...Thinking it might be my friend Mike Andrews - and as there's no one in the world who would understand the hilarity of the situation better than he - I answered it. Nope, not Mike. It was Jeff Panzer, the video guy at Universal Records - the man charged with helping Mike and I to make a new video for 'Mad World'. Securing plans for the video, like everything with a record company, was a dire emergency . . . apparently the earth is going to explode without another 'Mad World' video - so Jeff needed to patch me in to a conference call immediately with Mike Andrews (in Glendale) and the prospective video director Michel Gondry (in Paris). This was definitely a 'we at the record company think the choices we make for this video could very well make the difference between you having a successful career in music and being a friendless nobody with no teeth and a limp living behind the Hotel Café kind of moment. Lovely . . . not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing!! A note here about Michel Gondry. He is not just another video director. He is a genius. Peerless. The Da Vinci of video. Rarely in the world is there someone working in a particular field at the level(s) that Michel inhabits in his work. He makes the best videos in the world, ever. He has elevated the medium to a new height. He did the Foo Fighters 'Everlong', the White Stripes video that's all made out of Lego and the one with the multiplying drumset and amplifiers. He did the Beck video with the guy carrying a car up the street in Downtown LA. Working with him is an opportunity to list on your permanent record, something to smile about when your 80 . . . what life and art are REALLY about. OK, you get the point. So there I was friends -- on the side of a highway in southern England, in the snow, in the pitch blackness of the countryside (see 'An American Werewolf in London'), in the wind, hood up, trucks going by spaying mud and snow everywhere, Mike Poole shining his flashlight out in the field to try and illuminate the stones of Stonehenge one by one since we'd driven four or five hours out of our way to see it, having a conference call with the record company video dude, my friend Mike, and Michel Gondry. Michel was in Paris on a cell phone and has a very strong French accent, which along with the trucks and the Druid wind, made him very nearly impossible to understand as he tried to explain his idea for the video, which was, of course, surreal - brilliant, I'm sure - but very abstract . . . surreal. I just sat there and tried to listen - not knowing if what I thought I was hearing was actually what Michel was saying or what I was imagining after trying to piece together little bits of sentences that I wasn't sure I'd heard correctly anyway. Something about Mike and me, a rooftop in New York, something about kids and shapes . . . a leg? A chicken? A candle?? Finally, I heard Mike say 'Cool. What do you think Gary?'. No idea . . . certainly didn't want to be rude or sound like an idiot at this critical point, but I had no idea. 'Fuck it' thought, I. 'I'm in'. It's Michel fucking Gondry. The Druids would have gone for it. Spinal Tap would have gone for it. Sounds like Mike's going for it (I think). Fuck it, I'm going for it too. So there you have it folks. I guess we'll see. There's going to be a video, and Michel Gondry is going to make it. I know it's going to be filmed in New York and about how much it's going to cost. That's about it. Keep your fingers crossed . . . and stick to the road lads.