Completely Biased List of The Top 30 Music Videos Of All Time - Number 29 - Drive by The Cars

Onto Number 29...

First all of all, I'd like to say congratulations to city of Vancouver who was amazingly able to destroy the reputation that had of being a very underrated city to take a vacation in a matter of a few hours and 100 injuries. I thought all Canadians had gentle souls who enjoyed ice fishing and a good wood burning stove. Apparently they can riot with the best of them as well.

Congrats to the Boston Bruins on winning the Stanley Cup. It figures that since I've met my New England born and bred wife, she has won 3 Super Bowls, 2 World Series, an NBA Championship, and now a Stanley Cup. That slightly overshadows the one NLCS the Mets have and the 2 AFC Championship games the Jets made. Did I mention I also root for the Knicks (scandal ridden decade with Isiah Thomas driving the team into ground) and the Islanders (one playoff appearance and I dare you to name five players that played for them the past ten years)?

If I sound depressed its because of my number 29 choice for the best video of all time..."Drive" by the Cars.

"Drive" makes me sad for the main reason that the person singing this song passed away from pancreatic cancer back in 2000. He's Ben Orr, bassist for the Cars, and one of the first songs I ever learned to play on bass was another song he sang, "Just What I Needed". I always liked his voice and of course the Cars were an underrated band.

Anyway, this video appears to take place in an insane asylum. Ben seems to be just chilling out in a large lounge area singing about who's going to help out his loved one during her time of need. During the video you meet Paulina Porizkova who I only know through three things...

1.) She married the other lead singer of the Cars Ric Okasek
2.) She was on Dancing with The Stars a couple of years ago.
3.) She was in the immortal classic 80's movie "Her Alibi" with Tom Selleck.

Anyway, let's take a look...



0:15 - 0:48 Ahhh yes, the legendary Ben Orr. I like the black and white style of this video. I do not like Ben's perm.

0:49 - 1:00 Hello Paulina...her right leg looks longer than the rest of her body...yummy. By the way, that's pretty impressive abstract art she is putting together there.

1:00 - 1:10 Ben looks uncomfortable in his chair.

1:11 -1:25 Ah yes, Ric Okasek. He wrote every Cars song even though he doesn't sing on all of them. I love the angry look he gives here. I'm not sure what he's accomplishing by yelling at her and giving her dirty looks throughout the video. She's already certifiably insane I guess as this point.

1:26-1:35 I really have no idea what's going on here. That is some good miming though. Was the asylum a converted diner?

1:52 - 1:55 - If I gave my wife this look, I'd be sleeping outside.

1:55 - 2:15 - One last look at Ben and strangely enough he disappears for the rest of the video...oh well.

2:15 - 2:35 My 2nd favorite part of the video. I was away last weekend with some friends of mine and one of them got into a HUGE argument with his girlfriend on the phone...but the funny thing was he dominated her. She was the one all upset and he stayed cool as a cucumber. I couldn't help but think of this scene here had they been in the same room together.

2:35-3:05 Paulina shows off her acting skills. I can hear the director barking out orders ("Do happy! Now do sad! Now do crazy!") Was this segment what landed her the costarring role in "Her Alibi"?

3:05-3:25 - My favorite part of the video...wax figures of the band...I'm not sure why I love this so much but I do. Actually I'm not sure if those are wax figures our not. I think they are. I wonder what a wax figure of me would look like...probably scary.

3:27 - end : One last long closing shot of Paulina....and fade to black.

BONUS PAULINA

Amazingly, there are many scenes from "Her Alibi" on YouTube. Here's one of my favorites.

Tidbits

I apologize for the late post today as I was swamped at work. Nothing specific today, just some random observations and thought from the past few days.

1.) Expect the site to update more at night rather than the day. I travel a lot around with my job so I won't be around much during the day as much. Just have some patience and I'll do my best. I will update it every weekday. Weekends are just bonus posts.

2.) Regarding the Little League World Series, the TV coverage seems to spend more time on the kids crying when they lose, than the cheering when they win. I sort of have a morbid fascination about them crying though. Think about it, these kids are 12 years old, probably are the best athletes at their individual junior high schools, have never faced any kind of adversity, and hence think they are the king sh*ts around their town. Now, not only are they taken down a peg, but it happens on the biggest stage and on live TV....yee hah!

3.) Watched a little bit of one of the Planet Of The Apes movies this weekend...I forget the name but its the third of the five that came out in the 70's. One of the more depressing movies ever as two of the apes from the first two movies travel back in time to Earth and treated like slaves and stereotyped. The best scene is when the female ape passes out when she sees a stuffed gorilla in a museum. Also features Ricardo "The Wrath Of Khan" Montalban a circus ringmaster who helps the apes out. The movie ends terribly when the two apes are gunned down but their baby lives survives (hence two more movies) . I think it was rated PG too!

4.) Rock Band is the greatest game ever invented. I can go on and on about it but I've showed it to probably 20 people over the past year and every single one of them sort of gives it a "c'mon are you kidding me?" look when I take it out. By the time we start playing though, you can't stop. The average Rock Band "jam" session I've played with people usually lasts 4 to 5 hours. A must purchase.

5.) Caught bits and pieces of the Olympic closing ceremonies last night. As a huge Led Zeppelin fan, it was great seeing Jimmy Page play Whole Lotta Love. On the flip side this terrible singer Leonna Lewis was singing it. Plus the sound was awful. Poor Jimmy.

6.) Quick NFL prediction. I see the Pats and Colts back in the AFC title game while Dallas takes on a resilient New Orleans in the NFC side.

7.) Bela Karolyi needs to stay on TV somehow. Here's video of him getting excited over turtles having sex...I'm not making this up. Take a look.



8.) Top 3 Daytime Court Room shows growing up.

----3.) The People Court - You don't mess with Judge Wapner
----2.) Divorce Court - From what I remember, it always showed couple screaming at each other. Being a little kid, I couldn't understand why Mommies and Daddies could hate each other....so naive.
----1.) The Judge - If you don't remember this show, I'm going to a post on it the next couple of weeks. I had always thought this show was real.

9.) Must see TV tonight is the Democratic National Convention only to see a tribute to Ted Kennedy. I'm not a huge following politics but from a pop culture standpoint, Ted Kennedy is lampooned by everybody from Howard Stern to Family Guy to my old high school history teacher. With him sadly diagnosed with brain cancer, it will probably the last time you'll have a chance to see him...at least alive.

10.) Let's end it with a classic 80's song..."Drive" by the Cars. I actually have a concert of them doing it live and the guitar player just stands there since the entire song is synthesizers and a drum machine. The guy who sings this song, Ben Orr, is one of my favorite singers and he sadly died a few years ago. Anyway, keep your eyes open for the super model Paulina Porizkova, who was on Dancing With The Stars last season. To me, she's always known as the hot chick from the Tom Selleck movie "Her Alibi"