YEAH, THIS IS KINDA ALRIGHT

Headbanger, soulful:

Found via this; h/t to Citizen Mom.

Comments

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

Ok, I am experiencing many emotions over this video. I adored it from moment one, just deeply adored it -- but also found I was unable to sit still to watch it. What did it do to me?

Also: is that a dead man laying there? Or the guy's knapsack? Whatever it is, he does seem to be focused on honoring it. Maybe this is his idea of a funeral.

And his hair. So silky, it's disturbing. I think I may have to do a remake of this in the backyard this weekend.

[Pop Cesspool]

I'm slightly disappointed that it's this Moby track, but I don't think you'd find a piece of music that works better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uc_IYnOvqw

[Sam]

I too thought it was some sort of religious ecstasy over a dead guy and have been in heated discussion with a friend over this. She thinks it is merely a knapsack and I believe it is a corpse. My main interest is: if it is some kind of spastic prayer ritual involving slo-mo hair tossing, why didn't he check for the guy's pulse first?

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

Headbangers don't care about other people enough to do dances to resurrect them. That's just the guy's coat and lunch.

[Sam]

I guess I didn't think of him as merely a headbanger--which is also a mysterious category of person to me--since the title says something about christchurch, so I assumed it had some kind of religious symbolism going on... My deeper suspicious is that psychotropic drugs were involved...

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

Sadly, the lord our savior doesn't seem to come into play here; Christchurch is merely a city in New Zealand, and this is merely a guy who used a lot of conditioner one day and then climbed a hill there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch

I am related by marriage to a headbanger, and I can't see him trying to administer health care or good vibes of any kind to any person, on a hill or anywhere else. But this is, addmittedly, a small sample size (N=1).

[Sam]

Pince McMacIlhenny raises a good point regarding sampling error and general trends among headbangers. Knowing that Christchurch was a city in N.Z. would have altered my perspective in some way, but I opted for the random subliminal inanity here, as usual, which is why I do poorly in job interviews. Why wouldn't a headbanger administer aid to those in need? Is the distracting silkiness of that lush head of hair a hindrance?

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

I find that most headbangers (N=1) have been wounded, and are carrying around a world of hurt. Rather that scrape the darkness out with a spoon, they add to it with dyes, making the darkness darker and darker, and in some cases, silkier and silkier. At the same time, they stay inside their homes (X=no job) so as to make their skin paler and paler. The message here is: look at this contrast.

When sensing a threat, the headbanger's hair and its flinging head serve as a warning signal that tells the community: stay back, I cannot sustain further injury.

This also applies to other injured parties that the headbanger comes upon -- unless the parties in question also have long hair and see-through skin.

[Sam]

While McMacilhenney's headbanger theory is intriguing, I believe it could be improved upon by using a simple equation, namely:
X = ∑ (world of hurt)2 (retribution)3 (demand for translucent skin)4
In this way, we may test the hypothesis against future samples (N=1).

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

When my grant comes through, I'm hoping to test my theories re: the headbanger's actions toward others in need. In a controlled experiment, does the headbanger exhibit basic altruism, selective altruism, or a lack of altruism? We will place an injured business man along the headbanger's path in the forest. A few feet from the business man we will place another headbanger (unknown to the headbanger under onservation) with very recent facial contusions. What will the headbanger do? How will he spend his energy and time?

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

We're hoping to get this into JAMA.

[Sam]

I am assuming this will be a double blind experiment? I believe the proposed setting would provide us with a great deal more insight into the matter. Will two rogue headbangers unite in affable tandem hair tossing? Will they be wary of one another, as both possess general feelings of aggression toward others? And will the injured businessman be engaged by either party or merely ignored as so much extraneous scenery? I look forward to the results and urge you to apply to Fulbright immediately.

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

The problem my team and I are entountering in securing the grant is that there are little, if any, pharmaceutical applications. If we find that the headbanger assists neither the businessman nor his fellow headbanger, or just the other headbanger, can we give the headbanger prescription drugs to make him nicer, more empathic? Other than the ones he is already taking, no we cannot. We have spoken to Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline and BristolMyersSquibb, and though they took us out for some really nice lunches with their really attractive reps, they ultimately had to pass. NIH has not returned calls.

[Sam]

I think the pharmaceutical applications are manifold and far-reaching. Perhaps if you include in your research design a placebo AND control group and demonstrate the outcome of psychotropic pharmaceutical therapy, and INCLUDE in your grant proposal a mission statement which cc's UN and national legislative bodies interested in curbing deviant behavior, you might have better success. I find no other fault with your research design, and feel that your vast sample of participants will speak for itself.

[Pop Cesspool]

If y'all had clicked through to the guy's YouTube homepage, you'd see that he likes to shoot stuff in slow motion.

So, y'know, he was bound to do his hair sooner or later.

And, well, some of the nicest people I know are metalheads.

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

Thank you so much. You seem to understand exactly what we're trying to accomplish here. May I run one of our other rather large obstacles by you? If you have a moment? It's this: the population we're hoping to study is not exactly treatment-naive. In fact, their bloodstreams are rather filthy. We may have to go overseas and experiment on the poor who do not understand informed consent. My question to you: are there headbangers in India?

[Pop Cesspool]

It's official: The CIA has taken over Pop Cesspool.

[Sam]

McMacIlhenney: the answer to your question is Yes, there are headbangers in India, but they do not use this referential term. One may consider the Samadhi (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam%C4%81dhi) an offshoot of the American Headbanger Movement, but in terms of motivation our Indian brethren have evolved due to the greater demands of living in the monsoon district of the subcontinent. I hope this addresses your concerns.

JW: We are the anti-CIA as our goal is to address social, legal, racial, cultural and pharmaceutical issues across the globe.

[Pop Cesspool]

Oh, I get it, you're hippies.

[Jamrach Holobom]

The headbanger is clearly trapped in the folly of teleological moral principles. He does not see the advantage to him of helping the fallen businessman. If he were enlightened to Kant's categorical imperative, he would see the inherent good in administering first aid rather than performing his ethereal dance. I don't think there is any grant money to be had in studying this phenomenon. The best course is to present the moral depravity of headbangers as a class as a priori, and to apply for a grant for their moral rehabilitation. Tickets could be sold for an alleged concert by System of a Down. When all of the headbangers are safely inside, the doors could be locked and Pat Robertson could be brought in instead.

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

Holobom's idea holds great promise, and yet, I cannot see getting any Institutional Review Board (IRB) to green-light it. Unless, of course, we could get on the schedule of a commercial one. Also, garnt money would be a necessity as I don't believe System of a Down would allow their images to appear on on fake posters, and we'd have to give them some keep-quiet-and-go-along cash. Robertson I'm assuming we could get for free, because he is a good Christian and would see the societal upsides right away. What's our next move?

[Aramis Loto Frope]

I'm afraid that both Holobom and McMacIlhenny have both missed the boat entirely. The "fallen" businessman is actually the headbanger's father, whom he has freshly murdered. The sultry dance belies many mixed and conflicting emotions. The lad is ecstatic that the pompous old man is no longer around to compete for his mother's affections and demand that he get a haircut. At the same time, he is racked with guilt, and bereft of the lost opportunity to finally win his father's approval when he gains celebrity as a shampoo model and wins on "Dancing with the Stars, New Zealand Edition."

[Sam]

I concur with Dr. Holobom's statement above, for if we are to apply a Kantian directive involving the faculty of judgment, which of course would be influenced by cost/benefit issues the individual faces, then a kind of moral relativism may be understood in relation to the participants. The headbanger's moral code would be perfectly in keeping with their value system generally. However, if we take an Aristotolian stance, we must agree that morality must be learned and practiced in order to serve the greater community. It follows that by enlisting Pat Robertson as an exorcist for all manner of deviance, the cache of headbangers may be kept in passive abeyance with the encapsulating social and moral norms. This seems clear. But if we are to take a more Darwinian stance, then we must admit that the headbangers are truly a progressive and successful species (notwithstanding their inability to mate).

[Aramis Loto Frope]

There will be no funding forthcoming from any government or philanthropic source, but a mint could be made on psychoanalysis for the boy, who is now the sole heir to the largest sheepherding conglomerate in the southern hemisphere.

[Sam]

Frope's comments provide some good insights and also put a new spin on the matter. Had McMacIlhenney been more forthcoming regarding the circumstances of the injured businessman vis-a-vis the headbanger engaged in ecstatic hair tossing, then the scientific community would be in a better position to analyze this scenario. What stumps me, I must admit, is how the "experiment" was pre-conceived but then eventually revealed to be a case of patricide. In terms of the concern over IRB approval, I believe this would not be a problem if you submitted your research design to the FDA instead of educational institutions or another responsible body..

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

I'm afraid I owe an apology to the university, and well, the entire scientific community, in particular Drs. Sam, Holobom, and Frope. You see, the headbanger is my boyfriend. Well -- was. We had dated since the 9th grade, but lately he'd been seeming... distant. Then suddenly my neighbor's neice came over from Holland, wore her low-cut Gold's Gym shirt around in the back yard, and bam, my silky, conditioned man was gone. It is I who am in a world of hurt. And this is what drove me to try and exact revenge on my Pretty Man by duping he and his father into enrolling in my "study." And then, the worst occured. His father is now dead, and I am ultimately to blame. I plan to turn myself in to the authorities as soon as I can get my desk cleaned out. Again, my heart-felt apologies.

[Pince McMacIlhenny]

Ok -- I admit it. The headbanger was a guy I dated. The man I loved, actually. After six months, though, he left me for his neighbor's niece visiting from Holland. She of the low-cut Gold's Gym tank top and dark eyeliner. But I adored him, still -- did everything to win him back. When all failed, I decided there was nothing left to do save for trying to enroll him in a clinical trial that would end in him killing his father in the forest. And I did. Am I sorry? Yes. Is my career over now? Yes. And I apologize to all three of you, in addition to the scientific community at large. But I miss my boy. I miss him so much.