What do Patsy Cline, Aerosmith, Gnarls Barkley, and Seal all have in common? If you said, “They all do a song called ‘Crazy’” you are both correct and unbelievably predictable. If you are willing to be a little flexible about the naming, you can even include Britney Spears with (You Drive Me) Crazy (don’t forget to whisper the part in parentheses), Ricky Martin’s Livin’ La Vida Loca, or the entire ouvre of Meshuggah. It might be more accurate to talk about the artists who never did a song (or named their band) about being “crazy” as having something in common as they’ve bucked the trend.

I’m not hear to talk about craziness, however, unless you count crazy clothes (which, honestly, why wouldn’t you?). Since this blog rebooted it’s only been updated on Mondays. As a result, some of the old “daily” features have fallen by the wayside. Today, I want to return to one whose name always brings a smile to my face: Sartorial Sursday. That series was not actually about tailoring for the most part (with one notable exception) and it actually took place on Thursday, instead of the traditional nordic holiday of Sursday.

Regardless, I’ve decided to dust off the old mothballs (is that the saying?) and bring Sartorial Sursday back for the occasional Monday stroll.

The reason, is this jewel of a gem - Crazy by Seal:

It opens with a man dressed all in white sitting in a white room.

Suddenly, a group of bestockinged women run out, as if coming from inside his body.

Then, we get our first great outfit of the video. He appears to be wearing a jacket with bumpy sleeves.

It’s hard to tell if they are supposed to be spikes in the manner of the road warriors, or if they are just meant to be texture in the way that a cable knit sweater has texture.

Then we get a head on shot of Seal in his white cloak.

In case you can’t tell, yes, he is wearing very high waisted pants with a tanktop with a very low v neck. The v is so deep cut it hasn’t met in the middle yet before it gets below the waist of the pants. A very bold choice.

Also, what is the deal with the thing he is holding in his hand? He’s holding it frequently throughout the video, so if feel like it must be a thing but it is not a thing I understand.

Get ready for a full view of that bumpy jacket:

I’m not sure what’s happening with the belt there, but I admire the way it stridently extends on both sides of his body.

Next, we see him in the same deep v tank top, but now underneath a truly enormous leather coat.

According to a search for the phrase “how tall is seal”, Seal is 6’ 4”, so I’m pretty sure that coat took 4 cows, minimum.

We even get a shot of Seal sans coat, this time playing what appears to be a bass.

To further the nonexistent plot hinted at in the opening of the video, we get more shots of the bestockinged women.

They must have blown all of the clothing budget on Seal’s clothes since they couldn’t afford to fix those huge rips.

The video ends with Seal inexplicably holding a dove in the snow.

I want to emphasize that he does not release the dove at the end of the video. That’s wouldn’t necessarily make sense per se, but it would at least seem symbolic in some way. Instead, we just get a man holding a dove in the snow. Which I guess is symbolic for something else: a kiss from a rose.

-PTD

I’ve written about Van Halen a few times before, but I wanted to take a few minutes today to talk about how Van Halen went from a relatively acceptable vehicle for the talents of bassist/golden-throated background singer Michael Anthony to a truly terrible waste of sensational musician and all around fun-lover Michael Anthony’s prodigious gifts.

As those of you who read my post about jump closely paying special attention to the subtext (such as referring to them as “these two assholes”) already know, I blame the guitarist and the drummer for this. They might seem fun, since they changed their last name to the band’s name like The Ramones or The Donnas, but actually (ACTUALLY) they named the band after themselves like a couple of real assholes.

How did they ruin the band, and by extension waste Quetzalcoatl’s gift to the world/golden boy/golden-throated angel Michael Anthony’s talents? Besides by being assholes, I mean.

Well, let’s start at the beginning with Running With the Devil:

This video is for a song that pre-dates MTV, so it is relatively primitive in its live without an audience sparseness, but I think it makes it clear what the band in its full fun-loving mode was capable of.

One of the key reasons this video is good is that most of it consists of shots of our rockin’ heroes, the fun-loving part of the band:

In the early days, there was balance.

You might still have an excessively flashy guitar solo, but you’d still see the other members of the band during it.

Notice how your eyes are still drawn to Michael Anthony here?

And immediately after the solo spotlight, the guitar player joins the rest of the band to showcase the rocking out as a group.

Toward the middle of the ‘80’s, the band’s balance started to be disrupted. The fun-loving and the “serious” parts of the band started to be in conflict.

For example, here’s the video for Panama:

It starts with the singer bungee-ing in holding a boombox.

The talented Mr. Anthony and the guitar player do a fun jump off a riser on the stage.

Michael Anthony gets his chance to bungee as well, in his case holding a bass that looks like a bottle of Jack Daniels.

The man virtually oozes fun.

On the other hand, though, you have the Van Halen brothers in white jacket tuxedos playing classical music.

Where did the fun go? It’s like they know they should be frolicking, but they’re so worried about seeming cool that it’s just sad.

Also, in this video when the obligatory overly-complicated guitar solo comes along, the rest of the band melts away and we just get close ups of the guitar player’s fingers moving fast.

I am not impressed.

As the band moves into its “late” period, balance is completely destroyed as the singer switches sides from the fun-loving, pro-golden-throated background vocalist Michael Anthony camp to the boring, self-important Van Halen brother camp. To emphasize his camp-switching, he changed his name and voice, as well as received extensive plastic surgery to alter his appearance.

Just take a look at this mess, When It’s Love:

Christ.

Just look at how serious the singer looks.

It’s such a harsh contrast with the very same singer at the beginning of the Panama video.

The “guitar” player is actually playing keyboards here, also with a thoughtful and serious face.

The singer pretends to be having fun by kicking, but nothing can hide the fact that he is wearing what appears to be a leisure suit.

Hero to gods and men Michael Anthony, on the other hand, is smiling while wearing a sleeveless Mickey Mouse t-shirt.

It’s like the rest of the band had a meeting about what to wear and “forgot” to invite him.

The only real levity in the video comes from when Michael Anthony forces his way into the shot to lend his golden throat to this shit show.

This shot, however, is more representative of the video:

Michael Anthony, cut out of the picture. A tragedy for the ages.

So, to answer my question from early (go ahead and re-read it, I’ll wait), what happened? How did the Van Halens ruin Van Halen? By not naming the band The Michael Anthony’s, that’s how.

-PTD

What makes a man? Ultimately, isn’t a man just a boy who expects to receive constant praise from those around him, regardless of whether or not he’s earned it in any way?

Finally, we have a song praising men, instead of criticizing them. Deniece Williams, with her song “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”, asks us to “give the boy a hand” despite his many faults (he’s boring, he’s a slob, he’s perpetually underemployed, he has no talent). She’s a saint and should probably run for president.

Let’s check out the video:

We open with an actual boy, wearing a dunce cap.

When I had first had kids, I realized that so many songs I originally thought were in some way romantic were actually about an adult’s love for a baby or young child. It seems like this song, which I thought was metaphorically about a boy and literally about a man might actually be literally about a boy, in this case a boy inexplicably wearing a dunce cap.

Suddenly, he sees something so shocking he literally can’t believe it.

It’s famous singer Deniece Williams!

She helps him take off his dunce cap, something he was too much of a dunce to do himself.

She replaces it with a top hat, universally considered the opposite of a dunce cap.

Give the boy a hand!

Next, we see a nerd playing the piano.

NERD!

Someone removes his glasses, apparently causing him intense, terrifying pain.

Turns out the person who removed his glasses is famous singer Deniece Williams!

Wait a second, maybe this isn’t literally about a boy anymore, but is instead about a very nerdy man. One who experiences excruciating pain whenever his glasses are removed.

Deniece Williams, realizing that the reason he is sitting at a piano is that he has never heard of recorded music, shows him a record.

He looks on, amazed.

As soon as the record starts playing, he is transformed from a total nerd to a nerd dressed in a vaguely cool way.

Let’s hear it for the boy!

The third manboy (boyman?) we see is spectacularly bad at football, yet tries to play it anyway.

Famous singer Deniece Williams doesn’t know if she can muster any enthusiasm about this man. She’s already been through so much today, there’s only so much one person, famous singer or no, can take.

I think this image could reasonably stand in for the video as a whole.

Finally, famous singer Deniece Williams’s willingness to give literally any man or boy a hand for literally any reason attracts a gaggle of barely tolerable male people of all ages.

Some of them start break dancing for some reason.

In the end, giving men and boys a hand seems to have backfired. Too bad her follow-up “Let’s Give the Boy the Back of My Hand” didn’t have the same success.

-PTD