Big Sue and bagels

*Spoiler alert*

Without letting the suddenly shoeless sad man jump from the five-story building at its close, the directors of the video for Collective Soul's "The World I Know" take some liberties with other jumps throughout the video. Some of these lengthier leaps are jumps in logic, plot and comfort food psychology.

Dishwalla always will have an available month-to-month lease in my heart as band members who look exactly how a mid-1990s alt-rock band should look. I give them the top billing in this post because Collective Soul does not allow embedding of their videos. This is a great move for Col Soul because they are probably only about a year or two months away from playing in high school football stadiums ... during daylight hours ... near the Fourth of July. Playing at Thomas Worthington High School at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday evening is right where you want your band to be a little more than 10 years after you dominated Top 40 radio.

The video for "The World I Know" makes one want to commit the Big Sue. It's an interesting route to travel when portraying an anti-suicide song.

[Combs hair and turns to buddy.]

"We have an anti-suicide song that I think would make a good single."

[Turns off Singles. Pushes hair behind his right ear with his right hand.]

"Nice. I'm going to direct the video it's going to make you want to kill yourself.

SCENE

From the video, we gather that a pale thin albeit normal man buys a bagel, reads the newspaper, sees a bum and decides to toss away his briefcase, take off his shoes and leap to his death.

The Pale Thin Albeit Normal (T.A.N) Man wells up with tears while reading The New York Times. Hey buddy, we've all been there. The partisan-progressive NYT is enough to make even the most optimistic cry. So Pale TAN Man, you're all right with me.

Other observations prior to the video's climax:

- You thought it too. How best to kick the lead singer in the face? Across the side of his face with the top of your foot or a full-on stomp to the midsection of his melon with the underside of your shoe?

- Are they trying to say the white-haired crazy Guy introduced at the 1:14 mark is some type of sage? He's not. He's a crazy person. He's not even playing a crazy person in the video. That's a legit crazy person. Kudos to CSoul for snagging him to be in this video.

- The frame at 1:49 when everything blurs? Aside from everything else not belonging in the video, this definitely does not belong in the video. It's so straight-forward and lame it's not even so uncool that it's ironic.

One is to assume that Pale TAN Man woke up and felt fine. He is walking to work at 7 a.m. He probably has to be there at 8 a.m. Depressed people don't make it into work on time. They're sleeping in a little and probably in a hurry. Pale TAN Man is just lounging. Making big strides like Richard Cordray made in those advertisements for Ohio Attorney General. Sorry about your bucket.

Again, his reasons for attempted suicide are:

1. Seeing a bum
2. Reading the newspaper

He eventually decides against jumping because a bird lands on his right forearm. He did not, however, decide not too jump because he was jumping from a pre-school. That's right. He climbs to the top of a building with a pre-school. That would have been a good sight for those kids.

The bird picked the right sap to bond with as bird gets paid with some bagel crumbs. So Pale TAN Man, he's feeling shitty, he's verging on the Big Sue and he's not going to eat that bagel?!?!? You're calling bullshit right along with me. It's the ultimate comfort food! Hello, um, carbohydrates called and they want your endorphins back!

Better yet, the bagel is in his pocket!

Has anyone not been proud to display a bagel?? I think 94 percent of the reason people eat bagels in public is to look more intelligent. Public bagel eaters strike me as America's most pretentious and self-righteous subset of food eaters. They love showing off their bagel bag. "Yeah, that's right, I just bought a bagel from some indie-type food establishment where everyone who works there is super cool and friendly and says "man" and "all right" and "have a great day" a ton and usually has a tattoo on the inner side of their arm near the elbow. I want you to know about it.

If the bagel came from somewhere lame like McDonald's or something, that's not getting advertised and they're eating that shit in their car or while still in the restaurant (store?) but I really don't know if McDonald's sells bagels because I'm rarely up before 10:30 a.m. and less rarely go to McDonald's but if I do get something from Brown Bag Deli, you bet your ass I'm walking back to my place proudly showing off that bag from Brown Bag Deli and hoping some trendy-ish 26-year-old chick with a cool hat notices the bag and thinks more highly of me than she would have if she had seen me with a small blue plastic bag from Giant Eagle containing a 20-ounce Sprite, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter which normally is the case.




Drake offers a clue about Pale TAN Man's night prior to the shooting of this video and even let's us know his real name is CJ at the 38-second spot of the above video.

"CJ got my credit cards and a lot of ones."

How else do we explain CJ/Pale TAN Man poppin' a few dollars ($$$) on the streets of New York City at the end of the production? Where did that money come from?!?!?! He couldn't have spared a few beans to that bum at the onset of the day?

He might have saved himself some anguish. He might have saved me from some anguish.