dividends.

10:19 P.M.:
In the world of Deep Purple’s “Knocking at Your Backdoor,” windmills are remarkably prominent.

10:31 P.M.:
Earlier today, I saw Van Halen’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman” and merely thought it was strange. Upon further review, this is the craziest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

10:51 P.M.:
I was wrong about something else this afternoon: upon further review, Zeppelin is substantially heavier than BÖC. I had just been distracted by the two-minute drum solo near the end of “Godzilla.” It also dawned on me (during Jimmy Page’s solo) that some yet-to-be-invented band should make an homage to early-’70s psychedelic acid-rock videos that transpose live performance with still photography.
¹

12:07 A.M.:
Well, it’s now been twelve hours since I started this project. I think I’m holding up okay, although it’s a lot less fun to watch videos when you always know what’s coming up next. This is becoming a Groundhog Day fiasco. But static stimuli makes you consider curious things: like, was Boy George attractive? And I don’t mean attractive as a man, nor do I mean attractive as a woman. It’s more like, was he attractive
as a human
? And why does the answer to that question suddenly seem so different than the answer to the first question?

12:46 A.M.:
Corey Hart looks exactly like a kid I attended basketball camp with in seventh grade. That guy had no game whatsoever. He did, however, upturn the collar of his IZOD, just as Corey does in the video from “Never Surrender,” which I’m now watching. I think that kid from basketball camp was named “Corey,” too. Or maybe it was Monroe. Oh well, let’s move on.

1:20 A.M.:
I have very mixed feelings about this REO Speed-wagon video (“Roll with the Changes”). That whole era—1979 to 1983, roughly—was definitely the worst period in the history of rock music. But I think it’s probably my favorite era of rock music, and my reasons for feeling this way are complex. At risk of getting all pseudo-Zen, I don’t like listening to “Roll with the Changes,” but I like the way it sounds. And I don’t like looking at REO Speedwagon, but I like the way they look. The bottom line, I suspect, is that there was never another time where the gap between “totally great” and “completely terrible” was so minuscule, which is why I’m glad VH1 Classic exists.

2:04 A.M.:
“Let It Go” by the Japanese metal band Loudness includes ample footage of industrial power saws slicing through tree trunks (We’re back to the aforementioned Metal Mania hour). It would be fascinating to interview the director of this video today, because I’d love to hear him try and explain what he was trying to convey with this imagery. There is no plausible explanation: this is “heavy metal.” It’s not “heavy lumber” (and even if this film was conceptualized by some forward-thinking Tokyo auteur who spoke no English whatsoever, there’s no way he could misinterpret that). Is this supposed to mean the music of Loudness will attack the listener with the frenzied power of sharpened steel? If so, I guess that makes us the trees.