THE VIDEO David Lee Roth, "Yankee Rose," Eat 'Em and Smile, 1986, Warner Brothers
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SAMPLE LYRIC "Show me those / (bright lights!) / and those / (city lights!) / all right! / I'm talkin' bout a Yankee Rose"
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION And so the adventure begins! Okay, just kidding. But seriously, that's what it says when this video begins, and Diamond Dave indulges his penchant for theatre... of the bizarre. Following this text screen, the video begins with a shot of the entryway to a... well, I always think of it as a bodega, but I guess it's run by an Arab dude. Anyway. The walls are decorated with a painting of those sort of onion-top looking towers (I promise, this will get better). Otherwise, it's pretty much full of, you know, small grocery stuff. In the 80s there was a small grocery in the West 70s that totally looked just like this (I remember freaking out thinking that it was this grocery, but it's probably just a set in L.A. somewhere). Anyway. I'm not off to a strong start.
Pseudo-arabic sounding music plays as the door swings open. The first people to enter are a couple. The woman is wearing a wedding gown and is extremely pregnant, giving her the appearance of an obscene, lace encrusted parade float. The man has the build of Captain Lou Albano and is wearing a stained wifebeater, suspenders, and some sort of pants. She has long hair and frightening makeup, and she tosses her veil and bouquet around a bunch. He's balding but has shoulder-length hair and a heavy beard.
He picks up a basket as she begins throwing candy bars into it and berating him in heavily accented (Spanish, I think) English: "I cahn't beleeve eet okay, my cchhhhoneymoon night okay! I weeell probably only have tree or four more of dees in my whole entire lifetime! And chu, chu check me into dat dump your brothhhherr calls a motail!" He finally intervenes: "But Consuela, I gave him two dollars extra for the fantasy suite!" She mocks him: "Tooo bad hhhoney, tooo bad! Becos I veeell not sleep there so tonight you veell have to fantasize that you have a wife, okay?" And she pats him roughly on his paunch. He trails after her past the counter saying, "But Consuela, mi amor..." and we finally see the store's proprietor.
He's very skinny, with a greasy sort of pompadour thing, and he's smoking a cigarette and standing but resting one leg on the counter. He has on a dirty brown shirt knotted at the waist (the better for us to see the wifebeater and large gold medallion beneath) and gray pants. He leans forward, leering, and says, "Can I help you?" as another customer approaches.
This time it's a black woman wearing an outfit (shorts and some kind of bustier) made entirely of red, yellow, purple, and pink fake flowers. She also has on multiple neon wristbands, bright sunglasses with funky 80s frames, large green earrings, and bright makeup. Her hair is the ever popular teased on top and rat-tail in back, and she's swinging a straw bag as she approaches the counter, snapping gum and carrying with both hands a huge amount of the dark green Tic Tacs which she unceremoniously drops on the counter.
The clerk looks at her and says, "Oh! Breath meent!" opening a box and shoving several into his mouth. He leans toward her and says, "Our leeps, they are so close," while wiggling his eyebrows. She makes a horrified face and whips off her sunglasses, exclaiming. "Ewwwwwww-eeeee! Not if you was the last immigrant grocer on earth, honey" and puts her glasses back on and strides out of the store.
The grocer says something like "son of a biscuit, my ancestors spit on your haircut" and spits on the ground to his right. We then see the store from his point of view, and coming down the aisle toward him an immense woman screams in a Sam Kinison-like voice, causing him to become very alert: "Can you help me? My doctor says I have to take a laxative!" while swinging and knocking boxes off of the shelves. She's wearing green sunglasses, a silvery brocade housedress with a matching hat covered in bows, and some kind of furry shrug. She slides on the boxes she knocked down while she comes toward him.
He yells, "Not een my store you don't!" but just as quickly he is distracted by the arrival of a man with a teased, salt-and-pepper mullet wearing sunglasses, a plaid, pastel-colored jacket, khakis, and a pink shirt. Why is this man so distracting? Because on one hand he has an especially pneumatic blonde in a purple and pink bikini and on the other an equally absurd specimen wearing a white bikini bottom with an extremely highly cropped t-shirt on top. They've both got on headphones, sunglasses, and white heels.
The girls kind of bop along beside him as the man tells the clerk, who's making googly eyes at them, "Ooooh my friend, I always hang out with two of 'em 'cause it's better for conversation. See if there winds up bein' any, I don't have to be involved! Fuhgedaboutit." As he exits, he comments, "it's humid in here tonight, isn't it girls?" while adjusting his pants. On a side note, this man is Dave's real life business partner at the time, the other half of the Picasso Brothers.
The clerk stares adoringly after them resting his chin in his hand, when suddenly a spear comes down beside him. Uhoh! It's Dave, dressed in the makeup from the Eat 'Em and Smile album cover. He announces, "Give me a bottle of anything. (pause, look around) And a glazed doughnut. To GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." (Sorry, trying to type the "to go" as echoing).
Now, this particular part, I must say I try to reference all the time and no one, but no one, gets it. I've never seen this video shown without this completely irrelevant prologue so... I guess everyone else just hasn't seen this video. But Beavis and Butthead watch it! Sigh... I just don't know.
Anyway, ninety-jillion words later, the video begins in earnest. But ohhh, lest we forget: this song actually opens with still more dialogue, as Dave talks to Steve Vai's guitar. It basically sounds like he's talking to Scooby Doo, only kind of digital sounding. Dave does a spread-eagle leap from the drum risers, and Steve's guitar says (loosely translated), "Ri Rave."
Dave says, "What?" as he strides across the stage in medallion-festooned chaps, an assless metallic leotard, and a purple spandex off-the-shoulder top. Steve's guitar says uhhh...something unintelligible (no, it's not "roar rooby racks"). But Dave leans toward the camera and says, "Wellll let me roll up to the sidewalk and take a look...Whoa! [Steve: "Ro!"] She is beautiful! [Steve: (wolf-whistle)] Ah'mmmmm talkin' about a Yankee Rose!" etc, etc, as the song finally begins.
During all of this, Dave has changed his spandex ensemble three times, first pairing the metallic leotard thing (which I can't figure out-it has a thong aspect to it, and it covers him entirely in front, but thong aside it's utterly backless) with yellow and black striped spandex, then pairing a different leotard thing with red and black pants. During this we do see Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan, and Gregg Bissonette (who's drumming standing up while wearing what look like post-op shades), but their outfits don't change.
The only other notable outfit in this vid is Steve Vai's. He's pairing white boots, magenta sequined pants, and a painted jacket worn with no shirt beneath, and his entire stage presence seems to be based around convincing the audience that at any moment he might go down on... his guitar. He's such a weirdo, I find. Anyway.
Steve makes the guitar "laugh" as Dave finds a novel use for a large, inflatable microphone (just try to guess what he does with it). Dave does a final flying kick and then starts dancing like crazy as he sings. He's wearing eyeliner in this video, which I hate on him, and his hair is a bit shorter than in the Van Halen days and has heavy bangs. Yes, I hate to say it, but this video is definitely the beginning of the Decline of Dave. It is a slippery slope from here to "Just Like Paradise."
Did I mention he's wearing little white gloves with this whole ensemble? He turns and shakes his black and yellow spandex-clad ass (bisected by the thong on that damn leotard) for the camera, creating a shot for VH1 to put in all of the montages they play right before the voiceover starts talking about how everything was about to end and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was about to come out. If that doesn't put it in perspective for you, I don't know what will.
Anyway. Most of this video is performance, and though some shots show there being a crowd there, they don't try to convince us this is a real concert, and most of the time they definitely seem like they're just dancing around on a set with tons of colorful lights on it (a la Poison). However, unlike Poison, they don't seem effortlessly happy doing so. One gets the impression certain people were kind of, you know, waiting for the check to clear on this one. Dave goes through more costume changes than even I can keep track of, though they all consist of layering spandex in different ways (pants, leotard-thong-things, and off-the-shoulder crop tops) and include some or all of the following colors: turquoise, purple, yellow, black, pink, and more turquoise.
With the second verse, they start adding crowd noise into the song, which is kind of weird. Dave can't stop running, dancing, and kicking, nor can Steve or Billy stop swinging their guitars around and catching them (maybe they were trying to challenge Eric Brittingham for the world record?). The best moment of the video comes before the bridge, when Dave slides up the microphone all sexy and if I squint I can pretend he is not wearing all of that spandex and he's still in Van Halen and everything's still good in the world.
But no. During the bridge itself, everyone hams it up to the extreme. Gregg tosses his sticks in the air and (surprise) catches them again, Billy gets intimate with his bass while Dave lies down on the stage, and Steve Vai holds his guitar in one outstretched arm, staring at it like he's about to ...ugh, I don't even want to think about it. This only intensifies as we head into the solo. Anyone who doesn't get the whole guitar prowess as symbolic phallus thing has never seen Steve Vai play. As he reaches his frantic zenith, he repeatedly shoves the guitar between his spread legs. You know, when the video started I kind of wished I had those pants, but now I'm glad I don't. Anyway, shortly after, Dave wraps it up by kicking a large balloon, which bursts to reveal... lots of other balloons. Okay. As we fade out, Steve's still thrusting that guitar. Sigh.
THE VERDICT While, unfortunately for me, I said most of what I was going to say in my excessively detailed description, so yes, this will probably be mostly rehash. Let me say that I do indeed love this song. It's no "Runnin' with the Devil" or "Jamie's Crying" or even "Hot for Teacher," but it's still rather excellent. If one only heard the song, one's prognosis for Mr. Roth's career would have been rather excellent as well.
However, seeing the video, and the fact that a man who played such a crucial role in my psychosexual development (not only is he one of the hottest men ever, he's also my personal celebrity - we share the same birthday!!!) and who was at this point still in the prime of his life is already wearing makeup (and not in a Mötley Crüe pseudo-kabuki way) and falling victim to the whims of a demented stylist (who may be him himself) is just... well, it's a bit depressing. Especially when you consider that circa the same time, Van Hagar were putting out songs like "When It's Love" and "Dreams," both of which are great enough songs to penetrate my deep, deep loathing for Sammy Hagar.
I just feel bad for him! He's David Lee Roth, for pete's sake. He is the most endearing man ever. If you've never had the pleasure of reading Crazy from the Heat (his autobiography), I strongly suggest you pick it up. If you're looking for stories of out-and-out debauchery, it's no The Dirt, but if you just want insight into what DLR was thinking when he made decisions like this, what the constant kicking is all about, and, of course, what a tool Eddie Van Halen is (utterly destroying the little part of you that acknowledged both his hotness and his talent) this is the book for you. Geez, I'm sorry. This is reading like one of those especially strained Paula Abdul, "You took a risk. I'm really proud of you," assessments. And now, ashamed that I made an American Idol reference, I must quietly scurry out the door.