Mad Atoms

Everyone's had that moment where they inadvertently come across a movie, show or music video so heinously awful that the only possible response is "How the fuck did that get made?!?" You joke to your friends that it probably has something to do with the offspring of a rich or famous person. The reality is that your assumption is almost always correct.
 
When you live in LA you are always coming across rich kids' pet projects. These guys have never heard the word "No" and, unlike the rest of Hollywood's dreamers, have never had to endure an all Ramen diet. So blowing more money than most American families make in a year on some half-baked idea they came up with while they were high doesn't seem that ridiculous to them.
 
The key factor in all of these projects is that they wouldn't even exist if they had to go through normal channels (i.e. studios, labels, investors actually interested in getting their money back). I mean, how else do you explain a sixty million dollar historical drama starring some guy nobody has ever heard of before? Oh yeah, his dad is the third richest man in America. Most of these projects are merely poorly made, quickly forgettable wastes of money while a few actually turn out to be surprisingly good. But the ones that all of us plebes love the most are the shockingly bad, incredibly embarrassing disasters.

Watching rich people with zero grasp on reality crash and burn is one of mankind's greatest joys. And that brings me to our latest example: Chris Dane Owens and the music video he produced, starred in and donned a cape for in support of his new (only?) single, "Shine On Me". When you watch it for the first time, the uncompromising cheesiness of it all makes you pretty sure its a joke. "Wow, the Funny or Die guys are getting pretty good budgets nowadays," you think. But you wait for the hook, the punchline, or any indication at all that this shit isn't for real...and it never comes.

He's got Ann Coulter's hair along with industrial strength fans blowing it dramatically. He's playing a sparkly green guitar, with a crazy slap bass backup that hasn't been heard since the 80's. All this and I haven't even mentioned the medieval knight storyline yet. There's floating castles, flying dragons and a damsel in distress, often turning longingly to the camera as if to say, "I left Wisconsin for this?"

One thing you can't knock, though, is the production value, which is through the roof. You could buy a house by the beach with the cash they spent on this thing. And with that realization, begs the question, Where did the money for this piece of crap come from?

It turns out, Chris Dane Owens, who looks like some sort of mythical being descended from Mt. Olympus, is actually the spawn of Gary Owens, one of Hollywood's most prolific announcer/narrators. He is credited on thousands of movies, commercials and tv shows including Laugh-In and The Tonight Show. Oh yeah, he's also the voice of Powdered Toast Man. Respect.

As if "Shine On Me" hasn't sullied the proud Owens name enough already, Chris is actually producing more installments, with Michael Jackson's early longform music videos as a model. In a time when our economy is in tatters, millions are getting laid off, the government has spent a trillion on bailouts, and the entertainment industry is almost at a standstill due to an impending strike, this jackass still gets to run around blowing crazy amounts of cash on chainmail, Panavision cameras and special effects, all in the pursuit of pleasing one person, himself.

The world is a funny place.