After spending a few weeks in the ’90s, I thought it would be nice to move into the modern era. So, what’s new? Libraries? Yes. Libraries. Of course. Now, gather ‘round children, for I have a story to tell.

While libraries have existed in some form for thousands (or possibly even tens of thousands) of years, what we now think of as a library is a relatively new invention. The modern library was invented yesterday by Elon Musk and consists of you, by yourself in an underground bunker, paying $15 to read one of three Ayn Rand books.

Of course, some old timers still remember the bad old days when going to the library involved encountering other human beings (and occasionally even other primates). You had to look at them and speak to them to get a book to read. Naturally, this was completely intolerable.

I recently came across a fascinating historical document that describes such a nightmarish hellscape. Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears:

Things start innocently enough, with the promise of silence implying that human contact will be mostly avoided.

A man enters the library, carrying the absolute maximum number of books possible, presumably to minimize the required number of trips to the library and thus the amount of time he must spend with the riff-raff.

Unfortunately, you can’t get away without interacting with the library staff.

Here we see the surliest librarian possible with a suspiciously prominent janitor looming behind her.

There are other patrons lurking about as well. A bookish rabbi portends the terrifying spectre of cultural understanding.

An erudite baseball monkey hints at the kind of frivolous fun fit for children, but anathema to the modern sociopath, I mean libertarian, I mean technology genius.

After braving this gauntlet, the singer reaches the librarian and attempts to return his books. He then starts to engage in the most awkward flirting you’ve ever seen. Pro tip: look at the person you are flirting with!

This flirting makes me believe that the singer isn’t our hero after all. It almost seems like he wants to interact with another human being.

Having been rejected, the singer fails at even operating a card catalog.

Ask your grandparents what they were used for. Needless to say, the modern library does not have a card catalog. It has a mobile app you can use to select which of the three Ayn Rand books you want to read next. Naturally, the app also tracks your location at all times and uploads that data to the cloud to better target you with advertising.

Suddenly, a sexy man shows up to speak to librarian.

Are you sitting down? If you aren’t you really should be because what happens next will shock you. I can’t be held responsible if your knees buckle while you’re standing on the train and you bust your skull wide open on a seat.

You’re sitting now?

Okay, then check this out:

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right, the librarian just ducked down while a synthesizer swooped in from who knows where as the sexy man begins to play.

It’s hard to see in a still picture, but yes the sexy man is just sensually dragging his finger back and forth across the keys.

I believe those are called “bedroom eyes”.

The fun-loving chimp can’t bear to watch.

The sexy man finishes with a flourish.

Next our worst fears are realized.

If that isn’t some cultural understanding happening, then I don’t know what is.

The singer, rejected by the librarian, tries relentless harassment to make her like him.

Hiding behind the books might seem cute when you think of it, but when it comes down to it, this is just a grown man with his face on a shelf.

I’m starting to think that the hero of this video is the librarian since she is forced to encounter the public in an old-style library and is hounded (ultimately to her doom, as we will see) by one member of this public.

The singer creeps over the librarian’s shoulder as she tries to work.

He is confused to find himself floating up into the air and encountering a string trio.

This reminds me of the wonderful comic about street harassment and what its consequences should be.

Next, we get another shot of the weirdly prominent janitor.

You usually don’t get so many janitor shots unless he is going to murder someone later on. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

The singer continues to unsuccessfully try cutesy flirting.

The “BANG?” is pretty funny, but also tasteless. And, oh yeah, SHE’S NOT INTERESTED.

Luckily, the video escapes the library to show the band playing live without an audience.

It turns out that the weirdly prominent janitor was actually in the band!

Oh, I hope you hadn’t stood back up before reading that.

At the end, we see a haunting, black-and-white, strangely old-timey future.

Oh no! Somehow the librarian and singer ended up together? That’s truly terrible.

I’m so glad Elon Musk has come to save us from such a hellish existence.

Join me next week when we’ll see men like the singer from this video weeping uncontrollably.

-PTD

The popular television series Westworld has everyone asking:

Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?

Now, obviously, the only two possible answers to this question are:

1. Of course
2. Whoa

Westworld expects you to go with

But, shockingly, this re-imagining of a 1970s movie didn’t invent the concept of questioning our very nature.

I mean, what is reality? What do we even mean by is, reality, or what? What did I have for breakfast? Luckily, Everclear sets out to answer some or all of these questions in their video for Santa Monica.

Like most people, Everclear (Everclear is a person’s name, right? Pretty sure he’s Everlast‘s dad) doesn’t just start to question his own reality for no reason. No, it starts with a fight.

I have to commend the video’s narrative brevity here. The whole setup of the “plot” takes place in the brief guitar intro of the song. We don’t need all the details. You can see there is a man and a woman and they are yelling at each other. We can infer that they aren’t strangers.

Plus, just looking at where they seem to live tells you a lot.

That’s some grade-A terrible apartment squalor.

Incidentally, I had the pleasure of meeting Everclear himself once during the ’90s. We talked for about 5 minutes, mostly about guitar solos. What I’ll always remember, though, was that during the conversation he used the following euphemisms for his genitals:

• Umbrella and beach balls
• The gentleman’s calling card
• Inspector Gadget
• His Holiness Pope Pius XII
• King Shit of Fuck Mountain

And last, but definitely not least:

• Boner factory

The squalor is quickly escaped, however. We move to a beautiful seaside location. But is it real?

The bass player’s folded arms hint that it is not.

Everclear rips through a picture of his ex to reveal the band, playing live without an audience.

Now, I don’t know what your reality is like, but that kind of thing does not happen regularly in my reality. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I don’t think reality is meant, though. The next scene is ripe with symbolism. A man in a suit swims inside some sort of mechanical contraption.

No matter how hard he swims, he goes nowhere. The suit represents the patriarchy and the contraption represents the Dewey Decimal System. Think about it.

Then, Everclear, in a suit, walks into the ocean.

If this isn’t symbolism, I don’t know what is. He conforms to the system and becomes The Man. He is subsumed by society. And the ocean.

At this point, reality completely falls apart.

Now, there is a fantasy within the fantasy as the band starts playing in front of a green screen with the ocean displayed on it. If this image doesn’t make it clear, the following one definitely does.

That’s not just a fake ocean, that’s a fake ocean that isn’t even trying any more. Either the special effects people got tired of doing a good job halfway through the video or the fake-ness is on purpose. As an aspiring [New Critic] (/posts/rap-music-my-droogs-universal-by-blur/), I choose to assume the latter.

Note that this is still interlaced with shots that appear to contain the real ocean not on a green screen.

So, what does this mean? Are our fantasies fake even inside the fantasy? Is our reality a facsimile of a fleeting daydream of a small child? What does that mean for us, our future, our past, and our credit score? Did I have Special K with banana?

Seems like Everclear ain’t gonna help us with that.

-PTD

The year was 1991 and the Minnesota Twins had just won the world series for the second time in 4 years. The winning run was scored by none other than Dan Gladden:

As you can guess, he was voted People magazine’s sexiest man alive that year.

The country was gripped by Dan Gladden fever and everyone was trying to cash in. One such man was Alan Jackson:

Don’t try to adjust your TV set, that is a picture of a different person who just happens to share rugged good looks, a sensitive face, and a blonde mustache-plus-mullet combo that makes your heart do flip flops.

In 1992 Jackson released the single “Chattahoochee” a chilling tale of some fun loving teens whose terrible crimes, while never discovered, have changed them forever.

We start with our protagonist desperately trying to forget what he has done by waterskiing.

But he is never able to forget. He remembers his younger self, eschewing water skis for a pickup truck with his friends.

He describes this time in his life as:

Down by the river on a friday night A pyramid of cans in the pale moonlight Talkin’ ‘bout cars and dreamin’ ‘bout women Never had a plan just a-livin’ for the minute.

Unrelated to the plot of this video, I’m sure Alan Jackson, like most artists, would welcome suggestions on how to improve the lyrics to his 30-year-old songs. Mr. Jackson, did you consider the line “Talkin’ ‘bout dreams and carin’ ‘bout women”? In my opinion, that’s so much better. It even implies that you might think about women as people!

Actually, that probably doesn’t really fit with the song. Because the trouble all starts with an aborted attempt at sex. Here we see our protagonist’s past self making the universal “But what about my blue balls?” gesture.

Consumed by lust, the singer committed a crime so unspeakably awful, that he has spent his whole life running from it. He’s done running, though, because although you can run from your problems, run from the law, and run for office, you can’t run from yourself.

The singer prepares to finally admit what he did. This makes him extremely nervous. So first, he checks his pits.

Then, he pats his trusty stuffed dog.

In the end, though, rather than admit his brutal crimes, he just stares into the camera with dead eyes, insisting “We never got caught.”

Maybe you can’t run from yourself, but he’s damn sure going to keep trying.

This is immediately followed by jubilant dancing by this couple featuring the excellent mullet and baseball hat plus bra but no shirt combo.

The musicians, unaware of the shocking reveal that almost happened, enjoy themselves thoroughly.

I really love the smile on the violinist here while the guitarist looks on adoringly.

In the end, this video is about another white man refusing to take any responsibility for his actions. In other words, a true American hero. If there’s one thing I can say, it’s that I learned a lot about livin’, which can not be said for the singer’s victims.

Join me next time when I start to question the nature of your reality.

-PTD