As Woody Allen said, the heart wants what it wants. So, why are you here?

Dani California

Has anyone else seen the video for the Chili Pepper's "Dani California?"

It's a cool idea: it plots, essentially, the history of rock'n'roll showmanship, with the band dressing up and performing like The Beatles, Elvis, Motley Crue, Prince, Black Sabbath, and The Clash. It's fantastically well done, too: Danny Kaye directed it, he's the same guy who did American History X. So it's unsurprising that it's so good.

And then, suddenly, the fun gets sucked away faster than an extra in Night of the Tornadoes (it was the only tornado joke I could think of). As the song hits the home stretch, the band's timeline hits the '90s. And suddenly, we're sitting there watching them imitate Nirvana, with Anthony Kiedis channeling Cobain while the band fakes the grunge band's famously intimate "MTV Unplugged" set. The camera shows Kiedis, slouched at the microphone in a particularly unfortunate ragged blond wig, his eyes closed. Suddenly, a candle in the foreground blows out. The camera cuts to a close-up of the candle, smoke curling up towards the ceiling. The song hits the chorus again, and the video cuts ahead to a present day version of the band. Meanwhile, I'm still gaping.

I'm sorry, did we just make fun of someone's suicide?

posted by Ben Wyman @ 1:41 AM