Friday Night Videos - Spy Vs. Spy

Spies Like Us

One of the best parts of reading MAD Magazine was the last page, where you could catch up on the latest shenanigans of Spy vs Spy. I enjoyed reading these magazines with its low brow humor, bad movie parodies and back cover that took an innocuous picture and folded into a nasty one. Spy vs. Spy featured two needle nosed spies constantly trying to outsmart each other no matter what the cost. This sort of one-upmanship is on display in the present with the political season rumbling through the air like a sonic boom. It's sort of like Sean Connery's "Chicago Way" speech in the Untouchables (1987) brought to life, he brings a knife, you bring a gun. That's the Chicago Way.

This leads up to the big spy showdown. The first video is the theme song to the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. Apparently neither the words "Quantum" or "Solace" make for a good song title, because the theme tune by Alicia Keys and Jack White is called "Another Way to Die." The song kicks off with a very Bondian guitar riff followed by 60's styled horns punctuating the riff which is pretty exciting. But then the song drifts a little bit as it searches for something to do. Keys and White do their best to out-cool each other but without a catchy hook, the song sinks fast. It's as if they're planning to be distracted by the slo-mo silhouetted nude girls during the title credits too. I'm hoping the song sticks after awhile because I'm really looking forward to Daniel Craig's second film as James Bond.

Which reminds me, I had a friend in college who made a good point about James Bond. He said James Bond was the worlds worst spy because a spy is supposed to be inconspicuous, blend in. All of the bad guys know who James Bond is on sight and if they don't, Bond usually tells the bad guys who he is or blows something up. This makes him a terrible spy, he rarely picks up information through surveillance or subterfuge. Instead he walks up to the bad guy, announces himself, gets captured, escapes and then destroys the bad guy base. That's exciting, but not espionage. James Bond always blew his cover-particularly in the Brosnan era, one time he took a car ride where his boss tells him people worked hard to set up a cover and then Brosnan Bond blew it inside 5 minutes (see Tomorrow Never Dies when he walks into a party, he just uses his normal name and chats up his ex girl in a heavily micro phoned/videoed room like he's daring the enemy to ID him.). That's the real reason Bond needs a license to kill, he has to shoot every person who figures out his identity.

So what do you do when James Bond, or his soundtrack, lets you down? You call Double O Rock, that's what. In between beach parties and beer bashes the Red Rocker moonlights as a secret agent fighting the enemies of freedom. You may ask, what qualifies Sammy Hagar to be a spy? His qualification is a canary yellow sleeveless jumpsuit and as Howard Stern puts it-the best teeth in Rock, my friends. If you're man enough to wear that jumpsuit with the red stripes on it, you're man enough to take on the world. The second video is a true Sammy classic, he takes his party hearty 'tude to battle Russians and the Middle East in the name of American Patriotism. Uzi's, tarantulas, White House board meetings...nothing can stop him. Not even Eddie Van Halen could keep Hagar from rockin'. So here's "V.O.A.", the voice of America. America, F*ck Yeah!

Alicia Keys and Jack White "Another Way to Die"

Sammy Hagar "V.O.A."

Spy vs. Spy