Autograph, "Turn Up the Radio"

The Curl Conundrum

THE VIDEO Autograph, "Turn Up the Radio," Sign In Please, 1984, RCA

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SAMPLE LYRIC Turn up! The radio! / I need the music, gimme some mo' / turn up! the ray-dio! / I got to feel it, gotta give me some mo'"

THE VERDICT Do you ever sit around thinking to yourself, what is the most ridiculous metal video I can think of? Okay, maybe that's just me. And probably, you wouldn't think of this one. Personally, I'd think of something by Y&T. But this Autograph video really takes the cake. Every time you think "it can't get more dumber than this," it gets dumber. In fact, it gets dumberer. Seriously -- look at what happens in this video:

1) The album cover comes to life. Autograph enter a weird, futuristic garage-looking room, where the robot from the cover of their album tells them the title of their album ("sign in please"). A printer shoots out a sheet that says "Autograph," and they all sign in next to their instrument. Except their drummer, Keni Richards, who just writes an "X." Somehow this causes the robot to electrocute him, and make his headband display an "error" message. I'm not making this up!

2) Wait, I forgot to mention the mechanical pencil. When the robot asks them to sign in, vocalist Steve Plunkett makes this sassy face (get used to it, he keeps making it for pretty much the whole rest of the video). In any event, a big green laser ray appears, and Plunk grabs a mechanical pencil out of it. Did they bother to get some kind of cool-looking prop, maybe something chrome? No. No, no. This is one of those plastic mechanical pencils that's made to look like a regular old #2, with a yellow plastic body and a pink rubber eraser. Clearly, no expense has been spared.

3) The robot sort of DJs for them. This isn't Daft Punk. The robot doesn't really move. There's just a lot of pointing, and some laser lights. But the robot is standing at some kind of station, and appears to be running the show.



4) Everyone acts like they're BFFs. Seriously, the members of Autograph spend so much time leaning against each other and smiling, you kind of begin to wonder if one of them is holding the camera at arms length, and if they're just filming themselves that way. It's really weird. Steve Plunkett seems to especially like leaning on bassist Randy Rand, but then again Randy seems to like leaning on everyone in the video. Possibly Randy was the best cameraman.

5) Omg look at the audience. So even though we never see them in any of the shots of the band, apparently there's an audience watching them perform. It appears to be made up of middle-aged people who have brought their tweenage children. Seriously. There's a woman who looks kind of like Cheri Oteri, a bunch of kind of stringy-looking white dudes, and some surly chubby boys. And of course, there's the one hot chick who's supposed to be ogling the band. She looks like a female A.C. Slater, or possibly just an extra who got lost on her way to a shoot for a Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam video.

6) Special effects! As Butt-head would say, "these special effects aren't very special." They do a ludicrous slo-mo shot of Plunk jumping off the drum riser. This is only topped by Steve Lynch's guitar solor, which we see from a zillion angles, but most notably in a shot where they make it appear as if there are two of him simply by splitting the screen and playing the same shot twice, side by side.

7) The robot is kind of their chauffeur. In this midst of all this, there's a totally rando shot of the robot sitting behind the wheel of a car. This isn't picked up again till nearly the end, when suddenly we see there is a limo full of dry ice waiting for the band. The robot's driving them.



8) They act it out for those of us who don't understand what "turn up the radio" means. Seriously. Seriously. For the sort of breakdown part at the end of the song, the rest of the band chants the chorus and claps, while keyboardist Steve Isham (who looks like some kind of unholy offspring of Don Dokken and my eighth grade boyfriend) dances around and mimes turning up the radio with a little transistor radio. Guys, we knew what you meant.

9) The mechanical pencil's back. To give the video some kind of continuity and plot, the mechanical pencil returns. As the band runs to get into the limo, the crowd -- and notably the hot chick -- cry out for them. Plunk doesn't know what to do, but then Keni grabs the pencil (which earlier he'd stashed in his frizzy hair) and hands it to him. Plunk hurls it like a knife and she catches it. This is so weird. It's like the bouquet toss at a wedding, only much, much cheaper.

10) Dramatic re-use of footage. In case that moment with the pencil didn't bring you closure, fear not -- they have re-used the exact same footage of Plunk jumping off the drum riser. It ends with the album cover. Ah, the circle of life crappy videos.

Okay, so why are we looking at this utterly weirdo video? Well okay, one, because that's pretty much all we do here. But two, because I recently was issued a challenge, or possibly a potential corollary, to my theory about metal bands' hair colors. Simply stated, it goes: The more brunettes in your band, the more metal you are. Blondes dilute metalness. (Admittedly, redheads I don't know what to do with, although really, who does.)

In any event, it was recently put to me: What to make of curly hair? Does it mean anything for a band's metalness? I have thought about this long and hard (surprise), and come up with an answer: Curly hair is for wusses. Now before you curly-locked folk get up in arms, please let me acknowledge that I am marrying a man with a full head of extremely curly hair. I am no curl hater. But come on, look at metal men with extremely curly hair -- it does not look badass. In fact, quite the opposite.



That said, there are two ways that rockers with curly tresses seem to deal with it. One is by just, you know, going with it, a la Autograph. I would also add as a yet another law of metal hair that the more members of your band with short hair (shoulder-length or less), the less metal your band is. I mean just look at Krokus. Or think about it -- bands like Def Leppard (Phil Collen, Rick Allen) or Bon Jovi (Tico Torres, Alec John Such, that keyboardist whose name I'm blanking on for some reason... David Bryan!). Right? Short hair waters down the metal.

However, there's another direction for curly-haired boys. And that is to fight their natural wussy texture by going all-out metal. Because think about it -- where do you find the most men with curly hair? And I mean serious curls, not just like wavy texture. Thrash bands. They are totally all in thrash bands.

I mean think about it: Tom Araya. Marty Friedman from Megadeth, who has seriously the curliest hair ever. If he had straightened it in its prime, it probably would've been to his knees. Kirk Hammett. The lead singer from Overkill. This is serious, y'all.

Is it a result of having to endure ridicule during the incredible amount of time it must have taken them to grow their curls that long? Is it just knowing in their hearts that curly hair is for wusses? Is it the fact that flat iron technology was not yet there in the 80s? The world may never know. But I will continue to try to help the world figure out by coming up with additional laws of hair metal hairdom.

Danzig, "She Rides"

Danzig Got Back

THE VIDEO Danzig, "She Rides," Danzig, 1988, Def American

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SAMPLE LYRIC "She-eeee-ulll take you down / she'll take you / she-eeeeeeee-eeel take you ar-ooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww-ouund"

THE VERDICT Oh man, this video cracks me up every time. Seriously y'all, it's the "Simply Irresistible" of heavy metal videos. I know, since they're both from albums from 1988, it's hard to say which came first. But since with "Simply Irresistible" Robert Palmer is really just ripping off his own video ("Addicted to Love"), we're going to go with "She Rides" being the "Simply Irresistible" of metal, as opposed to "Simply Irresistible" being the "She Rides" of um... uh... whatever you'd describe Robert Palmer as. If I had to guess, I'd say "Simply Irresistible" had about at least a dozen times the budget of "She Rides," but it's good to know that no matter how much money you have, you still can't find models with rhythm.

Let us count the reasons this video is amazing. We will start with the dancing chick whose ass dominates the screen for a fair chunk of the video. One of the many, many things that makes watching old videos (well, old anything really) amazing is how much they let you see how beauty standards have changed. For one, it looks like she did her own makeup. But crazy hair color aside, what's amazing about this main woman (there are other gals in the video but we see her the best) is how natural she is. She doesn't look especially young, she's rocking an A-cup, and she's trim but not toned. Nor have they oiled her up or anything like that (possibly they didn't have an oil budget for this video).

Also interesting are her assortment of tattoos. I feel like in 1988 this video probably was like "OMG it's the painted lady." Now? At least in some parts of San Diego, it's hard to find women who don't have sleeves. Or think of that racist weirdo (from San Diego, natch) that Jesse James got himself involved with. This lady's tattoos are downright tasteful -- I mean, she could put on clothes and have them all covered. Times have changed.



Speaking of clothes and times changing, let's also mention what she is wearing, and how it is the skimpiest and most intensely high-waisted thong ever. Though they had not yet penetrated the mainstream, Brazilian waxes appear to have been alive and well in 1988. Based on the way this woman dances like this is the most boring thing she's ever done (if you look closely, you can see her calculating like how much she'll have to pay the babysitter if the video shoot runs long) and is able to keep the rhythm (unlike the gal by the drums), we're going to conjecture she's had some professional experience.

Reason #2 this video is amazing: Danzig himself, of course. We mostly see him in extreme close-ups that don't even show his whole face, and the whole time he is bobbing up and down in time with the music. I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm thinking it's meant to imply that Danzig is actually getting it on the whole time. If this is true, we have learned that Danzig is at once industrious and indifferent. I mean, he's plugging away there, but his attempts at acting smoldering come off as boredom.

Even more amazing are Danzig's interactions with the women in this video, because try as they might to make him seem man-size, he is a tiny little dude. The main woman in the video looks to be on the tall side -- admittedly, it could be that she's skinny, but to me she looks more like she's 5'8" and 120 pounds than 5'2" and like, 80 pounds. Put her in the same shot as Danzig -- either he's standing on a box or she's kneeling. I'm not sure which it is, but since he's about 5'2", if she were actually as short as they're making her look here, she'd have to be about 4'10", which is the cut-off for being considered a dwarf (look out, Snooki).



The other two women in the video who interact with Danzig we mostly see as pairs of hands, and oh, what hands. The curly-haired gal has on terrifying fake nails, and when she's stroking Danzig's back (apparently being as shocked by his tramp stamp as I was the first time I saw this video) we can reach one of two conclusions. Either she is in possession of gigantic Abraham Lincoln hands, or Danzig is tiny. Similarly, when the other woman strokes first his face, then his bicep, to put it in size terms wrestling fans will understand, it looks like the Great Khali mixing it up with Rey Mysterio. Danzig is itty-bitty!

What else is amazing? Um, the rest of Danzig, and how they completely ignore these women, no matter how close they get to them. John Christ mostly has legs superimposed next to him, so I guess it's okay that he doesn't even bother flipping his hair out of his eyes to look over there. But Chuck Biscuits appears to have a real live lady dancing right next to him for basically the entire video, and he doesn't look even a little bit. Only Danzig seems to want to get his chest hair stroked by them.

Which brings us to the fourth amazing aspect of this video, which we can consider #4, or we can call 2B -- the sensuous Danzig. Seriously, when he has the long creepy nails stroking his chained hands, make sure you don't have any liquids in your mouth, because you will spit them at whatever screen you're watching it on. And oh goodness, the Spiderman kiss at the end is unbearable. I feel like Danzig is in on the joke, but still. It's just. Too. Much.

Because really, this is the weird thing about Danzig. He is kind of hot. I mean, not the chest hair. But oftentimes I've looked at the unquestionably hot John Morrison (I know, I can't seem to stop talking about wrestling) and thought "Dang, he looks like Glenn Danzig." The whole point of John Morrison is that he's supposed to look like Jim Morrison, but I'll be damned if Glenn Danzig doesn't look a little bit like a short, ripped Jim Morrison with a weird haircut. Maybe the rest of the Doors should call him next.

I submit, for your edification, a side by side comparison: (L-R) John Morrison, Glenn Danzig, Jim Morrison

Alice Cooper, "Poison"

Don't Call It a Comeback

THE VIDEO Alice Cooper, "Poison," Trash, 1989, Epic

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SAMPLE LYRIC "Poi-saaaaaahn / you're poison runnin' through my veins / poi-saaaaaaahhn / I don't wanna break these chains"

THE VERDICT This video is like a time capsule of what heterosexual men thought was sexy in 1989. High-waisted thongs, high-waisted jeans, straight blond hair a la Christina Applegate and curly light-brown hair a la Rebecca Gayheart (actually, this gal looks quite a bit like Keri Russell). If you were to extend this into a full-length feature, it would also need to have clothes from Merry-Go-Round (it may already have this come to think) and Designer Imposters fragrances (which I know they still make, but I feel like approximately 1988 through 1994 was their heyday). I guess I should also note if you're really into this stuff, the uncensored version of the video lets you see the Keri Russell-looking-one topless.

Other than the two afore-described ladies lounging around, fonding chains, and trying to poison Alice, this video mostly features, well, Alice, looking at once especially leathery and the same as he's always looked. He's surrounded by a relatively generic-looking bunch of musicians who I'm pretty sure aren't the same guys who appear in the other videos from this album. Definitely not "House of Fire," though the "House of Fire" guys may well be the iteration of the band that appears in Wayne's World (digression on that to come!).

In this vid, he's got one guy with Zakk Wylde-esque hair (as always, I mean the hot Zakk Wylde, not today's Zakk Wylde) and a blonde guitarist who is seriously hott (yes, with two t's). He looks like the best of Duff McKagan crossed with the best of Taime Downe somehow shoved into one guy. Possibly after this video they realized they needed to surround Alice with way less hot guys. They should've put Kip Winger back in the band! (*Rimshot*)



Here's the promised Wayne's World digression: I also like that even though it's a bit later, the Alice Cooper of Trash always makes me think of Wayne's World. Alice is of course in real life a big-time conservative, which pains me greatly. I bring this up in the Wayne's World vein because his cameo in that movie (as well as his special guest appearance on The Muppet Show, which was one of my favorites growing up and is what I associate Welcome to My Nightmare Alice Cooper with) makes me think that unlike those other metal conservatives (I'm talking about you, Paul and Gene) Alice seems like a nice guy who's not unwilling to make fun of himself.

Of course, notorious metal conservative Ted Nugent and his tongue-in-cheek performance as himself on Undeclared combined with his real-life douchery only confounds this picture further. (As does big-time metal liberal Dave Mustaine's seeming inability to make fun of himself.) Sigh! As long as we're talking Wayne's World though, let me also mention the guitarist in Cassandra's band Crucial Taunt -- it's Marc Ferrari from Keel! He did the music for the movie and plays in her band. Also, regardless of your party affiliation, you must agree he's ah-dorable.

Long story short, we've got babes, we've got Alice, we've got a bright blue background, some pieces of diaphanous red fabric waving through the air, chains, chairs getting kicked over -- it's pretty much what metal videos are starting to look like at this point in time, as the 80s wind down and we head into the early 90s, when basically all metal videos will look like this (viz. 1991's "No More Tears," which is basically the same video just with more water and an exceptionally hot young Zakk Wylde). What I really want to talk about here is the song.



This was Alice Cooper's big comeback song -- I mean yes, there were singles in the 80s, like that horrible Friday the 13th one, but not like this. This song is what happens when you go out and hire yourself a hitman. I don't mean a mafioso, and for once, I don't mean Bret 'The Hitman' Hart (though get ready 'cause I'm about to go on a big tangent about wrestling). I mean a producer who can write songs that the whole world wants to hear, regardless of who's singing them. I mean what else has Desmond Child worked on: Bon Jovi's biggest albums, 80s KISS, 80s Aerosmith... think about it. (And I'm not hating, I have heard Alice himself say as much about this album.) I mean think about this song -- it's freakin' genius. Who could screw it up? Nobody.

I've been thinking about this lately because of something that happened to me, about which I am very, very ashamed. As I've mentioned before, I love professional wrestling (shut! That's not the thing I'm ashamed of!), and as I don't think I've mentioned before, I've finally found in my fiance a man who's willing to watch it with me (so let's throw out all your gendered stereotypes about who watches what right now, okay?). Anyway. I hadn't watched it consistently in a couple of years when we started watching it again this past January, at which point I got really into not just wrestling for the zillionth time, but the music of wrestling.

Now, back when I was first watching wrestling in the 1980s, sure, wrestlers had entrance music. But except for Hulk Hogan's Rick Derringer theme ("Real American" -- don't act like you don't remember!), it was mostly instrumental and repetitive. A lot of it I would guess was public domain (e.g., Ric Flair's "Also Sprach Zarathrusta", Randy 'Macho Man' Savage's bizarre choice of "Pomp and Circumstance").

As it turns out, at least for WWF/WWE wrestlers, these are all written by the same guy, who also plays many of the instruments, which is a heck of a thing to do. Anyway, he's been doing that for a couple of decades. But long story short, at some point in the 90s, they began to shift away from having theme music to wrestlers having theme songs. And while these theme songs vary in musical style (girl pop for Tiffany, Jimi Hendrix tribute for John Morrison), a great many of them are pretty much lyrical metal. Though some feature performers from nu-metal bands (e.g. Randy Orton's theme, which I have grown to utterly love), there's nothing nu about the sound they wind up with.



So it wasn't really a surprise to me that I wound up really digging the theme song to Monday Night RAW -- it's this rocking, rollicking thing that you could imagine Slaughter or even Cinderella doing. Or really anyone doing. It's that kind of song -- there isn't a band on earth that could screw this thing up, that's how well-produced it is. And as if to prove my point, once I finally went to figure out who performed the Monday Night RAW theme ...it's ...ulp ...oh god ...it's Nickelback. Yes, the band widely reviled as bottomfeeders of basically, well, the entire music industry. Nickelback. A band basically synonymous with suck. Why, why couldn't it have been Creed? Or Uncle Kracker? Or something else equally embarassing? But no, it's Nickelback. Yes, dear reader, I like a Nickelback song. By accident! By accident!

But here's the thing: Could Nickelback have accomplished this one their own? Oh hell no. You know who produced the album this came from? That's right, the former Mr. Shania Twain, Mutt Lange. Do you know what else he produced? An assload of hits for AC/DC and Def Leppard. If this were performed by AC/DC or Def Leppard, I wouldn't be ashamed. But this is the damnedest part of the whole thing. If this were performed by AC/DC or Def Leppard (particularly the latter), it wouldn't sound that different. That's the thing. Producers, composers, lyricists like Desmond Child or Mutt Lange -- they help you create songs that are just impossible for performers to screw up. Or for listeners to get out of their heads. Thus explaining why Ke$ha has a hit with a song ripped off from "there's a place in France where the naked ladies dance."

P.S.: In all my distraction with this song's production, I forgot all about the weird Burning Man-looking sculpture in the video. It's hard to see in grainy black and white, but I think Alice is tied to it at one point.

P.P.S.: One other thing I love to do with all these wrestling themes is come up with the perfect 80s metal band to perform them. The Big Show's "welllll" is just calling for the voice of Glenn Danzig, and similarly, the wailing in Edge's theme would be well-suited to Geoff Tate and Queensryche. I'm pretty sure the new theme for the newly 'dashing' Cody Rhodes was written explicitly to rip off Slippery When Wet-era Bon Jovi, so why not have them cover it? Winger are perfect for the sleaze-rock of Dolph Ziggler's theme, and come on, a silly rap-rock theme for The Miz? Somebody call Anthrax!

P.P.P.S.: I know a lot of people find this post because they're searching "who are the girls in the Alice Cooper 'Poison' video" or something like that. I can't find any info whatsoever on the blonde (sorry!), but many sources point to the brunette (who I described as looking like Felicity/Keri Russell) being a gal named Rana Kennedy. So far as I can tell, she's now a Pilates instructor in North County, and most of the other work she did even back in the late 80s/early 90s was fitness modeling. (Cue NBC's little 'The More You Know' shooting star thing.)

Great White, "Stick It"

It's Shark Week Again

THE VIDEO Great White, "Stick It," Great White, 1984, EMI

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SAMPLE LYRIC "I'm out on the road, and I'm rockin'! / (Stick it, stick it) / I'm on out the road there's no stoppin' / (Stick it, stick it)"

THE VERDICT Don't let the fact that most Great White songs are either covers or pretty terrible ballads (not to mention the fact that at this point they are way more famous for causing considerable death and devastation than they are for even "Once Bitten, Twice Shy") keep you away from this gem. This is a great song. For serious. They managed a couple of genuinely great songs back in their day, and this is one of them ("On Your Knees" is the other one, if you're wondering.)

This video is no slouch either. Even more than I enjoy songs about the right to rock, I love metal videos that feel like they're from some lost 80s movie that desperately needs to be unearthed. "Stick It" is actually sort of a combination of that with like, a long lost ZZ Top video -- I mean fantasy, babes, a car? That's serious Top territory. And of course, bathing suits of the 80s, which always provide a fun trip down memory lane (or just like, to the ever-pornier American Apparel).

So the video takes us through the (increasingly surreal) misadventures of a youngish teen guy working at a greasy spoon diner that appears to exist well, literally nowhere -- it's surrounded by white space at all times. His boss is a big fat dude with glasses. The colors are very drab and washed out -- the entire diner is more or less gray with some tan and rust, and all the customers are dressed in neutral colors (lots of black).

Things start off pretty normal, with the kid and the fat dude serving the customers sitting at the counter. Slowly, the kid edges away, and heads over to a radio mounted on the wall to turn up the volume.

Doing so causes a sort of video-photo of Jack Russell to come flinging out of the radio, overtaking the screen until we are watching Great White perform. The band is in front of a small crowd of people, and they're lit by spotlights which we can completely see (we can even see the people operating them, always an extra touch of class). Great White are a skeezy band even at their best, and this video is no exception. Mark Kendall is absurdly perky, pursing his lips and waggling his guitar at the crowd. Not-long-for-this-band members Lorne Black (bass) and Gary Holland (drums) similarly telegraph overenthusiasm, and we also need to mention are way better looking than the core of the band, Russell and Kendall (Holland looks like a lighter-haired Tommy Lee, and Black looks about like Rick Savage did around this time, again with slightly different hair). Is it KISS syndrome? Sort of, except none of the various members of KISS have ever been even kind of good looking.



Jack Russell looks, of course, like a total skeezoid. I will forever be baffled by all the anecdotes about the revolving door of skanks that his tourbus was. Him? Really? He's got ratty, thinning hair, and is wearing a white leather vest and a gold chain with nothing else (at least that we can see, I'm sure he is wearing pants. Or at least satiny briefs, ew ew).

We jump back to the diner, where the kid's boss has noticed what he's doing, and yanked him away from the radio. He marches him around to the front of the counter, where the customers watch with blase expressions as he's thrown to the ground. As we see the kid lying on the ground looking up at them, one might notice the perfect fried eggs laying there next to him. Remember those.

We're back with the band for a second, then we return to the diner, where the kid is behind the counter again. Though the customers were eating normal food from plates at the beginning of the video, now there are just these pairs of fried eggs laying all over the place. The diner also apparently is using all its coffee pots to hold slightly blue-tinted water. Remember those, too.

The kid starts to refill one of the customer's water glasses, when suddenly he spots something. We get a close-up of his jaw dropping and his eyes going all wide. What could he possibly see? Come on, it's a metal video, you know darn well what he's seeing! Chicks. The camera zooms out the window, where suddenly we see four women in heels and one-piece bathing suits hanging around a large white sedan. One girl sits on the hood, one lounges on top of the car, while the other two sit partially hanging out the windows, tossing a beach ball back and forth over the top of the car. They all smile and throw the beach ball toward him as they notice his stare. Oh, did I mention the car exists in just empty, white space? It does.

We go back to a close-up of the boy's eyes, then we see that he is still pouring the water. The customer pulls the glass away, and the water continues to pour and pour, splashing all over the counter and getting everywhere. Apparently it really is a bottomless beverage deal at this diner. The kid finally runs out of water, and jerks his head around as if he has noticed something else. Two men we haven't seen before who are dressed I guess as cooks (they have aprons around their waists) are doing a complicated juggling act over the diner counter. Celery, baguettes, pans, and more are tossed back and forth.

The kid looks outside again, and sees all the women now sitting in a row, drinking soda through straws. His attention is quickly distracted though, as his fat boss is coming after him. He looks back outside, and one of the women is smiling as she pours blue water from a coffee pot all over herself.



The boss grabs the kid by the neck again, yanking him around the counter. He shoves a mop into his hand, then points -- the kid is supposed to clean the diner, which is suddenly absolutely filthy, with piles of garbage on every surface. He trudges slowly further into the room.

But then oh, we're back with the band, and Mark Kendall is working his way to a furious guitargasm. The crowd shake their fists, and I love that you can clearly see one guy turn and check whether he's on camera. Congrats dude, you are. I also like that someone else in the crowd keeps holding up a pair of sunglasses and trying to align them with the ones on Mark's face for no clear reason. They're sort of like, "well, as long as we're having to be part of this Great White video, we may as well make the best of it."

Following a long segment featuring pretty much just Mark's right hand, we see Lorne and Jack sort of thrusting away in unison. Jack is indeed wearing pants -- red leather. Could've been worse.

After much screaming and thrusting, we're back at the diner, which is still trashed. Dishes are everywhere, as are those baguettes that were being juggled before. The kid looks disgusted and confused as he walks around, while his boss looks on from the corner. For some reason, the patrons have TP'd the diner, and so now toilet paper is hanging from the lighting fixtures.

The kid looks out the window, and he sees the women getting into the car, which is now facing away from the diner. As they close the doors, we go back to the band, where Jack is encouraging the crowd to raise their fists in unison. We see some girls in the crowd chanting "stick it!" After some shots of Jack and Mark looking and acting lecherous, we see a ridiculous dude in the crowd (with a horrible mustache -- I mean, more horrible than most even) take off his sunglasses and attempt a scary face. I can just imagine some poor AD being like "Yeah! Now show me more metal, more metal, that's it!" Then Jack holds his mic out to Lorne so he can say "stick it!"

The camera zooms out from Great White, and then we're back at the diner. The boss appears to be lecturing the kid, who looks exasperated. Behind them, the diner appears to be on fire. The kid walks away from the fire, his boss, and the filth, and looks out one of the windows, bracing his arms against the windowpanes.

His boss continues to hector him, and he looks back at him before gazing out the window again. Suddenly, he pulls his arms back and punches through the window with both fists, shattering the glass. He jumps out the window, landing on all fours. The ladies open up the driver's side door, and the kid army crawls toward the car (which I'm thinking now is a Cadillac). They all gesture to him to come get in, although the one in the red suit seems underwhelmed at the prospect.



As he jumps in and slams the door, we go back to Great White. The video ends with everyone throwing their hands in the air, and Gary throwing a drumstick in the air. It fades out on a shot of just the drumstick flying through the air.

So given all that, I know there's one question on everybody's minds: Was it all a dream? Is Jack wearing a wig in later Great White videos? His hair looks pretty sparse and ratty here, but especially right up front -- his hairline looks pretty dicey, and I swear there are some shots where you can see right through the middle. And yet within just a couple of years, he's got a lush, full mane of blonde hair replete with thick, straight bangs. On the one hand, possibly he's not just a member, he's also a client or whatever, and he magically grew an incredible amount of thick, evenly textured hair completely unlike what he's working with here. But given that all through their later albums, he's got exactly the same haircut (and never moves his head around that much either, come to think of it), and it's not even a very metal haircut -- do you think it's a rug? I mean, years later, now with shorter hair, it doesn't like it did in the band's most successful years.

I don't know how they didn't manage to use this song in the gymnastics movie Stick It, which if you're wondering was pretty good (and did have some okay music since I do enjoy the occasional Jock Jam), even if the jokes were kind of off and the heroine was seriously the tallest gymnast in the history of elite gymnastics. Dang, now I am wishing I had cable so I could watch (among the zillion other things I'd watch if I had cable) that bitchy gymnasts show on ABC Family. That show looked pretty good.

The one movie alert cinema-going metalheads may have noticed that this was in was the Harold and Kumar sequel (Escape from Guantamano Bay). Good gracious it was horrible, way too topical, and nearly ruined my goodwill toward both the hilarious first movie and Beverly D'Angelo, BUT. In the scene where they are hanging out with George Bush in his little hunting-lodge-type house, you can hear this song playing quietly in the background. It darn near made me burst into spontaneous applause in the theater! Mainly because it was the high point of the film, but seriously, that was the case not just because the movie was awful, but because this song never gets the respect and credit it deserves. Hence, here I am now -- and here you are now. Go listen to it!

P.S.: Remember when I made that whole plan about how I was going to talk less about what happens in the videos and write shorter posts? Yeah, I remember it too. Sigh.