Amber’s $50 Challenge

At approximately 7:22 p.m. Monday night, I logged onto Facebook (figure of speech; I never log off) to see a post from my friend Amber in Texas: “if you can explain this video to my satisfaction, I will give you $50.” Attached to this status update was the video for the Pet Shop Boys’ 1987 Elvis Presley cover “Always on My Mind.” (Click the link to watch the video; unfortunately, embedding has been “disabled by request” of douchebags.)

To call this video “schizophrenic” would be an understatement akin to saying Wesley Willis sometimes talked to himself. As each shot cut to the next in a string of non-sequiturs that can only be repeated when Spike Jonze goes to hell and is forced to sit through this video for eternity to pay for Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” clip, my brain threatened complete shutdown. But dammit, I am ThirdCoast Digest’s Cultural Zero. This was a challenge I had to meet! Besides, fifty bucks is fifty bucks, and all I had on my plate Monday night was pro wrestling on the teevee. LET’S DO THIS.

00:00

The video opens as British actor Joss Ackland climbs into a car, most likely an unmarked cab, being driven by the Pet Shop Boys themselves. Mr. Ackland has recently finished filming his role in the upcoming Lethal Weapon 2 (he filmed his scenes two years early, why not), and even in the 80s, being in the presence of Mel Gibson addles even the most dignified brain. After telling the Boys that he can “smell” them (which is completely plausible, as the Boys are playing cabbies here), Ackland launches into more gibberish, claiming to be a “bilingual illiterate” who can’t read in two languages. Intrigued, Pet Shop Boys vocalist Neil Tennant offers the man a drink, assuming that dude is loaded. As Ackland adjusts the “waiter” to listen to some music, the opening strains of the song pour into the car, and Tennant suddenly recalls his past as a circus performer. Why? We learn as the flashbacks begin in earnest …

00:50

We suddenly cut to a sepia-toned silent film in which a tuxedoed malcontent dry-humps a maid. What is the purpose behind this shot? This was the favorite film of Tennant and his lost love, a member of a circus dance troupe, which we see in the next major shot:

01:07

Note the circus strongman in the background with Tennant as he leans against a stripper pole and watches his girlfriend rehearse (yes, I realize the Pet Shop Boys are gay, but this was 1987 when even George Michael was making videos where he was having sex with girls. It was a different time). For reasons that we never discover, Tennant leaves the circus;

collects his things;

Bids farewell to his ringmaster and mentor, who recruited Tennant while on a pilgrimage to the Far East, where the ringmaster met his wife;

And runs off to become a cab driver, where we rejoin him briefly in the present at

01:22

Tennant sings now of his lost love, whom he regrets leaving. In his mind, he peers into a funhouse mirror where he sees himself as an immature child who fled from his relationship and now masquerades as an adult (his “costume” of adulthood represented here by a golden Elvis-esque jumpsuit).

01:53

He thinks back to the good times: Early-morning photo shoots where his love dresses like her dream gig as a Vegas showgirl;

The vacation they took to Vegas where they met Another Bad Creation’s older brothers;

The time he called her mother to tell her they got married! In Vegas! Those crazy kids.

02:33

At this point, Joss Ackland, still in the back seat and apparently (to this point) bopping to the music, is revealed to be crying as Tennant serenades his lost love.

02:38

However, here we learn that the Pet Shop Boys did embark on a journey to find Tennant’s wife and possibly rejoin the circus at some point in their past. They start at an airport diner (note the dude with the flight goggles), which is adjacent to the local train line.

While waiting for a train, Chris Lowe spies MUTANT ZEBRA HANDLERS! Obviously the circus is nearby!

02:48

The Boys hop on what is obviously a circus train in the hopes of finding Tennant’s wife!

02:58

Meanwhile, Ackland, hearing this story in song, suddenly realizes that part of it feels eerily familiar. While in the airport diner, Lowe made eyes at a creepy mystery man (hey, it was 1987…they were downplaying the gay, but they weren’t dead).

That man…was a young Joss Ackland!

On a date with his one true love!

Ackland is devastated by the memory of his lost love and the realization that they had crossed paths with the Pet Shop Boys once before.

03:20

Meanwhile, back in Tennant’s flashback, the Boys have discovered that the train they stowed away on is actually carrying a World War II reenactment troupe, not circus performers. Foiled by Nazis! They hate these guys.

03:37

Desperate, Tennant goes to a fortune teller to learn his wife’s fate…

But it’s Neil Tennant from the future! (Or a mirror universe Tennant, but the lack of facial hair sort of negates that theory.) He tells our Tennant to abandon his quest and return to a life of cab driving. He has made his bed by leaving her in the first place; now he must lie in it, taking responsibility for his actions. Defeated but wiser, Tennant returns to the present, where Ackland, his mental impairment from working with Mel Gibson now compounded by his grief for the loss of his own true love, is now dementedly singing along like that bum in “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.”

Hey, wait.

Huh.

03:55

Lowe asks Ackland, “Where are you going?” Ackland responds, “I’m going there…but I like it here…wherever it is.” Dude is Orson-Welles-in-a-wine-commercial gone.

04:04

Hey! Remember the pilot in the airport diner?

He’s a World War I flying ace—a reenactor himself. And he hates the World War II reenactors, so he climbs into his biplane to shoot them down.

But he made a mistake – a crucial mistake. When trying to shoot the train containing the costumed Nazis, he actually killed – Joss Ackland’s true love!

04:29

Meanwhile, the Pet Shop Boys, burned by love’s cold flame, say “nuts to this acting straight crap” and head for a gay auto show, where they buy their cab from a mysterious salesman in a motion-capture suit. Later, Lowe gets his pal’s back by throwing a pie into the face of Tennant’s mother-in-law.

04:35

Ackland’s had enough. “Stop the car!” His grief has overcome him; he cannot be reminded of his loss any longer. “I’m getting out. You are no longer here.” Since the Boys are afraid that this batshit and possibly drunk geezer may toss mad cookies in their back seat, they let him out and don’t charge him a fare (which is sporting of them, I suppose, even though this guy’s loaded. He just filmed Lethal Weapon 2, for Pete’s sake).

04:53

Ackland’s final lament. “You went away! It should make me feel better. But I don’t know how I’m going to get through.” Is he talking to the Pet Shop Boys, or to his lost love? After all, little Charlie McCarthy is…always on his mind.

I look forward to your check, Amber.